All the wrong reasons basing Perspective Jurors who could make him convicted felon and dozens dismissed almost immediately. In fact, not a single juror was picked today. Will take you inside the Hush Money Trial or source tonight. Maggie haberman had a birdseye view of trump, the lawyers, the jurors and the judge. Im kaitlan collins. And this is the source imagine showing up for jury duty and finding out that you might have a Front Row Seat for the next several months to be the first criminal trial of a former president. And that you could be one of the people who will decide if donald trump should be a convicted felon . And potentially shape his political fate. And while youre being questioned, there is the guy sitting right there who stock and trade has often been intimidation throughout his career. Well, that was what greeted 96 menn he tonights on a beautiful spring day. Youre in new york today. Its a bit chilly or though in the courtroom at one point, every available seat in that Courtroom Gallery and the jury box was filled. But at about the time it takes to say, hush money, at least 50 Perspective Jurors were told that they could leave. They had raised their hand and said they could not be fair and impartial in this trial. Judging from todays proceedings, it could take a while to find the 12th who believed that they can. And if you alternate as her trump, are cnn team and sayyed, the courtroom tells us that he was actually biting his lip during todays proceedings, not just literally and figuratively as well, only uttering three words out loud inside that courtroom. Outside court. However, it was a very different story theres graduated from high school, looks like the judge will not worked very hard next thursday before the United States reported hearing on immunity this is something weve been waiting for a long time. And the judge, of course, is not going to allow us to think she is superior. I guess that leads to three. And were got a real problem this, judge i should know the judge that trump is referring to their judge, juan merchan has not actually ruled yet on his request to be excused from the court for his sons graduation, which is next month he did tell trump though, that he will be required to be in Court Next Week on thursday when those Immunity Arguments are going to be happy happening at the Supreme Court while acknowledging that this Supreme Court is a big deal and it certainly is significant that those arguments will be taking place next week. The judge reminded trumps team that the former president is a criminal defendant here in new york and his presence in that courtroom, as it was today, is required. My source tonight was inside that courtroom and is reported on trump for decades and wrote the Biography Of Pimp confidence man, senior Political Correspondent for the New York Times and cnn political analyst Maggie Haberman is here. Im maggie. I mean just what a fascinating place to be reporting from today. What was it like inside the courtroom . Look we were all i think very conscious that we are recovering history. This was the first trial, first criminal trial of a former us president. This was the beginning of Jury Selection. I didnt get very far in. There were a bunch of motions in the morning but it was really striking Watching Trump in this cavernous courtroom, a very, very dingy courtroom. I might add not at all, like the federal courthouses that he has become accustomed to. And some of his indictments and some of his civil cases, the courtroom and 100 Centre Street is really dirty and its really evocative of the new york that he grew up in. Frankly, and its pretty familiar with, but he is sitting there surrounded when did by initially 96 Perspective Jurors. And it has a minimizing effect on a guy who projects largeness and strength as often as he can. And so that was striking. He was actually on fairly Good Behavior compared to what we have seen in other cases and how he acted certainly in his civil cases, he has been warned by his lawyers that he could get himself in a lot of trouble, not just with the judge, but with jurors. I dont think jurors and the carroll k is liked it when he stormed out during closing arguments, we will see if hes sticks to that, but it was a remarkable i mean, youve covered him for so long and to see him in that setting, you know, youve covered him what hes in the oval office. Youve covered him on the Campaign Trail to see you the courthouse. What was he doing when those 96 potential jurors came in the room . Was he looking around at them as a great question. I mean, he was he was craning his neck to see them in some cases, he seemed to be trying to make eye contact, which is something that he did in the carroll case. He kept of Scanning Jurors faces and try to look at them. Youre trying to connect. Yeah. And in this case when they were first the question was, do you think you cant be fair in this case . Im paraphrasing and it wasnt a giant show of hands. It was row by row, but it was more than 50 people who ultimately ended up leaving of this pool of 96 and trump had the Juror Questionnaire in front of him as the others were then being questioned, he did look around the room as people were raising their hands and listing their jury number. They dont give their names. And then saying that they were leaving he seemed weary of it by the end of it, frankly, i mean, he seemed bored and fidgety as we have seen them, any number of times you often cant sit still but i think this is going to be one of the most interesting Jury Selection processes weve seen in a long time. Was he reading along the questionnaire . It was because the way it would work is the jurors who were asked questions are asked to answer the questionnaire, were seated in the jury box and then they would just go down with the answers without saying what the question was in the interest of time because this is such an expansive Juror Questionnaire. So unless you you had it in front of you, you didnt really know what theyre responding to until many of them said with their news reading habits, were and he was reading along to see what they were talking about theres a pool in there, so theres someone sending basically dispatches to us as were sitting outside. And thats what thats what i was part of was the pool. And you were you were actually in the room for that one point, the pool said that he was glare hurrying you for several seconds. You had reported shortly before that during a break that he appeared to be falling asleep at one point. Is that proceedings were getting tedious. Did you notice yes. I noticed that he made a pretty specific stare at me and walked out of the room, been on the Receiving End of upset glare and you have i have to i reported earlier that he had appeared to fall asleep. Now we had seen him and i want to be clear that lots of ive seen lots of people fall asleep in courtrooms. Ive seen jurors fall asleep. Ive seen judges fall asleep. If if anyone falls asleep was a criminal defendant in a case, were going to report on it. But he doesnt like when such things are reported and im im guessing. I dont know that thats what this was about i think that having to sit there and be captive while we all report on him is going to be deeply uncomfortable for him because he is somebody who likes to control things you always thinking about that today. Hes always also in control of his own time before the white house. But certainly when youre the president of the United States, you control basically what you want to go, what you wanna do i wonder what you think its going to be like for him to be under such time constraints of having to be in the courtroom during those Supreme CourtImmunity Arguments next week during other opportunities and things that he wants to be doing. Its going to be frustrating for him, i think on two fronts, three fronts, number one, as you said, hes not going to be able to go campaign the way he wants to campaign. Hes not going to be able. Now, he has found some political benefit in these court cases, but we might be seeing the max out effect of what that looks like depending on what happens in the trial. If he gets a hung jury in this trial, then i can look very different in terms of how it plays politically, but for arguments sake, his folks are preparing for a possible conviction. Number two he as i said before, it gets bored easily, he fidgets a lot. He has to sit there. He cant be on his phone. He cant look at truth social. He cant do the normal things that he does. So that i think is going to be taxing for him. And then theres this thing where his words are essentially weapons against him. So the thing i was really struck by in the morning was he had the sit there and theyre all these motions in the morning that were dealt with before we got to the beginning of Jury Selection. And in several of them, prosecutors were reading his old tweets from when he was president and there were a series of tweets about Michael Cohen from April Of 2018 and it was Michael Cohen will never flip and then they used it to compare tweets later after Michael Cohen was cooperating with prosecutors and he said something, the tweet was essentially if youre looking for a skilled lawyer, dont hire them at higher Michael Cohen, those are the only time i saw trump really laugh, by the way, it was at his own words, but he also had to sit there as they read the transcript of the Access Hollywood tape, not all of it, but much of it thats what a lot of this trial is going to be. You know what i noticed speaking of that is wanting to trumps not there this case for all we talk, we will talk about the legal theories with trumps attorney, whos coming on in a moment, but personally for him, it also has an impact because its certainly did when the story was coming out. And we were learning all the details of this. Theres no question and hes been saying to people privately referencing his wife in connection with this trial about it this is im paraphrasing, but that its not pleasant she was very unhappy when they were in the white house. She made hey, that very clear through a number of people i dont expect that you will see her at this trial. I havent seen her at any of these cases, but i do think that the personal effect of this that youre talking about is really the biggest one for him. Its a Question Mark as to whether even if hes convicted, he would get jail time as a firsttime nonviolent offender but he hates this case. Im just wants it to go away. Now, you ever minster ground. We also have a pair of excellent legal sources who are joining us at the table tonight. Were not as tibial as a Jury Consultant who has been through this process with some highprofile defendants from gangsters to politicians, even harvey weinstein. We also have Karen Friedman agnifilo, who is a cnn legal analyst and former Chief Assistant Da under then Manhattan District Attorney cy vance. I should note, karen is of council for a firm that represents Michael Cohen, but she has no contact with him, does not work on his case. And there are no restrictions on what she can say about this case, no gag order in effect. I should say well talk about what that looks like. But on the Jury Selection and maggie talking about how all those jurors raising their hands saying, i cant be impartial or fairness. What we do know about who is still in the mix is their jobs, a salesman, anan attorney, a bookseller, a prosecutor from the bronx a woman who works in social media, a nurse, what does that say to you about where we are at and how theyre going to be going through this process. I think as maggie pointed out, a criminal trial is the great equalizer, right . I spent my entire career in that very building. Ive tried many cases. There have appeared toward judge martian. And this Jury Selection is just as ordinary as any other Jury Selection. It takes a lot of time. People saw select to get off the jury for all host of reasons i used to do sex crimes cases. Youd get more than 50 of the people saying for one reason or another they couldnt sit on his sex crimes case its just thats why the clerk, Milton Tingling has been the clerk forever. New to bring in 500 people to get 18 jurors because they just its to be expected that there are people who cant sit for two months, they cant they have Childcare Issues or job issues. So theres lots of reasons why somebody wont serve irvin. So now, if you call down to a few, weve now got a box of people who will be questioned to starting tomorrow. And it things start out slowly, like they did today, where you have to do a lot of housekeeping ministerial type things, like although they did a lot of Motion Practice ahead of time to try to not. Have too much of a delay. There were some things they had to take care of today. And again, that always happens in the beginning of a trial, but youll see things start to pick up. Well, one question that there have, they do have to try to suss out. Where these juror stand is. Where did they get their news . What what are they . Its what maggie was just talking about, what they were asked. And what we were hearing from some of them. One New York Times daily mail, fox news, another, the New York Times cnn, we saw some saying, you know, instagram, the Wall Street Journal i mean, how has an attorney the defense team, and the prosecution looking at those answers well, youre trying to figure out their political ideology, right . Thats the Name Of The Game this Jury Selection. So conventional wisdom is, if youre a msnbc, youre leaning more liberal. If youre a fan of Foster Leaning more conservative. So thats the purpose of those questions. But look, the reality is people watch a lot of different news sources and they might not watch just one new source. So it tells you something, but it doesnt tell you everything what we saw trumps saying there at the end about the schedule here of what this is going to look like. He was complaining that he may not be able to attend to sons graduation next month, the judge said, well, to see what the schedule looks like, one thing was clear todays the judge does want to keep this on track. I think the judge will allow things like that. Thats very routine and very normal. I think the judge i got the impression that judge just didnt want to rule on that today. Lets just see how that goes and but but hes letting people not sit for passover. Hes already making accommodations and those are the normal type of accommodations that this particular judge, hes a very fair down the middle kind of judge. Hes not known in the courtroom or the courthouse of being either pro prosecution or pro defense. Hes very much a judge who just who tries to be fair and just call balls and strikes. What did you make of the arguments over what the schedule is going to look like, how this is going. I mean, its going to take a while for us to just get the jury in and of itself. Yeah. Sure. We saw its going very slowly right now. I mean, they didnt even get one juror, but in terms of Making Requests for the defendant not to be there for certain days. Thats not going to happen. They might adjourn the trial for a day to accommodate various schedules, but a criminal defendant has to be there and hes not im going to just let donald trump not show up one day now. Itll be interesting to see if that actually happens. Maybe hes going to be on the Campaign Trail and he doesnt make it back in time itll be interesting to see what happens then well, theyll inches another piece of that too, caitlyn, excuse me one second, but i think there has been some frustration with the judge and you saw it today . Where the Defense Strategy has been to leverage one case against the other. And so granted what todd blanche was saying, the trump wanted to attend was a Supreme Court argument. It was not that was related to another one of the cases. And so the argument in florida has been hes so busy with the manhattan case that the florida case cant go ahead and the argument here was he should be allowed to have this day, even though were so busy and you could see Martians Frustration with that. So i do think that he is likely or its much more reasonable to assume that he will allow trump to go to his sons graduation. But the thing next week is just a different caliber. Okay. But maggie makes a really good point here, which is that they have been arguing with the classified documents case needs we pushed back because were spending so much time and effort with this case. But today theyre arguing. Okay. Well, we cant show up to this on thursday bec