“So that’s not true?” he asked Mr. Blanche.
“That’s not true,” Mr. Blanche conceded.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Justice Merchan agreed with prosecutors that the former president had crossed the line by attacking Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels, except in one post in which he appeared to call them “sleaze bags.” In a nod to Mr. Blanche’s argument that Mr. Trump can respond to political attacks, the judge found a “tenuous correlation” between Mr. Trump’s post and Mr. Cohen’s denunciation of the former president’s latest run for the White House.
Justice Merchan held Mr. Trump in contempt for the nine other statements that prosecutors flagged, including times when Mr. Trump reposted other people’s comments. If Mr. Trump selected a post to share with his followers, the judge held, “it is counterintuitive and indeed absurd” not to attribute the reposts to Mr. Trump.
In one instance, Mr. Trump had quoted a Fox News commentator, Jesse Watters, denigrating potential jurors in the case as “undercover liberal activists.”
A day after the post, one of the jurors begged off the panel.
Justice Merchan initially imposed the order on Mr. Trump in late March, barring public statements about any witnesses, prosecutors, jurors or court staff, as well as their families. But within a week, Mr. Trump found a loophole and repeatedly attacked the judge’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant.
At the request of prosecutors, Justice Merchan then expanded the measure to cover his relatives and relatives of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. Justice Merchan and Mr. Bragg are not covered by the order, and Mr. Trump is free to attack them.
Mr. Trump often assails people he used to praise and commends those he once pilloried.
Just before Mr. Davidson took the stand on Tuesday, for example, prosecutors showed a video in which Mr. Trump had praised Mr. Cohen as “a very talented lawyer.”