On the stand today in Donald Trump's hush money trial was Los Angeles lawyer Keith Davidson.

He negotiated both the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal hush money agreements at the center of the case against the former president.

William Brangham was in court today and joins us now to break down the latest developments.

So, William, this was the continuation of Mr. Davidson's testimony about how he actually negotiated these payments.

What else did we learn in court today?

That's right, Jeff, prosecutors teased out more information about this negotiation that he had to get his then client, Stormy Daniels, as you mentioned, to pay to be paid $130,000 so that she wouldn't go public with this story of an alleged relationship she had with Trump right before the 2016 election.

And at one point during his testimony, Davidson acknowledged that he knew that this payment to Daniels and the other one to the Playboy Playmate, Karen McDougal, were intended to somehow help Donald Trump's campaign.

And this is central because prosecutors here want the jury to see these payments as election interference.

And then Davidson, later in his testimony, told a story about how, after the election, he got this hourlong phone call from Michael Cohen, who he described as being despairing and despondent because he hadn't been given a job in the fledgling Trump administration.

He actually, Davidson said, he worried that Cohen might actually try to kill himself.

And in that conversation, Cohen also mentioned that he was really upset because Trump had still not repaid him the $130,000 that Cohen used of his own money to pay Daniels.

Again, this is central to because it is that eventual repayment and how those repayments were accounted for, that are the center of the 34 allegations of falsifying business records that Trump stands accused of.

So how did Mr. Trump's attorneys try to undermine Keith's Keith Davidson's testimony when they cross-examined him?

They tried to put as much daylight between Davidson and Donald Trump, acknowledging that he never met with him, never spoke to him, never had any phone calls, never been in a room with him before.

They also tried to portray Davidson as a guy who gets salacious information about celebrities, and then tries to extort celebrities with that information.

And they mentioned all of these different cases that he had been involved with about with Charlie Sheen and Hulk Hogan and Lindsay Lohan and, and they want the jury basically to see Davidson as this sort of serial blackmailer, daughter of rich people for money.

And the day actually started, William, as you well know, with a separate hearing today over allegations that Donald Trump has again violated the gag order that the judge in this case has placed on him.

Bring us up to speed.

That's right.

Jeff.

The mornings started with this hearing where prosecutors have alleged that Donald Trump has committed four more violations of this gag order.

You'll remember earlier this week, the judge found that Donald Trump was guilty of nine violations of that gag order and find him $9,000.

Prosecutors say he has continued to do that four different times, talking about witnesses, talking about the jury.

And they're arguing that this makes it impossible to have a fair trial, that the jurors might be nervous, that witnesses might not give full testimony.

And so they're arguing that he needs to be sanctioned again.

They don't want him to go to jail yet, but that still hangs over this as well.

Trump's defense team argues, look, the man is running for president.

He's just repeating things that a lot of his supporters are saying out in public, and that he needs to have the right to say these things.

The judge seems somewhat skeptical of that.

We don't know when he's going to rule on that yet, though.

Jeff.

William Brangham reporting tonight from Manhattan.

William, thanks so much.

Thanks, Jeff.