A CNN panel discussing Donald Trump’s hush money trial earlier this week noted that despite his gag order, the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, informed defense attorneys that the former president can respond to comments about the trial if they are made by his political rival, President Joe Biden.

The panel noted that Biden happened to mention the trial for the first time during the White House Correspondents Dinner earlier when he made a joke about “stormy weather,” a reference to adult film star Stormy Daniels, whom Trump made hush-money payments before the 2016 election to cover up an alleged affair they had a decade earlier.

Both of them have since denied that the affair ever happened.

“I just also want to go back as we look for new updates to what [Todd] Blanche, Trump‘s attorney, said about Joe Biden. It was noteworthy that President Biden, really for the first time, he did it cloaked in humor because it was at the White House Correspondents Dinner for the first time he went there on the trial” host Dana Bash said.

“And he talked about ‘stormy weather,’ and that was clearly what Blanche was referring to when he said that the current president referred to a potential witness. Also noteworthy is that we just heard from the judge explicitly that when it comes to the campaign trail, if Joe Biden does that again, Trump can respond. I mean, it maybe seems obvious, but when you have a former president and somebody who is on trial saying that he can‘t speak, and the judge explicitly saying you can when it‘s on the campaign trail and when at your political opponent. That‘s on the record now,” she added.

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WATCH:

Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is expected to be a ‘star’ witness for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors in the former president’s ‘hush money’ case, but a new report on Wednesday indicated that Cohen may be becoming a problem for the DA.

As he prepares to testify, Cohen, the ex-Trump fixer who arranged a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election, has posed numerous challenges for prosecutors. Not only is the DA’s office grappling with efforts to prevent him from speaking out about the case, but they also contend with troubling testimony that paints a less favorable picture of Cohen for the jury, Newsweek reported.

“Michael Cohen is a complete mess as a witness for the prosecution in the current state fraud trial,” former federal prosecutor Michael McAuliffe told the outlet.

Trump is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records linked to the payment made to Daniels. Prosecutors assert that Trump, along with Cohen and former publisher David Pecker, devised a scheme to sway the 2016 presidential election by concealing adverse stories about Trump, including Daniels’ allegations of an affair with the then-Republican nominee. Trump has entered a plea of not guilty and refuted Daniels accusations.

He also claimed that the affair never happened in a letter that Daniels signed in 2018.

“Cohen has loomed large over the trial that’s been taking place in the Manhattan Criminal Court. Trump was fined $9,000 for violating his gag order, which bars him from attacking any ‘foreseeable witnesses’ and jurors after the former president railed against Cohen and Daniels outside the courtroom,” the outlet noted further.

Cohen, who has become a prominent Trump critic since his split with his former boss, persists in discussing the case despite being slated to testify in the trial. Just recently, Cohen used X, formerly Twitter, to address Trump as “Von ShitzInPantz,” asserting that “your attacks on me stink of desperation.”

Cohen has further delved into discussions about Trump and the trial during his nightly livestreams on TikTok, quipping remarks such as, “Trump 2024? More like Trump 20–24 years.” According to ABC, Cohen is reportedly making a profit from these extensive livestreams.

McAuliffe noted that Cohen’s past statements about Trump and his “often bizarre publicity stunts” make the former fixer-lawyer “less and less useful as a source of credible evidence.”

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