Trump trial live updates: White House executive assistant Madeleine Westerhout to return to the stand in hush money trial

From U.S. Senior Political Reporter Sarah Ewall-Wice in court:

Donald Trump is back in the courtroom after slamming his ‘horrible gag order’ to reporters staged outside.

He also touted his rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, Saturday.

When he reached the defense table inside the courtroom, he appeared to slam his papers down.

He’s joined in court by Boris Epshteyn today.

There was puzzlement on Thursday – not least from Judge Juan Merchan – as to why Donald Trump’s lawyers did not object to Stormy Daniels’ salacious evidence that he did not wear a condom during their alleged sexual encounter.

The judge, referring to Trump lawyer Susan Necheles, said: ‘Why on Earth she wouldn’t object to the mention of a condom I don’t understand.’

Andrew Weissman, a former federal prosecutor, puts foward the theory that it was ‘calculated gamesmanship’ by the defense not to object. He tells MSNBC:

I can’t say for sure, but every bone in my body tells me this is calculated on the defense part. This is not sort of ‘Oh, we forgot to object’. Susan Necheles is really experienced. She doesn’t forget to object. So when you have gamesmanship, I mean, they want this in the case.

Wait until summation. They (the defense) are going to say in summation, ‘They (the prosecution) wanted this to be as salacious as possible because they don’t have a case and they wanted to bring in all of this stuff.’

After a photographer took a photo from an area where they were not supposed to, the ban on photography in the courtroom remains in place.

Talks continue to see if photographers can make a return.

For the first few weeks of the trial, photographers were allowed in the courtroom at the start of the day to take photographs of Donald Trump at the defense table.

Trump is en route to the courthouse for Day 15 of his criminal hush money trial.

Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is expected to testify himself on Monday, setting up a brilliant showdown in court.

He is likely to be on the stand for several days.

Cohen’s recounting of events is central to the case, which hinges on the $130,000 hush money payment he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about her sexual encounter with Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 election.

Donald Trump’s former executive assistant has revealed that Melania Trump was ‘definitely the one in charge’ in her marriage to Donald Trump.

In dramatic testimony to Trump’s hush money trial Madeleine Westerhout said the former first couple had a ‘special relationship’ founded on ‘mutual respect’.

When he was president Trump would call his wife from the Oval Office and ask her to look down from a window in the White House residence.

And when he was leaving on a helicopter he would call her to ‘check in’.

Judge Juan Merchan gave a brutal dressing down of Donald Trump’s defense lawyers in front of the former president Thursday as he denied their motion for a mistrial in the hush money case Thursday afternoon.

It was the second motion for a mistrial from the defense this week after scandalous testimony from porn star Stormy Daniels about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

In his call for a mistrial, lawyer Todd Blanche called Stormy Daniels’ testimony ‘extraordinarily prejudicial’ and noted that even the judge had agreed some of the testimony was ‘unnecessary.’

‘It almost defies belief that we’re here about a records case and the government is asking about an incident that happened in 2006,’ Blanche argued referring to Daniels’ testimony on Tuesday about rolling up a magazine and spanking Trump with it nearly 20 years ago.