There was no immediate decision from the judge on the four alleged gag order violations.

Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated hush money deals for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, has returned to the witness stand. He started testifying on Tuesday.

Judge Merchan grew impatient as Blanche tried to justify Trump’s April 22 comments to the Real America’s Voice TV network that the jury was “95% Democrats,” “the area’s mostly all Democrat,” and, “It’s a very unfair situation that I can tell you.”

The judge interrupted the defense lawyer as he argued the comments were permissible because Trump believes the trial is a “political persecution” and that the location, in heavily Democratic Manhattan, put him at a distinct disadvantage.

“Did he violate the gag order?” Merchan asked, cutting to the chase.

“Absolutely, positively not,” Blanche responded.

“He spoke about the jury, right?” an incredulous Merchan asked. “He said the jury was 95% Democrats and the jury had been rushed through and the implication being that this is not a fair jury.”

Blanche reasoned that the comment — a few seconds from a 21-minute interview — was said as a passing reference to “the overall proceedings being unfair and political” and wasn’t directed at any specific jurors.

The gag order prevents Trump from making public statements about potential witnesses in the trial, which includes his former fixer.

Blanche argued that shouldn’t be the case. He cited examples of social media posts from Cohen critical of Trump, including one that appeared to include a fabricated image of Trump in an orange superhero costume.

He said Cohen’s TikTok and other social media accounts “repeatedly” criticize and mock the former president and the gag order.

“This is not a man that needs protection from the gag order,” Blanche said.

Defending Trump against allegations of violating the gag order, Blanche argued that the saturation of media coverage has made it impossible for Trump to conduct interviews without being bombarded with questions about the trial.

“He can’t just say ‘no comment’ repeatedly. He’s running for president,” the defense attorney said, adding the gag order should be seen in the context of “what’s happening behind us,” a reference to the high volume of journalists in the courthouse. “Every time we whisper to our client, it’s livestreamed over all sorts of social media outlets,” he said.

But Judge Merchan quickly batted down that argument, saying members of the news media are “not defendants in this case, they’re not subject to the gag order, that’s a very significant issue you’re overlooking.”

Merchan noted that he had no authority over the media.

“The former president of the United States is on trial,” the judge continued. “He’s the leading candidate for the Republican party right now. It’s not surprising that we have press here, we have press in the overflow room, we have people throughout the world that are interested.”

Judge Merchan indicated he would not sanction Trump for his comment last week during a visit to a Manhattan construction site where, in response to a question about David Pecker’s testimony, he said the ex-tabloid publisher has “a nice guy.”

“Just to save you time, I’m not terribly concerned about that one,” Merchan told Blanche. The judge, however, did express concern about the three other comments at issue in the hearing.

Attorney Todd Blanche began his defense of his client’s statements by invoking a recent comment by President Joe Biden forecasting “stormy weather” for Trump — an “obvious” reference to Stormy Daniels, according to Blanche.

“President Trump can’t respond to that in the way he wants to because of this gag order,” Blanche said.

Judge Merchan said Trump was not barred from responding to his Democratic rival, but “is not allowed to refer to foreseeable witnesses” in the trial.

Among the alleged gag order violations are comments Trump made in the hallway outside the courtroom, where he has often spoken to reporters at the start and end of each day in court.

In one of those monologues, Trump again attacked his former attorney, Michael Cohen, as a “liar.”

“The defendant is talking about witnesses and the jury in this case, one right here outside this door,” said Conroy, the prosecutor. “This is the most critical time, the time the proceeding has to be protected.”

Conroy urged Judge Merchan to impose a $1,000 fine for each of the four alleged violations.

He said prosecutors weren’t yet seeking to have Trump jailed as punishment because the alleged violations at issue happened prior to Merchan ordering Trump on Tuesday to pay a $9,000 fine for nine previous gag order violations.

“Because we’d prefer to minimize disruption to this proceeding, we are not yet seeking jail, but the court’s decision this past Tuesday will inform the approach we take to future violations,” Conroy told the judge.

Judge Juan M. Merchan has commenced a contempt hearing on prosecutors’ allegations that Trump violated his gag order four more times.

These are in addition to the nine violations Trump was fined for earlier in the week.

The jury isn’t present for this proceeding.

The judge said prosecutors have submitted four exhibits, a video clip of each violation, which won’t be played in court. Trump’s lawyers have submitted nearly 500 pages of evidence in a bid to refute the alleged violations.

In a court filing, Trump’s lawyers argued that the gag order was designed to silence him while his enemies — including witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels — are allowed to repeatedly attack him. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy said in court Thursday that’s not true, arguing that the gag order was imposed as a result of Trump’s “persistent and escalating rhetoric aimed and participants in this proceeding.”

Before heading into the courtroom, Trump spoke to reporters in the hallway, where he griped that the case should have been brought “eight years ago,” which would have been before prosecutors allege a crime was committed.

Karen McDougal sold her story to the National Enquirer in August 2016 and Stormy Daniels made her deal with Michel Cohen in October 2016. Trump didn’t start making reimbursement payments to Cohen, which prosecutors say were mislogged as legal fees, until 2017.

Trump, wearing a gold tie and blue suit, strode into the courtroom trailed by his lawyers and aides including Boris Epshteyn.

Trump’s motorcade has reached the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

The former president got in his motorcade shortly after 8:40 a.m. ET, heading to the courthouse.

The trial is expected to last another month or more, with jurors hearing testimony four days a week. Trump — who has cast the prosecution as an effort to hurt his 2024 campaign — is required to be there, much to his stated dismay.

“They don’t want me on the campaign trail,” he said Tuesday.

The judge said Tuesday that there will be no court on May 17 so Trump can attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.

Court also won’t be in session on Friday, May 24 to accommodate a juror who has a flight that morning, the judge said. That means the trial will be off for four straight days for the Memorial Day weekend, resuming on Tuesday, May 28.

Trump was held in contempt of court Tuesday and fined $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his New York hush money case. If he does it again, the judge warned, he could be jailed.

Prosecutors had alleged 10 violations, but New York Judge Juan M. Merchan found there were nine. Trump stared down at the table in front of him as the judge read the ruling, frowning slightly.

It was a stinging rebuke of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s insistence that he was exercising his free speech rights and a reminder that he’s a criminal defendant subject to the harsh realities of trial procedure. And the judge’s remarkable threat to jail a former president signaled that Trump’s already precarious legal standing could further spiral depending on his behavior during the remainder of the trial.

▶ Catch up on highlights from day 9 of Trump’s hush money trial.

Trump returned briefly to the campaign trail Wednesday and called the judge presiding over his hush money trial “crooked” a day after he was held in contempt of court and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order.

Trump’s remarks at events in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan were being closely watched after he received a $9,000 fine for making public statements about people connected to the criminal case. In imposing the fine for posts on Trump’s Truth Social account and campaign website, Judge Juan M. Merchan said that if Trump continued to violate his orders, he would “impose an incarceratory punishment.”

“There is no crime. I have a crooked judge. He’s a totally conflicted judge,” Trump said speaking to supporters at an event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, claiming again that this and other cases against him are led by the White House to undermine his campaign.

Returning to the stand Thursday will be Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal in their negotiations with the National Enquirer and Michael Cohen.

He testified that he arranged a meeting at his Los Angeles office during the summer of 2016 to see whether the tabloid’s parent company American Media, Inc. was interested in McDougal’s story. At first, they demurred, saying she “lacked documentary evidence of the interaction,” Davidson testified.

But the tabloid at Pecker’s behest eventually bought the rights, and Davidson testified that he understood — and McDougal preferred — it would never be published.

One reason for that, he said, is that there was an “unspoken affiliation” between Pecker and Trump and a desire by the company that owned the Enquirer to not publish stories that would hurt Trump.

The trial, now in its second week of testimony, has exposed the underbelly of tabloid journalism practices and the protections, for a price, afforded to Trump during his successful run for president in 2016.

The case concerns hush money paid to squelch embarrassing stories, including from a porn actor and a former Playboy model, and reimbursements by Trump that prosecutors say were intentionally fraudulent and designed to conceal the true purpose of the payments and to interfere in the election.

The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified last week that he offered to be the “eyes and ears” of the Trump campaign and described in detail his role in purchasing a sordid tale from a New York City doorman that was later determined to not be true as well as accusations of an extramarital affair with former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

The goal was to prevent the stories from getting out, a concern that was especially pointed in the aftermath of the disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which he was heard describing grabbing women without their permission.

A separate $130,000 payment was made by Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, to porn actor Stormy Daniels, to prevent her claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump from surfacing.

Trump’s company then reimbursed Cohen and logged the payments to him as legal expenses, prosecutors have said in charging the former president with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison.

Donald Trump faces the prospect of additional sanctions in his hush money trial as he returns to court Thursday for another contempt hearing followed by testimony from a lawyer who represented two women who have said they had sexual encounters with the former president.

The testimony from attorney Keith Davidson is seen as a vital building block for the prosecution’s case that Trump and his allies schemed to bury unflattering stories in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. He is one of multiple key players expected to be called to the stand in advance of prosecutors’ star witness, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer.

Prosecutors are seeking $1,000 fines for each of four comments by Trump that they say violated a judge’s gag order barring him from attacking witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case. Such a penalty would be on top of a $9,000 fine that Judge Juan M. Merchan imposed on Tuesday related to nine separate gag order violations that he found.