Trump Suffers a Major Loss Just Minutes into Hush-Money Trial

Donald Trump won’t be getting his way in his New York hush money trial—at least, not without consequences.

Presiding Judge Juan Merchan decided Monday that prosecutors can cross-examine the former president on prior judgements and gag order violations. This is only relevant if Trump takes the stand, but given he has said he would “ absolutely ” testify in the trial, he seems pretty eager.

But his legal team might not allow him to, especially considering the previous times Trump took the stand in an effort to change the narrative behind prior judgments.

Last week, the district attorney’s office signaled that they would be interested in bringing up a slew of Trump’s prior lawsuits to paint a picture of an untrustworthy man. Those cases include the New York civil fraud trial in which Trump was ordered to pay nearly half a billion dollars to the state, and the defamation trials brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, who won a payout of $83.3 million .

So far, Merchan has decided that he will allow questioning pertaining to Trump’s defamation of E. Jean Carroll (he did not mention the sexual assault ruling), the New York bank fraud trial, a 2018 case that led to the dissolution of the Trump Foundation over financial irregularities, and Trump’s repeat violations of the gag order issued by Judge Arthur Engoron after he refused to stop attacking the judge’s law clerk.

That last bit is noteworthy, considering that Trump has already teetered several times on violating another gag order issued in this trial, using his Truth Social account to disparage witnesses, court staff, and their family members, including Merchan’s daughter.

Merchan told the court Monday that he had “greatly curtailed” what elements of Trump’s legal history could be questioned, and warned the GOP presidential nominee that the decision was “a shield and not a sword” to which his testimony could become a “door to questioning that has otherwise been excluded,” according to The New York Times .