More jurors could be picked Thursday to hear criminal case against Trump

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : Merchan said Trump was "audibly uttering something" and "gesturing" and "speaking in her direction.
49% : Since Trump is required to be in court, the case almost certainly will limit the 77-year-old candidate's time on the campaign trail.
48% : No firm trial dates have been set in any of those three cases and Trump has sought to push the start dates until after the election.
46% : Trump has denied both affairs and all 34 charges he faces in the New York case, including that he directed his one-time political fixer, convicted perjurer Michael Cohen, to make the payment to Daniels and then reimbursed him during the first year of his presidency in 2017 -- all the while labeling the monthly stipends to Cohen in Trump's business records as legal expenses.
40% : Merchan scolded Trump when he was audibly dismissive of the woman's explanation that she found the street demonstration a "celebratory moment in New York City.
40% : "Then, after the would-be juror left the courtroom, Merchan rebuked Trump for his behavior.
39% : Trump is a Republican who served a single term in the White House from 2017 to 2021.
32% : Charges explainedTrump stands accused of hiding a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels just ahead of the 2016 election to keep her from publicly talking about her claim that she had a one-night tryst with him at a celebrity golf tournament a decade earlier, less than four months after Trump's wife, Melania, had given birth to Barron, the couple's son who is now 18.
32% : It is not illegal to pay hush money, and Trump may claim the payments were made simply to avoid disclosure of personally compromising moments of his life, not to try to influence the 2016 election.
31% : The lawyers, by Merchan's edict, cannot ask the would-be jurors whether they voted for or against Trump in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns or about their political party registrations.
30% : As he arrived for the trial on Tuesday, Trump told reporters, "I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense.
29% : The prospective juror said Trump should be jailed.
29% : Each of the charges carries the possibility of a four-year prison term, although Trump is certain to appeal any guilty verdict and sentence.
28% : Trump has often assailed Merchan in his social media posts and called the case "election interference" as he seeks to reclaim the presidency.
28% : That's exactly what it was."Altering his company's ledgers would be a misdemeanor offense, but to convict Trump of a more serious felony, prosecutors will have to convince jurors he committed an underlying crime, such as trying to influence the outcome of the 2016 election by keeping information about the alleged affairs from voters.
26% : Two of the other indictments -- one state and one federal -- accuse Trump of illegally trying to upend his 2020 loss, while the third alleges that he illegally took hundreds of highly classified national security documents with him to his oceanside Florida estate when his presidential term ended, and then refused requests by investigators to return them.
25% : He is now the party's presumptive 2024 nominee in the November election against President Joe Biden, a Democrat who narrowly defeated Trump nationally in the 2020 election but trounced him in Manhattan, the New York borough where the trial is occurring.
22% : With their names drawn for jury duty from voter rolls in heavily Democratic New York City, half of them immediately declared they could not fairly judge the case against Trump and were quickly dismissed.
21% : In a second instance, the indictment alleges that a former Playboy Playmate of the Year, Karen McDougal, says she had a monthslong affair with Trump and was paid $150,000 by a tabloid publisher who bought the rights to her story and then, at Trump's urging, killed the article.
21% : The New York case is one of an unprecedented four criminal indictments Trump is facing encompassing 88 charges, all of which he has denied.
19% : "Trump is accused of scheming to hide hush money payments to cover up alleged extramarital affairs just ahead of his successful 2016 campaign for the White House.
17% : Blanche has asked the would-be jurors variations of one basic question: What is your opinion of Donald Trump?The trial is a moment unlike any in U.S. history, with Trump the first former U.S. chief executive to face criminal charges and the threat of imprisonment if he is convicted.
13% : In a day and a half of vetting the remaining prospective jurors earlier this week, Merchan dismissed even more as possibly biased against Trump, while prosecutors and Trump's lawyers both used six of their 10 available peremptory challenges to dismiss 12 more they did not want on the jury.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.