Trump reentered the courtroom after the break and returned to the defense table. Before he sat, he turned around to scan the room.

Defense attorney Susan Necheles entered in front of him, smiling.

Trump then conferred with Necheles at the defense table, whispering into her ear as she nodded in agreement.

As Daniels walked by him to the witness stand, he turned to his left to confer with attorney Todd Blanche, facing away from her.

Former President Trump gave a fist-pump as he exited the courtroom for the mid-morning break.

He did not address reporters on his way out .

Defense attorney Susan Necheles is continuing to try to find inconsistencies in the stories Daniels has previously told about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump, but Daniels, on the stand, has remained steadfast.

"Your story has completely changed, hasn't it?" Necheles asked her at one point.

"No!" Daniels shouted into the microphone. "Not at all. You are trying to make me say that it changed, but it hasn't changed."

Several jurors, watching the exchange, looked like they were watching a tennis match, with their heads and eyes shifting back and forth.

The judge subsequently called for the mid-morning break.

As Necheles returned to the defense table, Trump gave her a pat on the waist, seemingly in approval. She nodded back to him.

Daniels smiled at prosecutors as she left the stand.

In Susan Necheles' first sustained effort to call into question Stormy Daniels' story of the alleged sexual encounter, which her client has steadfastly denied for years, the defense attorney turned to the details of what happened when Daniels says she exited the bathroom of Trump's suite and saw Trump in his underwear.

Necheles attempted to cast doubt on Daniels' account of feeling light-headed -- highlighting her experience working with naked men in the adult film industry.

"But according to you, seeing a man on a bed in a T-shirt and boxer shorts was so upsetting that you got light-headed, the blood left your hands and feet, and you almost fainted?" Necheles asked.

Daniels responded by highlighting Trump's age, telling jurors she did not expect to find Trump undressed, and emphasizing the power imbalance in the room.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass indicted that the state's case could be headed into the home stretch.

"We expect to call potentially two witnesses" next week, Steinglass told Judge Merchan, saying it is "entirely possible" the state rests their case by the end of next week.

That will be followed by the presentation of the defense's case, then a prosecution rebuttal.

In another sign of how quickly the case is moving along, Merchan also invited the parties to begin submitting suggestions for the jury charge -- the instructions on the law delivered by the judge before the jury begins deliberating.