After attorneys for each side introduced themselves, Judge Juan Merchan said that before jury selection can begin "there are a couple of loose ends we need to go over before we start."

The first item, Merchan said, was a pair of motions filed by Trump's legal team seeking his recusal from the case, citing his past comments in interviews and his daughter's work with a Democrat-affiliated firm.

The motions, Merchan said, cite "pages and pages of screen grabs, articles, social media posts and the like" that amount only to "a series of inferences, innuendos, and unsupported speculation."

To call them "attenuated is an understatement," Merchan said.

Merchan denied the motion and said the court would not address the matter further.

"All rise," the bailiff announced at 9:59 a.m. ET. "This is the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump."

And with that, proceedings are underway.

Members of the prosecution and the defense, including the former president, stood briefly as Judge Juan Merchan entered the courtroom and took his seat on the bench.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg entered the courtroom shortly before court went into session.

Former President Trump arrived at the courtroom at 9:32 a.m. flanked by members of his legal team.

In brief remarks to reporters on the way in, he called his criminal trial an "assault on America."

"Nothing like this has ever happened before," Trump said, marking his first comments of the day as he becomes the first former American president to face criminal charges.

"There is no case," he said. "This is political persecution."

Trump also attacked President Joe Biden and said the case should not go forward.

Upon entering the courtroom, he sat at the defendant's table as his lawyers and court officers buzzed around him.

Several members of the Manhattan district attorney’s office have arrived in the courtroom.

Proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. ET.

The temperature is rising in Donald Trump's New York criminal trial -- just not in the courtroom itself.

As the parties worked to select the jury Thursday, prosecutors alleged that the former president had violated the limited gag order in the case seven additional times beyond the three instances they flagged on Monday. The accusation came a day after Judge Juan Merchand scolded the former president for muttering within earshot of the jury.

As for the actual temperature, Trump and his attorneys complained it was too cold.

"I'm sitting here for days now from morning till night in that freezing room," Trump told reporters Thursday during a break in the proceedings.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked Judge Merchan is he could turn up the heat in the courtroom "just one degree," but the judge politely declined, saying he feared a one-degree bump in the nearly century-old building could increase the temperature by 30 degrees.

But the parties persevered, seating the jury's 12 members by the end of the day. Today they'll work to seat the jury's six alternates, in the hope of starting opening arguments on Monday.