Donald Trump Suffers Double Loss at Start of Trial

Former President Donald Trump suffered two losses before the jury selection process even kicked off in his hush money payment trial.

The first criminal trial against Trump began on Monday in Manhattan, where prosecutors and the former president's legal team are trying to seat 12 jurors to hear the case. Trump is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to an alleged hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.

The Manhattan case is one of the four criminal indictments against Trump, and it could be the only one that goes to trial before Election Day.

But even before jury selection began, Judge Juan Merchan rejected two efforts from Trump's team, denying the former president's motion for recusal and granting prosecutors' requests to show jurors headlines and stories from the National Enquirer.

"There is no basis for recusal. The motion is denied," Merchan said of Trump's efforts to have the judge removed from the case.

Trump has repeatedly accused the judge of being biased against him and called on Merchan to recuse himself from the case. The former president has also attacked Merchan's daughter over her political consulting work, which includes employment at a Democratic firm that worked with Joe Biden's 2020 campaign.

Merchan addressed the accusations against his daughter directly, mentioning a podcast interview she did in 2019 where she said her father did not like politicians using Twitter and a Twitter account that Trump attributed to her. The judge said that his dislike for Twitter use did not reflect a bias towards either Republicans or Democrats, and noted that the Twitter account attributed to his daughter did not actually belong to her.

The judge then addressed a motion from prosecutors, who wanted to be able to introduce evidence using National Enquirer stories that were printed during the 2016 election and attacked Trump's political rivals, like Senator Ted Cruz. Those also include positive headlines about Trump that were allegedly approved by Trump before publication.

The state will likely use these headlines to argue that this was part of the "catch and kill scheme" on Karen McDougal's alleged affair with Trump.

McDougal is a former Playboy model who indirectly received a hush money payment in 2016 after claiming to have had an affair with Trump. She was allegedly paid off by the National Enquirer with money from Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, which would have allowed the tabloid to buy the rights to her story and prevent her from telling other outlets.

Merchan also allowed for testimony about McDougal to be admissible in court but said witnesses would not be allowed to discuss whether the alleged affair happened while Trump's wife, former first lady Melania Trump, was pregnant or when she had her newborn.

"At this moment, the prejudicial value of that exceeds the probative value," the judge ruled.

He also prohibited the infamous Access Hollywood tape from being played during the trial because it was prejudicial.