Everything by a lot. Some Construction Workers earlier today, john, we could see the former president walking back into the courtroom shortly. We will have that for our viewers welcome to our two of America ReportsAmerica Reports im sandra smith. John im john roberts and with dana perino earlier today someone must have been listening because i think it was little more than a week ago she said trump is stuck in new york which does not mean he needs to be off the campaign trail. There are plenty of things he could do just go around the city and see people and say hi. Sandra out he went. John suddenly out he went. Prosecutors have shifted testimony with david pecker to Stormy Daniels the adult film actress who claims she was paid off keeping quiet on her alleged affair with President Trump. Soon trump esteem will get to crossexamine pecker from all the angles. Standing by with analysis but nate foy is live outside the new york state Supreme Court. Nate what has come of the testimony supported a question . Court resumes at 2 15 p. M. But notable leave before lunch he believe the motivation behind suppressing stories from women who claimed they had affairs with the former president was to protect Trumps Campaign rather than his family. He said trump never mentioned his family in conversations about those stories. Pecker also said with reimbursing Michael Cohen for paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels trump told him he had no idea what pecker was talking about. Pecker spoke again about buying the rights to former playboy model but he said because he and cohen had concerns it would hurt Trumps Campaign. He notably he said they did not come from trump himself. Pecker testified he eventually backed out of a Reimbursement Deal for the medieval story w with cohen because of legal concerns. He said he spoke after another publication about her story, Pecker Said Trump was so upset saying how could this happen as i had this under control and Pecker Said Trump was agitated and the call ended abruptly p report to michael regarding the gag order there were examples were they argued trump violated that order including comments made about his former lawyer Michael Cohen on monday as well as comments about the current witness pecker calling him a very nice guy. We are awaiting from John Marchant whether or not trump will be held in contempt of court. He is required to be here today after judge mershon denied his request about president ial community. Trump said he thinks mershon puts himself above the Supreme Court which he calls unfortunate. One more note from peckers testimony before lunch he explained a meeting with former President Donald Trump a trump tower after trump won the 2016 election where he says trump thanked him for Suppressing The Mcdougall Story as well as the story that was later proven to be false by the trump tower doorman. Sending it back to you, john. John thank you, sandra . Sandra joining us now Fox News Contributor and carrier bond fox news legal editor, carrie, a lot of what we have been anticipating is the coming and going a former president and then out of the courtroom because he stops in front of the microphone. Perhaps we will hear him as he enters the courtroom what will happen before we dive in here . The defense will have an opportunity to crossexamine david pecker and i want to touch on something he was reporting on. David testified saying before trump ran for office if pecker went to him with a possible negative story that was going to come out about him because remember it was in peckers best interest to repress these as well since the National Inquirer readers liked good stories about donald trump which would sell the magazine so we have to render beneficial aspect so before he would go to trump and say there are some potentially negative stories and then donald trump would potentially say he had concerns about how it would affect potentially at malanga or yvonne could then pecker testified after donald trump said he was running for office it was only about his concerns were with respect to the campaign and the election and how would it impact those two things. But again, even if that were true, even if he cared about nothing other than the campaign and it was done for purposes of the campaign, Suppressing Bad Stories is not illegal. So we still come back to the same question again which is what is the crime here . John jonathan i want to go to this other issue floating around out there which is whether or not to trump violated the gag order. This morning very early in new york city meeting with Construction Workers this is what he said. They have taken my constitutional right away with a gag order, thats all it is. It is election interference. This whole thing is election interference. So the polls have just come out and i just got another sample. We are leading every swing state by a lot and we are leading the nation by a lot. John one of the big arguments that he had same Uncle Don MikeMichael Cohen was on his Podcast Blaring from the rooftops everything about trump in this case. That trump could not say a thing. Here is what Michael Cohen posted on x yesterday. He said despite not being the gag defendant out of respect for judge juan mershon and the prospers i will cease posting about donald trump on the podcast until the trial is ended. See you in a month or more where does the that leave us with the gag order . Its a little belated because cohen has been on the air on the podcast on social media attacking the former president. Not just about the trial and the testimony and the charges, but also about the campaign. And i think the judge made a mistake. His order was too broad. It should not have included Michael Cohen who has been allowed to use this as a shield while attacking trump. We will have to see. I suspect the judge will find him in contempt. The reference recently to pecker will be cited even though its a favorable reference in that respect. The weird thing is one of those violations when trump referenced one of my columns. But you no, Michael Cohen responded the same. You have Michael Cohen one talking about the same columns, same points that trump cannot. In the president ial campaign, theres no reason Michael Cohen should have been part of the protection in my view. Sandra waiting on the gag order with the punch could be put at what are your expectations on that front . I think the judge will find him in violation of the gag order and will find him. He could in theory send him to jail but i dont think he will for a number of reasons mainly it would be political suicide. Clearly this judge cares a lot about politics given his donations to joe biden and the stop Republicans Group in the past and everything about this hasnt screamed political but he knows it would make a martyr out of donald trump so i would be shocked if he went there and have the effect of tearing the country apart so i would be surprised if he went forward with that but i will expect him in some capacity. John lets not forget if donald trump goes to jail his entire secret Service Detail goes to jail with him so im not sure the judge wants to send all those folks to jail. Jonathan, i know you are a constitutional law professor, youve argued before the Supreme Court but lets take a done of the trial court level. If you were to crossexamine david pecker what would you do . The state so far has said about the date about killing these stories to suppress bad things about trump because i thought it might affect the campaign. What do you do if you come out on cross . I dont think you dont have to deny under these facts, there is no crimes here. Some of what he said help to. Im a criminal defense attorney. If you want to hit a witness you dont want to hit every witness aggressively. Pecker has some stuff here that seems to help trump. At one point he suggested that trump did not have any knowledge of the arrangement to reimburse cohen. And various other points he suggested that this was all very fluid. That cohen was making these deals. There is uncertainty as to who would hold the rights, who would get payment and when. All of it seems to come down to Michael Cohen. Sort of doing this on the fly. I also believe the jury will have this weird moment where you have Michael Cohen saying i think you should put my former client in jail for following my advice. I mean, he was the architect of these payments. He was the person driving this. Pecker said he got angry with him when he did not do what Michael Cohen told him to do. That puts a lot of emphasis on cohen and not trump. Sandra as you said all that we are sitting here on the set saying what are these moments . I mean, think about exactly what Jonathan Turley just said could be the case, carrie. I thought it was also interesting that david packer testified that donald trump would not pay for stories normally because he would say what is the point . It gets out anyway. So, my question is then when did that start and the reason i ask that is because is it possible that Michael Cohen was making representations on behalf of donald trump that donald trump had not himself endorsed . Michael s job was to fix trouble though my problems for donald trump and maybe he took it into his own handset i would pay off this person and this person and worry about having us out to mike afterwards, we really dont know. John if i may add a personal note here i dealt with Michael Cohen a lot between 2012 and 2017 and even after that. And he was, whats a good way . He was very forceful in defending donald trump. So, you have to wonder. He will rip your head off. If you suggested something was amiss lets put it that way. So this idea here, was he as trumps fixer handling all of these things without signoff from his boss, maybe that is something the defense could potentially talk about here on the crossexamination. And if he is now, jonathan, made out to be a liar who has gone to jail for lying, how much credibility might he hold with the jury . I dont think there is a cento of credibility left in his entire body. You just had a judge recently denounced him as a serial perjurer. That wasnt two years ago or last year, that was a month ago. He has a long history of false statements under oath as well as to congress. You wont rehabilitate that. I think what you will see on the stand is a successive reinvention of Michael Cohen. He is constantly said i am a new man he has said that 20 years. I criticized him in print where he was still representing trump. He used to threaten journalists. He threatened students. He was a legal thug. I have a lot of these columns before he broke with trump. Every juncture Michael Cohen would say i have come to the lord, i am a new man. You know, very few people would believe him. But he has a skill set. He is willing to go to whatever powerful interest there is that could work to his advantage. And there are buyers for that. The buyer is brad. He is just going to put them on the stand. But i think the crossexamination will turn into dawning of the human torch. If i was a criminal defense attorney, this guy is just entirely combustible. Sandra stay tuned for the coming minutes because just a moment ago we saw the former president and his legal team reenter the court after that break. Things are set to resume in 2 minutes. Lets bring in Fox News Contributor form u. S. Can tourney andy mccarthy, jump on end of conversation. To jonathans point, luca bronte had a skill set too. I dont know that it was i dont know it was that much different. I think it is important to recognize that this case began in my old office. This case actually, the Michael Cohen case when they were looking at trump or Campaign Violations, this started when federal prosecutors in the Southern District of new york. They opted not to bring a Campaign Finance case against trump. A decision that was not revisited when the Biden Administration took over the Justice Department precisely because they knew that the case would rise or fall on Michael Cohen. For all the reasons jonathan just marshaled, he is a catastrophe in terms of being a credible witness. I had an important terrorism case decades ago more than i would care to say, where i had an important witness in the case who had a perjury conviction. And it was important for us to be able to look the jury in the eye if we were going to break the case and say we would never ask you to convict anyone on the basis of the uncorroborated words of somebody with this kind of credibility problem. What we commit to you is that any place where he is going to Say Something important, we will be able to show you a document, a tape, or a couple of other peoples testimony that will give you the confidence to know that is corroborated. Otherwise, if its just him speaking, and there is no other support for it, ignore it. Just throw it out. And i think the problem that brad is going to have and the problem that the Southern District saw which is why they did not bring the case, it is you cant do that in this case with cohen. Many important aspects of what they have indicted here are going to rise and fall on his version of events. If the jury decides they cant trust his version of events thats his case. John we will see if break has the same sense of moral commitment as a prosecutor as you did with his witness. I want to explore something for a second that you talked about, andy, earlier this week. That is this idea that bragg is going after trump for conspiring to cover up his efforts to affect the election. First of all, electing stomach effecting an election is not a crime its campaigning because thats what every candidate does. You pointed out the payments were made to Stormy Daniels in 2016. The payments were made to Karen Mcdougal in 2016. Testifying this morning that michael said he had not been reimbursed for the payment to Stormy Daniels. And those payments to in 135,000 that cohen paid did not start until after trump was president. Earlier in effect bragg is trying to charge trump for seven that artie happened in the past. Without a time machine, how do you do that . The reason it should not happen, john, it is just a Bedrock Matter of constitutional law in this country that you are supposed to be indicted on the charge that the jury is going to consider. That seems it should be straightforward enough but what happened here is brad gets the jury in new york to indict 34 counts that occur in 2017. All of this stuff about pecker and cohen and what they did in 2015 and 2016, none of that is in the indictment. What is in the indictment are 34 charges of falsifying Business Records that happened between february and december of 2017. Coterminous with the Indictment Bragg puts out what he calls it the statement of facts. Its interesting because in most cases the facts dont end the indictment. The grand jury pleads them as one instrument and they are the factual contacts in which the charges come up. Here, brad put out a statement where he shows you the crime is the theft of the 2016 election. That may be what it is in his mind, but that is not what the grand jury charged. What you are being asked to do here is that he stole something in 2016 by something they did or that trump did in 2017, which does not make logical or legal sense. John we will get more notes in the courtroom. Andy, if you could stand by this, court will be back in session momentarily, thank you, andy. Sandra pecker will continue with his testimony as court has now resumed what we were told out of that courtroom a moment ago is the discussion of exhibits is happening again. Jason miller by The Trump Team has just tweeted out the former president will be speaking to the Courthouse Press at the conclusion of court today at approximate 4 30 p. M. Eastern times we will be listening for that and more out of that courtroom when we return. D suga. Uniquely designed with carbsteady. Glucerna. Bring on the day. Hi guys bill, you look great now that i have inspire, im free from struggling with the mask and the hose. Inspire . Inspire is a Sleep Apnea Treatment that works inside my body with a click of this button. Where are you going . Im going to get inspire. Learn more and view Important Safety Information at inspiresleep. Com. Hi, im kevin, and ive lost 152 pounds on golo. I had just left a checkup with my doctor, and id weighed in at 345 poun