Donald Trump's latest false claim concerning his hush money cover-up trial moments ago after the court date ended. The former President was asked whether he was going to testify in his own defense.

Well, I'm not allowed to testify. I'm under a gang order, I guess. I can't even testify in that. Now, we're going to be appealing the gang order. I'd love to answer that question. It's a very easy question, the easiest question so far. But I'm not allowed to testify because this judge, who's totally conflicted, has me under an unconstitutional gag order. Nobody's ever had that before, and we don't like it, and it's not fair.

So that's not true. Donald Trump is absolutely allowed to testify. The Gag order has nothing to do with whether or not he's allowed to testify. Bizarre claim, quite frankly. Let's now get more insight about what went on behind the scenes in the Trump trial today. Let's bring in the Washington Post, Shana Jacobs, who was inside the courtroom, covering it for the Post. Shana, some of these exchanges between between Trump attorney, Emile Bovey, and Stormy Daniels, Karen McDdougal attorney, Keith Davidson, who's a witness on the stand right now, they read the transcript of them, read incredibly testy. What was the actual environment like during that question?

I think that was right. I think the witness was particularly put off by the lines of questioning by Bovey, suggesting that he's a shakedown artist and that he's built his career, his legal career, on essentially blackmailing celebrities, trying to get significant payouts for clients who have salacious stories, whether they're true or false, but clients who have salacious stories that might be of value to celebrities such as Donald Trump.

What was the jury doing while Trump attorney Bovay and prosecution witness Davidson were going back and forth? Did the jury seem engaged? Were they following everything?

The jury has been, in my view, engaged the entire time, especially today. There were plenty of exhibits for them to get a first-hand view of what this part of the defense case is about. There were text messages, there were emails, there was real concrete information for them to see for themselves. So I think that's particularly interesting to them, getting a window into this the world where these types of negotiations are happening. It's the underbelly of the legal system.

The photographs we see of Donald Trump in court, we just showed one where he looked scowling. I'm sure it's not fun to be a defendant. And the things he says after court and before court tend to be rather defiant and angry. What is his demeanor in the courtroom in general?

He sits there and is seething pretty frequently what his facial expression is. He's just very, very disgruntled, does not like a minute of the fact that he has to be there. There are times when he's paying particularly close attention. I think he was locked on Beauvais and his cross-examination of the witness today. There was a point where we heard a recording that Michael Cohen made between him and Donald Trump in 2016. It looked like he was leaning in, trying to get the best audio on that recording that he could get. Trump, while he does close his eyes throughout the day, did not appear to be sleeping today, but he did appear to be shifting in his seat and closing his eyes to take it easy as he paid attention to the testimony.

Before the testimony, before the jury was brought in today, there was another hearing on whether Trump violated the judge's gag order. Once again, Judge Marshawn did not issue an immediate ruling this time, just like he didn't issue an immediate ruling last time. What was your takeaway from the arguments this time?

Pretty similar to the time before the gag order hearing previously, Judge Mershon is not really buying the argument that some of these posts, some of these offensive posts that Trump has made since the trial began, and some of these public comments he's made that are in violation of the gag order are not protected political speech and not covered by an absolute First Amendment right to say these things. Judge Mershon cut short Todd Blanche today when he started getting into another explanation of why some of what Trump had discussed some of these four remaining allegations is a campaign response, a political response. He's responding to other people's attacks on him, sometimes attacks on him from people involved in the case. And Judge Michonne does not seem to find that credible at all. He's already ruled it's not credible, and he does not seem to be leaning in Trump's favor on this.

All right. The Washington Post, Shaina Jacobs, thank you so much for talking to us today. Back with me, the former Chief Assistant district attorney at the Manhattan DA, Karen Friedmann, agniffalo, also Bill Brennan, a former Trump Payroll Corporation attorney. Karen, moments ago, Mr. Trump falsely claimed he's not allowed to testify because he's a gag order. That's not right, correct?

Testify is a term of art. It means take the stand in court, raise your right-hand, and swear to tell the truth, and you testify in front of a court, in front of the jury. The gag order has nothing to do with that. Of course, he can testify. He has an absolute right to testify, and he is not restricted in terms of what he can talk about as long as it's relevant admissible evidence evidence. So the the gag order has nothing to do with his testimony at trial. Perhaps he's confused about that, but it only talks about statements outside of court.

And Bill, who do you think the prosecutors might call next? Do you think Keith Davidson was a good setup for Michael Cohen, or might someone else come before?

I think they'll probably sandwich a few more innocuous witnesses in between these two and have Cohen... He's really the show at this trial. But I wanted to say one thing, Jay. Kyra made a great point in the last segment. When Mr. Bovay cross-examined Davidson and it was brought out that, well, what he did wasn't illegal. He was investigated for extortion but never charged. That jury doesn't check its common sense at the door. They see everything. They hear everything. There's a story in the news now about a politician shooting a dog, and it's been said, well, it's not illegal in that particular state. Who shoots a puppy? Who does that? And the jury is going to get back there. And whether he was charged or not charged or it's legal or not legal. As lawyers, we get too focused on the statuts, the laws, the rules, the codes. They're going to get back there and think, Who lives like this? Who preys on people's misfortunes? And they're going to have to tie the defendant to this seedy activity. And then even if they do that, they're going to have to show that it was done to commit another crime, namely political campaign violation or some type of election law.

It's a far reach. This thing's far from over.

Karen, I want to get your take on Trump attorney Emile Bovet, his questioning of Stormy Daniels' former attorney, Keith Davidson. Bovet brought up these controvers involving various celebrities and alleged hush money, shakedown, extortion, whatever you want to call it, Charlie Sheen, paying $2 million to one of Davidson's clients, presumably for her silence. Hulk Hogan, there was a sex tape involving him. Tila Ketila, Tila Tequila. No idea what that was about, but she's certainly an interesting character. Davidson's connection to them. He said, But your memory seems a little fuzzy around some of these issues because Bovay was asking him about it, and Bovay didn't seem... And Davidson didn't seem to have a lot of direct information, at least direct responses. How do you think this is all going to land with the jury?

Look, for him to say he doesn't recall these various celebrities, I think, is not credible. Of course, you're going to remember. You might not remember every client, but certainly certain celebrities you are going to recall. I got the impression that he was thinking that he couldn't answer the question because maybe he was under attorney-client privilege or confidentiality agreements, but then he should have said that. But to say, I don't recall because you don't want to answer the question, that's not good for the jury. So I He doesn't love those answers. If he really doesn't recall, because his answer was, Yeah, I did 1,500 or 1,600 of those back then, so I don't remember who it was. If that's the truth, fine, but I don't think the jury is going to like him very much. It is really a seedy underbelly of lawyering that make a living out of what many people feel like it feels like extortion, whether it's legal extortion or not. So they're not going to love it. It's not great. But I still think at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because this is the circle Donald Trump traveled in.

These are the people he had affairs with. I mean, that's what the prosecution is going to say. So they're going to say, We didn't pick these people, the people that Donald Trump frequented with. That's who picks these people. The prosecution's got to link this to Donald Trump, and I think that recording that they played today with Michael Cohen and Donald Trump was one of the critical pieces of evidence in this case.