0:00:00: There's still photos and courtroom sketches convey about the former president's demeanor

0:00:03: as a defendant.

0:00:04: These historic proceedings are not televised, which is why it's good to be joined now by

0:00:08: New York Times senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman, who not only has spent time

0:00:11: inside the courtroom, but is also a Trump biographer.

0:00:13: So what do you make of the former president's demeanor today?

0:00:17: What was it like?

0:00:18: There were a couple of things that were striking.

0:00:19: He looked very unhappy.

0:00:20: He looked very unhappy on the monitors, where you can see his face.

0:00:23: He looked, and in court, we're well behind him, so we can't see his face when we're in

0:00:26: there.

0:00:27: We have a better view when we're in the overflow room.

0:00:28: So there's an overflow room that has monitors?

0:00:30: And there's monitors in the courtroom too, but it's much easier to see the monitors in

0:00:33: the overflow room.

0:00:34: They're right up at your face.

0:00:35: It's just different.

0:00:37: He looked unhappy when he left for break.

0:00:39: He looked unhappy when he left when court ended for the day.

0:00:42: It was tense in the room when David Pecker was on the stand.

0:00:44: It was tense in the room when Colangelo, the prosecutor, was going through the narrative

0:00:49: of the case and talking about Stormy Daniels and Access Hollywood and Karen McDougal and

0:00:54: all of these things that Trump does not want to hear about.

0:00:57: I said this earlier today when we were covering this, but I just kept imagining what is going

0:01:01: through Trump's mind when he's sitting there at the, you know, at the defense table watching

0:01:05: David Pecker, his former, you know, friend-ish, who knows a lot of secrets about him, going

0:01:12: back a long time on this stand.

0:01:16: It's just, it's fundamentally different than what we have seen with Trump over many years

0:01:20: now, which is a lot of former aides or allies or advisors going on television or writing

0:01:24: books.

0:01:25: This is, this is a courtroom, and this is under oath, and this is David Pecker opening

0:01:29: his testimony.

0:01:30: And we only heard a little bit of testimony.

0:01:31: He's coming back tomorrow.

0:01:33: But him opening, saying, we practiced, and I'm paraphrasing, but we practiced checkbook

0:01:37: journalism.

0:01:38: That is a quote.

0:01:39: At the National Enquirer, we paid for tips about celebrities and so forth.

0:01:44: And Trump knows what that means, and he knows what kind of information that meant that David

0:01:47: Pecker had.

0:01:48: And David Pecker was very poised, and I think that he's going to tell a story that the jury

0:01:52: is going to find pretty compelling.

0:01:54: But David Pecker essentially made a deal, I mean, he has a non-prosecution agreement.

0:01:59: And so that's why, I mean, he's testifying.

0:02:00: Yeah, he's testifying under subpoena.

0:02:01: I mean, he is not doing this because he wants to.

0:02:03: The prosecutors say he's a co-conspirator.

0:02:05: Correct.

0:02:06: He is not there because he wants to be there.

0:02:07: But the prosecutors are going to try to suggest that his testimony, the same way they're going

0:02:11: to try to say this with Michael Cohen, is credible for XYZ reasons, and that these are

0:02:16: things Trump just didn't want to have come out.

0:02:20: The fact that the foreign president has no family with him, no friends, he's just got

0:02:24: his legal team, I understand he talked about this, he was upset about the lack of proximity

0:02:30: of supporters outside the courthouse.

0:02:31: Yeah, so it has been striking that there's no family, because I know that there was some

0:02:35: discussion at some point in the last couple of weeks about who would be with him in court.

0:02:40: And last week, which was just jury selection, there weren't that many people.

0:02:43: Today there was a phalanx of lawyers from his other cases, and from the Trump org, who

0:02:47: showed up in court.

0:02:48: But I think it's because they were next door.

0:02:50: They were dealing with this New York Attorney General appeal.

0:02:53: He is by himself, and when he feels boosted, is by his supporters.

0:02:57: And so he has been hoping for something of a circus around his trial.

0:03:00: But the reality, Anderson, is that only two to three dozen supporters max over the last

0:03:06: week have shown up.

0:03:08: And they're positioned to protest, slash, demonstrate, slash, whatever, across the street

0:03:12: from the courthouse.

0:03:13: Trump started trying to suggest on Truth Social that that's why the number's been so small,

0:03:17: is that they're all being blocked.

0:03:18: But that's not it.

0:03:20: People are not showing up.

0:03:21: You also wrote a really interesting piece for the New York Times about how this trial

0:03:24: strips Trump of control.

0:03:26: And I mean, you really see that.

0:03:28: You know, there was the famous example just the other day of, you know, he got up to leave

0:03:31: and the judge admonished him and said, sit down, we're still in session.

0:03:35: But it's just such, I mean, you know, for anyone who's been in those courtrooms, it's

0:03:38: a dreary, I mean, it is like, it's like old New York.

0:03:41: It is.

0:03:42: It is trapped in amber, 1980s, you know, Tom Wolf, New York.

0:03:46: And it's the New York that Trump thrived in, but this is not the part of it that Trump

0:03:50: ever wanted to be captured by.

0:03:53: And he has to sit there.

0:03:55: No cell phone, bored, you know, which is not something he ever handles well.

0:04:00: While he is being insulted or described negatively, he doesn't have the same methods to push back.

0:04:05: Remember, there is a hearing about whether he is, whether the judge agrees with prosecutors

0:04:09: that he has repeatedly violated the gag order against attacking witnesses and others in

0:04:13: the case tomorrow.

0:04:14: And, you know, there are people around him who believe that this is part of the goal

0:04:19: of the prosecution, is simply that this process is so shrinking and small.

0:04:23: But courts, and particularly state courts, are really their own nations, essentially.

0:04:29: There are rules that get made from on high, and you are at someone else's whim and will.

0:04:36: Your life is not yours.

0:04:37: Maggie Hebron, thank you so much.

0:04:38: