Key moments
Donald Trump returned to a courthouse in Manhattan for day two of his first criminal trial, in which he is accused of paying hush money to the porn actress Stormy Daniels to cover up their alleged affair.
The former president faces 34 charges, which were revealed a year ago in what was the first of his now four criminal indictments. In an attempt this week to delay the start of the trial, lawyers for Trump, 77, launched three unsuccessful appeals in as many days. It marks the first time a serving or former US president has faced a criminal trial.
Day two concludes with final questions
Defence lawyers have been questioning a prospective juror who works in New York City real estate. Asked for his views on Trump by Todd Blanche, the juror responded that it was a “loaded question”, adding: “I’d say there are things that I disagree with, and things I think were done well during his presidency.”
Trump remained engaged and alert throughout the long afternoon session, according to reporters in the courtroom.
After a brief break, prosecutors used their challenges to strike two more potential jurors. Three other jurors were excused. The final jury member from the six being questioned was seated, bringing the total number of selected jurors to seven.
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And with that, the court concluded for the day.
Campaign stop tonight to embarrass district attorney
Trump plans to visit tonight a store in Harlem that was the scene of a fatal stabbing in 2022, according to his aides.
After court proceedings finish he is expected to stop by the Sanaa Convenient Store, where Jose Alba, a shopkeeper, stabbed a customer who had come behind the counter and pushed him. The incident was caught on the store’s surveillance cameras. Alba, who maintained he had acted in self-defence, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
The charges were later dropped amid a backlash against Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who is prosecuting Trump in the hush money case.
Trump has repeatedly criticised Bragg for bringing the charges against him, while claiming that serious violent crime goes unpunished in the city. His aides said the Republican nominee chose to visit the store because it was the site of a violent attack on an employee. He also plans to speak about inflation while visiting the store.
Meet the judge
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Posting a screenshot of what appeared to be Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter calling for Donald Trump to be locked up, the former president appealed for the justice to recuse himself.
The photo made it “completely impossible for me to get a fair trial” in his hush money case, Trump complained to followers of his Truth Social page.
It was an early test of the mettle of the Colombian-born justice, who is tasked with ruling on perhaps the most consequential and politically fraught trials in recent American history.
• Read more: Who is Judge Juan Merchan — and can he give Trump a fair trial?
Judge does not dismiss juror with work ties to Trump
Judge Juan Merchan has questioned a potential juror who said he had operated in the same New York property development circles as Trump.
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The middle-aged man said he knew several people who knew the former president, and that he had read the Trump book The Art of the Deal. But he added that his background would not sway his ability to reach an impartial verdict in the case.
The potential juror, who is married with two children, said his media diet typically included The Wall Street Journal and occasionally CNN.
Merchan did not move to dismiss him from the jury pool.
Another potential juror, identified as a lawyer from the Upper East Side, said he had never served on a jury before and would have no trouble remaining unbiased. He said he read The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and The Washington Post.
Jury pool whittled down further
The six remaining jurors from the first pool of 96 are being questioned.
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One said she was a surgeon and medical director who was concerned about the length of the trial and potentially letting down her patients. She has been excused by the judge. Another has been dismissed after saying she was worried that her strong feelings towards Trump would affect her impartiality.
Trump’s legal team has used up six of their ten potential challenges. The prosecution have used up four.
Juror told off for trying to take photograph
A prospective juror has been told off for trying to take a photo of Donald Trump in court.
A second pool of 96 New Yorkers were brought into the courtroom on Tuesday afternoon to be sworn in before lawyers begin the jury vetting process.
The group had been waiting in a separate part of the court all day, and perhaps in nervous excitement tried to crane their necks for a glimpse of the former president seated at the defence table.
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When one of the prospective panellists saw Trump she tried to take out her phone to snap a photograph, according to a reporter in the courtroom. “Ma’am, ma’am put your cell phone away,” a court security officer told her.
Addressing the new jury pool, Judge Juan Merchan said: “I know that you’ve been sitting around all day, waiting for something to happen, and I want you to know that that wasn’t lost on us.”
The 96 were then dismissed until Thursday morning.
The court is now on a short recess. Before the break, the judge told lawyers to keep their questioning to no more than 15 minutes.
Selected members of jury ‘look stressed’
Jury selection is starting to move along at a decent pace, with Judge Juan Merchan informing the court that opening statements were on track to begin on Monday morning.
The six jurors selected so far have been sworn in and excused until Monday. Several appeared stressed as they walked out, according to reporters inside the courtroom.
One bit their lip, while another fixed their eyes to the ground as she left swiftly. Others appeared relieved, and smiled on their way out.
The juror who will serve as foreman is a married man with no children who lives in West Harlem and is originally from Ireland. He works in sales, and was previously a waiter. He likes to spend his spare time outdoors, and said he got his news from outlets across the political spectrum including The New York Times, the Daily Mail, Fox News and MSNBC.
Twelve jurors and six alternates need to be selected before the trial can begin.
Bad joke by husband not enough for dismissal
Judge Merchan has declined a request to have a juror questioned and potentially struck from the jury pool over a joke her husband made on social media eight years ago.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s defence lawyer, cited a social media post that showed a photo of Trump and President Obama along with a caption: “I don’t think this is what they meant when they said orange is the new black.” This was a reference to the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, Obama’s skin tone and Trump’s spray-tan.
Merchan told the defence lawyers: “Honestly, if this is the worst thing that you were able to find about this juror — that her husband posted this humour, albeit not very good humour, from eight years ago — it gives me confidence this juror can be fair.”
Another juror was removed by Merchan based on their demeanour and social media posts after a challenge from Trump’s lawyers.
Three more jurors have now been seated on the jury, bringing the total to six.
He will get a fair trial, says mayor of New York
Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has been speaking with reporters outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan, where jury selection is continuing.
When asked if Trump could receive a fair trial in Manhattan, Adams, a Democrat, said New York was a “fair city”. Earlier this morning, at his weekly press conference, Adams said he did not want to see a lot of police resources go into maintaining security at the court.
“Our overtime needs to be used for real issues — not make-believe ones,” he said. The mayor had a message for anyone looking to cause trouble at the courthouse: “We’re not playing around. Don’t come here thinking you’re disrupting our city.”
Judge dismisses juror who wanted Trump locked up in 2017
Judge Juan Merchan has granted a request by the defence to dismiss a second potential juror for cause after Facebook posts were unearthed showing he had called for Trump to be “locked up”.
The juror, a creative director who lives in Midtown, posted critical remarks about Trump after he imposed a ban on people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US in 2017.
Trump’s lawyers found Facebook posts from the time in which the middle-aged man wrote: “Get him out” and “Lock him up” in reference to Trump. Merchan said critical posts of the former president were permissible, but that juror had crossed a line when he called for Trump to be imprisoned.
Trump reprimanded for muttering at juror who celebrated Biden victory
Susan Necheles, a Trump defence lawyer, is seeking to have a potential juror dismissed for cause after finding social media posts that apparently contradicted their statements on impartiality during jury selection.
Necheles cited a Facebook video in which the juror talked about being in a car “spreading the honking cheer” to celebrate Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
When the juror was called back into court by Judge Juan Merchan, she said the post was just a “New York celebratory moment”, adding that she could be relied on to remain impartial.
As she was being questioned, Trump muttered something and gestured in her direction, drawing a rebuke from Merchan. “Your client was audibly uttering something,” he told Trump’s legal team. “I will not have any jurors intimidated in the courtroom.”
Merchan declined to dismiss the juror for cause. Both sets of lawyers are able to strike ten prospective jurors from the pool. If the juror is dismissed for cause, they would not have to use up one of their strikes.
Trump camp circulates attack lines
Trump’s allies have been provided with talking points on how to play down the trial, according to a report.
The former president’s campaign has circulated a document filled with one-liners designed to pour scorn on the proceedings in the media, The Daily Beast has reported. Supporters are encouraged to describe the trial as a “bogus” and “weak” case, and not a “hush money case”. The document repeatedly refers to the case as the “Biden trial”, and accuses Judge Juan Merchan of issuing an “oppressive gag order”.
It notes that Trump is barred from attacking any potential witnesses, as well as the families of Merchan and Alvin Bragg, the district attorney.
What does Melania think?
Melania Trump is said to have taken a dim view of the decision to charge her husband.
The former first lady has in private derided the trial as a “disgrace” that serves only to interfere with his re-election chances, according to The New York Times, which quotes an anonymous source within her orbit.
The newspaper wrote that she was angered when she learnt in January 2018 of her husband’s alleged affair with Daniels, said to have taken place about a decade earlier. She left the White House for their home in Palm Beach, Florida, when the scandal broke, returning for the state of the union address that month but insisting on taking separate cars to the US Capitol.
Meet Trump’s lead attorneys
Todd Blanche
Blanche, 49, is a former federal prosecutor with the southern district of New York, where he worked alongside Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who has brought this case.
In 2023, Blanche left a job as a white-collar defence attorney at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, the oldest law firm in New York, to start his own firm and represent Trump. He is the former president’s lead counsel in the hush money case, and is also representing him in two federal criminal cases in Florida and Washington.
When Trump was charged just over a year ago in the Manhattan case, Blanche told reporters: “He’s frustrated, he’s upset. It’s not going to stop him.”
Blanche has previously represented several Trump associates including Boris Epshteyn, an adviser, and Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman.
Susan Necheles
Necheles is an experienced Manhattan defence attorney who previously defended the Trump Organisation in a state tax fraud trial.
According to an online profile, she specialises in defending high-profile clients facing complex criminal fraud and corruption proceedings.
She previously represented the mobster Venero Mangano, a former Genovese crime family underboss known as Benny Eggs.
The Chambers and Partners legal rating site states that it would recommend Necheles “unreservedly for her rabbit-out-of-the-hat results.”
She worked as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, and has served as president of the New York Council of Defense Lawyers. She attended the University of Rochester and Yale Law School.
Defence lawyer grills jurors
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney, has been questioning several potential jurors.
One woman, a teacher at a charter school, said she had friends with strong opinions about the former president but that she did not consider herself to be a political person and she appreciated his candour. “President Trump speaks his mind and I’d rather that than someone who’s in office who you don’t know what they’re thinking,” she said.
Another woman who works with the elderly said that Trump “stirs the pot”. When asked by Blanche to explain her comment, she replied: “If I told you all the time what I thought about people — I want to say some things to people, but my momma said be nice.”
Almost all of the jurors raised their hands when asked if they were aware that Trump had been charged with facing criminal offences. The potential jurors have been dismissed until 2.15pm while the lawyers discuss striking any of them from the list.
Flurry of activity on Truth Social account
With jury selection making slow progress, Trump’s Truth Social account has gone on a posting spree.
The former president’s account posted 17 times during the morning session. The posts included clips from Fox News of his favourite hosts attacking the trial, and polls claiming to show Trump leading his rival President Biden in the 2024 presidential race.
The account also shared posts from Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law and co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, and the former Trump administration official Stephen Miller.
It is unclear who posted the clips. According to several media reports, Trump’s aide Dan Scavino has access to his social media accounts.
• Read more: To understand Trump, look at what he posts on Truth Social
Trump opts out of sidebar talks
With the jury out of the courtroom, Judge Juan Merchan said he had been notified by Trump’s lawyers that the former president no longer wanted to participate in sidebar discussions held between the lawyers and judge out of earshot of the jury.
Trump had previously said he wanted to be part of such discussions, but confirmed when asked directly by the judge that he had now changed his mind.
The 18 potential jurors have returned from a ten-minute break, and Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead counsel, has begun pressing them on their views of him.
One prospective juror told Blanche he was a Democrat, but that his political views would have no bearing on his ability to rule impartially. Another said he was a big fan of The Apprentice, the former reality TV show hosted by Trump.
‘Oh ... he’s just a dude’
A potential Trump juror who was dismissed due to work commitments has spoken of her experience.
Kara McGee told CNN she had stated in the jury questionnaire that she could be impartial, but that she would be unable to take up to eight weeks off from her job in cybersecurity.
She said it was a surreal feeling being in the courtroom with the former president, aware that the trial was “history in the making and whatever the outcome of this is, everything going forward will be affected by it”. However, she added: “At the same time you see him sitting there and you think ‘Oh, it’s just a guy. He’s just a dude’.”
McGee admitted she did not like Trump. “I don’t approve of what he did as president, but the right to a fair trial is extremely important,” she said.
Don’t judge the witnesses on their backgrounds, jurors told
Joshua Steinglass has been speaking to the prospective jurors about the credibility of the prosecution witnesses.
He said the witnesses will include a tabloid publisher, a porn actress and Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who was convicted of federal crimes including lying to Congress and perjury.
Despite the fact they may have “some edge”, Steinglass asked that the panel consider more than the witnesses’ backgrounds when assessing their evidence. He also asked them to consider whether they could look Trump in the eye and return a guilty verdict, saying: “Take a moment to look at the defendant and look inside yourself”.
The court is taking a short break.
‘This is not about Trump — it’s about the law’
Prosecutors began addressing the 18 prospective jurors who made it through the initial vetting phase by telling them the hush money case was not a referendum on the Trump presidency.
“No one is suggesting you can’t be fair because you’ve heard of Donald Trump. We need jurors who can set aside strong feelings and focus on evidence,” Joshua Steinglass, prosecuting, said. “This case is about whether this man broke the law.”
Each potential juror will be questioned separately for up to 30 minutes by both prosecutors and Trump’s defence lawyers, in a process known as voir dire. Steinglass said that information already in the public domain did not tell the full story. He said the district attorney’s office was looking for an assurance that jurors could keep an open mind about the evidence.
Court inches closer to selecting a jury
Eighteen prospective jurors have made it through the first phase of jury selection.
Lawyers will now have 30 minutes to question them to determine if they can be fair and impartial, according to the process outlined by Judge Juan Merchan yesterday.
A married graphic designer who lives in Uptown Manhattan was the first to make it past initial questioning. Another is a corporate lawyer originally from Oregon who has lived in the New York neighbourhood of Chelsea for the past five years. He said he got his news from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Google.
A single mother of three hailing from the Upper West Side also made it through the early phase. Another potential juror told the court he had read several Trump books, including The Art of the Deal. Trump perked up and gave the man a broad smile upon hearing the comment.
Fine him for breaching gag order, prosecutors urge judge
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has asked Judge Juan Merchan to hold Trump in contempt and fine him $3,000 for three Truth Social posts they say violated the judge’s gag order.
In a court filing on Tuesday, prosecutors also asked the judge to warn Trump that “future violations” could be punishable with a prison term of up to 30 days.
The filing cited three examples of Trump allegedly violating the order, which prevents him from attacking potential witnesses, along with family members of Merchan and Alvin Bragg, the district attorney.
They included Trump re-publishing on April 10 a social media post by Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer. In it, Avenatti wrote that it was “outrageous” Michael Cohen and Daniels could make money from documentaries and interviews while Trump was barred from responding.
Prosecutors also cited two Trump posts attacking Cohen and Daniels on April 10 and 13.
Merchan has said he will rule on the alleged violation at 9.30am next Tuesday.
Four more potential jurors rejected
One woman was dismissed after she said that upon reflection she did not believe she could be fair and impartial. Two others have been dismissed due to work or scheduling commitments. Another told the judge: “I don’t think I can be as impartial and unbiased as I thought I could be”.
While the prospective jurors are being questioned, Trump has been leaning back in his chair and flipping through a jury questionnaire. The questionnaire includes queries about where they get their news, any affiliations with radical groups such as Antifa, the Proud Boys and QAnon, and whether prospective jurors or anyone in their circle have attended a Trump rally.
Profile of a rejected juror
Jury selection has resumed on day two of the trial, with one man rejected for saying he could not be impartial.
The first prospective juror brought in this morning, a man in his thirties or forties from Dallas, was excused by Judge Juan Merchan after he said he felt he would be biased because many of his friends and family members were Republicans. The man identified himself as a partner at an accounting and finance firm in New York City.
He was excused after a brief conference between the lawyers and the judge. There are fears that it will be difficult to find 12 impartial jurors, plus six alternates, in Manhattan, which tends to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
As the replacement jurors took their seats in the jury box, Trump turned his head to check out the new arrivals.
Meanwhile, in the Supreme Court...
The Supreme Court has begun hearing arguments on the first of two cases that could affect Trump’s criminal prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The justices are considering whether a federal law enacted in 2002 relating to the obstruction of an official proceeding can be used to prosecute 330 defendants, including the former president, in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot.
Today the court is hearing an appeal from Joseph Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer who has been indicted on seven counts, including obstruction, for his actions on January 6, 2021. Lawyers for Fischer argue that the charge does not cover his conduct.
The obstruction charge is among the most widely used felony charges brought in the federal prosecution of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol as the 2020 presidential election vote was being certified by Congress.
The Supreme Court is also due to hear arguments next Thursday over whether Trump has “absolute immunity” from prosecution in the case. Trump’s immunity claims have so far been rejected by two lower courts.
Truth Social company shares take a hit
Shares in Trump Media fell by 8 per cent when markets opened this morning after it announced the launch of a Truth Social TV streaming platform.
The company said on Tuesday it planned to release a new live streaming platform for the social media site over the next six months after completing a research and development phase.
The company’s stock price, which reached $80 after it went public on March 26, was trading at about $24.50 just before 10am local time (1pm BST).
Trump Media fell 18 per cent on Monday upon news the company had filed to issue more than 21 million shares. Donald Trump is the company’s majority shareholder.
• Read more: Could Donald Trump go bankrupt? His money and net worth examined
Trump’s defence: ‘it was a legal expense’
Trump gave an indication of his likely defence strategy in comments outside the courtroom this morning.
He told reporters he had paid Michael Cohen, then his lawyer, a “legal expense” to reimburse him for the payment made to Daniels in the run up to the 2016 election. “I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense, some accountant I didn’t know marked it down as a legal expense, that’s exactly what it was,” he said. “And you get indicted over that?”
His quotes outside court in full:
“This is a trial that should never have been brought. It’s a trial that is being looked upon all over the world they’re looking at it and analysing it. Every legal pundit and every legal scholar said this trial is a disgrace.
“We have a Trump-hating judge, we have a judge who shouldn’t be on this case. He’s totally conflicted. But this is a trial that should never have happened, it should have been thrown out a long time ago. If you look at Jonathan Turley, Andy McCarthy, all great legal scholars, there’s not one that we’ve been able to find that said this should be a trial.
“I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense, some accountant I didn’t know marked it down as a legal expense, that’s exactly what it was. And you get indicted over that? I should be right now in Pennsylvania, in Florida, in many other states, North Carolina, Georgia, campaigning.
“This is all coming from the Biden White House because the guy can’t put two sentences together. He can’t campaign, he’s using this in order to try to win an election. And it’s not working that way, it’s working in the opposite way.
“So check that out, it’s called legal expense, legal expense, that’s what you’re supposed to call it. Nobody has ever seen anything like it, so thank you very much for coming. I’m now going to sit down for many hours. In order to understand it all you have to do is look at the polls, this is a sham trial and the judge should recuse himself.”
Hearing to determine what Trump can be asked on the stand
Before jury selection resumes this morning, Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled a “Sandoval hearing” to determine the scope of the prosecution’s cross-examination of Trump should he decide to testify.
A Sandoval hearing is designed to let criminal defendants make an informed choice about whether they should take the stand by providing a determination of the permissible scope of cross-examination of the accused. This typically includes being able to raise allegations of similar offences to the one the defendant is charged with.
Trump’s legal team claimed in a March 19 letter to the court that the Manhattan district attorney’s office intended to ask Trump about “13 different court determinations, as well as about most of the underlying facts leading to those determinations”.
Why are so few people allowed inside the courtroom?
Only a handful of reporters, court staff and jurors will be able to witness Trump’s historic criminal trial first-hand. This is because New York state laws on the reporting of court proceedings are among the most restrictive in the country.
Regulations limiting such coverage date back to the 1935 trial of a man accused of kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh’s baby son. Rules to enforce decorum were amended to account for the invention of television, as defence lawyers worried that video coverage would harm their cases.
These days video cameras are permitted only in certain courts, and usually at the judge’s discretion. New York state allowed cameras into courts experimentally between 1987 and 1997, before they were banned. Louisiana is the only other state that completely restricts video coverage.
Trump arrives for second day
Trump has arrived at court for day two of the trial. He left Trump Tower in Midtown in a convoy of vehicles just after 8.30am local time to make the four-mile journey to the court in lower Manhattan.
Court is due to begin at 9.30am (2.30pm BST).
Yesterday, Judge Juan Merchan was moved to remind Trump’s legal team of the importance of being punctual when they were late returning from a brief afternoon break. “Counsel, it’s important that we keep the breaks to the allotted time, so we can keep moving,” he said.
Did he fall asleep?
Donald Trump appeared to fall asleep several times on the first day of his hush money trial.
The former president’s mouth hung open and his eyelids squinted, The Times’s Will Pavia wrote in a sketch from the courtroom.
Trump was jolted into opening his eyes when Todd Blanche, his lead counsel, passed him a note.
According to a pool report from court, Trump glared at the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for several seconds as he walked out of the courtroom at the conclusion of Monday’s hearing. Haberman told CNN: “Yes, I noticed. He made a pretty specific stare at me and walked out of the room.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly described his likely rival in November’s election, President Biden, as “Sleepy Joe”.
Trump renews social media attack on judge
Donald Trump renewed his attacks on Judge Juan Merchan in a Truth Social post on Tuesday morning.
“This conflicted, Trump Hating Judge won’t let me respond to people that are on TV lying and spewing hate all day long,” the former president posted just after 8am local time.
“He is running rough shod over my lawyers and legal team. The New York System of ‘Justice’ is being decimated by critics from all over the World. I want to speak, or at least be able respond. Election Interference! RIGGED, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL! Take off the Gag Order!!!”
A few minutes earlier, Trump had posted in all caps: “MY TRIAL IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA!”
Day two of Trump’s trial is due to resume in just over an hour.
Tracking Trump’s charges — and where each case stands
This is not Trump’s only legal trouble. The former US president faces 40 charges alone in a classified documents case and more in other investigations, including his alleged interference in the 2020 election.
The accusations, at a glance
Use our tracker to see where each case stands.
Trump could not outrun this case — and now he risks ‘disaster’
Trump’s tactic of delaying his criminal trials with a barrage of appeals ran out of road and appeared to leave him facing a “disaster” in the Stormy Daniels case, legal experts have said.
Alistair Dawber analyses the implications of the former president’s trial.
Even Democrats are worried about where this will lead
The kind of charges brought against Donald Trump are “vanishingly rare”, leading to fears among the ex-president’s opponents that they play into his claims of political persecution.
• Why the Stormy Daniels case is so controversial — among Democrats too
Who is Stormy Daniels? ‘Warm, witty and a little terrifying’
Jane Mulkerrins, an associate editor at The Times Magazine, has known Daniels for five years and was the first journalist to interview her after news broke that Trump would be criminally charged over an alleged hush money payment.
Writing for The Sunday Times on the eve of Trump’s trial, Mulkerrins described Daniels as “warm, witty, bright, mischievous and not a little terrifying”, adding: “I liked her immediately, a fierce, unfiltered force of nature.”
Daniels described the decision to charge Trump with falsifying business records as “vindication” during their interview last March. “He’s done so much worse that he should have been taken down [for] before,” she said hours after Trump was charged. “I am fully aware of the insanity of it being a porn star. But it’s also poetic: this pussy grabbed back.”
What does the electorate think?
A new poll that asked voters whether Trump should be convicted in the hush money case found 46 per cent believe the former president is guilty.
The New York Times/Siena College poll also found that 53 per cent said the former president was guilty of at least one of the federal crimes he has been accused of. Some 39 per cent said they felt Trump was innocent, and 9 per cent said they did not know. The survey was conducted from April 7-11 among 1,059 registered voters nationwide.
In a March poll from Quinnipiac University, 55 per cent of likely voters said the result of the hush money trial would have no impact on how they vote in November.
Trump’s temper flared on day one
Trump’s temper flared towards the end of day one of the hush money trial after Judge Juan Merchan refused his request to attend arguments in a Supreme Court hearing next Thursday.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, told the court the former president “very much” wanted to attend arguments in Washington over whether he can claim absolute immunity from prosecution in the subversion case brought by the special counsel Jack Smith.
Prosecutors opposed the request, and Merchan ruled against the former president. He told defence lawyers that, unlike the Supreme Court hearing, Trump was required to attend every day of the Manhattan case as he is a criminal defendant.
Outside court, Trump accused the judge of running a “scam trial”. He also falsely accused the judge of barring him from attending his son Barron’s high school graduation on May 17. The judge said he would rule on that at a later date, and that it depended on how speedily the trial was progressing.
Here’s what happened on day one of the trial
Jury selection in the Donald Trump hush money case will resume in a New York courtroom in a few hours.
The first day of the trial featured several hours of discussion over what evidence could be introduced at the trial. Both the defence and prosecution scored partial wins. The judge ruled that the infamous Access Hollywood tapes in which Trump boasted of “grabbing” women could not be played to the jury, but that he would allow testimony from Karen McDougal, who claims to have had a months-long affair with Trump.
In the afternoon, a pool of 96 prospective jurors were screened for any potential biases against the former president. More than half of the group was excused after telling Judge Juan Merchan they could not be relied on to deliberate fairly and impartially.
Another nine prospective jurors were excused after raising their hands when the judge asked if they had another reason why they could not serve.
Potential jurors will continue to be questioned today on their personal and professional lives, their media consumption and hobbies. Merchan said he would prefer to dismiss jurors immediately if they indicated at the start of questioning that they were biased.
This is a witch hunt, Trump says
Donald Trump has attacked the judge for not allowing him to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation in comments outside court at the conclusion of the first day of the hush money payments trial.
Trump repeated claims that the trial was a “scam” and a “political witch hunt” as he left the court in lower Manhattan. Judge Juan Merchan said he would rule at a later date on whether Trump can skip the trial on May 17 to attend his son’s event in Florida.
Trump also accused the judge of depriving him from attending a hearing next Thursday before the Supreme Court on his appeal that he is immune from criminal prosecution.
He went on to rail against Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and his political opponents. “That I’m not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina campaigning like I should be, it’s perfect for the radical left Democrats, that’s exactly what they want,” he said. “This is about election interference. That’s all this is about.”
You’re sick, Donald Jr tells judge
Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s eldest son, has described Judge Juan Merchan as “pure evil” in a post to social media.
Trump Jr was responding to a post by the right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec, who claimed Merchan had threatened to jail the former president if he failed to attend any days of the hush money trial.
“These people are truly sick,” Trump Jr wrote in a post on Instagram. “Just remember there are no lengths they won’t go to to get or keep power and that has to be put into check. Enough is enough!”
In his post, Posobiec claimed that Trump had been threatened with jail if he attended his son Barron’s graduation. Barron attends the Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is due to graduate on May 17.
Merchan said earlier he would consider a request to adjourn that day, and it would depend on how quickly the trial was proceeding.
The first day has just adjourned.
I just couldn’t do it, says excused juror
A potential juror who was excused from serving on the Trump jury was heard saying “I just couldn’t do it” in a hallway outside the courtroom.
The juror, identified by a pool reporter as a woman from Harlem, indicated she could be neutral in deciding the case. But when asked whether she had strong opinions about the former president, the woman responded with a firm “Yes.” She was then released by the judge.
Since then, four jurors have been questioned by Judge Juan Merchan on their family and professional lives, their hobbies and media preferences. The jurors cited The New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and Google as being their primary news sources.
Half of first 96 jurors say they cannot be impartial
Judge Juan Marchan asked potential jurors if they could raise their hands if they felt they could not serve fairly and impartially, or were unable to take part for another reason.
About half of the 96 raised their hands and were excused by the judge. Of those who were released, more than two dozen were white women, according to a pool report from inside court.
Trump entered, licked his lips — and appeared to fall asleep
Donald Trump stood in a corridor on the 15th floor of Manhattan’s criminal court building: a dingy place, ornamented with metal barricades and occupied by a small army of court police officers.
“Nothing like this has ever happened,” he said. He was right about that.
Will Pavia, our New York correspondent, was outside the Manhattan courtroom as lawyers attempted the surely impossible task of finding 12 people who do not already have an opinion on Trump’s guilt.
Jurors asked if they know key characters in Trump’s orbit
Judge Juan Merchan has asked potential jurors if they are familiar with any of Trump’s key allies.
Merchan has been explaining how the trial will proceed to a group of 96 potential jurors, a standard process before any jury is sworn in. It includes reading the list of charges and asking jurors if they know any of the figures who are likely to feature in the trial.
This list includes the former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s children Donald Jr and Ivanka, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his wife Melania, and several Trump administration appointees such as Kellyanne Conway.
Jury selection begins
A group of 96 prospective jurors have entered the courtroom and are about to be sworn in.
The potential jurors, all from Manhattan, have been patiently waiting since 9am. They will have filled out a seven-page questionnaire answering a lengthy set of questions on whether they support Donald Trump, their media preferences and whether they can impartially rule on the evidence.
Lawyers for the prosecution and defence will be able to question them before deciding whether to strike them from the potential pool. A total of 12 jurors and six alternates will be selected.
Prospective jurors brought in
Judge Juan Merchan said he would give Trump’s lawyers 24 hours to submit their final exhibits into evidence. He said they would be precluded from using any exhibits that had not been provided to the court by Tuesday.
The judge has also given a list of the names of prospective jurors to the defence and the prosecution. He ordered that the list could not be copied or photographed — and must be returned.
The prospective jurors are now being brought up to the courtroom.
Trump’s thumbs-up for cameras
Trump gave a thumbs-up to cameras as he returned to the courtroom a few minutes ago after a one-hour lunch break.
Judge Juan Merchan has said he will now hear arguments on an alleged violation of Trump’s gag order next Tuesday, rather than delivering his decision on Monday.
Merchan has issued a ruling on how prospective jurors will be questioned. He says if a juror is to be questioned by either sets of lawyers, he will order the other potential jury members to clear the court so that individuals don’t feel intimidated.
With those orders of business complete, we should be ready to begin jury selection any minute now.
Bomb threats before trial
Police in New York said they responded to a bomb threat at the home of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.
An NYPD spokesman said they received the threat via a 911 call just before 9am on Monday morning. Police are investigating the incident.
Bragg is the lead law enforcement official in Trump’s hush money trial.
A separate bomb threat was made to the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Monday. The threat was a hoax and there was no disruption to services, a library spokesman told AP.
Trump gag order explained
Trump has been barred from discussing possible witnesses and jurors — and from speaking about the family members of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and Judge Juan Merchan, after he levelled several attacks on the judge’s daughter, who had been employed by a political consultancy that worked for Democratic candidates.
Trump continued to test the limits of that order on the eve of the trial, asking on his social media platform Truth Social over the weekend if one expected witness, “disgraced attorney and felon Michael Cohen has been prosecuted for LYING?”
Prosecutors also cited a Truth Social post praising Michael Avenatti, a lawyer who was sentenced to a total of 19 years in prison in 2022 for stealing from his clients, including Stormy Daniels.
They also claimed a post Trump made about Daniels had violated the gag order.
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday morning that the order was “unconstitutional”.
Judge Merchan is expected to rule on the alleged violations after the lunch break.
Trump warned over Truth Social posts
Judge Juan Merchan has been hearing from prosecutors about whether Trump should be sanctioned for allegedly violating several pre-trial gag orders.
Prosecutor Chris Conroy asked that the former president be held in contempt and sanctioned $1,000 each for three separate posts on Truth Social.
Conroy asked that Trump be reminded he could be jailed for further violations of the gag order.
“We think that it is important for the court to remind Mr Trump that he is a criminal defendant. And like all criminal defendants he’s subject to court supervision,” Conroy said.
The court has now adjourned for a lunch break until 6.30pm (1.30pm ET).
Judge frustrated by slow progress
More than two hours after the hearing began, Judge Juan Merchan appeared to grow tired of the “minutiae” of the respective lawyers’ pre-trial arguments.
He noted that there were about 500 prospective jurors waiting for jury selection to begin, and called on both parties to work out between themselves a dispute on how motions were to be filed.
Merchan has outlined the rules of the courtroom, such as reminding Trump that he should remain seated while the jury enters and leaves the courtroom. The judge said he would agree to a time limit of 30 minutes for the first round of juror questioning, and 20 minutes for any subsequent rounds.
Ruling against using fixer’s guilty plea against Trump
After a 15-minute adjournment, pre-trial arguments are continuing. Lawyers for the prosecution and the defence have asked Judge Juan Merchan to clarify what they will be allowed to ask Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, on the witness stand.
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to several charges including campaign finance violations for making a payment to Daniels. Trump was not charged at the time, although he was identified as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case.
Joshua Steinglass, for the prosecution, asked the judge whether they could discuss Cohen’s guilty plea, arguing: “Michael Cohen is very much like a co-defendant in a robbery case who agreed to testify against his cohort.”
Merchan eventually reiterated his pre-trial order, in which he ruled that the prosecution cannot tie Cohen’s plea to Trump. Cohen’s credibility is expected to come under close scrutiny by Trump’s lawyers.
Prosecution can show evidence of election dark arts
Prosecutors will be allowed to introduce evidence that the Trump campaign co-ordinated with the National Enquirer to publish positive stories about the former president and negative ones about his political opponents in the 2016 Republican primary, including the senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Joshua Steinglass, for the prosecution, argued the agreement made at a meeting in Trump Tower in 2015 had also sought to prevent harmful information about Trump “from ever seeing the light of day”.
Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said the evidence would “do nothing but confuse the jury about the actual crime charged” and would amount to a sideshow. He said Trump’s campaign, in this meeting, did nothing illegal or improper.
Prosecutors responded that perfectly legal things, such as renting a car for a bank robbery, could be done as part of another illegal act.
Judge Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to introduce the evidence, saying that as it was not illegal, it was not prejudicial.
Defence wants break for Barron Trump event
Trump’s legal team asked for a break in the trial schedule so that the former president could attend his son Barron’s high school graduation on May 17.
One of Trump’s lawyers also asked for a one-day adjournment to attend his child’s high school graduation.
Judge Juan Merchan said he would consider the requests depending on how quickly the trial was progressing.
Although the court is not due to sit on Wednesdays, the judge said he could change the schedule if there were excessive delays. Merchan also said there would be no court on April 29.
The court is now taking a short break.
• Read more: What the Trump family did next — university, billion-dollar deals and golf
Playboy model ‘who had affair with Trump’ can testify
Trump suffered a further setback in court as the judge said he would allow testimony from Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who says she had a ten-month affair with the former president.
Juan Merchan ruled that the jury could hear from McDougal, who was a fitness model who became an actress and was Playboy’s “playmate of the year” in 1998. She has said she had a ten-month affair with Trump between 2006 and 2007, seeing him about five times a month.
The National Enquirer paid McDougal $150,000 to keep quiet about the relationship in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, a practice known as “catch and kill”.
Trump’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that describing McDougal’s arrangement with AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer, would be prejudicial to the case.
Judge dismisses attempt to remove him
Judge Juan Merchan has denied a motion from Trump’s lawyers to recuse himself from the trial.
Before jury selection began, Merchan told the court there were two pending motions for recusal, one before him and another before a state appellate court. He said Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche had cited an interview the judge had done with the Associated Press about preparing for the trial as evidence of bias against Trump.
Merchan gave short shrift to the filings. He said it was the court’s opinion that Trump was using a “series of inferences, innuendos and unsupported speculation”. He added that he would not consider it again until the appellate court makes a ruling.
Trump looked straight ahead, biting his bottom lip as the judge rejected the motion.
Who is Juan Merchan?
Merchan, 61, was born in Bogota, Colombia, and came to the US with his family at the age of six.
After graduating from law school in 1994, he became a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, then a family court judge and since 2009 has presided over criminal trials in the state’s supreme court.
One of these was a tax fraud case against the Trump Organisation in which a jury convicted the company and Merchan fined it $1.6 million, the maximum penalty allowed. During the 2020 election campaign Merchan gave $35 in political contributions to Democrats, including $15 to Joe Biden. His daughter is an executive at a Democratic consulting firm that worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign.
For these reasons Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to recuse himself. An advisory committee said the case did not concern the judge’s daughter, or her business, or any of her interests, and Merchan himself ruled that he could be “fair and impartial”.
He was assigned the hush money case against Trump randomly, via a court rota.
Trump chats with lawyers before judge arrives
The lawyers at Trump’s defence table are Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, a former prosecutor who is in Blanche’s law firm, and Susan Necheles. Trump could be seen chatting animatedly with Blanche, as the lawyer went through a large file of papers. Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung is seated at the back of the room.
Across from Trump is the team of prosecutors led by Matthew Colangelo, who previously worked for the New York state attorney general in its civil investigation of Trump. Behind them is Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney. Trump did not look over his shoulder at him but Bragg was seen glancing in his direction.
What happens with jury selection
Judge Juan Merchan is expected to hear motions, including one to remove himself from proceedings, which is expected to fail, before the court begins picking a jury.
Five hundred people have been summoned as potential candidates: 12 are needed, along with six alternates. They are expected to be brought into the public gallery of the courtroom, where they will be asked if there is any reason why they cannot be impartial in this case.
They must fill in a questionnaire, with 42 questions about themselves, the newspapers they read, the podcasts they listen to, whether they or a relative has worked for Trump and whether they happen to be a member of the alt-right group Proud Boys, or a follower of QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy group.
They are also asked if they have read one of Trump’s books, or one of the various memoirs of Michael Cohen, a key witness in the case.
Ex-president ‘will testify’
Donald Trump insisted last week he would testify in his own defence at the trial.
In comments to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, on Friday, Trump said: “I’m testifying. I tell the truth. I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there’s no case. They have no case.”
Trump’s lawyers mounted a final, last-ditch effort on Friday to have the historic trial postponed after arguing that it had attracted too much publicity for him to receive a fair hearing. Judge Juan Merchan dismissed the appeal, writing in response that the idea was “not tenable”, adding that Trump had drawn a lot of this publicity himself with frequent social media posts.
This is ‘assault on America’, Trump says
Trump said his hush money criminal trial was an “assault on America” in comments outside court this morning.
He told reporters that the case was a politically motivated attack on him orchestrated by President Biden, his rival in the 2024 election.
“This is an assault on America, nothing like this has ever happened before, there’s never been anything like it,” he said. “Every legal scholar said this case is nonsense, it should have never been brought, it doesn’t deserve anything like this. There is no case and I’ve said it people that don’t necessarily follow or like Donald Trump said this is an outrage that this case was brought.
“This is political persecution this is a persecution like never before, nobody has ever seen anything like it and again it’s a case that should have never been brought, it’s an assault on America and that’s why I am very proud to be here, this is an assault on our country and it’s a country that’s failing, it’s a country that’s run by an incompetent man and is very much involved in this case.
“This is really an attack on a political opponent, that is all it is, so I’m very honoured to be here, thank you very much.”
Trump’s motorcade arrives to waiting protesters, supporters and press
Donald Trump has arrived at court before jury selection. The former president made the four-mile journey from Trump Tower in Midtown to the Manhattan criminal court, where he arrived just after 9am.
He was greeted by dozens of protesters waving signs such as “election interference is a crime”, and “not above the law”.
Criminal court no stranger to famous faces
The criminal court building at 100 Center Street has occasionally hosted famous or powerful defendants.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF, was brought there in May of 2011, accused of raping a hotel maid. He was brought into a courtroom to be arraigned alongside a man who worked in a fried chicken restaurant who faced drugs charges. Strauss-Kahn denied the charges and the criminal case against him was eventually dropped.
This morning, a media camp was pitched at the edge of the park across the road from the courthouse and reporters queued from the early hours of the morning. A reporter from Business Insider arrived bearing an enormous sack of bagels that she distributed to the journalists.
Two early-morning protesters arrived in the park to have their picture taken — one bearing a sign a that said: “Convict Trump Already” and another, made in the style of a Trump campaign banner, that read: “Loser”. At 8.59am local time Trump’s motorcade was seen pulling up.
Trump cries foul on social media channel
Donald Trump criticised a gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan hours before jury selection begins in his criminal hush money payments trial.
In a post on Truth Social at 8am local time, Trump wrote: “I want my VOICE back. This Crooked Judge has GAGGED me. Unconstitutional! The other side can talk about me, but I am not allowed to talk about them! Rigged Trial!”.
In a separate post, the former president wrote: “Why didn’t they bring this totally discredited lawsuit 7 years ago??? Election Interference!”
He also blamed President Biden, his likely rival in the 2024 presidential election, for orchestrating the charges against him.
“As virtually every legal scholar has powerfully stated, the Biden Manhattan Witch Hunt Case is, among other things, BARRED by the Statute of Limitations. This “trial” should be ended by the highly conflicted presiding Judge.”
Daily commute to court for former president
The Times’s Will Pavia, who is covering the case from the Manhattan criminal court, writes that Trump is expected commute daily from his flat in Trump Tower to the courthouse, staging press conferences at his building on Wall Street and weekend rallies in nearby states, while his supporters gather in the small park across the street from the court building.
