attorneys asking her questions. this turns into a small neighborhood when you start randomly selecting people and asking them detailed questions about their lives as it pertains to donald trump. but we expect, yes, we re moving, yesterday was a very productive afternoon, and the expectation is they will get through this jury selection process today, have a sandoval hearing where they can ask questions as it pertains to donald trump s prior trials unrelated to this particular case, that could come this afternoon, then we could have opening statements as soon as monday morning and those first witnesses beginning to be called next week. this is moving at a quick pace at this point, ana? vaughn hillyard, thank you so much for tracking all the twists and turns for us. that does it for us this hour. i ll be back in the anchor chair later at 3:00 p.m. eastern filling in for katy tur. for now, i m ana cabrera reporting from new york. thanks for joining us. jose diaz-balart picks up our cover
is out there saying and other witnesses saying things about donald trump, but the fact is there s no gag order against them. it s only against trump at this point. i think these are some of the factors that the judge has to weigh at that hearing he s going to have next week about whether donald trump has violated the gag order, and if so, how much punishment how old he be subject to. joyce, what do you make of how judge merchan has handled this process so far, particularly with trump s inclination to push the boundaries of what s allowed? there s been some concern about the lengthy period of time he permitted before the hearing will take place, but, ana, the judge isn t completely a free actor here. he s constrained by new york law. what the d.a. has asked for his criminal contempt, this is not civil contempt, and there s a provision of new york law that says that if the violation of the gag order occurs in front of the judge, then the judge can
act to impose several penalties. for instance, these fines are close to the maximum amount. the judge could impose up to 30 days in jail if he chose to. i think the fact that everyone is moving slowly and deliberately here is an acknowledgment of the fact that the judge will have to craft some sort of a remedy that tells trump the gag order is for real. otherwise he ll continue to go on and violate it with impunity for the remainder of the are trial. and again, that hearing to deal with this gag order issue is on tuesday. meantime, this afternoon we re expecting a sandoval hearing. what information do we have about this? reporter: right, this is the hearing that we expect to take place after those additional five alternate jurors are selected here this afternoon, and the sandoval hearing will be the opportunity for the prosecution to make the case as to what they would like to cross examine donald trump if he were to testify prior to trial
impartial. they re currently going through that 42-question questionnaire with all of those potential jurors looking to fill those five alternate seats, ana, so that leaves just 20 jurors in that potential jury pool now, the former president seated in the courtroom as well. he started the day off with his eyes closed. however, when he heard one of the potential jurors saying they had read the art of the deal he popped his eyes wide open. before heading into the courtroom, he did speak to reporters about that gag order. here s what he had to say. the gag order has to come off. people are allowed to speak about me and i have a gag order just to show you how much more unfair it is. reporter: seven potential violations they re talking about when it comes to this gag order. they re going to have a hearing on the gag order tuesday afternoon.
right now on ana cabrera reports, we are tracking breaking news here at home and overseas. day four of donald trump s hush money trial just beginning. they have a jury. now they need alternates, and there is a critical hearing today that could impact trump s potential testimony. breaking news in the middle east, israel retaliates striking targets inside iran. what it means for a region already on the brink. and this hour a key vote in the house on foreign aid as the threat to mike johnson s speakership because of that vote intensifies. hello, it is a busy friday morning. thank you for joining us. i m ana cabrera reporting from new york, already incredibly busy news day. israel s strike on iran, action on capitol hill expected this