Ben Shapiro, a 13-year-old New Yorker who has the day off from school because of Passover, decided to spend the day in court watching the trial.
Ben was first in line and said he was surprised by how few New Yorkers had shown up: “There are only 12 people in the entire city?” he said.
A classmate’s dad — a judge at the court — told him to get here before 7 a.m. He said he woke his mom up shortly after 5 a.m. to take the subway to Centre Street. The waiting paid off — Ben got a seat in the courtroom.
It took some light pressure to convince his parents, he said. “At first, they were like, ‘No, you’re not. That’s crazy.’ But then they were like, ‘OK,’” and agreed to come with him.
“We didn’t think he was serious — but then he wouldn’t stop asking about it,” his dad, Aaron Shapiro, said.
Ben said he is not doing this because he wants to be a lawyer or even necessarily a journalist. He’s just interested in politics and “kind of” interested in seeing Trump, though it will probably be a one-time thing.
“I feel like after like five hours, it’ll kind of get boring,” he said. “You go once and you can be like, ‘I went there.’”
