Donald Trump trial LIVE: Ex-president faces jail for contempt if judge finds he violated gag order in hush money trial

President Joe Biden will travel to Donald Trump’s home state of Florida on Tuesday to confront the former president about abortion.

While his likely rival in the 2024 general election languishes in a Manhattan courtroom, Biden will head to Tampa a week before the new six-week abortion ban takes effect.

“Many women in the Southeast may have to drive a day or more to reach the nearest clinic,” Biden campaign director Michael Tyler said in a call with reporters on Monday.

“There is one person responsible for this atrocity and that is Donald Trump.”

The president’s re-elected team also argued that Florida is in play for them this cycle.

The twelve jurors and their six alternates sat intently. For 45 minutes, they listened to the lead prosecutor lay out the case against former President Donald Trump.

Matthew Colangelo delivered all the drama of a B-movie plot as he took them on a wild ride from a dark “catch and kill” rally in Trump Tower to the extraordinary image of President Trump paying off a loyal fixer by signing checks in the White House. with a cast consisting of sleazy journalists, a now-disbarred lawyer who recorded his phone calls and a porn star.

Only one person in courtroom 1530 seemed unimpressed: the star of the show.

Trump leaned back in his chair, shoulders slumping occasionally. He didn’t look at the jury once when the case against him was presented.

You didn’t have to be a body language expert to read his ‘nothing to see here’ attitude.

The trial could last six weeks or more as the jury hears evidence alleging the former president falsified business records to conceal how he bought a porn star’s silence before the 2016 election.

But Monday brought the first real insight into the strategies deployed by both sides.

And the court heard from its first witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer.

Here’s what we learned from day one of evidence in the case:

Donald Trump appeared to have violated his gag order again on the first day of testimony in his “hush money” trial in New York.

During an interview on Steve Bannon‘s network Real America’s Voice, Trump attacked the jury.

‘That jury was chosen so quickly. Ninety-five percent are Democrats. The area is largely democratic. You consider it a purely democratic area. I can tell you it’s a very unfair situation,” Trump said during the interview.

Judge Merchan has now scheduled a hearing for Tuesday morning to consider prosecutors’ arguments that Trump violated his silence order in several previous comments — and that he should be held in contempt.

Welcome to DailyMail.com’s live coverage from our reporters during Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial.

The former president faces the prospect of going to jail when he is held in contempt of court Tuesday morning.

Prosecutors have accused him of violating the gag order in the hush money trial at least seven times by attacking witness Michael Cohen and the jury.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has asked Judge Juan Merchan to fine him $1,000 by mail. The punishment can vary from a warning to a prison sentence.

Following the contempt, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker will return to the stand to conclude testimony on the “catch and kill” plots allegedly coordinated between Trump and the tabloids.