The defense successfully challenged a man who said he owns a minority stake in the company that produced Michael Cohen's "Mea Culpa" podcast and said he has a "fairly negative" opinion of former President Trump based on his "negative, divisive rhetoric."

The judge confronted the man with several social media posts, including one referring to Trump with the words "sociopathic incompetence" and another saying of Trump, "I do believe that he is actually the devil."

The judge asked if that reflected his opinion. "I would say it's not far off base," the man replied, and he was immediately excused.

Judge Merchan excused a retired teacher who attended what he considered to be a women's rights rally near the United Nations but that the defense considered to be an anti-Trump rally.

"I did go there because I wanted to take pictures," he said.

The judge confronted him with his social media post of a sign from the rally with a comment that said. "My sentiments exactly."

Merchan said he wasn't sure those sentiments were anti-Trump sentiments, but said he had concerns about the nature of the rally, which, in one post, the man suggested was a "massive anti-Trump rally."

Alternate Juror No. 3 is an audio professional who offered to assist Judge Merchan with a microphone that kept cutting out. He expressed his opinion that "Donald Trump is a man, just like I am."

He said growth results from correcting their prior wrongful actions. "Every man should respond to their wrongdoings if found," he said. "If there is evidence found against a man, there should be consequences."

Alternate Juror No. 4 is a woman who said "I have no really strong opinions about President Trump."

She is married with two boys that she likes to take to Knicks games and Rubik's Cube speed competitions. She has been a contract specialist for 20 years, currently employed at a publicly traded fintech company.

The woman who participated in the Women's March and said Trump enabled homophobic and racist comments was excused. The judge called it "the safer course."

The has seated three more alternate jurors, joining the alternate juror who was seated Thursday. Two more are still needed.

One of the new alternates is a woman originally from Spain who said she has no strong opinions about former President Trump.

The woman said she is not on social media and doesn't watch the news besides skimming through headlines. She said her husband will inform her of the news and that "I don't really go in depth into anything"

The defense was trying to eliminate the young woman who said she heard Trump followers express homophobic and racist things at the boxing gym.

"It's almost like they're devout to him," the woman said of Trump's followers. She is currently being questioned by the judge to assess her views and her ability to be fair and impartial.

With Donald Trump following along from the defense table, head cocked slightly to the side, David Pecker described the negotiations conducted with Karen McDougal to purchase the exclusive rights to her story about an alleged year-long relationship with Trump.

Pecker said that Trump's attorney Michael Cohen authorized negotiations to begin, then during those negotiations, "Michael was very agitated," constantly asking "Why is this taking so long?"

"To purchase the lifetime rights to Karen McDougal was going to cost $150,000. Plus Karen wanted to restart her career. She wanted to write for the celebrity magazines. She wanted to be on the cover of the life and fitness titles. She had a major problem when her breast implants were removed and she wanted to write about that," Pecker testified.

Pecker said he asked Cohen, "Who is going to reimburse me for this?" He said Cohen responded "Don't worry about it, I'm your friend the boss will take care of it.'"

When prosecutor Josh Steinglass asked Pecker who "the boss" was, Pecker answered "The boss would have been Donald Trump"

Prosecutors then displayed for the jury the contract with McDougal, dated August 5, 2016. It awarded AMI, the Enquirer's parent company, the rights to her story of a relationship she had "with any then-married man." Pecker said "she was referring to Donald Trump."

Pecker testified he needed to "validate" the amount of money AMI was going to pay, so the contract included other provisions, like having McDougal write monthly columns on aging and fitness.

"With respect to campaign laws, I wanted to have the contract be a record that stipulates the services she was going to perform for American Media had a basis for it, the $150,000," Pecker said.

"Was it your primary purpose to buy the life rights?" Steinglass asked. "Yes it was," Pecker responded.

"Were the other provisions to disguise the true nature of this contract?" Steinglass asked. "Yes," Pecker replied, letting out a sigh.