New York Judge Juan Merchan has ruled in the dispute over whether former President Donald Trump violated the gag order in the Manhattan hush money trial. He has determined that Trump violated the order in at least nine separate instances.
The decision means that the former president will be fined $9,000 and will be forced to remove the offending posts that violated the gag order from his Truth Social page.
Merchan said that New York state law does not permit him to escalate fines against Trump, which led him to conclude that the court "must therefore consider whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment" for future violations.
This comes after a contentious hearing last week, during which Merchan sharply rebuked Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche for his arguments in support of his client, saying that they were not credible.
The gag order imposed on Trump in the case, which centers on allegations he falsified business records to cover up hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to suppress negative information about himself from voters in the 2016 election, is relatively permissive, allowing him to criticize Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and the charges against him generally. However, he is prohibited from disparaging likely witnesses, and the family of court officers, among other things.
At issue is the fact that the former president has continued to publicly attack Michael Cohen, his former attorney and fixer who arranged the payment to Daniels and is set to testify he did it on Trump's instruction. Most experts have argued that this is a violation of the order, as Cohen is one of the central witnesses in the case.
Trump and his defense counsel, for his part, have argued that he did not violate the gag order because he was simply re-upping criticism of Cohen posted by other figures, like Fox News' Jesse Watters, and not speaking in his own voice.
In the past, Trump was issued sanctions for violating gag orders in his civil trials, which resulted in thousands of dollars in fines. However, this was the first time he faced contempt of court allegations for a gag order in a criminal proceeding.
Donald Trump’s niece, the clinical psychologist and bestselling author Mary Trump, sees “similarities” between the 79-year-old president’s increasingly erratic behavior, which has stoked questions about his physical and mental health, and that of his father, the New York property magnate Fred Trump, who suffered from Alzheimer’s before dying in 1999 at the age of 93.
"I think the most important thing to know about Donald's health is that this is a person who has had very serious, severe psychiatric disorders that have gone undiagnosed and they have worsened because they've never been treated," Mary Trump said. "So much of what we're seeing is the result of those undiagnosed, untreated psychiatric disorders. On top of that … there are clearly some physical health issues, and often it seems that … it's not just that he's forgetting things. He doesn't seem to be oriented to space and time or place and time.
"And I'm not a neuropsychologist or neurologist of any kind. I used to do neuropsychological testing, but that aside, I think the best frame of reference is, as you said, my experience with my grandfather and I do see similarities again. That occasional confusion, ‘where am I, who's around me,’ the forgetting of people who were right in front of him.
"And that was one very interesting experience with my grandfather. The least important people in his life were the people he forgot first. So you could sort of gauge your importance to him by how quickly he forgot you or how long it took for him to forget you.
“He ended up forgetting my grandmother. He never forgot Donald. So that was always fascinating to me, and he’d been married for over 60 years.”
Mary Trump was speaking to the Court of History podcast, hosted by the Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.
An author herself, Mary Trump has published three books since her uncle became president: "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man" (2020), "The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal" (2021), and "Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir" (2024). All achieved bestseller status.
Continuing to ponder her uncle and his father — her grandfather — Mary Trump said: “I think that there are a few differences."
“My grandfather was a sociopath. He was a born sociopath. He was not made one. And Donald’s psychology is much more complex, and a lot of what we're seeing now isn't new. It's actually just previous conditions that are worsening and just becoming more obvious to people who haven't been paying attention.
“So I think that sort of complicates our sense of, ‘Is this the psychiatric disorders? Is this some kind of dementia? Does he have Alzheimer's?' Is it some physical ailment that is having an impact on his memory, etc, and we don't know, and I think it's likely we never will.
“I sort of believe that we're at the point it doesn't matter. We know it's very, very bad. It's only going to get worse, as everything does with him, whether it's his outrageous cruelty, incompetence, vindictiveness.
“What I say about Donald, and I think this is true whether we're talking about his psychological, emotional, physical health or his behavior, there's no such thing as worst. He will always get worse.”
Trump is the oldest man ever to take the presidential oath — in succession to the previous record holder, Joe Biden. As Biden was plagued by questions over his fitness for office, before withdrawing from last year’s election, so Trump’s rambling public pronouncements and erratic behavior stoked questions even before he recently exhibited signs of physical deterioration and spent a rare week out of public view.
The White House vehemently denies that anything is wrong with Trump, and he reappeared this week to dismiss social media speculation that he might be dead or dying.
In one appearance, Trump angrily dismissed questions about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal even as victims of the late financier and sex offender, a longtime Trump friend, spoke on Capitol Hill.
Mary Trump told the Court of History: “He's always been an angry person, or maybe I should put it this way: he's always been somebody who uses threats and performative rage to get his way.
“So how do you distinguish between what is performative and what is a sincere reaction to his inability to control the narrative, which is clearly what we're seeing, certainly in regards to the Epstein files most prominently right now?”
The United States, Mary Trump added, is “at a particularly dangerous inflection point” regarding the president’s health.
“Because the more he understands who he is, what's happening to him, the more scared he gets, and the more cruel he's going to become, the more desperate he's going to become.
“As with anybody, people who start having dementia, Alzheimer's, there are moments of insight. They recognize what's going on, and it's actually one of the cruelest things about that disease ….
“Like my grandfather, for example, he was fine. Once he stopped remembering who people were, and he thought that he was still running the world, he was fine. But it's those early-on moments of insight into what's happening to you, that really have a negative impact. And this is starting to happen to Donald with increasing frequency, and it is freaking him out.”
Asked if she saw signs of anger and lashing out, as exhibited by her grandfather, in her uncle, Mary Trump said: “It's so hard to say because Donald has always been paranoid and vindictive and angry.
“… There are looks of confusion on his face at times, which are very reminiscent of when we would be out in public with my grandfather, for example … and he would get this startled like a deer in the headlights look. Like, 'Where am I? Who are these people? I don't want to be here.’"
This week, President Donald Trump announced that he had killed 11 alleged drug cartel members in foreign waters, and one senator thinks the strike was just the beginning — and will serve as a justification for action on U.S. soil.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, fears that the next step is authorizing the use of military force against people in the United States.
When MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace asked if the bombing was legal, Duckworth said, "No."
"I also think that this is just the first step towards him potentially setting the groundwork to do something within U.S. territory," she warned. "So, he's doing it in international waters now. But, you know, what's next? An American in our territorial waters on U.S. soil? What exactly is next?"
She noted that the ongoing discussion about Trump is that he's making small steps that will ultimately justify unconstitutional actions.
"This president is setting the conditions so that he can actually unilaterally occupy the streets of our cities and interfere in the next election, do what he wants," she said.
Duckworth then shamed her GOP colleagues, who continue to do nothing to hold Trump accountable, while also confirming the likes of Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy Jr.
President Donald Trump triggered outrage on Friday during a signing of his executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense to the "Department of War," when he suggested the United States only loses wars due to "woke" cultural values.
"We should have won every war," said Trump. "We could have won every war, but we really chose to be a very politically correct—wokey. We never wanted to win."
Commenters on social media tore into the president, with many noting that he used a questionable medical diagnosis to get out of serving in Vietnam, one of the wars America did actually lose.
"This is, even for him, amazingly stupid and an insult to the thousands who died in Korea and Vietnam and the other conflicts we were too 'wokey' to win," wrote retired Naval War College professor Tom Nichols. "But then, can't expect any better from a man who thinks American war dead are 'suckers' and 'losers.'"
"Remember when he dodged the draft because of ... bone spurs?" wrote former MSNBC host and Zeteo News founder Mehdi Hasan.
"Yeah, Vietnam, a war famously lost because we were Too Woke," wrote American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.
"President who avoided combat because of 'bone spurs' and calls those who served suckers and losers has thoughts about war," wrote Huffington Post political correspondent S.V. Dáte.
"He would have called ending slavery woke," wrote Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, city councilman Tony Heyl.
"Not only is this an asinine thing to say, it’s also insulting. Nothing like an armchair quarterback, eh?" wrote the official account for The Seneca Project.
"I would love to hear what was 'wokey' to Trump about the loss in the Vietnam War. Too few bone spurs?" wrote University of North Georgia rhetoric professor Matthew Boedy.
