Donald Trump trial LIVE: National Enquirer publisher David Pecker says ex-president was ‘known as the most eligible bachelor’

The jury in the hush money trial was shown a series of National Enquirer articles praising the former president.

One headline read: ‘Donald Trump: “Healthiest individual ever elected!”‘

Prosecutors also presented negative headlines attacking Trump’s opponents in 2016, including Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio.

Pecker says Cohen would feed him negative information that his magazine would then ’embellish’ and add to.

David Pecker told the court that stories on President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary were top sellers for the National Enquirer.

‘It was of mutual benefit’ he said, to portray ‘Hillary Clinton as an enabler of Bill Clinton’s womanizing’.

The tabloid executive said he would keep publishing the stories because they ‘pleased’ Trump and Cohen.

Pecker told the hush money trial he considered Trump a friend until 2017.

He considered the former real estate mogul a celebrity in his own right and they would talk roughly once or twice a quarter

But when Trump announced he was running in the 2016 presidential election, he would see him once a month.

U.S. Senior Political Reporter Rob Crilly reports from court:

David Pecker is describing the crucial Trump Tower meeting where prosecutors say the ‘catch and kill’ plot was developed.

Pecker says he was the one who raised the idea that women might try to sell stories about Trump.

‘I was the one who thought that a lot of women would try to sell their stories because Mr. Trump was well known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women,’ he says.

‘It is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories.’

Trump turns to lead defense attorney on his left and whispers in Todd Blanche’s ear at that. Blanche grins afterwards and holds his right hand over his eyes. It’s like two school boys at the defense table.

David Pecker has been shedding more light on his long relationship not just with Trump but former fixer Michael Cohen.

Pecker testified that he would call Cohen directly if there were any negative stories about Trump circulating.

Pecker said he first met Cohen at a bar mitzvah in 2000 but that Trump introduced him as his new hire back in 2007.

He said Trump told him that ‘now my contacts should go through Michael.’

‘If there was any rumors in the marketplace about Mr. Trump or his family or any negative stories that were coming out or things that I heard overall that I would go through, I would call Michael Cohen directly,’ Pecker testified.

‘I was the person who thought that a lot of women would come out to try to sell their stories because Mr. Trump was well known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women,’ Pecker told the court.

‘It was clear that based on my past experience that when someone was running for public office like this, it is very common for these women to call up magazine like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories,’ he went on.

Republican Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, is demanding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg explain the hiring of Michael Colangelo.

Colangelo, top prosecutor in Trump’s hush money trial, was formerly Attorney General Merrick Garland’s No. 3 at DOJ.

‘Judge Merchan unconstitutionally gagged President Trump from discussing Biden sending his #3 DOJ Official to Bragg’s office to prosecute Trump, but he can’t silence Congress.’

‘I am demanding Garland & Bragg turn over all records related to Colangelo – ASAP.’

Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen lashed out at the former president following the contentous gag order hearing.

The posts about Cohen were at the center of arguments over Trump’s gag order.

Cohen is expected to testify during the hush money trial.

‘After the Trump administration had me remanded to solitary confinement for a total of 51 days, I learned that I am much stronger than I ever imagined,’ Cohen told NBC.

‘Strong enough to ensure that truth will prevail over Donald and his acolytes’ incessant lying and denigration of me; in the court hallways or his UNtruth Social platform,’ he continued.

‘Regardless. no one is above the law.’

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker returned to the witness stand on Tuesday to resume his testimony.

The tabloid executive said he’s known Trump since the 1980s when they met at Mar-a-Lago and was asked to point the former president out in court.

‘He’s sitting, wearing, I think, a dark blue suit,’ he said.

Pecker then added that he’s had a ‘great relationship with Trump’ over the years, and mentioned the Trump Style magazine they launched together.

Trump wasted no time in making his complaints known on social media during the court’s short break.

‘HIGHLY CONFLICTED, TO PUT IT MILDLY, JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN, HAS TAKEN AWAY MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. EVERYBODY IS ALLOWED TO TALK AND LIE ABOUT ME, BUT I AM NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND MYSELF. THIS IS A KANGAROO COURT, AND THE JUDGE SHOULD RECUSE HIMSELF!’

The post comes after the contentious hearing on whether he violated the gag order against him.

Court returns from short break with David Pecker resuming his testimony.

He was the then-chairman of American Media Inc.

Donald Trump also returned to the courtroom holding a huge stack of papers.

Turmp’s lead attorney Todd Blanche clashed with the judge again when he tried to suggest that seven of the former president’s posts were not a breach of the gag order because they were reposts of other stories.

Judge Merchan said: ‘How do I know that’s his position? Because you’re telling me?

Blanche replied that was the argument he was making.

Judge Merchan said: ‘Your client’s position at the time he reposted to those accounts he didn’t believe he was violating the gag order? I’d like to hear that’.

Blanche struggled to speak and replied no.

Judge Merchan said that while prosecutors had presented 10 exhibits and made their arguments ‘you’ve presented nothing’

Blanche briefly raised the prospect of putting Trump on the stand to clear it up but the judge asked him to clarify it.

Judge Merchan did not take him up on the offer and moved on to the 10th post, about supposed liberal activists lying to the judge to get on the jury.

Blanche said that Watters did not say the last part, about the activists lying to get on the jury.

Judge Merchan said Trump ‘manipulated what was said and put it into quotes’.

Blanche replied feebly: ‘I wouldn’t use manipulation’.

Judge Merchan said: ‘This is not a repost at all. This is something that was said on TV and your client had to type it out, quotation marks, the shift key.

‘The argument that it’s a repost and not a violation does not apply to exhibit 10’.

Blanche said the post was ‘ambiguous’ as to whether it breached the order and that it was ‘not trying to threaten jurors’.

He said: ‘On every single website, on CNN, on all the cable shows there was full discussions about the jury. It wasn’t President’ Trump’s Truth’.

Trump was ‘being very careful to comply’ with the court’s order

An irate Judge Merchan responded: ‘Mr Blanche you’re losing all credibility with the court’.

Judge Merchan reserved his decision on the contempt matters.

U.S. Senior Political Reporter Rob Crilly reports from court:

A bad morning turned into a disaster for Trump’s defense as Judge Merchan became increasingly frustrated at their attempts to claim that reposts do not count as violations of court orders.

‘Mr Blanche you’re losing all credibility, I have to tell you right now … You’re losing all credibility with the court,’ Merchan told Trump’s lead attorney. ‘Is there any other argument you want to make?’

The hearing ended with Merchan saying he will make his ruling later. Then it’s a 15-minute break before we get back to the main business of the trial itself.

Trump looked stony-faced as he walked out.

The court has a short break ahead of David Pecker’s testimony.

The jury has not been brought into the courtroom as the judge considers whether to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court for violating the gag order.

The panel will return when former National Enquirer pubisher David Pecker restarts his testimony.

U.S. Senior Political Reporter Rob Crilly reports from court:

An hour into the contempt hearing and Judge Merchan is clearly getting frustrated with the defense’s efforts to show that Trump’s attacks on witnesses such as Michael Cohen are justified because he is responding to political attacks, which lead attorney Todd Blanche says are allowed under the gag order.

Amid the back and forth, Merchan snaps.

‘I’m asking the questions,’ says Judge Merchan. ‘I will decide whether your client is in contempt or not. Please don’t turn it around.’

He adds that the jury is due to arrive in 30 minutes and he doesn’t want to delay them.

A bad morning so far for Trump’s defense.

Donald Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche is pushing back on prosecutors request for a gag order fine.

‘President Trump does in fact know what the gag order allows him to do and not allow him to do,’ Blanche said.

He argued there was ‘absolutely no willful violation’ of the gag order.

Blanche argued the ex-president’s posts on Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen were ‘in direct response’ to statements made by the two and not about the trial.

He claimed Cohen directly responded to one of Trump’s posts ‘politically.’

Judge Merchan asked Blanche if there was ‘no specific post that you’re referring to?’

Blanche said he’s referring to ‘ramped up’ attacks on Trump including as a candidate leading up to the trial.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy says his team is asking the court to order Donald Trump to remove 10 offending posts.

These include eight from his social media and two from his campaign website.

He also asked Judge Juan Merchan to impose a maximum $1,000 fine for each post.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy called for the judge to punish Donald Trump, but insisted they were not seeking jail time.

The former president has sent campaign emails over the last 24 hours suggesting he will be thrown behind bars for violating the gag order.

But Conroy told the judge on Tuesday: ‘We are not yet seeking an incarceration penalty. The defendant seems to be angling for that.’

The maximum penalty is 30 days in jail.

It would be a dramatic move from Judge Merchan if he decided to put Trump in custody.

According to Conroy, Trump ‘knows about the order, he knows what he’s not allowed to do and he does it anyway’

‘His knowledge of the order shows it’s wilful and intentional,’ Conroy added.

The idea that Trump was responding to attacks on him was an ‘after the fact justification’, Conroy said.

Trump’s argument in his defense was that ‘someone says something mean about him he can respond because the attack is political’.

Conroy said: ‘It’s tortured at best and would eviscerate the meaning of his order’ if the court were to allow that.

Prosecutors say Donald Trump expanded on Fox News host Jesse Watters’ post on ‘undercover liberal activists’.

The former president insinuated that these ‘activists’ had made their way onto the jury.

This is one of the 11 alleged violations of the gag order.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy said Trump calling witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels ‘sleazebags’ undermined their credibility.

‘I think that’s all part of the plan for this trial. There is no other reason to be talking about that than related to this,’ Conroy said as he asked the judge to find the former president violated the gag order.

The gag order prevents Trump from publicly criticizing witnesses, court officials and their relatives.

The law permits the judge to send Trump to jail for up to 30 days.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office handed Judge Juan Merchan 10 posts where Donald Trump allegedly violated the gag order in the hush money trial.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy said the posts ‘pose a real threat’ to the proceedings.

‘The defendant violated the order again, on camera. He did it right here in the hallway outside,’ Conroy said.

‘The defendant has violated this order repeatedly and hasn’t stopped.’

Conroy then urged the judge to sanction Trump for each violation,

Donald Trump was left at the defense table alone after his attorneys and the prosecution were brought into the judge’s chambers.

Judge Juan Merchan invited the legal teams to the bench and took them into a sidebar conference before the contempt hearing.

Trump walked into court with his attorney Emil Bove after speaking to reporters in the hallway outside.

‘Good morning, Mr. Trump,’ Judge Merchan said as the former president stood.

Donald Trump’s trusted valet Walt Nauta is with him in court today.

Nauta, Trump’s co-defendant in the case, was charged with lying to the FBI. But the valet was told that he would be pardoned if Trump earned another White House term, according to a November 2022 interview with the FBI.

The interview was given to the FBI by a witness called ‘Person 16’ and described as someone who worked in Trump’s White House. A redacted summary was made public on Monday.

President Donald Trump arrived at the courthouse where he gave brief remarks, but he did not address his hush money trial or answer questions.

Instead, the ex-president urged Pennsyvlania voters to get out and vote. The battleground state is holding its primary today.

‘It’s a big day in Pennsyvlania,’ Trump said. ‘It’s important to vote.’

He also gave a shoutout to Republican Dave McCormick who is running for the Senate.

Trump also addressed the protests taking place on college campuses, calling it a ‘disgrace’ and blaming it on President Biden.

‘What’s going on is a disgrace to our country, and it’s all Biden’s fault,’ Trump said.

The ex-president accused Biden of being ‘no friend of Israel.’

He did not respond to questions about what he would do differently.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich went on Fox News where he compared Donald Trump’s hush money case to civil rights workers in the 1960s.

‘I am deeply worried that tomorrow, a totally corrupt judge and a totally corrupt district attorney are going to try to put a former president of the United States, candidate of his party, and front-runner in the polls in jail,’ Gingrich said.

He suggested it is ‘so horrendous’ that there has to be outreach to the Supreme Court.’

‘This is literally like some of the civil rights workers in Mississippi in the 1960s,’ he added.

Gingrich was appearing on Sean Hannity’s program. Hannity is a close ally of the former president.

‘The New York system is now so deeply corrupted, and it’s so bitterly, deeply anti-Trump,’ Gingrich claimed.

Gingrich said he thinks ‘any step that would put him close to a New York prison is an extraordinarily dangerous step and I would hope that there’s some legal way to block it and make sure that it never happens.’

Trump has told supporters ‘ALL HELL’ will break loose if gag order is enforced against him.

In a fundraising email to supporters yesterday the former president said he was at risk of being sent to jail.

He wrote: ‘ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE IN 24 HOURS!’

Trump said that if the gag order was enforced he ‘could be thrown in jail’ and ‘Democrats will have free rein to destroy our country.’

Donald Trump has left Trump Tower on his way to the Manhattan courthouse for the contempt hearing and the second day of testimony.

A gust of wind whipped up his hair as he crossed the sidewalk and got into his waiting SUV.

Former attorney Michael Avenatti – who previously represented Stormy Daniels – is surprisingly coming to Trump’s defense.

‘I certainly see [Trump] as a victim of the system,’ he told Fox News Digital on a phone call from behind bars.

‘And that’s something that I never thought I would say. So if Michael Avenatti is coming to his defense, and I was one of his staunchest opponents for a very significant period of time, that should tell people something,’ he went on.

He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for dodging taxes and stealing $12 million from clients. That sentence is to be served consecutively with his five-year sentence for extorting Nike and stealing from Stormy Daniels.

Avenatti has been one of Trump’s firecest critics, so his comments come as a shock.

He called Trump’s four criminal cases – including the current hush money trial – ‘absolute overkill.’

Donald Trump spent the morning before court on Tuesday doing a TV interview with a local Pennslyvania TV station.

His press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a photo on X of the former president speaking to the cameras and said: ‘Biden’s trial won’t stop him from sharing his winning message with voters across the country’.

Former National Enquirer published David Pecker is expected to tell jurors about his efforts to help Donald Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 election as he resumes testimony on Tuesday.

Prosecutors say the longtime tabloid executive worked with Trump and Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen on a strategy called ‘catch and kill’ to buy up and then spike negative stories

He testified briefly on Monday and will be back on the stand on Tuesday in the Manhattan trial.

Pecker’s testimony followed opening statements in which prosecutors alleged that Trump had sought to illegally influence the 2016 race by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, including by approving hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

Trump has denied the porn star’s claims they had an affair after meeting at a charity golf tournament in Nevada in 2006.

President Joe Biden will travel to Donald Trump’s home state of Florida on Tuesday to target the former president on abortion.

While his probable 2024 general election rival languishes in a Manhattan courtroom, Biden will head to Tampa a week before the state’s new six-week abortion ban goes into place.

‘Many women in the southeast may have to drive for a day or longer to reach the closest clinic,’ Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a call with reporters on Monday.

‘There is one person to blame for this cruelty and it’s Donald Trump.’

The president’s re-elect team also argued Florida is in play for them this cycle.

The 12 members of the jury and their six alternates sat rapt with attention. For 45 minutes they listened to the lead prosecutor lay out the case against former President Donald Trump.

Matthew Colangelo delivered all the drama of a B-movie plot as he took them on a wild ride from a shady Trump Tower ‘catch and kill’ meeting to the extraordinary image of President Trump paying a loyal fixer by signing checks inside the White House, with a cast that included muckraking journalists, a now-disbarred lawyer who recorded his phone calls and a porn star.

Only one person inside courtroom 1530 looked unimpressed: The star of the show.

Trump leaned back in his chair, shoulders slumped at times. He did not look once at the jury as the case against him was laid out.

You did not need to be a body language expert to read ‘nothing to see here’ in his posture.

The trial could last for six weeks or more, as the jury hears evidence alleging that the former president falsified business records to hide how he had bought the silence of a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.

But Monday brought the first real insight into the strategies deployed by both sides.

And the court heard from its first witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer.

This is what we learned from the first day of evidence in the case:

Donald Trump appeared to have violated his gag order again on the first day of testimony in his New York ‘hush money’ trial.

During an interview on Steve Bannon’s network Real America’s Voice, Trump attacked the jury.

‘That jury was picked so fast. Ninety-five percent are Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a purely Democrat area. It’s a very unfair situation that I can tell you,’ Trump said during the interview.

Judge Merchan has now scheduled hearing for Tuesday morning to consider prosecutors’ arguments that Trump has violated his gag order in several previous comments – and that he should be held in contempt.

Welcome to DailyMail.com’s live coverage from our reporters at Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial.

The former president faces the prospect of going to jail if he is held in contempt of court on Tuesday morning.

Prosecutors have accused him of violating the gag order in the hush money trial at least seven times by attacking witness Michael Cohen and the jury.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has asked Judge Juan Merchan to fine him $1,000 for each post. The punishment could range from a warning to a stint behind bars.

After the contempt, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker will return to the stand to finish testimony on the ‘catch and kill’ plots allegedly coordinated between Trump and the tabloid.