Trump seems to get cold feet about testifying in New York hush money trial: ‘I would if it’s necessary’

Donald Trump appears to be getting cold feet about taking the stand to testify in his criminal hush money trial, after he previously insisted that he would “absolutely” do so.

The former president called in to Newsmax on Thursday night after the conclusion of day seven of his historic trial, where he was asked by anchor Greg Kelly about his intentions to testify in his own defence based on what he had seen of the proceedings so far.

“Well I would if it’s necessary,” Mr Trump answered.

He continued: “Right now, I don’t know if you heard about today. Today was just incredible. People are saying – the experts, I’m talking about legal scholars and experts – they’re saying, ‘What kind of a case is this? There is no case.’

“Uh, you know they had David Pecker, testifying today. And he was, you know, people are saying there’s no case. There’s literally no case!”

Mr Trump went on to cite conservative lawyers Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Turley and Mark Levin to back up his baseless insistence that the legal establishment is almost entirely in agreement with him about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg having no case against him.

Mr Bragg charged the former president with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to suppress allegations of an affair ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Trump’s comments about testifying were much more reticent than his previous statements on the matter.

Speaking at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month – just three days before jury selection got under way in the case – he told reporters: “Yeah, I would testify, absolutely. That’s not a trial. That’s a scam.”

So far in the trial, jurors have heard from testimony from David Pecker,