The jury in Donald Trump's trial has been seated. But tomorrow morning, court will be back in session because they have to pick six total alternate jurors. Let's bring back CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara, what's the latest? Well, Jake, I mean, jury selection now is finished, at least as far as the initial 12 jurors go. They also have seated one alternate juror. And that means that there are still as many as five more that they want to see. But the jurors have gone home for the day. And I think, as you saw, former President Trump has left the building as well. But we are moving along much quicker than it seemed that we were this morning. It looked like this morning we had a setback. Two jurors were removed out of the seven that had been seated and it appeared as though this was now potentially going to slow things down. But then just in the last hour or so of court, things sped up very quickly and we'd suddenly gotten to the point where we seated this jury. And the jury is made up of a bunch of professionals in Manhattan. There is a speech therapist, someone who owns her own business, and a couple of people who work in finance, a security engineer. The foreman is still the the --, the man from Ireland who works in sales. But now this initial jury of 12 is set. They will hear the evidence in this case. The judge is expecting that opening statements could begin on Monday. That day will be a half a day because of the Passover holiday. But we will now get into this trial with jury selection. I'm sorry, with jury selection nearly complete. Opening statements coming Monday. And at the end of the hearing today, there was a suggestion that we could even get to the first witnesses in this case on Monday. The Trump's team had asked for the identities of those. The prosecution said they were not going to turn those names over because of the tweeting that Trump has made and the social media posts he's made about some of the witnesses in the case. The judge said they're not required to. So for now, the prosecution is not sharing the first witnesses that they will call in this historic case Jake. All right, Kara Scannell outside the courthouse in Manhattan, thanks so much. Joining us now, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, CNN legal analyst and former chief assistant district attorney in the Manhattan district attorney's office, and also joining us, Stacy Schneider, Manhattan criminal defense attorney and a former contestant on Trump's TV show, The Apprentice. Schneider also worked with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office and has appeared before Judge Juan Merchan. Stacy, when leaving the courtroom, Mr. Trump, the defendant, claimed that this is an unfair trial. He complained about how cold the courtroom is that he's not able to hit the campaign trail. He said that President Biden is behind the prosecution. There's no evidence of that. You were a contestant on The Apprentice. Does any of this behavior surprise you? No, not at all. First of all, Trump is great thinking on his feet about what he wants to say to the media. He planned this one out, though, obviously, because he had that stack of news stories or op ed opinions that this is, you know, not a valid prosecution and the DA doesn't have evidence. But that kind of rhetoric is going to fade away as this trial gets underway because of the particular indictment that was filed against him. This is a case solely about falsifying business records. And the D.A. has cited in the indictment actual physical evidence that they claim to have checkbooks, checks, check stubs, receipts, entries into business ledgers. There's nothing political about the case, and I think the public will see that as the evidence is presented. So, Karen, let me ask you, I think Mr. Trump expressed surprise the other day on Truth social, if memory serves, that he didn't have an unlimited number of peremptory challenges to dismiss individuals who couldn't be fair. That's obviously not the procedure. Each side gets a limited number. I didn't devise this legal system, and I'm not sure that this is the way I would have done it. Juror number 11 during voir dire said about Trump, He just seems very selfish and self-serving. So I don't really appreciate that in any public servant. So I don't know him as a person. So I don't know how he is in terms of his integrity. He's just not my cup of tea or it's not just it's just not my cup of tea. Now, to me, I would think, well, that can't be that person can't be fair. But I'm guessing that the defense ran out of peremptory challenges and she's on the jury. Is that normal? Does that alarm you at all? What do you think? So there's two different types of challenges. One, that are called for cause challenge. And that's the kind that you're talking about, somebody who expresses that they cannot be fair or impartial. Those you do have an unlimited number of. But when it comes to the challenges, just because you don't like the person, those you do have to, there's only ten per side that is statutorily regulated. And so this particular juror clearly expressed that regardless of how they felt about about Donald Trump, that they can be fair and impartial. And that's important because jurors take that really seriously. Think about it. You could have a murder case, for example. No one's going to be pro murder or like a murderer. It doesn't matter. It's can you be fair and impartial in this case and evaluate the evidence for what it is so clearly that juror said that they could be fair and impartial. Stacey, what do you think? So the every person believes that they can be fair and impartial. And the biggest danger in these types of trials from the defense side particularly is someone can say those magic words. And the judge, you know, they won't be dismissed for cause. There's no reason to dismiss them. Both sides run out of their peremptory challenges, those wild card challenges that were just described that you can just release a juror or have them dismissed for any reason without justifying it to the judge. But the biggest danger and in this case with somebody like Donald Trump as the defendant, are people who are hiding those biases or will have those biases come out once they have to make a decision and all the evidence is in. Even though they promised in jury selection that they can be fair and impartial and put those thoughts aside. And the biggest threat in picking a jury is relying on people's promise to put their biases aside. And sometimes it's just impossible, particularly when you have somebody as intimidating as Donald Trump. Everybody thinks they have a good sense of humor. Everybody thinks they have good taste. Everybody thinks they can be fair on a jury. Stacy Schneider, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, thank you so much to you.
