Irish Examiner view: Donald Trump's bellicose circus is in town

Trump comes out fighting after he became the first US president to see the inside of a courtroom as a defendant

Former US president Donald Trump speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday after being arraigned earlier that day in New York. Picture: Evan Vucci/AP

The belligerent address by Donald Trump to supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, following his historic indictment in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, told us pretty much everything we needed to know about the man who is the first former US president to see the inside of a courtroom as a defendant.

Indeed, as he was formally charged with criminal activity and then retreated to his Florida lair, his attacks on district attorney Alvin Bragg and a number of other prosecutors investigating him for a wide variety of wrongdoings, told us everything we already knew about the man.