Former President Trump has been making side commentary during E. Jean Carroll's testimony within earshot of the jury, Carroll's lawyer complained during a break in the proceedings, outside the jury's presence.

"Mr. Trump is sitting at the back table and has been loudly saying things" like "'Carroll's statements are false' and 'she now seems to have gotten her memory back,'" the attorney, Shawn Crowley, told Judge Kaplan.

Sitting at the defense table, Trump has been seen scoffing, chuckling, and encouraging his attorney, Alina Habba, to interject during the proceedings. He has been visibly shaking his head at some of what Carroll asserts on the witness stand.

When, earlier, Judge Kaplan denied the defense's request for an adjournment and instructed Habba to "sit down," Trump was heard saying, "He is a very nasty guy."

During Carroll's testimony in which she said she interpreted Trump's remark that "she's not my type" to mean "I'm too ugly to assault," Trump was heard laughing after the judge overruled a defense objection.

Before the jury returned to the courtroom, Judge Kaplan addressed Trump's side comments and instructed him to "take special care" to keep his voice down when conferring with counsel, "so that the jury does not overhear it."

Recounting her response when Trump denied her rape claim in 2019, Carroll said that when Trump said "she's not my type," she interpreted it to mean "I'm too ugly to assault."

"What did it feel like to have the President of the United States say those things about you?" her attorney Roberta Kaplan asked.

"To have the President of the United States, one of the most powerful persons on Earth, calling me a liar for three days and saying I'm a liar 26 times -- I counted them -- it ended the world that I had been living in. And I entered a new world," Carroll responded as Trump sat at the defense table. "I was attacked. I was attacked on Twitter, I was attacked on Facebook, I was attacked in news blogs, I was attacked, brutally attacked, in messages."

The jury saw some of those messages, which mimicked Trump's statements, calling her "lying old hag" or saying "shame on you and your lying I-hate-Trump story."

Carroll testified that the messages started instantly and have not stopped. She said she sometimes receives "scores and scores, sometimes hundreds a day."

"I've paid just about as dearly as is possible to pay," E. Jean Carroll testified about her life after then-President Trump fiercely denied her rape claim in a series of defamatory statements in 2019.

When New York magazine, on June 21, 2019, published an excerpt of Carroll's book that included her allegation that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room, she testified that she expected him to respond.

"I expected him to deny it but to say it was consensual, which it was not, but that's what I expected him to say," Carroll testified.

"Is that what he did?" her attorney Roberta Kaplan asked. "No," Carroll answered.

According to a reporter's Tweet from 5:17 p.m. on June 21, 2019, which was shown in court, Trump responded to the allegation by saying, "I've never met this person in my life."

"That is a lie," Carroll said. "He said I made up an accusation to sell a book. That is a lie. He said I made up the accusation for publicity's sake. That is a lie. He said my accusation damaged the real victims of sexual assault. That is a lie."

Carroll read additional statements by Trump reacting to her allegation.

"He said people like me, who make false accusations, are very dangerous, in very dangerous territory, that I shouldn't have done it for the sake of publicity. That is also a lie," Carroll said.

Eight months after a jury determined that former President Trump was liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist is back on the witness stand this morning -- this time with Trump in attendance.

"I'm here because Donald Trump assaulted me and, when I wrote about it, he lied and he shattered my reputation," Carroll told the jury after taking the stand. "Yesterday I opened up Twitter and it said 'Hey lady, you're a fraud.'"

The courtroom seating arrangement, with Carroll on the witness stand and Trump looking on from the defense table, brings the two of them face-to-face after they appeared to avoid eye contact during the trial's first day Tuesday.

Trump attorney Alina Habba, in her closing argument, questioned the sincerity of E. Jean Carroll's claims of emotional and professional harm and accused her of trying to pin the comments of Twitter trolls on a president of the United States.

"Ms. Carroll has failed to show she is entitled to any damages at all," Habba said.

Habba attempted to suggest that Donald Trump could not defend himself and that Carroll had paid for a lawyer for her friend Carol Martin, who testified as a hostile witness for the defense -- but Carroll's attorneys objected and Judge Lewis Kaplan sustained the objection.

"If you violate my instructions again, Ms. Habba, there could be consequences," the judge warned.

Habba said that Carroll failed to prove causation, slowly annunciating the word loudly into the microphone.

"They have to prove a direct causal connection between the harm they say she suffered and [Trump's] statements," Habba said, arguing that there were independent critics messaging Carroll before Trump issued his defamatory statements denying Carroll's June 2019 sexual assault allegation.

"This is the beauty and dangers of free speech in America. Everyone is entitled to their opinion," Habba said, asserting that Trump has no more control over the thoughts and feelings of social media users "than he does the weather."

"It is Ms. Carroll's burden, not President Trump's, to prove his statements are the cause of any harm, and clearly she has failed to meet that burden," Habba argued.

She also questioned the legitimacy of the harm Carroll claims to have suffered. "Who is E. Jean?" Habba asked, telling the jury there are two versions, and asserting that the true E. Jean Carroll is a narcissist out for fame and attention, "and the one who comes to court to get money from my client."

Habba also chided Carroll for deleting messages containing death threats -- which Carroll said she did because they were painful to see -- and for never calling the police.

"She deleted her own evidence," Habba said. "She has to give them to you to support their claim for damages, but they're not here and that's a fact."

As Trump looked on, hunched forward, hands folded on the table, Habba quoted his brief testimony saying he did not intend to hurt Carroll.

"We do not know the true identities of the people who sent the messages to Ms. Carroll," Habba said. "President Trump should not have to pay for their threats. He does not condone them. He did not direct them. All he did was tell his truth."