With the morning session completed, a more subdued Donald Trump has been in the courtroom today.

Unlike when Trump attended the trial last week, there have been no outbursts from Trump and no sparring with the judge. There are hardly any of the audible comments or hand gesturing that was observed earlier.

Instead, Trump has sat calmly and listened to the testimony, occasionally conferring quietly with his attorneys. When a video was played of him from just a few days ago repeating the claim that he "didn't know" E. Jean Carroll, he nodded along with the video and silently mouthed the words "true."

In fact, the only real disturbance today came when a cell phone -- which Judge Kaplan strictly prohibits in the courtroom -- rang in the galley.

"Whose telephone was that?" the judge asked. "Take that man out of here."

It turned out to be Trump campaign spokesperson Stephen Cheung-- who was removed from the courtroom by security.

Trump may take the witness stand when the proceedings resume after a break.

On cross-examination by Carroll's attorney Shawn Crowley, former television newswoman Carol Martin explained the safety concerns she said she had due to her association with E. Jean Carroll and her lawsuit against Donald Trump.

"I am a huge consumer of news and I keep up with everything that I can, as it happens, and the climate in the country felt dangerous to me," said Martin, a longtime friend of Carroll's. "Mr. Trump was saying he didn't lose the election and I was very concerned that my friend was right in the middle of a lawsuit like this one."

She also testified her comments about Carroll's "narcissism" and "lifestyle" were made out of concern that Carroll might lose at trial. Martin testified that when she called Carroll a "drug addict," she meant she was very passionate.

"I used the word drug addict. Bad word to use," Martin said.

"Are you suspicious of her motives?" asked Crowley.

"I am not suspicious of her motives," Martin replied.

Former television newswoman Carol Martin, testifying as a hostile witness for the defense, said that her longtime friend E. Jean Carroll "has an admirable reputation in the workplace."

Martin testified that she did, "on some levels," have concern for her safety and her daughter's safety after Carroll went public in 2019 with her sexual assault accusation against Donald Trump. Martin was among the friends Carroll had told about the assault.

"As I saw the popularity of that article, my daughter became more concerned," Martin said of the 2019 New York magazine story in which Carroll made the accusation.

"Ms. Carroll assured you she didn't have security concerns?" defense attorney Alina Habba asked. "That was her opinion," Martin said. "Jeanie didn't want us to worry."

Habba has argued that the harm Carroll said she suffered as a result of Trump's defamatory statements is overblown.

"Did you think Ms. Carroll enjoyed the attention?" Habba asked. "At points, in early years," Martin responded. She also affirmed she had texted a friend that Carroll's "narcissism had run amok."

Martin testified that "at some point" she became frustrated with what Habba described as Carroll's "celebratory behavior" in connection with her lawsuits against Trump. "It's a difference in our personalities, but we work around it," Martin said.

At one point Martin said she felt Carroll was "loving the adulation."

"Do you believe Ms. Carroll is enjoying this fame to some extent?" Habba asked. "I think she is adapting to this phase in her life. Enjoying is a multifaceted word," Martin said, ending her direct examination.

The defense's motion for a directed verdict, made after Carroll's attorneys rested their case, asked the judge to end the trial due to a lack of evidence.

"Ms. Carroll has failed to establish any causal link between her claim for damages and President Trump's statement," defense attorney Alina Habba said. "On causation alone, she has not proven her facts."

Habba argued, as she did in her opening statement, that people were disparaging Carroll prior to Trump issuing his defamatory denials. She also argued Carroll could not prove she received death threats at the time because she deleted messages that contained them, prompting an interjection from the judge.

"Your theory here is that she should be punished because, before there was litigation, she deleted tweets that could be helpful to her?" Judge Lewis Kaplan asked. "That's not my argument," Habba replied. "Sounds like it," the judge said.

Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, argued that she had met her burden.

"We believe there is more than ample evidence, causation, here to allow the case to go to the jury," Roberta Kaplan said.

The judge denied the defense's motion. Next up will be the defense's first witness.

E. Jean Carroll's attorneys ended their defamation case against former President Trump by showing the jury some of Trump's social media posts and soundbites from his campaign rallies in which he repeats the defamatory statements he has made about her.

The jury also saw a portion of Trump's videotaped deposition for Carroll's case that he sat for in October 2022, in which Trump was given a copy of the 2019 New York magazine article that first published Carroll's sexual assault allegation.

"Did you ever read this article?" plaintiff's attorney Roberta Kaplan asked in the deposition. "No," Trump responded.

Kaplan, in the deposition, also read Trump's defamatory response to the article and asked, "Do you stand by the statement?" Trump responded, "Yes."

The jury also heard Trump in the deposition affirm that he stood by a June 24, 2019, statement in which he said Carroll was "not my type."

"You meant she was not your type, physically right?" Kaplan asked. "Physically, she's not my type," Trump responded. "The only difference between me and other people is that I'm honest."

The jury also saw the excerpt of the deposition in which Trump was handed an old black-and-white photo of him, his first wife Ivana, Carroll, and her then-husband John Johnson, and temporarily mistook Carroll for his second wife Marla Maples.

After the confusion, Kaplan, in the deposition, asked Trump if the three women he married were his type, and Trump answered, "Yeah."

Trump, in the deposition, also conceded that he had no information about Carroll's political party or evidence that she was pursuing a political agenda.

The jury also saw an excerpt of a videotaped deposition Trump gave in April 2023 as part of Trump's separate civil fraud lawsuit in which Trump boasted about his wealth, and estimated that the value of his Mar-a-Lago resort is $1.5 billion -- possibly meant to show the jury that Trump can afford a large damage award.