Trump tri­al: Attor­neys strug­gle to find jurors with­out opin­ions on Trump

One was a fan of The Appren­tice in mid­dle school. One opposed a trav­el ban he imple­ment­ed. One thought he was “fas­ci­nat­ing and mys­te­ri­ous.”
Most had one thing in com­mon: They came into the Man­hat­tan court­room with opin­ions about the most famous crim­i­nal defen­dant in the coun­try.
Choos­ing 12 jurors and six alter­nates in for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s hush mon­ey case was nev­er expect­ed to be easy. Two days into jury selec­tion, the court had secured sev­en jurors, but the process could last at least anoth­er cou­ple of days, an unusu­al­ly lengthy dura­tion.
A pool of six reporters cir­cu­lat­ed details through­out the day that con­veyed, at times, the tribu­la­tions Judge Juan Mer­chan and attor­neys for Trump and Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Alvin Bragg expe­ri­enced as they sought to find a dozen peo­ple who could fair­ly deter­mine Trump’s fate in a his­toric crim­i­nal tri­al expect­ed to last sev­er­al weeks.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attor­ney, opened his que …