How Melania reacted when she learned about Trump's alleged affair with Stormy Daniels

One other interesting courtroom note.

These first two days, not a single member of the former

president's family has been there with him.

That includes his wife, Melania.

The headline in today's New York Times, Melania Trump avoids the courtroom,

but but is said to share her husband's anger.

More now from our Randi Kaye.

The Wall Street Journal reporting that a lawyer for President

Trump arranged a hefty payment to an adult film star. Why?

Because of an alleged sexual affair.

When news of Donald Trump's alleged affair with adult film

star Stormy Daniels first broke, what did his wife Melania, do?

She jumped on a plane and headed for Mar a Lago in Palm Beach.

Away from all the drama.

That was January 2018.

You know, I spent a ton of time with her when the news was breaking

about Stormy Daniels, when those came out that he allegedly had these affairs.

And she didn't take it lightly at all in the wake of the allegations,

she broke tradition and drove separately from her husband to the U.S.

Capitol for his state of the Union address.

Later that month,

the White House at the time said the unusual move was so

she could attend a reception with guests in the first lady's box.

But remember, that State of the Union was her first public event

since The Wall Street Journal first reported that an alleged hush money

payment was made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election

for her alleged affair with Trump in 2006.

That would have been just four months after Melania gave birth

to the couple's son, Barron.

Hello, everybody.

Donald Trump has denied the affair took place, yet now finds himself in court

fighting allegations that he made payments to cover it up.

This is an embarrassment to him for with his family and more importantly,

with his wife, Melania.

Like the former president, Melania believes the hush money trial is unfair.

That's according to The New York Times, which spoke with several people familiar

with her thinking back in 2018 when the Stormy Daniels story picked up steam.

Former aide Stephanie Grisham remembers Donald Trump calling her from Air Force

One to discuss Melania, to basically see how angry she was

and to see if we were putting any statements out.

He definitely was worried.

She's the one person that I think Donald Trump really fears.

She's also the one person whose advice he may listen to

about whether or not to take the stand at his trial.

I think behind closed doors, as a husband and wife, she would probably say,

look, if you have nothing to hide, take the stand for the thing.

This certainly wasn't the first time Mrs.

Trump has had to manage

a very public personal drama involving her husband Nearly two years

before the stormy Daniels story, there was the Access Hollywood tape

automatically attracted to me, and I just started kissing them.

It's like a magnet. You just.

When Anderson Cooper asked Melania about the 2005

tape in October 2016, she dismissed it, agreeing with her husband.

It was just locker room talk.

People think and talk about me like, Oh, Melania.

Oh, poor Melania.

Don't feel sorry for me.

Don't feel sorry for me.

I can handle everything.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

He's now two former federal prosecutors, Jeffrey Toobin and Jessica

Roth, also jury consultant Alan Turkheimer.

So, Jeff, you predicted last night

that this trial would move along in typical fashion.

And here we are tonight, seven jurors already seated.

Does the pace even exceed what you expected?

It does. This is really fast.

And the judge suggested he didn't say commit.

But he said today that he thought opening statements could happen Monday.

And remember, there's no court tomorrow.

He doesn't sit with a jury on Wednesdays.

So he thinks the jury will be will be filled out in two more days.

And as I said last night, you know, people don't

follow these cases as closely as we think they do.

They're obviously aware of who Donald Trump is.

But based on the answers, they did seem like a group

that could listen to the evidence

and reach a verdict not based on prior feelings about the defendant.

Jessica, what do you make of potential jurors who seem to be

trying extra hard to convince the attorneys that they can be fair?

Would that raise a red flag to you or should that approach to citizens

should be commended?

I actually think it is to be commended that people are saying

that they think they can be fair and impartial,

notwithstanding some statements they have made in the past,

perhaps on social media pertaining to the former president.

I think what has to happen, though, is that the parties have to evaluate

whether they think that that actually is true, that the juror can put aside

any previous feeling.

But I think that it is to be commended that people are taking

seriously what the judge is telling them, which is that

they would only be seated if they could actually put aside any prior

conceptions and decide the case based solely on the evidence.

But I also think it's good that the lawyers on both sides

can look at the social media posts because that is an indication

of people's true feelings.

They obviously weren't posting on Facebook

or Twitter thinking that they were going to be on the jury.

It's a good insight into what they really believe,

and both sides deserve the right to know what people really think about issues

relevant to this case.

I would say the process is working as it should.

I mean, that's really what we're seeing unfolding.

Alan, the foreperson is, we know, is a man

originally from Ireland who works in sales as he gets his news from The New York

Times, Daily Mail, Fox and MSNBC.

What do you think he will bring to that post?

And is it it's not unusual, obviously, in a city as big as New York to have

to have jury members and a four person who's from someplace else originally.

That's New York.

It's a melting pot of people from all walks of life.

And a lot depends on what the personality is.

Now, you might have jurors inclined to go one way or the other,

but now it's really about the influence that each side thinks

they're going to have in the deliberation. And what really struck me

is not to minimize the contributions of other jurors.

New Yorkers are usually fully engaged.

You have two lawyers that are already seated.

And that's that's a risky proposition for

for both parties involved and could cut one way or the other.

But some might think that this is a jury of two right now.

Now, I'm not saying these lawyers are going to just dominate,

but jurors, the other jurors will look to these lawyers for guidance.

And if something comes in, a fellow juror makes an argument about something

extra legal that's in evidence,

a lawyer might shut that down and get them to focus.

Or lawyers like to argue.

So if there's a celeb to water tended to if there's a contrarian personality

by this lawyer, that lawyer might just keep the deliberation going.

It's very interesting.

You know, Anderson, about a decade ago, Chief Judge Judith Kaye

created a system where almost all

exclusions, all exemptions from jury service were out there.

Lawyers, we've both served on juries.

I mean, everybody serves in Manhattan and in all of New York state now.

And so you get a much more upscale jury in

in particularly in Manhattan,

which has a lot of high income people in it than you used to,

because there's so many fewer exemptions from jury service.

Just I

mentioned with some some the former president had to say outside

of court today about the alleged hush money payments at the heart of the case.

I just want to play a clip of that.

I was paying a lawyer

and mark it down as a legal expense account, and

I didn't know much about the legal expense.

That's exactly what it was.

And you get indicted over that.

So that wasn't incriminating.

Yeah. So that was an interesting statement.

I don't think we should overstate how incriminating it was.

I mean, his name he signed some of the checks

to Michael Cohen, reimbursing him for these fees.

When he started to say I marked it down as legal expenses, my ears perked up

because it's been a little bit unclear exactly how the state is going to prove

that Trump falsified the records because many of these entries

may have been made by the Accountants for the Trump Organization.

And Cohen was.

Cohen is apparently gonna testify that Trump was part of the scheme to falsify.

It seemed there that Trump was saying that he marked it down as legal expenses,

and then it seemed like he caught himself and said the accountants marked it down.

So he may still argue that he was essentially

relying on the advice of the accountants or the accountants entirely on their own.

We're marking it down as legal expenses.

But remember, the whole case is about the falsification of these business records.

And, you know, Trump has potentially the argument, look,

I run a multibillion dollar company.

I don't know how the accountants, how the bookkeepers record things.

That's a that's going to be a big issue in the case.

How how is the government going to prove that Trump

knew and initiated or at least supported

the idea that these payoffs were recorded as legal fees?

He said to mark them down.

Now, you know, as as Jessica said, he's sort of caught himself, but you know that

that video could be played before the jury, No question.