Prosecutors going up against former President Donald Trump’s had a bad start to the week as Michael Cohen, a central figure in the hush money trial who claims to have handled an illegal payment directed by Trump himself.

Cohen appeared “visibly nervous” at the start of Monday’s proceedings, according to Fox News, as he prepared to deliver make-or-break testimony that Trump’s attorneys claim is coming from a “convicted liar.” Cohen previously served prison time for tax charges and lying to Congress.

Deputies to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg began the quizzing with relatively innocuous questions about Cohen’s work history with Trump, who allegedly paid him $525,000 annually toward the end of the 2016 election. Cohen has maintained that he personally paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who testified last week, to silence her from speaking with reporters about a tryst with Trump more than a decade ago. Cohen privately griped that Trump failed to reimburse him for funds, which were categorized by the Trump empire as a legal expense, not a political one to benefit his presidential campaign.

Cohen further stepped on the prosecution’s case when he described the atmosphere of his former workplace. Working for Trump, “was fantastic… working for him of those 10 years was an amazing experience… there were great times, there were less than great times, but for the most part, I enjoyed the responsibilities given to me,” he testified.

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Allies to President Trump, including U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), have railed against Cohen for blaming his legal misfortunes on Trump. Upon his release from prison, Cohen said his crime “in no way negates the actions I took at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump” according to the AP. Nor would the 13 months’ imprisonment and subsequent home confinement “cease my commitment to law enforcement,” he added.

“I will continue to provide information, testimony, documents and my full cooperation on all ongoing investigations to ensure that others are held responsible for their dirty deeds and that no one is ever believed to be above the law,” Cohen said.

The former “fixer” does not have entirely clean hands when it comes to his motivations for testifying. Since the 2020 election, Cohen has written two books about his time with Trump, fashioning himself as a truth teller soothsayer who knew Trump would come back for revenge if he lost the election to President Joe Biden. His critics have also pointed out that Cohen has monetized himself online, providing commentary on the trial while accepting small-dollar gifts from viewers.

President Trump didn’t appear to be sweating his former lawyer’s appearance. Shortly before proceedings began, the Republican stopped outside of the courtroom to bask in new polling showing him leading President Biden in nearly every battleground state.

“The New York Times just came out with a poll that shows us leading everywhere by a lot. This is the cover story. And I think you’ll find it very interesting, but I’m sure you’ve all read it. Leading in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada. Nevada, we are leading actually by 12 points, which is generally a Democrat state,” Trump said.

Brad Parscale, known for his innovative approach in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign victory, is once again making his mark for Trump’s team after a very publicized fall from grace. This time, Parscale has introduced a revolutionary tool — advanced artificial intelligence (AI) — dubbed as a secret weapon for Trump’s 2024 electoral bid.

Brad Parscale, the digital architect of Trump’s 2016 success, is stepping back into the spotlight after a brief retreat from the forefront of politics. With a new initiative, Parscale is harnessing AI’s power to create personalized voter engagement at an unprecedented level.

In a daring blend of artificial intelligence and conservative grit, Parscale’s Campaign Nucleus has emerged as a powerhouse, engineered to craft tailored emails, navigate vast seas of data to pinpoint swing voters, and enhance the reach of “anti-woke” voices online. This comes from an in-depth Associated Press examination of Parscale’s public declarations, along with a trove of previously undisclosed documents from his firm.

“I pretty much used Facebook to get Trump elected in 2016,” Parscale explained back in a 2022 interview.

The Associated Press reported:

Soon, Parscale says, his company will deploy an app that harnesses AI to assist campaigns in collecting absentee ballots in the same way drivers for DoorDash or Grubhub pick up dinners from restaurants and deliver them to customers.

Parscale was a relatively unknown web designer in San Antonio, Texas, when he was hired to build a web presence for Trump’s family business.

That led to a job on the future president’s 2016 campaign. He was one of its first hires and spearheaded an unorthodox digital strategy, teaming up with scandal-plagued Cambridge Analytica to help propel Trump to the White House…

Following Trump’s surprise win, Parscale’s influence grew. He was promoted to manage Trump’s reelection bid and enjoyed celebrity status. A towering figure at 6 feet, 8 inches with a Viking-style beard, Parscale was frequently spotted at campaign rallies taking selfies with Trump supporters and signing autographs.

Following his success in 2016, Parscale was named the campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign but was demoted in July 2020 following a less-than-successful rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and amidst sliding poll numbers. He has been a controversial figure, particularly regarding the strategies and ethics of his digital campaigns.

AI is increasingly influencing political campaigns by transforming how strategies are implemented. One major area of impact is targeted advertising, where AI systems analyze vast amounts of data on voter behavior and preferences. This enables campaigns to create personalized ads tailored to individual voters, leveraging insights from demographics, browsing history, and more. This technology makes it possible to deliver messages that are more likely to resonate with specific individuals, potentially increasing voter engagement and turnout.

Campaign finance records reveal that since last year, Campaign Nucleus and other firms linked to Brad Parscale have been compensated over $2.2 million by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and their associated political action and fundraising committees, according to The Associated Press. In a parallel strategy, the Biden campaign and Democrats are also harnessing artificial intelligence. They say that their primary use of this technology is to pinpoint and energize voters and to more effectively identify and counteract misleading content.

Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, provided testimony on Monday that could potentially dismantle the prosecution’s narrative in the Manhattan District Attorney’s high-profile case against the former president. Cohen’s admission in court suggested that Trump was not overly concerned about the Stormy Daniels story, challenging the foundational claims of the case.

Cohen, once a close confidant and legal counsel to Trump, has been a central figure in the legal saga involving hush money payments allegedly made to silence Daniels, the porn star claiming the encounter with Trump in 2006. The payments so far have been portrayed by the prosecution as a desperate attempt by Trump to prevent damaging information from derailing his 2016 presidential campaign. However, Cohen’s recent testimony paints a different picture, indicating that Trump viewed the allegations as irrelevant to his campaign’s outcome.

Cohen said that Trump didn’t care about the story being embarrassing, suggesting that Trump was confident the story would hold no weight if he won the election. This could critically impact the prosecution’s case, which hinges on proving that Trump actively engaged in a cover-up to influence the election results.

According to Cohen, the former president’s main concern was not the exposure of the affair itself but rather the potential campaign repercussions. He testified that Trump said, “If I win, it won’t have any relevance. If I lose, I don’t really care.”

In 2016, Daniels claimed that she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and alleged that she was paid $130,000 in hush money by Trump’s then-lawyer shortly before the 2016 election to keep the story from going public. The narrative that Trump was deeply concerned about the potential fallout from the Daniels story has been a cornerstone of discussions surrounding the hush money payment. It was believed that Trump wanted to avoid any scandal that could negatively impact his presidential campaign, which led to the arrangement with Cohen.

However, Cohen’s claim that Trump was unconcerned undermines the rationale that the payment was made out of fear of political damage in the 2016 election. If Trump truly didn’t care about the story, it calls into question the motivations behind the hush money and the narrative that it was a desperate attempt to protect his candidacy.

Further complicating the prosecution’s case is the timing of the payments to Cohen, which were made after the election, contradicting the claim that they were intended to manipulate the electoral process. These payments, described by Cohen as compensation for legal fees, now appear more as a post-election aftermath handling rather than a premeditated scheme to sway voters.

Cohen’s credibility is likely to be a major focus as the case progresses. His legal history includes a conviction for lying to Congress among other charges, which Trump’s defense team is expected to leverage to undermine his reliability as a witness. Trump’s lawyers argue that Cohen’s testimony is inconsistent and motivated by personal grievances against Trump.

If the jury perceives these payments as unrelated to the election, it could substantially weaken the case against Trump. Legal analysts suggest that proving electoral influence requires a clear link between the intent of the payments and the election outcome—a link that Cohen’s testimony now calls into question. The prosecution will aim to establish a pattern of behavior that aligns with their charges, while the defense is expected to continue highlighting inconsistencies and questioning motives.

The Biden campaign intends to host a massive Los Angeles fundraiser headlined by former President Obama and a number of Hollywood elites as the president’s poll numbers continue to lag.

The star-studded lineup, which will include the likes of George Clooney and Julia Roberts, represents the campaign’s latest effort to boost the president’s fundraising efforts.

While President Biden has out-raised former President Donald Trump to this point in the race, the Trump campaign has been rapidly closing the gap in recent weeks. Trump has seen a massive boost in donations after formally clinching the Republican nomination, while the RNC has enjoyed continued success after the resignation of Ronna McDaniel.

The Los Angeles event, which is scheduled for mid-June, will feature a contest with Clooney and Roberts run across the campaign’s social media platforms, according to a report for NBC News. The campaign is hoping to energize grassroots donors, as well as celebrities and other surrogates for the campaign.

Both Clooney and Roberts will also lend their names to campaign text messages and emails in hopes of further boosting donations.

The campaign is hoping for a repeat of its swanky New York City fundraiser in late March, which featured former Presidents Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton. That event hauled in $26 million, a figure campaign staffers touted as a record haul for a single event.

As Biden continues to seek donations from high-profile celebrities and rich donors, the campaign continues to lag with small-dollar donations.

According to FEC records, 35 percent of Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign donations have been from big donors, or contributions greater than $2,000. Just 38 percent of the president’s current campaign donations have come from small donors, or contributions valued between $1 and $200.

As for the Trump campaign, 61 percent of campaign funds have come from small donors while just nine percent have come from big donors. Between 2020 and 2024, President Biden’s total donations from big donors have increased by 10 percentage points, while the former president’s numbers have decreased by the same margin.

In yet another case brought conveniently just before the 2024 election, former President Donald Trump may be fined more than $100 million by the Internal Revenue Service due to a government audit that claims he repeatedly claimed losses on a Chicago skyscraper, according to a report from the New York Times and ProPublica.

According to the report, Trump initially reported losses of $658 million in his 2008 tax filings, contending that the property met the IRS’ definition of “worthless” due to sinking commercial and real estate sales due to the 2008 recession. Then, in 2010, the report claims, Trump transferred ownership of the building to a different holding company that was also under his control.

According to the report, Trump is accused of reporting an additional $168 million loss on the building over the next decade.

The report did not include updates on the status of the IRS inquiry since December 2022, though it did note that Trump could owe more than $100 million, including penalties, if he comes up short in the audit process.

The report comes as Trump is currently appealing a ruling from Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron, who initially fined Trump more than $450 million after claiming that he lied about his wealth on financial statements. According to the ruling, Trump “defrauded” banks by avoiding hundreds of millions in taxes even though the banks themselves testified that Trump paid back the loans in full.

The fine was eventually lowered to $175 million by an appeals court, which Trump posted earlier this year. He is currently appealing the $175 million fine as well.

In addition to the Manhattan case, author E. Jean Carroll was awarded $83.3 million after a New York jury found Trump liable for “defaming” her. Carroll had previously brought a sexual assault case against the former president under the “Adult Survivors Act,” a bill supported by all New York Democrats that gave alleged victims of sexual assault a one-year window to file claims, even if the statute of limitations had long expired.

The civil trial has long generated controversy as Caroll has failed to provide any evidence of her claim that she was sexually assaulted by former President Trump in a department store more than 30 years ago. While Trump has never been charged with or found guilty of a crime relating to the matter, a judge ruled that he can be sued for the alleged act.

The jury was not allowed to hear numerous pieces of evidence cited by the Trump campaign, including an interview with Anderson Cooper in which Carroll claimed sexual assault is “sexy.” Her story almost identically matches an episode of Law And Order and once posted a hypothetical about having sex with Trump for money.

Despite the dubious nature of the case, a jury awarded Carroll with $83.3 million in damages.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the criminal conviction of Steve Bannon on Friday, upholding the 2022 verdict that found the former Trump strategist guilty of contempt of Congress. After a legal battle spanning several years, the decision could soon see Bannon, now 70, incarcerated. He was convicted in 2022 for refusing to provide testimony and documents to the House committee investigating the January 6 breach on the Capitol.

Despite the ruling, Bannon has seven days to petition for a rehearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. For now, the court has not ordered the immediate enforcement of his four-month prison sentence, which included a $6,500 fine.

Circuit Judge Brad Garcia, the court’s newest member, penned the unanimous decision, stating that Bannon “deliberately refused to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena in that he knew what the subpoena required and intentionally did not respond,” giving “no persuasive argument” for defying it. “Bannon failed to comply with the subpoena, and his failure to comply was willful,” wrote Garcia.

In the 20-page opinion, Garcia further elaborated that Bannon could not claim an “advice of counsel” defense, which he had argued should excuse his actions because he was following his attorney’s guidance. Garcia noted, “Our decision in Licavoli directly rejects Bannon’s challenge,” reiterating that deliberate non-compliance constitutes willfulness under the law.

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“In this appeal, Bannon does not dispute that he deliberately refused to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena in that he knew what the subpoena required and intentionally did not respond; his nonresponse, in other words, was no accident,” the court document wrote. “Instead, Bannon challenges the contempt of Congress charges on the ground that he reasonably believed—based on advice of counsel—that he did not have to respond.”

The appeals court also dismissed several other arguments presented by Bannon’s legal team, including claims that the committee subpoena was procedurally flawed due to its composition and that Bannon was following directives from former President Trump’s legal team.

“Trump did not communicate an intent to invoke executive privilege to the Committee, and Bannon never raised executive privilege as an affirmative defense to the contempt charges in district court.”

The committee, tasked with investigating the January 6 breach, sought documents and testimony from Bannon due to his prediction on a January 5 podcast that “all hell is going to break loose” on the day of the breach. Additionally, Bannon had been engaged in discussions regarding efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, 74, began his prison term in March after the Supreme Court denied his appeal. He had claimed executive privilege as his defense when ignoring subpoenas from the House select committee, guided by advice from Robert Costello, former attorney for Steve Bannon. Despite his argument, federal prosecutors insisted that executive privilege didn’t extend to Bannon’s actions as a private citizen.

The defense contended that Bannon believed his actions were lawful because of a supposed assertion of executive privilege by Trump. However, no such privilege was directly communicated to the committee, and Trump’s attorney had clarified that such protection did not apply. Bannon remains out on bond while weighing his next steps. Should he fail to overturn the ruling, he will soon face prison time for his refusal to cooperate with the committee.

Michael Cohen, the former attorney and “fixer” for former President Donald Trump, is expected to take the stand for several days starting Monday as part of the ongoing investigation involving Trump’s business dealings. However, Cohen’s credibility was put under scrutiny by CNN legal analyst Elie Honig on Friday, who pointed out the ex-lawyer’s history of dishonesty.

“I’ve never seen a witness who’s lied to Congress, who’s lied in court, who’s lied to the IRS, who’s lied to the Southern District of New York, who lied to his banker,” Honig explained. “The entire prosecution witness team has been lied to by Michael Cohen.”

Cohen’s testimony follows that of Trump’s former White House executive assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, who continued her own statements yesterday, along with a Trump Organization employee. Both provided insight into Trump’s involvement in business matters. Adult film actress Stormy Daniels also recently testified, facing cross-examination from Trump’s legal team, who tried to cast doubt on her allegations by pointing to inconsistencies in past interviews.

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Cohen worked closely with Trump for over a decade, serving as a key legal and business advisor. However, Cohen’s relationship with Trump soured, leading to his involvement in several investigations scrutinizing Trump’s business practices. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to charges related to campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and lying to Congress, which were connected to his work for Trump and his efforts to conceal payments to individuals like Stormy Daniels. Cohen cooperated with federal prosecutors and testified against Trump during various investigations. Cohen has since become a vocal critic of the former president and wrote a book about his experiences.

Trump is confronting 34 charges of falsifying business records to cover up reimbursing his former attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels. Trump has consistently denied both the charges and the alleged affair. Speaking to reporters after the third week of the trial concluded on Friday, Trump said he would “be very proud to go to jail for our Constitution,” while criticizing those involved in the prosecution.

“If anything’s mentioned against certain people, and you know who they are, certain people, anything’s even mentioned, he wants to put me in jail,” Trump said as he showcased media articles related to the trial. “That could happen one day and I’d be very proud to go to jail for our Constitution.”

He specifically criticized Judge Juan Merchan, claiming, “What he’s doing is so unconstitutional. There’s never been anything like it.” Trump was also critical of Merchan’s direction for prosecutors to instruct Michael Cohen not to make statements about Trump or the case, while declining to issue a gag order on Cohen, which the defense had previously requested.

“There is no gag order to Michael Cohen. What the judge did was amazing. Actually, it was amazing. Everybody can say … whatever they want, but I’m not allowed to say anything about anybody. It’s a disgrace,” Trump stated. “And you see it, the media sees it, and it’s really very sad. If you look at the legal experts and the legal scholars, every one of them say this trial is a scam.”

Analysts at MSNBC nearly pulled out a box of tissues as they struggled to wrap their heads around new polling showing Americans are more distrustful of President Joe Biden on a key issue.

Biden rode into office promising a return to “normalcy,” competence, and a promise to “defend democracy.” None of those are going over well with independent voters, a reality that MSNBC analysts struggled to let sink in while discussing the latest poll results showing more Americans trust former President Donald Trump to safeguard America’s republic.

Among independents, 53% said they were more worried that a second Biden term would “weaken democracy,” according to the host, while just 42% said the same about Trump. Asked what they make of the results, guests were flabbergasted.

“I find it shocking, honestly. I can’t, you know, make sense of that number,” said political contributor Susan Del Percio. “I wish I could. I wish I had some really great insight to it. But I don’t know if it’s an outlier or not because the other numbers with independents and Biden are going in the right direction.” She theorized that restricted camera access in Trump’s first criminal trial may be helping him.

“If there aren’t those images coming out of the courthouse, people feel like they know this story. We’ve heard about it for a long time, so it doesn’t surprise me that they’re not into this thing,” she added.

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Even if television crews were let into the former president’s hush money trial, they would likely see him winning most days in court. Already, the president has successfully petitioned to attend the high school graduation for his son Barron, and family members like Eric Trump have accompanied his father to court on other days. Additionally, key witnesses for the prosecution including Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels have floundered on the witness stand.

April polling backs up those results. According to RealClearPolling, the former president and Republican frontrunner is carrying a healthy lead over his two rivals in national polls, averaging a 5.3% advantage across 21 surveys taken since the start of October last year. Those results peg President Trump at 41% average support among the electorate while President Biden earns 35.7% and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a Democrat-turned-independent, collects 11.7% of respondents. President Biden has not reported a lead in a single national poll this year.

The longer voters go without giving President Biden high marks for much of anything, the harder it becomes on his former staffers and cheerleaders and MSNBC to spin the news favorably. In November, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough warned that Trump would “execute” political rivals if he wins the election and later mocked Trump for deferring to states on the issue of abortion. One guest, a non-voting Democratic member of Congress, had a horrible slip of the tongue on the network last year when she said Trump should be “shot” before immediately correcting herself.

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump presented compelling evidence to a Manhattan jury on Thursday, suggesting that Stormy Daniels’ attorney Keith Davidson engaged in potential extortion. In a recorded phone call from April 2018 between Davidson and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, Davidson is heard claiming that Daniels berated him and pressured Cohen for money, indicating a desire for it “more than anything.”

The recording, rife with explicit language, featured Davidson saying that Daniels was furious with him, allegedly calling him a “p—y” and urging Cohen to resolve her claims promptly. “She wanted this money more than you can ever imagine,” Davidson told Cohen in the call as reported by The New York Post. “I remember hearing her on the phone saying, ‘You f–king Keith Davidson. You better settle this goddamn story.’” Davidson added that Daniels was fearful that if Trump lost the election, “we lose all f–king leverage” and “this case is worth zero.”

Daniels, however, firmly denied berating Davidson. “No, I did not, actually; I never yelled at Keith Davidson,” she testified in court, adding, “It sounds like a threat from Keith Davidson.”

The phone call and ensuing testimony form part of a larger narrative being crafted by Trump’s legal team, which aims to cast doubt on the credibility of Daniels’ account of her relationship with the former president. Daniels herself is at the heart of the trial against Trump, offering what she characterized as a consensual yet uncomfortable account of her alleged encounter with him.

In her testimony, Daniels recounted the details of her secret rendezvous with Trump, which she claimed occurred after the then-real estate mogul allegedly wooed her into his hotel suite. She testified that Trump coaxed her into having sex by suggesting it would help her “get out of the trailer park.” Daniels stated that she felt “blacked out,” although she was neither drunk nor drugged. “My hands were shaking so hard,” she testified.

Despite the sensitive nature of her allegations, Judge Juan Merchan imposed strict limits to prevent the trial from devolving into an inquiry into Trump’s personal behavior. More than 50 objections were sustained during Daniels’ testimony as Judge Merchan sought to keep the focus on the alleged 2016 campaign finance conspiracy and not delve into Trump’s history of alleged misconduct. Daniels has always denied being a victim of any criminal behavior, describing her encounter with Trump as consensual.

Nonetheless, Daniels’ story prompted Trump’s legal team to point to the prejudicial nature of her testimony, suggesting that it could unfairly bias the jury against their client. They invoked the recent Harvey Weinstein case as an example of the pitfalls of introducing salacious evidence to sway a jury. Trump’s attorneys have already moved for a mistrial and are preparing for an appeal if necessary.

Davidson’s recorded remarks, combined with Daniels’ testimony, suggest that she may have been more interested in leveraging her story for financial gain rather than seeking justice. Trump’s attorneys have vowed to continue fighting what they perceive as a politically motivated case aimed at discrediting the former president. As the trial continues, Judge Merchan explicitly barred prosecutors from introducing evidence of Trump’s other alleged misdeeds.

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team grilled adult film star Stormy Daniels on Thursday in a tense cross-examination that showcased attorney Susan Necheles’s diligent preparation. Despite the defense’s objections to Daniels’ earlier testimony, Judge Juan Merchan denied their request for a trial delay and permitted Daniels to continue her statements.

Daniels stands as a central witness for the prosecution, supporting the claims that could eventually lead to testimony from Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen. Necheles seized the opportunity to find inconsistencies in Daniels’ previous accounts, particularly during an interview with a gossip magazine in 2011. She highlighted a discrepancy in Daniels’ portrayal of an alleged dinner in Trump’s penthouse that year.

George Grasso, a former Queens County Supreme Court judge, analyzed the cross-examination and praised Necheles’ strategic approach. “Well, what stood out to me is that Donald Trump’s defense attorney cross-examining Stormy Daniels, Susan Necheles, really did her homework,” Grasso said in an interview with CNN. “She did exactly what a good defense attorney is supposed to do. She looked at prior statements, she searched for inconsistencies, and she had some.”

One inconsistency in particular revolved around Daniels’ account of whether dinner took place during her alleged encounter with Trump. According to Grasso, “She testified very clearly Tuesday, on direct examination, that there was no dinner, there were hours of conversation and no dinner. So you know a defense attorney’s job is to try and expose inconsistencies like that to get the juries to start to think or possibly doubt.”

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Necheles sought to leverage this discrepancy in order to challenge Daniels’ credibility. By contrasting her trial testimony with prior statements, the defense aimed to raise doubts about her reliability. Grasso explained, “If you can’t trust her on that kind of a detail, what about the other details?”

The Trump lawyer aimed to highlight discrepancies by asking how Trump’s supposed hotel room propositions left her feeling faint and made her hands go numb, as she’d testified earlier. Daniels responded that encountering an older man lying on a bed in his boxers, when unexpected and not a husband, is startling. Necheles referred to Daniels’ book, where the adult film actress had claimed she was assertive enough to “make [Trump] my b*tch.”

She also pointed out that Daniels didn’t refuse sex with Trump, which Daniels confirmed, adding that this wasn’t the first time someone had made a pass at her. However, she noted it was the first time a bodyguard was stationed outside.

“You told In Touch a completely different story,” Necheles said according to Fox News. Daniels disagreed, stating, “No,” and that “there were parts in the middle I didn’t remember.” The adult film star defended herself by saying she wasn’t trying to profit in 2011 and that the In Touch article was a condensed version that “left out a lot because they couldn’t fact-check it.”

“You made it up,” Necheles pressed.

“No,” Daniels claimed.

In the coming days, attention will pivot to Michael Cohen’s testimony. Once Trump’s trusted attorney, Cohen’s statements could prove pivotal in shaping the jury’s perception of the case. Whether Necheles and Trump’s legal team can replicate their cross-examination success remains to be seen, as the defense continues to press its case that Daniels’ testimony should not be taken at face value.