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tv   Trump Hush Money Trial  CNN  April 26, 2024 6:00am-10:00am PDT

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tracking very carefully. i can't speak to these specific reports. i can say that as a general matter we've been very clear with china. don't do it, but there not violating the commitment yet as far as you can tell. >> well, again, i'd have to look at the specific reports that you're referring to, but we have seen generally speaking evidence of attempts to influence and arguably interfere and we want to make sure that that's cut off quickly as possible now, it is noteworthy that he said that there is evidence of china attempting to influence and arguably interfere in us elections just months after president biden present kyi had that conversation. >> it's clear that china is not heating those morning calls from the united states. he also said that it's the concern that russia, excuse me, china is seeking to mirror what
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russia is doing in terms of influence efforts in the united states trying to sow division that are already apparent in the us evidence that they tried to influence and maybe interfere in the elections. terrific to have you here, kylie. thank you so much for sharing this breaking news reporting. >> we've got major new developments. >> let's get right to them developing news for you this morning, donald trump just arrived at court, were watching that hallway for you to see if he's got anything to say today before critical testimony gets back underway? >> in historic hush money trial this hour, the former publisher of the enquirer, david pecker, back on the stand under cross-examination as the defense tries to know formalized conversations, pecker told the jury about that involve trump, stormy daniels, and efforts to catch their stories and kill them because they were unflattering to donald trump cnn's beringia and
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grasses live outside of court. as we wait to see if donald trump has anything to say. he has been speaking quite a bit before court brin we're not the only ones listening to what he's saying. the judge and the prosecutors are definitely honing in on what he's saying because there's this issue of the gag order and whether or not he has violated it yet. again what can you tell us where that is? we're expecting here anything today on the gag order? >> you know, we don't know we don't know when a judge is going to rule on those previous violations that the prosecution is alleging trump had. >> but we know it says here they are listening, right. because at the very beginning of court yesterday, they brought up for more examples of what they say trump violated that gag order. one of them actually included an exchange that he had with our own kristen holmes outside of trump tower. i want you to take a listen to what he said. there a lot of david pecker testimony so far one last time just been
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very nice and he's been david's been very nice and nice. so you can see there he called david pecker who has been on the stand all this week. a nice guy the prosecution says that saying that is really a kind of signaling to a witness on the stand and that, you know, it's possible that he'll do that again with another person that takes the stand. so that's just one of the examples they brought up yesterday. there were three more and now the judge has set a new gag order hearing in for next thursday to deal with these four new examples. so we'll see if we get any ruling about the ten prior ones today or does that get pushed back to next thursday when this do gag order is set, so we're not sure, sarah, but certainly less than one court does get underway if the judge doesn't address that, we are going to get into cross-examination again, that's where court left off yesterday. the defense questioning david pecker with rapid-fire questioning questions about this whole we'll catch and kill scheme sort of poking holes into the
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prosecution's. what they laid out for the last several days. essentially, they were saying that this whole buying and bearings stories was nothing new, that they did this for celebrities all the time and it had nothing to do with the fact that trump was running for president in 2016. so we'll see where that picks up. when court gets underway. sir. all right. thank you, brendan, john, it strikes me that donald trump, for the first time said something nice about someone involved in the case against him, but he's still talked about a witness still spoke about a witness with us now, cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, jennifer rodgers and former federal prosecutor for the southern district of new york, sara kris, jen, to the point that donald trump made about david pecker, that he was nice. let's leave aside for a moment whether or not that violated the gag order. let's talk about whether he was right, how nice has david pecker been for donald trump? and what is the risk that he couldn't be nice? >> for donald trump in the cross-examination? yeah, it's so interesting because when you're crossing, you have to decide how you're going to
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approach it, right? are you going to attack aggressively this person tried to undercut their credibility or if they seem friendly to you, or at least not hostile to you. are you going to take a more friendly tone with them? and so far that's what we've seen they think they can get more out of david but pecker by being calm and not aggressively attacking him. and i think that they're right. he clearly still admires trump. he's willing to give the defense what they're asking for when it will be a little more fraud, we'll see if they start to try to dig at. well, when you said you talked to trump about this and they tried to like poke holes in that and maybe you don't remember remember or maybe it wasn't exactly what you said. we'll see if they go full on in those those are the big communications here. but so far they think they can get more out of them this way. and that's really what you're doing and crosses your, you're not trying to get the you can't do you need me on that wall moment. what you're trying to get our little tidbits, you're going to use in your closing argument to make your point any risk for pecker in violating his agreement with prosecutors who theoretically he has immunity, but there's really no likelihood that
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they're going to charge arch him with this crime. i think he probably knows that. so while i think you'll try to stick to the terms of his agreement, there's really not much risk for him. >> one of the thing that the defense attorneys started to do yesterday and cross and i imagined we'll pick it back up within just a few minutes here is maybe trying to question how well david pecker remember it's specific moments how much does that land with a jury thereafter? two-and-a-half days of a pretty specific testimony from david pecker, pretty vivid in some ways, luria testimony. >> i mean, that could be pretty effective actually because it particularly if pecker now recounts his conversations again and they ship if the little bit, the language changes a little bit, that that could matter here in the defense team is going to point out that these are events that happened many years ago the witness's memory is not incredibly clear and there's some ambiguity here. they'll use that to sort of poke holes and brains reasonable doubt, give me a checklist of what the prosecution thinks it
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accomplished with pecker in their direct. >> so he is a good one witness for them in that he's not biased. it clearly still likes trump's, so that's good for the prosecution. the big thing though, is this election conspiracy. what david pecker gives them is that all of this catch and kill, all of trying to hush up these women was about the election. it wasn't about as embarrassment over his family, is about his election in that that's what prosecutors need to make this misdemeanor falsification of business records into a felon was almost like it was the refrain if this for a song, whatever they could the prosecution and david pecker tried to come back to the 0.0. this was for the campaign, this was different. there was a shift before the campaign. trump was worried about his family once the campaign started, it was only about the camp hey, so how does the defense handle that and cross so i mean, the real question here for the jury is why this happened, right? we know sort of the basic facts of this happen and i think the defense team is seating, those. the question is, why and because
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that makes it a crime or not. and so i think from out of the gate, the defense team from the opening statement through this cross, has sort of challenging the people's version of why this happened it is interesting because we're now several days into this testimony. it isn't we're that the prosecution has delved into the exact crime here. when do you expect that they're going to get to a moment where they say this is where donald trump broke the law. and in this case because it needs to be two laws that were prosecuting four here. >> so i think they wanted to start with a relatively safe witness, right? they wanted to start with a witness that didn't have a ton of impeachment material that was little bit harder to cross-examine to set the stage. i think this was probably a smart witness for the prosecution to start with, although the e. they in established this can bureaucracy the broad strokes of it, but they really are going to need to get to michael cohen to get into the dirt here
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of what happened. we haven't falsified documents yet, as far as this uri is concerned, really have widget no, i think actually after pecker and before cohen will get some kind of boring witnesses who are going to take us through the records themselves, authenticate them, explain them, will probably get some of that stuff. >> we don't say boring on tv, we say highly specific typic in technical, i think is a way to describe that jennifer rodgers there. >> thank you so much for being with us much more to discuss as this continues this morning we do have pictures from the courthouse right now. as we said testimony will resume very shortly. this is the doorway donald trump walks out of when he speaks before go again, we will see if he speaks. we'll see if he speaks about the tropical. interestingly enough, he has maybe moved away from speaking so much about this. perhaps the gag order is looming as a threat. stay with us or social life covers continuous every piece of
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customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. >> that's great. >> i know i've been telling everyone how many people did you tell? >> only pay for what you need lucky? 2024 stanley cup playoffs presented by gold covers continues right? >> the retinal you're looking at live pictures. this is inside the courthouse, of course, donald trump is in the courthouse in new york, and we're keeping an eye on this kind of usual spot, if you will, where he often has chosen to to stop and speak to cameras and reporters on his way in. so we're going to keep a close eye here. we're going to bring you if he has any comments, he's gonna be making his way into court, which is kinda become his routine. but there's also happens just as new cnn polling is offering up a fresh look at the real impact this trial is having and how
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americans feel about trump and about their vote only 13% of voters nationwide feel that donald trump is being treated the same as any other defendant. when you look inside that number, you see there there are most are divided over whether he is being treated more harshly or more leniently, than other criminal defendants. >> what happens if he is convicted of a crime? >> this is interesting among trump's supporters they take, this is among trump's supporters. look at this result, this poll finds the vast majority would support trump regardless but 24% of trump supporters say it may cause them to reconsider their support of the former president. let's talk much more about all of this joining me right now, a cnn senior political analyst, ron brownstein, his new piece out in the atlantic is about the supreme court's impact on trump's future and the future of the presidency, quite frankly, and it's called trump is getting what he wants let's start there. ron, because after yesterday's supreme court arguments, you concluded that trump is getting what he wants and more how and why well, look
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in practical, your attorney in the near term, what he's getting is we're kind of getting numb to this, but that at that hearing yesterday five of the republican appointed justices, really all of them except amy coney barrett, gave very clear signals that they are going to protect the republican presidential nominee from a trial before the november election on the charges that this poll and other polls show are the most serious is to the american people i mean, in practical terms, at almost any of the rulings that seemed possible out of that hearing are going to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for there to be a trial on whether trump tried to subvert the last election before he faces voters. >> in the next election. but the implications for what happens if he is reelected, maybe even more profound. i mean, you saw that hearing how virtually unlimited is their view of presidential power they his lawyers argued that unless
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he was first impeached individually, which is impossible in this current partisan environment, he could sell nuclear secrets assassinate a political rival, or even stage a coup without facing criminal trials and the legal experts that i spoke with, uh, for this piece pointed out that when you're starting with someone who has that level of view of what he can do as president trying to draw a very fine lines between what can and can't be prosecuted after he leaves office is kind of a doomed effort and he is going to take almost any kind of immunity as a license to truly push at the boundaries and reed just a portion of because about that, you wrote this that those who went into the hearing wishing to preserve a pre-election trial against trump emerge from the proceedings reduced to hoping that the court doesn't eviscerate the possibility of criminal consequences for any president who breaks the law. >> i mean, because you're gonna, you're, you're speaking to just that ron about what this means for a second trump term.
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>> look, i mean, it was kind of an upside down world where afford the least four of the, of the republican appointed justices. there only concern was that a future president would face unfair prosecution from an overzealous successor or prosecutor they affirmatively refused to talk about, chose, swatted, swatted down efforts to talk about the actual facts that we're dealing with now, which is the allegation that a president tried to subvert the last election and broke the law in the process two times you brown jackson really was the one who said, look, i mean, you're talking about a chilling effect on the presidency. if you allow for prosecution look at what we're dealing with here, what kind of license and liberating effect on a president to break the law. >> do you create if you say that there are going to be already limited on i'm sorry i'm just going to erupt really quick. i i'm not sure if everyone viewing at home loss,
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but we've we're having some technical issues where i've completely lost being able to hear ron. ron stick with me. we're going to have hopefully work out these ground lins as happens sometimes. so stick with me, we're going to get that worked out where i was like can throw up the live picture once more of inside the courthouse is we're standing by to here. if donald trump is going to be speaking as he's heading into court let's get an a quick break. we're going to fix this up. we'll be right back. >> from the nation's capital, one of the most unforgettable nights in dc see the swarm and we'll read back here again, president biden and comedian collin joseph headline the white house correspondents dinner, live tomorrow at seven eastern on cnn chem to riva support your brain health. >> mary janet, hey, eddie know appraiser, franck. franck, bread. >> how are you? fred, fuel up to seven brain health indicators getting your memory joined the neretva brain health challenge with fast create
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>> you're looking at live pictures right now. we are waiting for donald trump to come through those double doors there as he has done every day of this trial to see if he says anything, the attorneys we'll be watching a force the judge as well because he is also facing the potential of getting some reaction from the judge on the gag order, although we have not had that yet seen we'll analyst and former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgers is here with us and former federal prosecutor for the southern district of new york, sarah acrysof also with us. i'm going to start with you, jennifer did david pecker has been on the stand, the former publisher of the enquirer and he has been asked 1,000 questions by the prosecution& now getting rapid-fire cross-examination from the defense is the defense making a mark? are they hurting the prosecution's case? >> i think they're doing. all right. so far, yeah. i mean, what they're looking for from david pecker who so far has been friendly to them. it's not like pulling teeth to get stuff out of david pecker for
quote
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the defense. >> they're just they just want a little points. they want to make the point that none of this has any diego on one second. >> there is donald trump walking toward the microphone. this is when he talks, he hasn't spoken about the trial itself lately. well, here when he says this morning thank you very much, everybody i want to start by wishing my life very happy birthday i should be with her, but i'm in a courthouse for rape, drug so wreak terrible. >> what we're doing very well in this big drought everybody knows. >> yesterday was a big day. >> but i do have to begin my wishing happy birthday. >> she said i'll be going there this evening. >> answer this case finishes up with this car unconstitutional case. when it finishes up we have hi report that is just put out by house judiciary on the
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district attorney's office, which was done by congress. and so is it just came out really wow. moments ago, and i haven't seen it read it but it should be interesting, i think yesterday went very well in this courthouse should be over, the case is over. >> you heard what we said and the patient be over but you have to make that determination and we have a judge, you would never allow this case to be over in a positive way as he's highly conflicted. >> the most highly conflicted they're going to say and yesterday i think in this court having to deal with immunity, i heard the argument. who is brilliant this is last night? i thought it was really great. i flip the gestures, questions were great and all presidents have to have immunity. it has nothing to do would make absolutely nothing all present let's have to have immunity. if you don't have the president and certainly not precedent that the founders
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wanted so we have another de, of court in a freezing court it's very cold that there for what purpose i believe they don't seem to be able to get the temperature it shouldn't be that complicated, but we have a freezing court yes that's fine. just fine let him keep ending of that there's a rig draft. thank you very much just. >> waiting to. save down. if i'm turned around. okay. so he's now headed into court speaking briefly to reporters and cameras. he is happy about what he saw in court yesterday where he's saying that he is happy about what he saw in court yesterday. he is not happy about the temperature of that courtroom. there is no question about that. there is. i don't think anything to analyze on that, but i am interested in his take when he says we're doing very well in this trial here he says we had a very good day yesterday. why is he saying that's area you see that listen, i think
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they're they're making some holes pecker's testimony there there have some particular jobs that are effective, but, you know, i think pecker of not the central witness of this case. he's important. he said during this stage but i don't think it is such a dramatic victory as trump leaves it out to be certainly, what do you wanna point out? >> the first thing he did was wishes wife happy birthday and say he wished he could be with her. >> she could be there. any number of his family members could be there at this trial at any point they've all chosen not to be at this trial. it may be because this gets into some very uncomfortable issues. jan, about about alleged affairs that he had with karen mcdougal we'll over several months of dalliance. he allegedly he was stormy daniels over a period of time. he spoke about the judge called the judge highly conflicted. he called this a rig trial, and he says this minutes before potentially what could be some kind of a ruling on the alleged violations of the gag or why hasn't the judge you think made a ruling
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yet? >> that's a great question. i don't know. i mean, he had this hearing already on the first ten alleged violations there's another hearing set next week for follow-on violations, but every day we see donald trump talking more and more about the trial, what he said today isn't a violation, but he has continued think to talk about specifically michael cohen, which usually is a violation. so i really don't understand the delay. obviously, it's a hard decision for the judge to make. he doesn't have a lot of good options here, but it's not like the options are changing as time goes by. so i don't know. i mean, i would expect a ruling today, although i said that, yes. today as well there the prosecution is the only one right now that knows who they're calling. >> next, you mentioned michael cohen. is that the crux of all this he was in the room where it happened, if you will? do you think the prosecution should call next so jennifer pose the idea earlier that the next few witnesses are probably some just boring administrative witnesses regarding these payments are important. oh, yeah. yeah. sorry. well, there
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may be a few juror sleep bank, but object to area expert but essentially, you know, there's these technical things they have to prove about the payments, the records for those payments, and perhaps the wheels witnesses our next they're just they have to put those into evidence. that's right. there necessary. they're not i'm really subject to much cross-examination all right. >> this all kicks off very, very shortly. donald trump walked into the courtroom just minutes ago. it will be gyn with the judge speaking as possible. we do get a ruling on the gag order right away. once we learn whether or not that happened also to reinforce these, then now he's going to consider four other violations just before he's even ruled on this. >> david pecker back on the stand very shortly for cross-examinations. one program you note, sarah and i are going to host coverage of the white house correspondents dinner tomorrow for a night beginning at 7:00. we will have a reporter inside deep source
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side to dinner. she got invited. cnn special the live coverage of trump's hush money trial continues, right we are alive outside the criminal courthouse here in manhattan. >> were donald trump just arrived and walked into the courtroom for another day of his historic hush money trial, which is getting underway at this very moment, judge juan merchan gavel and cord into session is when your weight more dramatic witness testimony and the potential ruling going on, whether trump violated his gag order. good morning to our viewers. the united states around the world i made son cooper in new york anderson an i'm jim acosta in washington. >> your wife? but you can cnn special live coverage of donald trump on trial minutes from now we expect trump's attorneys to press ahead with their cross-examination of david pecker, the former tabloid executive and trump ally, who spent the week on the stand
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detailing the alleged scheme to kill negative stories about trump, the defense, trying to poke holes in the prosecution's theory that trump's arrangement and with pecker& the payment to adult film star stormy daniels, work conspiracy to corruptly influence the 2016 election. also at any moment, judge merchan could rule on a major question looming over this entire trial. did donald trump violated his gag order by attacking witnesses? and if so, what punishment could he phase we're stating mean by for his decision anderson it's gonna be very big de of court. >> a lot of state that's for sure. there's a lot of salmon joined here by our chief legal affairs correspondent, paula reid pali it yesterday cross-examination began. we that is going to take place pretty much probably we expect all throughout the day yeah. >> i think that's right. because david pecker spent about seven hours under direct examination by the prosecution and david pecker, of course, the tabloid king is setting the
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foundation for the prosecutor's case that trump and cohen were working to to suppress negative stories about then candidate chump to help his odds in the election. >> now, yesterday, on cross-examination, trump just walked in the courtroom carrying a two inch stack of papers altogether by a binder clip. these are for notes from our team of journalists inside the courtroom and in the overflow room will be sending us play by play of what is going on. we'll be reading those it's out to you as we discussed, the judges on the bench. >> and when packer takes the stand, it depends. attorneys are likely going to resume their efforts to try to poke holes in the prosecution's case yesterday, they were trying to make two points it's one they were trying to show that pecker's memory isn't perfect, that he forgot small details, for example, that hope hicks was not at a 2015 meeting. i understand we're talking about things that happened nearly a decade ago. i think you were i could potentially forget who was at a meeting. we were at probably ten years ago. >> but the other thing they were trying to drive home for their questions to pecker so the judge notes that a hearing
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on this gag order that you are were just talking about actually happened next thursday at 9:30. >> this will be the second time the judges had a hearing related to an alleged gag order violations since this trial started. and again, we're still waiting for his decision on the first one. but the other point defense attorneys made was that this arrangement that trump had with national enquirer was not unusual and this is keeping the defense attorneys because they're trying to show that this was not something that they did special just for trump ahead of the election. and pecker talked about how they also suppress negative stories for other high-profile men like arnold schwarzenegger, mark wall, walberg, they didn't get too deep into their questioning. >> i want to turn to cnn's elie honig at the magic wallet la yesterday we heard a lot for the prosecution, finished questioning pack or in trump's defense team began cross-examination. >> i'm talking about the takeaways for you. yeah. anderson, six hours of testimony yesterday from david pecker. here are the most important points pecker, of course, just to remind people, longtime friend of donald trump's, he was the chair of ami american media, inc. which
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publishes the national enquirer david pecker, on direct examination, took the jury deep inside three separate catch and kill schemes. one of the involving a door man who had a story that was false about a child that donald trump allegedly had did not have out of wedlock. and then two stories related to karen mcdougal and stormy daniels, both of whom alleged that they had sexual affairs with donald trump, david pecker told the jury that, quote, we didn't want the story, meaning karen mcdougal, but applied to all that, we didn't want the story to embarrass mr. trump or embarrassed or hurt the campaign. now, with about an hour left in the trial yesterday, it came time for cross-examination. everything changes when cross-examination starts, it was done by email beauvais, one of donald trump's lawyers, former federal prosecutor, and he drove home a few key points. first of all, trump's lawyer got out of david pecker the following about michael cohen. he asked in your relationship with michael cohen, he was somebody that was always wanted something for himself correct?
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and pecker said yes. so what the defense is doing there is using one prosecution witness, david pecker, to undercut another prosecution witness, michael cohen, who will hear from in the future the defense team also focused on a discrepancy in something that david pecker has said, he testified on direct examination about this crucial meeting in august 2015 between him, donald trump, michael cohen, and whole hicks. but trump's defense team pointed out that the first time david pecker told prosecutors about this meeting, he made no mention of hope hicks now, was that a failure of memory? is he lying? we'll see i think they're going to try to flesh that out today. and the third point that trump's lawyers made on cross-examination yesterday towards the end of the day of david pecker, was that this practice of catch-and-kill was done all the time for many years. it was not something they did specifically only for donald trump. so they're trying to make the point to the jury of this was nothing out of the ordinary, and i think they're trying to suggest that the jury what's the big deal, what's the crime that cross-examination will
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continue today, anderson, in a few moments all right. >> elie honig. thanks so much. back here outside of the courthouse with with paula reid it was very interesting yesterday to just get a sense from david pecker the amount of time that they have known each other the amount of information that they kind of, the long, the length of their relationship. yeah. this is a relationship, a friendship really that went back decades long for trump, who is running for the white house. and it was a mutually beneficial relationship for a long time. >> trump provided a lot of news where the national enquirer, that soul when he was the height of his fame, pecker said, during the apprentice of the national enquirer would run helpful stories to trump's threat to amplify the great ratings. >> we said the stories also did well. and if you read lots of profiles of pecker, i will stop for one second to get outdated. sayyed the court saying for now, the judge says the trump team should continue to object to text messages as the
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prosecutors tried to admit them. to evidence, so they're having a little dispute. the prosecutors and the defense attorneys about which text messages in this case can come in as evidence. so the judge said he's going to take those on a case-by-case basis. but it seems if you read the history of their relationship pecker and trump pecker really admire of trump. he admired his success, his fame his wealth. the women who are around him now the judge says he agrees with trump's lawyers generally that at some point the text messages could become cumulative cumulatively prejudicial to trump so what the judge is saying here where is that at some point all of these text messages together could become too prejudicial to come in to the case. so this seems like something the judge just going to continue to monitor a dispute again over which text messages can come in in this case, we're also still waiting to hear whether the judge is going to say anything about the gag order. >> yeah. what's the holdup? i mean, we expected a decision by now, the judges had a few days to consider what the prosecutor says is more than ten violations of the gag order.
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the judge is weighing whether he wants to find or imposed some other punishment on chump for these alleged violations. it's a little surprising we haven't gotten that decision and now they're piling up as we kicked off in the past 24 hours, the prosecutors have added additional alleged violations trump is sitting back in his chair as the lawyers go back back and with the judge, there's gonna be another hearing next thursday on new alleged new violations of the gag order. >> but again, it's interesting you're going to have another for hearing. we still don't know the ruling on the former. get violations. >> it's really surprising and anderson, i hope that next week it goes better because this past week it was a disaster. it really devolved into a contentious exchange between the judge that defense attorneys, the prosecutor is asking whether the judge will instruct the jury about trump's attorney misleading david pecker yesterday about an fbi interview and during the last hearing, the defense attorneys really didn't want to focus on the post themselves and it was clear that's what
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the judge wanted. so going into next week, it'll be interesting getting to see if the defendant's attorney switch up their tactics. >> and it said, try to defend these individual statements or post these infractions as opposed to just complaining about the case writ large because that did not go well for them. >> earlier this week. all right. let's go back to jamming do you say jim anderson? >> thank you very much. i'm here with my panel here in washington and elie, let me go to you first. i mean, i'm just kinda wondering just to echo what paula reid was saying. if you mozart, what's up with the gag order? i mean, are we going to see something you think by the end of today? what do you think? >> yes, but i said that yesterday look at anyone who's raised a child knows that discipline only works if it's swift. and the longer he leaves this out there, i mean, in the time that the first batch of gag order motions has been pending, trump has committed for alleged new violations, so i'm actually surprised though, because judge merchan for them most part has done a really effective job of keeping control of his courtroom, running things efficiently. he has tolerated no bs from anybody. yeah. yeah. he's
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tolerating quite a bit here. he must. i'm guessing. >> it looks like we're getting an update from the trial as we speak that says the judge agreeing that trump attorneys apology will be sufficient. so it sounds because though one of the trump attorneys did apologize to david pecker at the start of the testimony for not being clear enough during some of the cross-examinations. so all right. >> so sometimes sometimes judges and prosecutors just work things out in formal. yeah. sometimes you can do it. yeah. now, not work out with the gag order. yeah. no. right an apology is not going to do it, but the judge has got to get control of this because it's not going to resolve itself and i'd be shocked if he doesn't rule today. >> and aly at the other excerpt that we're getting right now, so as the prosecutors asked, the judge to give the jury more instruction about how they should consider references to pecker's meetings with prostate peters ahead of trial, there's gonna be a lot of back-and-forth over these meetings that david pecker was testifying about, which are just fascinating that this was going on during the campaign, right? so there's two things to learn from this and these
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meetings, number one, it's very common for judges to instruct juries as to anything really and the jury's understanding of the law and the facts really hinges on how the judge often explains it to them. >> and these jury instructions end up being pretty controversial. the parties will fight over them quite a bit here the extent to which a witness as pecker has entered the courtrooms yeah. got the extent to which a witness has met with prosecutors, speaks to the witnesses credibility, and often, jurors may regard lots of meetings with prosecutors as a as a sign of bias on the part of the witness. what they're working out here, i think is how the judge will explain what the jury should do with those can just say you can glean credibility issues from someone's meeting, but don't read too far into it. >> yeah. and caitlin, i mean, one of the things i'm really struck by, i mean, just to look at the politics of this you and i both remember the 2016
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campaign. and what was going on during that cycle and yet all along behind the scenes, it's, it just seems with all these legal cases, we think we know everything that there is in the world to know about donald trump were still learning new things. >> yeah, it's shocking yesterday how we learned those details from david pecker about the white house and his line into the white house. house is present at the white house walking rattled sayyed, the oval office where we saw world leaders and the president walking down that colonnade and we now know the tabloid king was there. and the jury is now in the room. jim and i should note what i've been hearing from people this morning is that david pecker is obviously returning to the way but the stand as you just noted, they do expect and of course, we'll see what happens once he's actually on the witness stand. they do expect him to finish his cross-examination today and then prosecutors will have a chance to do their redirect. they expect all of that to end today, so we may see a second witness take the stand as soon as this afternoon. essentially. >> yeah. i mean, one of the things that we were kind of expecting potentially, jamie, again, goal is that maybe donald trump would testify himself during all of this. but last night, he was sounding a
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little different on that question. is there a little bit of sound of that we can play and then talk about it on the other side. >> well, if it's necessary 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 this, saying what kind of a cases is there is no case of course, not all the legal experts are saying that, but the first part of that, oh, maybe maybe not. >> it sounds like now. yes. yeah. >> it's necessary. >> how many times have we seen donald trump say, i'm going to take the stand? >> i'm going to do this and then when push comes to shove, his lawyers and he also knows better, you can't take the stand and then face cross-examination, right. when you're donald trump. >> i just want to go back to david pecker for a minute and in something that the lawyers l8, you can talk about that credibility i thought david
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pecker was a very good witness for the prosecution. >> this is no michael cohen. this is not someone who's hostile. he's a friend, he calls donald trump a mentor he says, even though we don't talk anymore, i still consider him a friend when they did the cross-examination, they focus not on any of that. not on the substance of what he was saying about what they were doing with the catch and kill or the money. but just he met with prosecutors a lot of the time. i don't know elliot's yeah, i agree. >> i and it's one of the most useful things that defense attorneys can do is attack of witnesses this is credibility and even little things like meetings they had. what what motive they have to be truthful to the jury is the kind of thing you can attack it. a witness on. i think it was they did a really good job of attacking michael cohen subtly during that. i mean, that was clearly what they were doing when they set up the entire him having to go to trump and say,
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this guy would throw himself in front of a bus for you? yeah. would you give him his christmas bonus? he's really worried about it. i mean, they were clearly they're trying to set up who michael cohen was at that time, remembering people who you know, now is not the same guy from we're going to ask jim schulte's about all that in just a moment. jim standby, we're coming to you and hot metal here are coming up more official testimony in donald trump's hush money trial defense attorneys now cross-examining tabloid executive david pecker. we'll be right back how would really happened sunday at nine on cnn. >> you know, when i take the bike out like this, all my stress is just melt away. >> i hear that is bad. boy can fix anything yeah. >> tough day at work, nice cruises sorts. >> you write out when i'm writing, i'm not even thinking about my painful cavity he shouldn't ignore it. and every time i get stressed about having to pay my bills hop. on the bike, man, i'll come on. >> you got to pay your bills. >> you don't have to worry about anything when you're protected by america's number one motorcycle insurer?
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no clogs, warranty may be glad to come out for free. no hassle inspection schedule. >> you're free inspection, coli three three liters filter today, more visibly filter.com the assignment with potty cornish, listen wherever you get your podcasts donald trump on trial. we just got our first
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picture of trump from today's court session. defense attorneys now are talking to david pecker, star witness for the prosecution. i want to bring in criminal defense attorney adam kaufman from more analysis along with cnns paula read. so first of all, what do we expecting the defense to focus on initially? >> so they're going to continue to try to poke holes in the prosecution's case and where they started yesterday, was trying to establish that this arrangement between trump and packer wasn't unusual, and this was the kind of thing this catch and kill by a story and then bury it or tip you to other unfavorable stories that this whole thing was done with other high profile people. and he, named several other people including mark wahlberg and arnold schwarzenegger. so that's where the defense attorneys started. they're also trying to note some lapses in peckers memory. so that's where they pick up today how do you think the defense will handle david pecker as a witness? >> i mean, there's different ways to approach it. he is somebody who obviously knows an awful lot of secrets of donald trump it doesn't seem like
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they will be as aggressive as they might be with somebody else. yeah. so typically, when you have a witness who has some things that you want and then places where you need to go after his credibility, you start with the places where there's agreement. so it's a friendly or cross you're pulling out the things that you know, the witnesses going to say that you want to establish with the jury and you do all that in a way to establish a rapport. the witnesses friendly, who's talking to you, and then at a certain point if there are key items where you need he to question his credibility. that's when you change tones, changed tactics, and go after him a little bit more and perhaps use prior statements in the lake to impeach him. >> trump's attorney beauvais is focusing on the august 2015 trump tower meeting. i also want to bring in brian stelter, who's joining us, a special correspondent. for vanity fair and author of the book network of lies ryan, one cross-examination began yesterday, trump's attorney tried to emphasize that these catch and kill arrangements were not unique for trump. that paying i mean, in your
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experience, was paying to cover up stories, the norm for the tabloid industry at the time it was, it was the norm at the national enquirer. i don't think we can extrapolate and say that other tabloids we're engaging in the same behavior. but there were certainly a lot of this kind of sketchy behavior going on at the enquirer and some of the other publications that were also owned by american media, inc. remember the enquirer is just one of those brands. when you talk to x staff are some of the enquirer, some of them now have regrets. some of them look back and say that they were engaged in so many morally dubious, so many ethically compromising behaviors that it all became normal than it all started to feel like a normal part of the job when it was anything but and i think that's interesting subplot to this trial. anderson that's this is all about the legal case, but there's an ethical dynamic and ethical component to this. trump's character is also being tested. who was he, who is he taking advantage of in this case? david pecker. and of course, becker was taking advantage of him a little bit to try to sell more copies of this magazine
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and beauvais is focusing right now and the august 2015 trump tower meeting and his questioning with david peccary in the courtroom. that's the critical meeting where it was michael cohen, donald trump, david pecker. and according to pecker's testimony, trump and cohen were saying to him, what can you do for us on the campaign? help. and that's where pecker's that i'll be your eyes and ears catching and killing though he says he didn't use that term, catching and killing stories that might be negative again, it's donald trump one of the strategies of the trump attorneys, brian, is to show that these deals between ami and trump helped ami as well. pecker agree when firms lawyer called it a a mutually beneficial relationship, what do you think the benefit that pecker and his company got from this was it's hard to quantify because american media is that was a privately held company. >> we don't have access to the bank statements to show how much better at trump issue would sell on the newsstand
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versus issue about some celebrity. but i do think we do know back in 2015 the context was say brian, just hold on. >> both vegas asking you about national enquirer stories about the clintons confirming with pecker that ami had decided to run negative stories before that august 2015 meeting. sorry. go ahead, brian. >> and back in that time, trump was just beginning to consolidate control over the gop. remember, there were so many people running for president back in august 2015, trump, at that point, might have still been considered a long-shot, right? his candidacy was a surprise to many people, but he needed to create this alternative reality. this alternative media universe in order to get his story out. so the inquiry pryor was really important for him. this is why that trump tower meeting, it was so important here we are a decade later. we're all used to trump's lies. he's claiming today that his fans can't get out here to the park outside the courthouse? yes. so you know anderson, i count six or seven protesters today seems to be a grift to they're trying to sell some trump's whack brian seltzer, thanks very much.
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>> beauvais saying that running those stories were beneficial to ami, correct? >> pecker says of the bill and hillary stories, this is an important point pilloried. >> yeah, this is incredibly important because remember prosecutors really started their story without 2015 meeting that august 2015 trump tower meeting with core cohen, trump and pecker, were they decided that yeah. i'm gonna be your eyes in years. pecker said, help them suppress negative stories to help him win the white house. now, here again, trump is once again sitting in his chair. but the reason this is important is because pecker is testifying that their decision to run negative stories about clinton happened before that meeting. >> we're going to take a short breaker coverage continues in a moment riyad. >> saves new album is breaking records who gets to say what country is comey country beyond, say a nashville's renaissance streaming exclusively on meds at simply
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how it really helped cnn artist, the top of the hour in court is now in session for another day of donald trump's hush money trial. >> good morning and welcome back to cnn's special live coverage. i'm jim acosta. this moment with jury is hearing testimony from former tabloid executive david pecker, manu says you still consider donald trump or front despite spending the week laying out their alleged scheme to bury negative stories on trump and legally influenced 2016 election. kaitlan collins, a lot going on inside the courtroom right now. and i have to say i mean you and i kristen as well. jamie, all of us well, remember the 2016 campaign and for all of this talk of fake
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news, i mean, david pecker is really laying out this scheme so not only kill negative stories, but pumped out fake news beneficial to donald trump. yeah, it kind of thing that went from the campaign, but also into the white house where he was found with white house officials. >> and right now, what's happening just for an update for everyone is david pecker is back on the stand. he's being cross-examined by trump's attorneys and they are obviously trying to undermine everything that prosecutors laid out. this idea that there was a conspiracy hatched between donald trump and david pecker to try to hurt his republican rivals leading up to the in 2016 campaign, it's also go after hillary and bill clinton. and so the way that they're doing that right now is their questioning him about ben carson and stories that they had that they were publishing, implying that he had botched surgeries as a doctor. and what they're basically trying to say is this was something that was already out there and other outlets, the national enquirer was just recycling it. so this isn't something that was just a donald trump and david pecker plan. >> they were just out there. they just ask david pecker, would you have published this without that conversation in
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august 2015 with trump and david pecker testified, yes. so really, when i was speaking to trump's sources yesterday about what their plan is with this cross-examination, what their goal is. they really just want to undermine the he did this was a conspiracy to get donald trump elected. that really was just the national enquirer are doing with the national enquirer does yeah. >> jim, i mean, we haven't gone what you're reaction to what we've been witnessing thus far, right? >> i think it's all about dirty up the national enquirer. right. and the industry in general, this they call it a checkbook journalism. >> i think yesterday, they use the word standard operating procedure procedure, time and time again. the gym we should notice this right here on the side of the screen just to keep giving our audiences excerpts, beauvais confirms with pecker that other outlets covered malpractice claims against ben carson and may of 2015, it sounds as though what you can see some of the headlines there on screen there. ted cruz for shamed by porn star bungling surgeon ben carson left sponge and patient's brain first of all, take all of these
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headlines with a great assault as we do with the national enquirer. but it sounds like what the defense is trying to do is say, hey, wait a minute. so all of this stuff that was kinda floating out there anyway and politics, it's part of celebrity culture, it's all you know that that's the argument is, is that that is this is all part of kind of the dirty business of tabloid journalism. and i think they're going to hear more and more about that. the another moving on the marco rubio. right. so they're going to go through each one and they talk about a little bit about schwarzenegger, right? celebrity slash politician, their trend can make an here that this is just the way that the business. >> we also just not call it journalism. the thing is driving me personally crazy because that's not a thing that it doesn't exist in the idea that this is journalism. it's not journalism. i don't know what you would like to call it, job, but nowhere the remark that word but no. i had a conversation with one of my producers about this before we came on and you can have a high minded conversation about what the national enquirer's doing and so on. >> members of my family read the national enquirer. you go
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to any supermarket on america national enquirer. it's like having a tv, right there next to the checkout stand and amir, millions of americans consume this information. jamie gangaw does, is hugely influential publication patient wherever you want to call it. >> yes. >> some people believe it, but it's also entertaining. a lot of people. >> and that's more what it is. we have a new update, beauvais says the marco rubio articles are also based on information, quote not exclusive the national enquirer? yes. >> pecker confirms. i just want to say one thing about the national enquirer and its lack of journalism two things can be true at the same time. they can be doing all of these other articles about arnold schwarzenegger marco rubio and it can also be true that david pecker, who is very close to donald trump, and this is what he testified to yesterday, said over and over and over again, that he was doing this to help
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him win the election. >> jamie, this is gonna be a challenge for prosecutors. they're going to have to explain to the jury why is this criminal? as opposed to just sleazy and gross and if there is a problem, why is donald trump on trial here? but nobody else who was involved in this? and the answer to that, it prosecutors have to come through it is it's the accounting. it's the finances, and there's an update. >> yeah, trump is whispering with his attorney. >> has copies of the article in question are handed out so they're going to ultimately have to answer that question for the jury. why is this criminal and why is trump being treated differently? the answer is the finance and ellie jump in here because i'm in a lot of this rests on the question of whether or not this is campaign activity. and i just want to read this national enquirer was recycling information from other publications because it was cost efficient and made business sense bove as yes pecker testified that i'm trying to make it sound like the national enquirer was just an aggregator. yeah, that's not really what's going on here. >> and i think there's a few things. number one, the a lot of this hinges on the extent to which the jury either trust the
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national enquirer trust what they're being told about how the national enquirer worked or is inherently suspicious of it? the ordinary people. and frankly, i don't know what these 12 people think about. is this just what journalism is? or do they think this is disgusting and distasteful and so on. i truly don't know. and jurors can be weird about what they think about facts that prosecutors except to be matters of gospel right. and the other thing is getting to this campaign finance or the campaign question, it's everything comes down to the extent to which you can convince people who simply don't understand. number one, new york law. and number two, how campaigns are run in the united states, that this was something untoward. it, you will notice that the defensible repeatedly make them the point or nothing to see here this happened all the time. >> you have to look no further than campaign negative campaign ads. people generally think political campaigns or sleazy. so now they're going to try to conflate that with sleazy this
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and dirtiness of the enquirer to muddle this all up before a jury so that it comes back to your point. point, that you know, how how is there a campaign finance violations here? he was never charged. there was never any charges associated with it. and isn't this all dirty right there, caitlin, i mean, there's a political question and all of this and that is okay. >> we can talk about what took place at the supreme court yesterday, and there's very important constitutional questions at play. this is solidifying. i would think in the minds of some voters that what was going on behind the scenes during the 2016 campaign was just unseemly. you can call it criminal. you can say, oh, this is just what all politicians do. >> but people are getting more details about what they were doing behind the scenes during this campaign& that can't be a good thing. yeah, we've there's been this conventional wisdom, which maybe is not conventional wisdom that this isn't going to have much impact because all of these details were already known. but as we're looking at this, including this latest update that david pecker is confirming that amis business, which of
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course owned the national enquirer, included cultivating a network of sources and trump's attorneys said, but that's not what was happening with the he's articles, essentially trying to make this argument that this was something that other outlets had published. places like the guardian about ben carson. they were just simply regurgitating it, that it wasn't necessarily this plot that's what they're trying to doubt. >> there's another one here. beauvais notes, pecker testified he wanted to keep the trump tower meeting discussions highly highly confidential, but says it became public before the election. pecker agrees nothing to see here. defense, right. and that's to your point, though, i think having all of this trotted out into the public domain again and having people be reminded of just how crazy the 2016 campaign was and learning details that we didn't even know about how this stretched into the white house and taxpayer funded officials were involved. that's something that it's not clear the impact it will have, but, but the idea that we know for sure that it will have zero impact on this. i don't think is a given and i don't think the trump campaign is believing it's a given. >> yeah. chris, i mean, these these revelations, so-called
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revelations in the wire, we're just oh, just coming out organically. >> and that's why when you talk to some of donald trump's senior advisers, as you have pecker's are always becoming software as he's responding and agreeing with the defense. >> you have people who are like rob. rob, this is going to do exactly what it did in the primary. we are going to raise money. we're going to become more popular. but then when you talk to some of his more seasoned advisors, you hear a lot more skepticism as to what this is going to do. they know that this is not good for donald trump, right? what's the outcome? we don't know, right? and we know he raised money off of it. but the question is, what does this actually do for voters come november, the campaign as the courthouse, the courthouse is the campaign elliott and a lot of these cases, my question for all the political heads here though, i'm actually curious if you have any sense as to what do people think about how campaign hands are run? and does the public tend to believe that they're just all nasty, disgusting business where this is all completely normal or are people watching this around the country saying, oh, my god, that is absolutely the most disgusting thing i've ever
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heard. i'm just curious. i just say quickly, there's nothing normal about yeah, there's a trap not a lot of abnormality. mother hanes, but this has its own bar. yeah. and with that intercept will toss it back to you on that question of normality, jim, thanks very much. here in new york, outside the courthouse with paula reid and adam kaufmann form of prosecuting madden da's office clearly right now, above eight is showing the wall street journal story about karen mcdougal that was published just before the 20th he 16 election, saying that it shows a amides help for trump was public. adam clearly what the beauvais is trying to do for the defense is essentially say this information was already out there and the national enquirer was doing this for a number of people and a lot of different ways. beauvais sides the story, reporting the enquirer quote, has supported mr. trump's presidential bid endorsing him and publishing negative articles about some of his opponents. beauvais is pointing out that ben carson, ted cruz, all these people were
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targeted by the national enquirer even before this 2015, right? >> so he's he's taking the wind for the prosecution sales on that. the import of that 20 meeting and showing there was this relationship that had nothing to do with sort of a quid pro quo and pobeda is asking pecker to confirm that the concept of catch and kill was not talked about at the august 2015 meeting at trump tower. that's correct. pecker's. right. >> so this goes to the point we discussed earlier. or if you have a witness on the stand who you're crossing, who sort of a friendly witness. you don't need to go after that witness and destroy them and raise your voice and make them look like a liar. beauvais is doing a great job of just bringing out facts that undermine the government's theory and firms that trump and cohen did not pay ami any money in connection with the story from a former doorman at trump tower and then pecker confirms that ami is executed, quote, hundreds of thousands of source agreements like the ones used for the former dorman and keratin could do go over the years. again, it's this drum roll of this
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was business as usual for ami hi this is just another, another example of undermining the prosecution's theory normalizing the conduct. >> it's also something that we heard a portion of yesterday's cross-examination when trump's lawyer talked about am i making deals with other celebrities? again, it's the this is a practice that ami was doing with other people as well. >> 100%. and remember, we're not even talking about anything criminal, right now. we're talking about publishing stories about a background relationship, a backdrop to what's going to come later. but we're not talking about elicit payments or a cover up. we're just talking about the relationship and the defense is doing a good job of normalizing it brian stelter is also standing by outside the courthouse and covering this room. any fair brian talking about dylan howard because that's the name we've heard a lot. he was under david pecker are essentially i believe running the national enquirer and he's the one who had a lot of the meander face-to-face and karen mcdougal, he was in communication with michael cohen that's exactly right.
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>> he was the editor in chief at the time reporting directly to pecker& for some of the day-to-day operations, dylan howard was the one in charge. there had been speculation that maybe he would be testifying here, but he has a medical issue and likely will not be here and will not be called. but he was very much in on this, just like pecker, working hard on behalf of trump. i feel like anderson, we're getting an unintentional lesson on news literacy today. it's so interesting to hear about all this tabloid nonsense, how the smear is, how the recycled stories work. you stories were junk food and it's okay if you know what you're eating. but a lot of people don't know what they're eating. they think this is nutritious. it reminds me of a famous enquirer headline, donald trump the healthiest individual ever elected anderson brian just in terms of the power of the national enquirer, it's obviously greatly diminished by the way, here's an update, beauvais asked what was happening in pecker's mind when he learned about the former doorman story that trump had allegedly father third an illegitimate child
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beauvais brian is essentially trying to get david pecker are to backup this idea that this was common practice. >> this was not something that he was only doing with donald trump of a is asking pecker, the former doorman's story was true? >> it could be the biggest national enquirer article ever. >> pecker agreed with that i think obviously the defense has a logic to this, but i don't think it relates to what we're going to hear weeks from now, but the actual criminal charge. >> so i don't see how it's going to be relevant down the line. you were saying the enquirer, by the way, is greatly diminished. that's absolutely true. but at its heyday, david pecker was having a lot of pfk-1. this was fun for him. he was taking care of his friends and punishing his enemies. and he's such a diminished figure now, just like his old magazine, the company that owns the inquire has been trying to sell it for years and can barely even find a buyer. and by the way, all of this testimony, it's not going to help with that either.
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>> yeah. brian stelter. thanks very much. pecker confirms. and it took several weeks after the source agreement was signed for ami to try to vet the former doorman story and previously said that if the story was true it would have been a big seller for for them david pecker, though, has previously testified that even with that, that doorman story, which the blue turned out not to be the case. that pecker's plan was to hold it can catch it and kill it, but hold it until after trump got elected and would then run it yeah. >> i suspect the defense right now is trying to do a little clean up on that exact statement. so i'm guessing that's where the defendant that's just going to go here because they're trying to undercut this idea that they were helping trump in order to help him regain the white house because a lot of this is just setting the foundation for the prosecutor's case, right? the focus of the criminal charges here is someone who really hasn't even come up yet today, which is of course the money paid to stormy daniels by michael cohen and reimbursed by trump so right now with their focused on is trying to
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undermine the idea that stormy daniels was paid and that that payment was really covered up allegedly to help trump win the white house. that's what they're trying to attack right now. so i would expect that the defense is definitely going to want to revisit what pecker said about wanting to hold that story until after trump was elected. >> it's certainly also seems that, that they want david pecker. here. we're saying pecker confirms that it took several weeks after the source grieve assigned for any might to try to vet the former doorman story, walking away from sejourne story would not make business sense. agent is the doorman who had these allegations, beauvais says pecker says no it would not have made business sense. why is that important? >> right? so i think it's establishing that the national enquirer had its own interest in pursuing these stories one way or the other, and that they weren't just acting as sort of an agent, a press agent for donald trump trump all the time. >> and trump's attorneys now, moving on to talk about karen mcdougal's agreement. it
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what's interesting from the testimony yesterday with david pecker is that it seems like donald trump was very concerned about karen mcdougal, was very upset with the interview that currently ducal did with me on cnn, called up angry about why is she able to talk and checked in with pecker repeatedly? there's a picture we have of the two men at the white house down. trump has been elected president. it's a black and white photo. they're walking by the rose garden and pecker testified yesterday, this is the picture we now know according to david pecker what they were talking about at that very moment, donald trump, the president united states, said to david pecker, how's karen doing previously, he had also called her our girl with pecker, according to pecker's testimony. and pecker said, oh, she's fine. she's keeping quiet she's doing articles for us above as emphasizing the karam to do girls main interests was that she didn't want her story published. pecker agrees. >> it says a significant moment, and i did think it was incredibly yesterday that trump
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was asking about karen mcdougal. and again, clearly his interests doesn't making sure that she kept quiet, but it was a moment where he checked in. he was clearly following this very closely. and in terms of the league gallery here prosecutors are interested in that moment because they want to show how trump was actively involved in an aware of these efforts to suppress stories about his extra-marital affairs. and i think one of the reasons was we've reported that he was so upset about this story is because the impact it could have on his marriage. this was not just a one night stand or a physical relationship that lasted a few weeks. so to something more transactional, like the stormy daniels encounters. >> this was a romantic relationship that lasted about a year and it's unclear what his feelings were for karen mcdougal, but she clearly said but she told you, i believe that she loved him, so it's a different thing than stormy daniels, which is why it upsets trump so much prosecutors objected repeatedly, went from some 20 is referred to trump as president trump when talking about him in 2016, the judge's sustained the objection. >> just add one more special
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by saying, okay, this is just what the national enquirer does. it's not exactly something bad that donald trump did here yeah. what do you make what we're hearing so far, there are essentially trying to completely undermine the idea that this is a plot to benefit the campaign. >> how that works, and how that works given what we saw yesterday, where they, david pecker was saying this was explicitly done to help his campaign and we saw that i should note that right now, david pecker is on the stand. he is being questioned by trump's attorney and part of as part of cross it's examination. and we are now told that david pecker is we're counting his previous testimony where he said that trump told him he did not by stories because quote, that always gets out and really what the prosecution had tried to do was show that david pecker was this mechanism, this lever that the trump campaign through michael cohen, used to suppress these next negative stories because they were worried. and i think what the prosecution did effectively yesterday and we'll see how the defense counteracts that. is that this was not done to benefit trump's family to try to protect them, that it was done explicitly to help his camp.
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>> they're kinda comes down to whether or not the national enquirer was essentially an arm of the campaign? >> yeah, that is the operative question here. i think the evidence that there was a campaign motivation here is overwhelming i don't know how the defense is going to convince the jury that at least some portion of this wasn't campaign related and think about some of the details that david pecker provided on that. even a little thing like david pecker was there in trump tower, went out when trump came down the escalator and declared his candidacy, that photo that we've seen of david pecker walking and the white house by the columns, which that's going to stick in the juries had photos resonate with jurors so strongly. the other thing that i want to point it out just to maybe give a little color because we don't have cameras inside the courtroom when cross-examination starts the whole atmosphere in the courtroom changes because direct examination is generally friendly, it's smooth, it's been prosecutors hate this word rehearse. prosecutors always said we don't rehearse. we prepare, have a hurst and then when the prosecutor says no further questions and we do actually say that, then the defense layer stands up and it doesn't necessarily have to
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get explosive sometimes it does. >> but even as cells like what's happening here is he's pointing out specific facts are going to undermine the prosecution's case. yeah. well, i do want to get more perspective on all this. i want to turn to retired new york state supreme court judge michael obs judge otis. thank you so much for being with us. we appreciate it what do you make of what we've been witnessing so far? as ellie points out, we don't have cameras on the hot room. i will die on this hill that there should be cameras in the courtroom. but how this has been unfolding today and your sense of things so far well i haven't followed the proceedings this morning under the circumstances, but i have to save it. i've been impressed and not terribly surprised that things have gone as relatively smoothly as they have given the notoriety and hoopla that surrounds the trial, especially out here. i haven't been down to 100 centre street in awhile and i don't remember standing out in the cold this much. via trial is moving smoothly. judge
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merchan, who i know well, he was a colleague of mine for many years, is a very serious, hard working knowledgeable com person. and i think that is what is pervading the entire trial. i think he'll do a good job and i'm sure his primary interest is protecting the integrity of the proceedings. the juror of course. and getting through this with a verdict, whatever it may be. >> judge, over, i have to ask you because trump says is nearly every day centered again this morning saying that the judge is quote, highly conflicted. when you hear that what's your response to that? you said, you know, well, what do you think of that i don't think he's conflicted at all. >> i am certain there is no ethical problem with his serving on the case. i know that he received an advisory opinion from the committee that is set up for the purpose of advising judges on any ethical questions and i have also read the judiciary law again. and it's clear that his
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relationship with his daughter and whatever work she does does not pose a problem for his serving on the trial, as long as he feels in good conscience that he can do so fairly. and he has said that and i have no doubt that that is his honest view. >> judge merchan has yet to issue a ruling on whether to hold trump in contempt for allegedly violating a gag order. how do you think the judge should proceed here i mean, the prosecution has been asking for fines. should the judge go further? what you're sensitive? >> well, he's been proceeding very carefully, which i think is a good thing. i've heard some second guessing about how he should have summarily punished the defendant. but of course, this is not a summary contempt proceeding at all. it has to do with activities outside of the presence of the court that would not have been lawful and he's taking his time. everybody's having an opportunity to have their input. i think the fact that this potential contempt finding is pending has its own bearing on the matter. and i'm sure
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that judge merchan will come up with some measured response as most people are saying, i sincerely doubt there'll be any kind of incarceration anytime soon and that would probably interfere with the trial more than it would help. yeah. >> so i don't really think that's an issue. i have to say that justice is don't don't go to trials thinking, i'm likely to hold anybody in contempt or i want to have a chance to show how tough i am or anything like that. i was in this court for about 28 years and i never held anyone in contempt. i never had a hearing on that. i wouldn't have wanted to and it wasn't necessary. i can see how in some cases certainly where a person acts up in the courtroom and is interfering with the proceedings that you have to do something summarily. but that's rare and those people are usually already in custody but this kind of thing the judges tried to avoid it. it's difficult. and only if he is really baited, invaded, invaded would i think they, judge merchan would do anything to
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drastic, although he certainly could impose fines as was apparently done on the civil case that mr. trump had. >> all right. judge ogres, thank you very much for your time this morning. i appreciate that perspective my pleasure thank you, sir.& gym shorts. i mean, just to bounce off of what the judge was saying, there are a few moments ago in terms of what a judge or shock could do here in terms of reining in trump, you must know that finds are not going to put much of a dent in trump's behavior. i mean, we should know right now, beauvais pushing a pecker to agree that photographing such a meeting with put a little pressure on trump by elevating michael cohen's, this fascinating, what is going on. they're talking about the summer of 2016, michael cohen wanted to work with mark cuban and apparently what trump's attorney is pushing him on and what that elevating cohen thing then is that when he set up that meeting with mark cuban that he asked for paparazzi can be sent so they would see michael cohen and mark cuban going to meet why? because they believed it would help elevate michael cohen and david pecker
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says that michael cohen never told him that, that he believed would elevate him and trump size, but he agreed that it would have been a consequence of hiv going to meet. it just shows you how they are all focused on on objects and level of coordination just incredible i am jim i mean, you've known trump for what did you have any idea that this kind of stuff was going on behind the scenes? >> no. i joined the trump administration 2017 and white house counsel's office. this was all prior to that. obviously, but i do think that we went back to the gag order. yes. yeah yeah. there's not a lot he could do and i think it's back to we were saying earlier, i think he's holding it over the head a little bit. i think the delay has a lot to do with the threat of a stick rather than a stick because i'm not sure that to your point that the fine is going to make a difference and our seeing an update right now, beauvais is now now showing pecker, the ami agreement with karen mcdougal this is a critical point in all of this, isn't it? >> yeah. i mean, that is the
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central piece of pecker's testimony. is the agreement that they entered into with mcdougal to the point caitlin was making before about michael collin, what the defense is trying to do. now, donald trump's defense is paint michael cohen as a guy who we'll do whatever it takes to get ahead. he's always playing his own angle. he's always trying to get himself photographed with mark cuban. he's outright he's always trying to take advantage of any situation because what do you think the defense is going to say to the jury? folks, this is the ultimate opportunities always doing whatever the moment demands. you can't trust him, but also, it's also how people try to get that in. you know, this gem very well to influence with trump and how they do things outside to make themselves look better or bigger. and trump's size. michael cohen, as the defense will surely point out, wanted a job in the administration. he did not get one than it was often seen at the white house. i ran into him outside the briefing room one day in early 2017, but it's also just something we always see the jockeying and trump's orbit of people trying to elevate themselves in his eyes for whatever their purpose was. and
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this is just evidence people who know him well no, that that's something that would get his attention, right. >> all the sudden he's meeting with mark cuban, somebody that donald trump does pay attention to in the meeting is being photographed by paparazzi mean that because david pecker of them exist happy because david pecker sentence. but this is exactly who's operating in trump's orbit at the time. and this is something that would get donald trump putting michael cohen like that really shows that michael cohen knew who he was working with. yeah. and caitlin to what you were saying, i mean, yes. i mean, one of the reasons why they tried to elevate themselves behind the scenes, trump allies as aides associates, and so on. is not necessarily gain notoriety. that is to some extent, the case witness, kellyanne conway, but in some ways it's also to just get his attention to get trump's attention, the bigger name you have the bot, the more you're appearing in the presence on the trump says, oh, maybe i should listen to this guy. yeah, we've heard countless instances of this from people who worked inside the administration who always trying to there gain favor with trump or to be someone who could have influence on him, or to get to enrich themselves with a better job or position,
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whatever it was, this is kind of standard operating procedure for trump world and michael cohen clearly, as it's been famously reported now, he had this loyalty to trump. >> but what is the new york times had this amazing piece? at one point, it was a one-way street with donald trump that michael cohen really would have done anything for donald trump. what we saw, how much that reversed itself. >> you may go back to credibility for a second because elie brought up this notion of what they're going to try to do to michael cohen's credibility i think this is where david pecker becomes a very useful witness for the prosecution. there's a story that we heard yesterday about, not just the picture of pecker coming to the white house or everything else, but that haecker attends this meeting at trump tower in january 2017? we then fbi director james comey, sean spicer reince priebus, and mike pump peo and pecker testifies that trump says about pecker. he probably knows more
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than anybody else in this room. you don't see the defense going after these kinds of very specific stories in cross-examination. and so i think that's an example of the role pecker plate in his life. and no one is taking that down on the cross-examination. >> yeah, it sounds like the defense would rather talk about michael cohen, the david pecker, because pecker has been an effective witness and he doesn't have an ax to grind and the way that we've seen, obviously with michael cohen, that relationship is now very different versus the way it used to be our guys coming up defending trump will talk to a former trump attorney about just how hard that is as the cross-examination of tabloid king, david pecker heats up, stay with us how it really happened sunday at cnn life
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buy one line of unlimited, get one free for a year with xfinity mobile! plus, save even more and get an eligible 5g phone on us! visit xfinitymobile.com today. called now, i had to go montgomery and tokyo and this is cnn welcome back to cnn special live coverage and don't trump's hush money criminal trial or reporters are inside the courtroom feeding latest information was trump's defense teams cross examines major witness for the prosecution, david pecker, who from former tabloid publisher of the national enquirer all right. >> pecker says he trusted his accounting department to do the clerical workers standard operating procedure. here with me. is that paula reid and also adam kaufmann what do you make of adam so far, what the defendant? this has been trying to do. >> i think what you just said, standard operating procedure. right? nothing special hear
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nothing conspiratorial, nothing criminal. this was just how the national enquirer operated and they had access to this very colorful and soon to be very important men. and they were culture nurture during that relationship. >> i also want to bring you that bill brennan, criminal defense attorneys representing the former president in both the 2022 criminal tax fraud trial and was to trump's second impeachment trial right now, beauvais is revisiting pecker's earlier testimony about consulting and campaign attorney in ami general counsel about the mcdougal agreement what do you make a bill of the approach by the defense to david pecker how they're handling this witness well, good morning, anderson. >> and thanks for having me i think it's the right approach having spent seven weeks in that particular courtroom with judge merchan. >> he demands civility and i think that it's it's the smart move to go easy with beauvais.
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>> beauvais seems to really have no extra grind and if you can establish to the jury that this was standard operating procedure, i think i heard obey said that they've done this tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of di seemed like a lot to me, but if this is just standard operating procedure, you have to make that distinction to the jury because unless they can tie this to the crime of campaign finance fraud, this case goes out the window an atom you're, you are skeptical about this case. >> i am i am a bit skeptical, a little bit skeptical about the case you have to tie. we're hearing a lot of evidence today about this relationship, but nothing that's criminal and to focus in on the criminal charges, what are the criminal charges you've got the falsification of records. there's a real question as to whether we have a business record or a personal record. and todd blanche opened on that the business the line item
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where this is a legal expense, which is what's at issue, that it wasn't illegal expanse according to the prosecution, you're saying that that wasn't necessarily a business record. it wasn't a record that was being submitted to the government for some perfect. >> it wasn't a record, right. >> so the the crime and this is a crime that's charged all the time in this courthouse in all sorts of white collar color cases. and anderson, the crime is falsifying a business record. and if you look at the indictment, it specifies that the records there were two sides of the records. there were, quote, unquote, false invoices prepared by michael cohen and on the other side, they were false entries into the ledger of donald trump not the trump organization, but donald trump. and blanche opened on that. and i think that's going to be a very important issue when it comes down to the end of the case, were not there yet. >> beauvais asked pecker whether he was conveying there were no legal ramifications when he told michael cohen the mcdougal agreement it was bulletproof. that's correct. david pecker says, yes. >> so here it's interesting.
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pecker actually had to double-check to make sure this wasn't a campaign finance violations to purchase and then suppress karen mcdougal's story we now know ami and pecker have non-prosecution agreements with the justice department. and of course, pecker has immunity here, but he believed at the time. now he said pecker says he didn't withhold any information from the attorneys when they reviewed the mcdougal document and to your point, i mean, none of these particular allegations, none of these agreements are what is being charged here. we haven't even gotten to stormy daniels and michael cohen's payment to her, david pecker's testimony. now his cross-examination, we'll get right up to the beach beginning of that story when he hears the stormy daniels wants to sell her story and passes her off to michael cohen, who's the one who ultimately pays her. so a lot of this is just laying the foundation for that coming up, but more from the criminal trial of donald trump going to bring you the latest from inside the courtroom will also get an update from white house and biden doing an interview right now with howard stern, details from their conversation right after a quick break cnn
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have an infection symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to emerge as you emerged trim fired, asked doctor about trump via closed captioning brought to you by mesobook.com our firm only represents mesothelioma victims and their families. if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with ms ophelie oma kalisa. now all right. >> in new york, right now at jury is hearing crucial testimony from david pecker, former tabloid executive, and now key witness for prosecutors trial find the hush money case against donald trump. but as trump sits in a manhattan courthouse, president biden, we should note doing an interview with the iconic and yes, sometimes controversial radio host howard stern let's check in with cnn's arlette saenz over the white house. arlette, maybe they're just trying to set up a slight contrast here. if i made between the president and the forum president in terms of what's happening today, what can you tell us? >> yeah, that's really is what president biden has been trying to do over the past two weeks
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is really trying to offer this split-screen at a time when former president donald trump is in that new york city coat, a courtroom and biden has been able to use this time to be out on the campaign trail that includes his a three-day swing pennsylvania last week. and right now, he is over in new york city and he is actually participating in a pretty in-depth interview with radio show host howard stern. the president has been talking in very personal terms, not really in campaigning type of terms, talking about his upbringing his childhood struggle with a stutter& all so his experience with grief. it's interesting the white house has turned to some of these non-traditional types of media outlets to try to push his story at times. so you're seeing him sit down with an incredibly popular radio host. this, this morning, i really going through trying to offer people a personal window into his life. now yesterday, biden said that he has not watched any of this courtroom drama that's been playing out with trump, but that he's been busy focusing
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on campaigning and that's a split-screen. the he and his advisors are really eager to push as this trial continues in the coming weeks all right. >> arlette will be looking for clips from that interview in the coming hours and days are lead. thank you very much over the white house for us in caitlin i guess they're going with the split-screen over at the white house, scranton versus stormy. is that what i mean, it's a tactic where they've kind of been taking this vow of silence not talking at all about what is happening in manhattan, what we are following so closely and what everyone is following so closely because obviously what trump and his team have tried to do, i just spoke with one of his attorneys last night is tie every investigation back to biden, even this one in new york that is not related to president biden at all. and as laney davis, michael cohen's former attorney pointed to me the other night was prosecutors who were working under attorney general, bill barr, who were actually the first ones to carry out everything when it came to michael cohen's own legal troubles and so i think what biden is doing here and
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what he said last night when he was asked if he's been watching this, he said, no, i've been out campaigning and i do think that they are trying to dig a little salt and the water owned is trump complains that he can't campaign, you've seen president biden increase his presence out on the campaign trail? >> yeah. jamie, i mean, what do you think about this hesitation on the part of the white house to engage on this and talk about what we're all watching. i mean, you know, president talks about it, but it's sort of like kid gloves arm's length. >> i don't know if it's kid gloves. what's the expression about getting out of the way of your enemy yeah, your opponent what they're doing. there you go. so i i'm not sure that it's kid gloves. it may more be just let the pictures as we're seeing them hear play out. chris, mentioned earlier that we don't know how this will play politically down the road. >> i think absolutely true. >> but they didn't want to be here they didn't want to have
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him sitting in court. they don't want this testimony that was part of the delay delay. delay. >> so that the biden white house is happy to sit back, christian, i gotta think if the roles were reversed, donald trump would not hold back no but i mean that's donald trump donald trump operates in a different world than everybody else. >> this is the problem that anyone who has covered politics for decades has hard with donald trump is that there isn't the people cannot figure out the way to beat donald trump, right? we saw this in the primaries. we saw this in 2016, we saw by biden one person who has been able to beat him, which is why he said he wanted to run again. >> but if you go too hard after him, it's sometimes backfires. >> if you if you don't attack him, it backfires. i do think that this strategy of not touching it and letting it play out. these are salacious details. here's a, here's an important update right here. trump's attorney catches a mistake begun pecker's testimony that he saw the third-party consultants invoice for trump to pay back ami for
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mcdougal in 2016. so once yeah. well, you know it may have been an innocuous oversight or error, but things like that are important for defense attorneys to point out in front of a jury because it suggests that way, just so you don't even have your own storage the basic details of when you're seeing invoices, you don't have down showing pecker his interview with the da's office from 2019 when you said that the first time you saw that third party invoice was in 2017? >> i mean, jim, this whether or not they can establish these invoices these questions about the business records that's going to be crucial very & who recorded them, how they were recorded, who gave direction to donald trump, good direction to that. >> we know that he signed checks, but signing checks isn't recording the business records. that's all going to be very, very important to proving their case. >> the invoices that have talking about now relate to mcdougal remember, the payoff two mcdougal is not charged crime. the path to the charged crime is what comes next. the
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payoff to stormy daniels, which pecker was much less involved and there's also an important sort of piece of doj history here, back to the claim that this is somehow biden connected. i reported on this the decision by doj not to prosecute donald trump on this on the campaign finance violations was made during the first few weeks of the biden administration. now, joe biden was not involved in that. no one at the white house was involved in that. it didn't even make its way to what we call main justice to doj headquarters. but there were a series of meetings things within the southern district of new york, starting a few weeks before inauguration when it was clear that trump was going to be out of office, they decided not worth charging. >> yeah. but it's interesting because we're now seeing this case unfold now we're learning all of these new revelations that we might not have learned had alvin bragg not pursue and alvin bragg seems to look at the case differently and think he has different evidence all right. guys. >> thank you very much. great conversation all morning long. appreciate it very much coming up on trump's lawyers are trying to discredit david pecker on the witness stand, will bring you new details from
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>> as easy as 123 hybrid zola alvarez at the white house. and this is cnn we, are, watching history unfold in new york. >> the criminal hush money trial of former president donald trump, right now, defense attorneys are grilling a key witness for prosecutors trump's team is trying to undermine david pecker's testimony about the alleged scheme to catch and kill
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negative stories about former president trump. welcome back. the cnn spectral live coverage. i'm dana bash and washington and i'm anderson cooper outside the courthouse in manhattan, following all of today's major developments. >> let's get back to our chief legal affairs correspondent, paul reed, who is with me as well as criminal defense attorney adam kaufmann. adam so. in terms of what we have seen so far it's been no real surprises. i mean, clearly the defense has the strategy of just trying to show any inconsistencies. and david pecker testimony and also amplify the idea that what he was doing for donald trump, he was doing for many other people as well. >> i think that's it. he i think in the cross-examination, they haven't really gone after him and they don't they don't need to because pecker is establishing points that help defense talking about other examples of where he did exactly the same type of activity. in other stories for
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other people that this was business as usual, this is what the national enquirer did and so there's, there's really been no need for the defense to go after and cross-examined him in a harsh way. >> joining us also as bill brandon, criminal defense attorneys represented the former president, both in a 2022 criminal tax fraud trial. most interim second impeachment trial. >> what do you make? what we have heard thus far and what do you, as they move into stormy daniels now, trump's attorneys walking through pecker's previous testimony that ryan's davis, mike pompeo strong spicer, and james comey were in trump's office when pecker walked in let me just big picture what to you as the biggest weakness about alvin bragg's case here? >> anderson, the biggest weakness in this case is they have to get to the finish line of motivation. was this done to affect a federal campaign laws? and it's a long stretch you've
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got if you think of it in terms of a venn diagram if you look at this defendant's case or i heard pecker talk about governors schwarzenegger, a mark walberg, the differences this defendant and governor schwarzenegger have celebrity circles in the venn diagram and they also have political circles. so if this was done to avoid an embarrassing situation in shame, to the former president and his family. and that's the motivation the case is over. they have to get to the motivation of election fraud, federal election fraud to make this felony stick. and i agree with adam. you don't go after a witness like pecker as epipole pecker in many ways is making the defense's case. i think also when ms clifford testifies, it would be foolish to go after her hard. i think you've saved that for cohen let me just tell you what's going on in stored the court pecker is saying beauvais, the
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attorney for donald trump has been asking us record for more details about walking into the meeting where james comey and others and mike lynn peo, beauvais asked pecker if he knew there was another consequence of that meeting. >> it was when i fbi director james comey told trump about the russia dossier. so it's actually quite an important meeting that david pecker walked in on david pecker is trying to give some more details, a tweens prior testimony about walking in on that meeting that's a meeting where they were all assembled donald trump said to all of those in the room, this is david peccary play knows more than most of you in this room the prosecutor objected. the lawyers went to the bench. the judge has sustained the objection the president's lead attorney whisper to trump after returning to the defendant's table, explaining probably what went on at the at the bench so again, we're going to be hearing more details from david pecker as the as the cross-examination continues
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polo, what do you what stands out to you about this? this feels like a hard left turn, right? suddenly we're talking about james comey and we're talking about the dossier. what happened, but what we're on commercial for the first time, david pecker on cross has been asked about stormy daniels. he's testified that they caught and killed, so they bought it, suppress the story of a dorman who falsely claim trump had a childhood wedlock. they did the same in for karen mcdougal, who had an affair when it came to stormy daniels and pecker heard about her story. he said, i don't want anything to do that. i'm not going to pay for her story, which is how she ended up getting passed off to michael cohen. now want to note that trump's defense attorney todd blanche, just wish whisper to trump after returning to the defense table, the judge sustained an ejection from the prosecution who objected to another question about that meeting? the one in the oval office or james comey and sean spicer and all these folks are in the defense. clear. wanted to ask if pecker had learned earth after that meeting about what was discussed specifically, the dossier. now, prosecutors didn't want that brought in. they objected. the
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judge agreed. so it's unclear what defense attorneys are going to do from here if they're going to continue this line of questioning are clearly trying to get at something by bringing up this meeting why would what is the importance for you? you would send out what's the important is that blanches obey is trying to accomplish here. >> so he's trying to figure out if if pecker had learned about what happened in that meeting. so it appears that maybe he's trying to suggest that once trump was in the white house, he wasn't sharing information or it was it's not clear to me what they're going to do now that this objection has been sustained, how he's going to pivot because what he wanted to do, clearly he's going to have to find another way to do it, or it's just going to have to get on it suggests to me that what they might be trying to establish because the question was whether pecker did not overhear what was being said, that they're trying to put some distance between trump and pecker in this while pecker good, have a relationship with
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trump, and this sort of media operation, he wasn't part of the circle that was learning about all the inner details of what was going on inside the government part of it let's go back to dana and do you see them thank you so much, anderson, as we wait for the questioning to continue, the cross-examination by the defense of david pecker caitlin can you just kind of look big picture at what we have seen as we are on the final day this week of a very, very intense, unprecedented hour after hour after hour in this new york city courtroom. >> and whether going into this we know what the trump legal team and maybe more importantly as political, political team we're hoping for whether at the end of the week they feel that it's where they thought it would be or accomplished what they needed to accomplish given the circumstances. >> yet, the testimony today has been a little bit harder to
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follow than i think. and other days, a little less sensational. but really what it's clear and this is what we had expected that trump's team is trying to do is pick away at what prosecutors had been asking david pecker this week. and right now, trump's attorney is moving on from what paulo is just talking about there that bizarre meeting that we heard about where james comey as their reince priebus, mike pompeo, all of these high-ranking officials and david pecker pecker stops by and he's now moving on and he's asking about trump thanking david pecker for handling the karen mcdougal situation and the doorman's story that was one of the biggest things that we learned about yesterday, where we're basically trump invited david pecker for a thank you dinner. and was asking him, how's karen doing referring to karen mcdougal? >> what trump's team has been trying to do today, and it may seem in the weeds, but it's important it is to undermine what they were saying about the mcdougal agreement, saying actually she did benefit from it because she had these columns published by ami publications that had her name on it to have benefited her career. they're arguing they're saying that they believe they misled michael
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cohen on whether that agreement with karen mcdougal is bullet-proof. they're basically trying to undermine that. this is all this big cover up and beauvais is asking pecker about that testimony. you were just talking about yesterday, when pecker said trump thanked him for the doorman's story, kristen, you talk to trump sources all day long. what have you been hearing from them as they watch by the way? because obviously there are no cameras in the courtroom. my impression from some trump people as they're watching what we put on the screen and what we've put on cnn.com, beauvais, tip pecker, quote, was that another mistake? pecker responded faintly? >> no. >> likely going to bring up some of that former testimony that pecker has given because clearly, this is a guided questions saying, is this a mistake here? but i would say i'm talking to these trump's senior advisers. you're right. a lot of them are learning about this in real time. they're watching the coverage. they have no idea what's going on inside the courtroom. trump is there with a couple of close aides who don't have their phones so they're following this. it is exactly a salacious
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as they thought it was going to be. there was no mistake. we know what is at the heart of this alleged cover up for an alleged affair with a porn star. >> and we've been updated now from inside the courtroom, beauvais now raises pecker's 2018 fbi interview, asking if he recalled saying that trump did not express any gratitude to pecker and ami during that january 2017 meeting? ellie, can you explain? >> put yourself in that position of a lawyer in that courtroom why this is important. so first off, this is a common what we call impeachment tactic each with meaning undermining the credibility of a witness, not the kind of impeachment that donald trump was subjected to twice. you take the notes as the defense team, you have all the interview notes. you know what the witnesses said to the fbi. >> looking at prior tests. so that's exactly what's happening. and you can confront the witness if witness says, i don't remember that. you say, well, here's the fbi, what we call 302. here's the police statement of what you said. do you recall saying this? it's a way to bring the witness back. i think the fundamental strategic issue that's happening here, the prosecution
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wants to paint this as trump and his team working hand-in-hand with pecker and his team for campaign purposes and the defense it's trying to muddy that up, is trying to say, well, there was much more to it. it was about other things in the campaign. there were other people involve trump was at a remove in the last hour or something had come up where they'd asked the defense had asked the question, wasn't it widely known that the national enquirer are supported foreign president trump, that this is not and shouldn't not be a secret to anything they are framing it as sort of a business as usual matter, in the hopes of undermining what the where the prosecutor was going. >> and i think that's exactly it there. when you have these moments of contradicting a witness on their testimony, it actually makes for good theater in the courtroom. because in order to look at his prior testimony, if it's typically going to be silent in the courtroom as you're watching this man flip through these pages and find a statement that where he's wrong and just end he has to admit he will probably admit at the end of
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this. yeah, it was wrongly time. i can jail for perjury right? yeah. >> yeah. and what about when it comes to a jury? a moment like this that we're in right now quiet in the courtroom drama that eliot just described so i do think that it's going to have some impact. >> right. but this isn't hard hitting stuff, right? this is kind of i think this this year. i think it does like elisa. i think it does undermine his testimony a little but it goes too maybe you didn't remember everything the right way, but it's not stuff that's going to be like very impactful, i think at the jury, it has to be a lot of hits in order to make an impact and beauvais is working to get pecker up to speed with interview notes in front of him, jamie, just to underscore what jim said, i completely agree. yes. they're trying to chip away at his credibility. but we have yet to see any major part of his testimony contradicted he forgets this.
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he didn't say that whatever it was to the point of was this to help donald trump win the 2016 election? they haven't underwear just by not being in the room were sort of limited here and relying on what other people are saying. but every account that has come out has then that david pecker has been quite disciplined and answering yes and no and not really to see how effective all of this is, because obviously the argument had been will trump is doing this to protect his family. one, people have been skeptical, skeptical of that because you haven't seen his family inside the courtroom with them. instead, he's surrounded by political aides, but it's trump was entering the courtroom this morning. he went in and wished melania trauma happy birth and said that he wished he could be spending it with her, but instead, he was at the courtroom and having to do with that. i mean, what david pecker most effectively did yesterday was saying that this was on behalf of benefiting the trump campaign, that this was not to benefit melannie are to protect their religion. >> both can be true at the same time inside the courtroom right now, pecker pushes back on beauvais in the interview notes, suggesting the notes could be wrong i know.
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>> i know what i testified to yesterday and i know what i remember if this was an important enough issue, and i'm not sure it is the counter move would be you get to then call the police officer or fbi agent who took that statement? >> to the stand and the police officer or fbi agent would say, no, actually, he didn't say this the first time around. i don't know that this is a big enough issue for now the court is taking a break and the jury is leaving the room typical. i mean, we don't know, but is this a standard break or is this because there seems about right now it's probably a standard break only because if it were something where they had to work workout, the specifics of a contentious and ocean or something like that, they would have they're taking a break, so we're going to take just ahead are special coverage will continue details, continue to come in from inside the courtroom trump teens cross-examination is going on of david pecker. we'll be right back the sinking of the
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first move with battery power, made by spiel right now, say $50, unselect aka system battery tool sets, real still find yours i'm zachary cohen in washington and this is cnn this is a special live coverage. >> don't trump on trial court has taken a quick break right now. they're usually the form present exiting the courtroom just moment minutes ago, expect were to return to session shortly. it's been a busy morning so far or trump's defense attorneys cross-examining david pecker, the former tabloid executive, spent much of the week on the stand detailing an alleged scheme to bury negative stories about trump to benefit his campaign. polin adam or back
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with me as well as former trump organization attorney in criminal defense attorney, bill brennan built let me talk to you a little bit about don't trump is now sort of tampering earlier comments he made saying that he would testified and say he will testify, but he said he would. he told last night told newsmax he would put more or less likely to testify, which i'm not sure exactly what that means. he said, if it's necessary do you imagine him actually testifying in this case? would that make from a legal standpoint as an attorney, would you recommend that no, i wouldn't recommend it. >> now, you've doubt very much whether his attorneys are recommending it. and that is really a battlefield decision. that's a decision in a criminal trial that's not made until the bottom of the ninth. it's really the last decision that's ever made and i can tell you from three decades of trying criminal cases, you don't want any defendant to testify. and in this case, i predict that he will not
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testify it would open up to questioning on a whole variety of topics that i mean, i imagined, as you said, his attorneys would not have any interests in him. >> a pining on anderson. it would be a complete unmitigated disaster the prosecutors in this case, i've tried against josh steinglass, is a pro he's been easier career prosecutor. >> he's calm, he's cool and he's the smart as a whip and he would have a field de i just i don't know what's going to happen, but i don't have a crystal ball, but i predict he the former president will not testify and it sounds like the way things are going. we've only got one witness in the box at this point, but pecker at this point seems to be fairly innocuous. this whole case comes down to there's no real argument at what happened with regard to the door man and mrs.
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mcdougal, it really comes down to why it happened. and unless the prosecution team can tie this to a motivation to circumvent federal election laws. the felonies out the window, and then the cases out there windows. so i really think at this point, they should just continue the way they are. and i again, really don't think that will be hearing from the president from the witness stand, at least you represented former president in 2022, criminal tax fraud trial. is that from second impeachment trial can you just talk a little bit about what he's like to work with on a case i can tell you. >> i think jim would probably agree with me, you know, i had no political agenda. i represent criminal defendants. that's what i do, but i found the former president to be very easy to get along with. he was a client that really didn't give us any trouble but all 0s intelligent. he listens, he
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sees the big picture. >> so i had no issues at all dealing with them. >> we had some run-ins and we had some great times, but i really viewed it the way i treated. look, the guys to the former president. you have to take that into account, but i treated him as i treat any defendant if he was running the elevator in this building and was charged with the crime of treated in the same way. so i have nothing bad to say about him. and frankly, i spent seven weeks with judge merchan and that prosecution team same thing. they were just professionals, easy to deal with on their game so really no bad experience on my part we haven't heard from judge merchan about any ruling on the alleged gag order violations. there's going to be another hearing next week about what the prosecution said are new gag order violations what do you think? the machine is going to do and has it surprised?
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here's what i think made a ruling yet no, not at all, judge. >> were is very experienced. he's very deliberative and he's an intelligent guy and he's really in a tough spot because if he the penalties is i understand them in new york are thousand dollars max fine 30 days potential in jail. if he jails this particular defendant it's going to cause huge ripple effects. i think it's really what we do. contempt is kind of the way those of us are parents deal with our children. you do that? again, i'm gonna do this or the threat is more effective than the action. and i think judge merchan is just looking to get to the finish line. so he probably is holding the specter of a penalty over the former president had said, and hoping he doesn't have to impose anything serious. but then also he's got a graduated scale. you can start with the fine. he can ramp it up, but he
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if he can run this out to the case is over. it's almost a moot point and he can deal with it. he can certainly deal with the contempt decision after the trial. if he can run it out, that law yeah. >> i'm here also with paula reid adam kaufmann, polo. they're taking a short break right now how much longer do we expect pecker to be on the stand for? >> so defense team says they have half an hour of additional questioning and then prosecutors will have a chance to do what it's called, redirect, so they can go back at the witness. it's unclear how long that's going to take, but it certainly possible that pecker could wrap up today. >> adam, i'm do you think anything there been any headlines out of today so for it's the first day, it's the first de in a long trial. >> it's the first witness. were hyper-focused on everything that's going on in the courtroom these are these are building building blocks. they're doing exactly the point as we've said a few times today, we haven't gotten to the criminal conduct yet. we're just up to the point where stormy daniels enters the
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picture. where michael cohen comes in where the payments are made. none of that has been before us yet, so we've seen some sort of slimy tabloid operations. we've seen sort of behind the curtain of some of how the campaign was run, but we haven't gotten to crimes yet. i think if anything if there's a big takeaway, the prosecution tried to set a very simple and straightforward, collusive story. and the defense has tried to peel that away a bit and make it sound like this was nothing special, nothing collusive. this was how the national enquirer operator and if there is a redirect, if prosecution feels like they want to go back and pecker, what would be the point of that? >> usually it's to clarify something that was perhaps in the prosecution's view, miss that misrepresented or came out a little bit wrong on the cross-examination. it's very limited. you don't get to go back and try to asking new questions. it has to be focused
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on something that was asked during cross that you feel the need that the prosecution feels the need to clarify on redirect. >> oh, the criminal trial, donald trump are going to bring you the latest from inside the courtroom soon as they come back. also ahead will share an exclusive cnn poll on how voters he, the cases against trump do americans think to form present as being fairly treated of that mr. adrenaline just like sure this can't stand microplate shot of adrenaline right to the heart. >> somebody would ask her something and she would just walk right past he didn't know they were talking to her. >> i just could not hear i was hesitant to get the hearing aids because of my short hair, but nobody even sees nearly invisible hearing aids or just one reason we've been the brand leader for over 75 years. >> when i finally get here for the first time, i could hear
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i'll come back. we just saw the former president re-entering the court rome after a short break. >> in this trial that has been going on. >> now for two weeks, we're on friday ending the second week. and it looks like kaitlan collins ending the getting close to entering, ending rather the david pecker testimony. but i want to ask you about as they get ready to start again about what we saw this morning from the former president going before the cameras. what we saw even throughout the week, he seemed to have focus less on his grievances, not that he didn't mention them, but less on his grievances. and finally started to listen to his campaign aides and use that megaphone, use that microphone for some actual campaign business. >> yeah, he's kinda been airing his grievances everywhere else, don't believe that he's not doing it. >> doing there too. >> it's just in addition to that simply because he's not
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saying it necessarily nonstop as he is typically been doing in front of the cameras, he's instead been focusing on things like these propellants palestinian protests that have been roiling college campuses. >> he talked about the gdp. he's talked about israel. he's talked about inflation. that is atactic by the campaign to try to use these moments where they know he is going to get media get attention. they post moments beforehand and tell reporters that trump is about to speak because they know it'll be those moments chump though is still on twitter and on social media or on twitter on truth, social, making clear his grievances complaining about the core just today, he's complaining that it's locked down and i called for sean is back on the bench in the courtroom. they just took a short break but i'll david pecker. you are right. they do expect to finish his testimony today. it sounds like his cross-examination is about to be done. then the prosecutors have another chance, but i was told this morning they do expect a second witness to get on the stand today. >> jim, i want to ask you, as we wait for david pecker ticket back on the stand and for this to resume. the defense it says
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that they have less than an hour left. caitlin does noted this in their cross-examination of pecker, what do they have left to do? >> i think what you're going to see is a transition here what you haven't heard from david pecker directly is he was directed by trump to do this for campaign purposes. he was directed by cohen to do this for campaign purposes. >> and i think that's really, i think some of this is going to sit around once you get colon on the stand cone wasn't paid by the campaign he wasn't part of the campaign so they're going to have a real struggle of trying to make that connection because if you're not, if you're not part of the campaign, you're not part of campaign staff. >> what's the true connection here to the campaign? i think that's something that they're going to start the drop out. and i think they're going to focus on with cohen. >> and as david pecker is returning to the courtroom, yeah. elliott, i think one of the prosecutor christians challenges throughout the traveled, particularly with david pecker, is moving from well, we all had an implication and we all thought that what donald trump wanted was to affect the campaign to a real
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understanding that that's what he wanted. now, you can convict someone on the basis that well, we just thought this is what the defendant wanted, but and trump is now seated between his attorneys, emil bove and susan necklace but it's it's a stronger case to be made that there was some clear directive or so on. >> so really it's just a question of overwhelming evidence or not. >> this is a great detail el la pecker is smiling in the direction of the defense table well aka trump, there are human moments at trial. i mean, it's a bunch of human beings that were months close. apparently, david pecker is still thinks he has some sort of i mean, they haven't spoken in a while but doesn't harbor any hatred for donald trump, saying nice things about if it's only three other witnesses attacked, he's been saying david pecker is very nice, but okay. >> i'm glad you brought that up. >> because that's part of the argument that the trump defense team is making about the gag order. right. because saying nice things about a witness isn't just being nice it's also for halloween. it could
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influence. that's right. and that's that's part of the reason that i remain miffed, that, judge merchan has not come out with a ruling bigger picture. >> one of the most common mistakes that defense lawyers make is they try to annihilate every witness on cross-examined. we prosecutors would go back to our office in lab. we go with this guy, thinks he's going to win the trial based on his cross-examination of some innocuous witness and todd blanche and emil bove or both? former federal prosecutor. so they've been part of those conversations and it looks to me like they are choosing their battles. they have not tried to destroy david pecker. they're trying to pull out certain facts that are helpful. they're saving their fire from michael cohen because i was actually the person who asked donald trump it's nice. >> and exedra. >> i'm curious. do you how do you stop that kind of interesting. i think we're having a little bit of trouble with your audio. we're going to get back to you. so crescent hold that thought person asked kristin asked donald trump about david pecker listening, donald trump's response that
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he's a good guy and she was yeah. it's a tough one because all that donald trump could really say there to comply with the gag order is i can't comment on that under the existing order. and you made a really good point data you are technically violating the gag order not to if you say something negative or intimidating, but also if you say something positive, the gag order doesn't specify positive or positive could be. sure, very intimidate. sure. and what did yes. intimidate you or enticing a few are donald trump, right? you are sending. thank you. yeah. all right. question is what is that message? i just to add to what's coming next, jim, i'm very curious to see whether they ever up their game against pecker, whether it ever becomes you're shaking your head. i agree. i don't think it's going to happen or we would have seen it, but i would like to suggest one other thought. david pecker knows a lot about donald trump, not just the
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facts of this case. yes. to ellie's point, you pick your witnesses to go after but this is someone who's had a lot of dealings. these are not the only stories they've dealt with, and he may not want to antagonize. and jim, as you as you answer, jamie beauvais asks pecker to describe when fbi agents came to his house in 2018. >> is that about again, they're trying to establish that, you know, that there were these other converse that are probably going to get into some of the conversations that happen there, perhaps further and peaches testimony. again, this is just the chipping away and not the big deal issue, but chipping away piece-by-piece at the pecker's testimony going back to the i don't think they're going to go after thicker aggressively. there's no incentive to do it at this point. all he could do is maybe if these incentivized is the pile on what cohen's going to end. >> pecker says that the fbi agents took his phone with a search warrant they did not
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search his home in this moment is important because they're getting getting to the part of the trump pecker relationship where things deteriorated. this is when david pecker signs that non-prosecution agreement. and before that, david pecker had been showing up to the white house getting towards the lincoln bedroom. this is the beginning of the yet they have not spoken since 2017. this is the first time they've actually been in the same room we believe ever since that happened. and so that's what they're getting at here in this moment where david pecker starts cooperating with the federal government. that's exactly what is happening. beauvais, again, confirms with pecker that ami the company that owns national enquirer, entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, kristen, your mic is not working. go for it. >> yeah. i think that all of this is again, trying to undermine pecker, but i do think it's interesting. >> i mean, it's not just that they're not going after him, but again, as we've said, donald trump himself has only good things to say about david pecker. i think that goes to your point that pecker has the
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receipts. he was around for a long time before we talk aot about donald trump saying this is all about the campaign and pecker hearing him say that it was really interesting also to see the evolution of how these stories came to be with donald trump. it was his family than it became the campaign which is and we're seeing part of the description of that evolution right? right now beauvais asks pecker whether the meetings with fbi agents were stressful, quote, you wanted it over with though, right? he asks, yes. pecker says, he's trying to understand the testimony. anyone so it's a couple things. >> one, we know there's not much left and the defense has saved sort of their most what they think is the most compelling material which is impeaching his credibility a little bit. so, number one, they're building to talking about that non-prosecution agreement also, there's a fallout with the defendant and anytime you have a witness who has some sort of personal beef with the defendant, you're potentially planning and jurors heads the idea that the witness is testifying out of a mixed motive that not just these
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there to tell the truth, but he wants to bring down this person for personal reasons. and so i think they're building to a crescendo, not banging the table and screaming, but, but certainly leaving the jury at the end with their final point that they think heard some really that he wanted to get out of trouble writing just tired of dealing with the fbi mean nobody once the deal with the fbi that's what they're saying. like i wanted to get them off my back. i entered his non-profit agreement that deteriorate deteriorate the relationship with trump, but it really goes to the heart of how involved was the government in coaching, if you will, or preparing the witness, if you will. first testimony in this case. yeah. so it is standard that prosecutors will meet with and prepare or coach either characterization as fair actually, a witness like this, but defense lawyers, it's absolutely fair game to say. look, you've met with them a bunch times and they'll usually say and i asked to meet with you and you refused, right? that can resonate with juries. i think it's worth talking about the non-prosecution
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agreement just so people remember what this is. david pecker and as well here we go. bove asked pecker if it's true that at the time of the non-prosecution agreement, ami was in talks with another publisher to sell some of its tablets. so a non-prosecution agreement is a deal between prosecutors & a witness that basically says we're going to give you a pass. we are not going to prosecute you and you are going to testify truthfully what this is really important because they're trying to get it motive for ride. >> david pecker signed that because they're bringing up that at this time as. you can see here, ami was in talks with another publisher to sell some of its tablets. and in order for that deal to go through these investigations had to be resolved. so they are basically trying to get at the only reason david pecker entered into this agreement was because he wanted to be able to financially benefited forgive me. pecker confirmed that the deal included a provision that the investigation's had to be resolved before the deal could be finalized, as you think, this is really a crescendo, right?
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>> i think this also instills in the jury this idea that the federal authorities were involved, right? why were the federal authorities involved? because they were looking at an fec epc type issue or a federal issue, donald trump was never charged by the federal government. the jury's gonna be sitting there thinking about that. why were they involved anyway and why wasn't this why wasn't this charged? >> yeah. all right. well, we'll see if there is a redirect from the prosecution after the defense it's finishes with david pecker. we're going to take a quick break coming up. we're going to continue to update you on this pecker testimony. we're going to bring you the latest again, as we have been all i'll morning. i'll week from inside the courtroom. don't go anywhere live from the nation's capital. >> one of the most unforgettable nights in dc, misra will read back here again, president biden and comedian colin post headline the white house correspondents dinner, live tomorrow at seven eastern on cnn there are giant
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captioning brought to you by gilt visit gilt.com today for up to 70% off designer brands has the designers like your heart racing had inside a prices new every day, hurry. >> they'll be gone in a flash. designer sales that up to 70% gilt today and we're back for more special coverage. >> first criminal trial of donald trump. you're looking get us from inside the courtroom. a lot of news so far as the foreign presence defense team has been questioned, former tabloid executive david pecker, want to bring in retired new york supreme court diane kit's all thanks so much for being with us first of all, just how do you think has been going to today in terms of cross examination, cross-examination is doing what it needs to do from the defense perspective, which is to chip away in little bits at mr. pecker's testimony. >> now whether ultimately that sways jurors against what he's had to say it's an open
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question. >> they asked pecker if that testimony was another mistake or sean sustained an objection from steinglass over the question talking about the judge merchan, we have not heard from him on the gag order. there's another hearing next week about alleged new violations according to prosecution of the gag order what is he going to do i have no idea what he's going to do is options are very limited surprise you. he hasn't made a ruling as far a bit. >> it has it seems to me that i expected that after the hearing and i understand why he wanted to do the hearing and why you wanted to take it under submission. he wants to be very careful in case like this, and i assume wanted to issue some type of written decision i expected we would have seen it at some point this week and now we have three new edge violations. so now i suspect he'll put them all together and rule next week. no is emphasizing that the first paragraph, the non-prosecution
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agreement that says prosecutors will not criminally prosecuted american media incorporated this. >> i did that. there's a non-prosecution agreement. clearly, the the defense wants to raise questions in the jurors minds about the motivation of david pecker and how come he got to pass. whereas donald trump does not absolutely absolutely the ideas to do everything they can to undermine the motive and the credibility of mr. pecker. >> is it common to it's to have a non-prosecution agreement with a coconspirator yes and no, it depends on how badly you need this testimony and it depends on how culpable he may have been. prosecutors make deals with people who have participate, who are or conspirators in elicit acts. >> sure. >> all the time. been sometime you take your witnesses as you find them that was always when i was a prosecutor, that was always a standard summation
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line. i had i went to central casting. i wouldn't have picked this particular person to be my witnesses is the guy i'm stuck with. ladies and gentlemen, and sometimes you have to make these these deals what stands out to you so it is interesting that they're going back to the non-prosecution agreement because even as someone who is covered this for years, i was at the press conference where they announced a non-prosecution agreement. >> it does help to suss out. okay. why did they mi and david pecker are kind of get off michael kuilan, of course, had to plead guilty for his role in some of these payments and then years later, we're here with trump in court. so this really isn't important aspect. pecker's testimony to clarify, but what they're trying to do is show that he was under pressure when he signed that. there were business concerns that the whole fbi investigation had to be rendered we need somehow had to be resolved before the company could move forward with some acquisitions that it wanted to do. they were trying to show to the jury that look, he was under a lot of pressure. this is what he had to do there may be redirected, prosecutors may talk to david pecker a little bit more, but do we know who the next witness is going to
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be? >> so we don't know who the next witness is going to be. now. >> just to guess, i think if you're going to look at david pecker's testimony, remember when the very early stages of laying out this case, you could call, for example, hope hicks, she came up a few times, a serious in some key meetings with michael cohen and we're trump and pecker another possibility is kellyanne conway because she could talk about remember, she was a very powerful official at the white house. >> but before that, she was leading the trump campaign, the first woman to lead a successful presidential campaign. she could come in and talk about the access hollywood tape and what a bombshell that was for the campaign. i've read her book where she talks about just what a difficult time period that was that is significant, that could be significant piece of testimony because it sets the stage for why michael cohen and trump were in a hurry to suppress stormy daniels story. so we don't know who's going to be called, but i think those are two possible possible corners in session. try the day. so whoever going to be called, it would likely happen today it likely you don't a lot of
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cases and a judge, you might be able to speak to this. >> they don't necessarily want to start a new witness with 30 minutes to go. oh, and you have a weekend. no court on monday. but we've lost a lot of time this week because of passover. a dentist appointment, no court on wednesday. so the judge wants to keep this moving along. he could allow that next witness to take take the stand and allow prosecutors to begin questioning him or her by the end of the day i suspect it depends on how long the redirect examination is going to be and redirect examinations are tricky because they really are limited to anything that was brought out that hurt your case on cross & a very often, lawyers will try and expand what they want to talk about on redirect, but i suspect judge, more shawn, who's trying to keep this it's moving. >> well, keep it what are the other options for potential witnesses? so eventually, of course, we're going to get to michael cohen. that's going to be the biggest thing that happens on the witness stand because he is the nexus between
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trump and stormy daniels. he it was the one who received the checks that were allegedly falsified. >> and then the cross-examinati on of michael cohen. >> i mean, it's going to be fascinating to watch because you have so much to work with there as a defense attorney on not only is he an admitted liar, right. in the criminal sense, he's admitted to lying. he also has a vendetta against the former president. he's named his books, things like revenge. he talks about the former president all the time. now a few days ago, he suggested that he's going to dial that back, but they could easily fill a week just reading back portions of his podcast and his books and his tweets trying to show that maybe you shouldn't trust what he said. so that's of course the witness we're all waiting for. >> there's also gonna be some other some other witnesses that they're not household names. there are folks who worked at the trump organization, right? people like to mcconney folks who can talk about the accounting practices. >> there let me critical to the defense's case because the defense is going to be like, look, trump wasn't involved in paperwork. >> he wasn't he didn't know what invoice was slightly.
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>> he might assign the checks, but he didn't know especially in the defense case, you're getting hear from a lot of folks who are just in the corporate side of the trump administration, stormy daniels also a likely witness at some point. will read judge keys thinking so much of cross examination in david pecker appears to be coming to a close, will tell you what to expect next. they with us, you're watching cnn's special coverage of donald trump's first criminal trial every piece of evidence tells a story how it really haven't with jesse martin sunday at nine on cnn so what's the codes as 547? well, that's all working
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this is cnn we're following breaking news in new york. >> another day of donald trump's hush money trial underway right now. i'm boris sanchez following the trial from here in manhattan, just outside the criminal courthouse we're a former president is standing trial for the first time in american history. >> and welcome back to more of cnn's special so live coverage, i'm dana bash and washington right now, defense attorneys for donald trump are trying to chip away at david pecker is credibility and undermine the former tabloid executives testimony. i'm back with my all-star panel and katelyn, just bring our viewers up to speed on what we have seen so far this morning. >> it's interesting because the trump's attorneys are now cross-examining david pecker, this tabloid king, who was the one who revealed all of these details yesterday about how
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they would suppress these negative stories against donald trump by paying people who came forward with those negative stories, whether or not they believed them to be true or not. and so they've been doing this cross examination clearly trying to take away from david pecker is credibility. his memory. they're not being nasty. trump's attorneys actually being quite polite and trying to be charming and part of the jury, as you would expect. but he is certainly trying to say, well, you told investigators this and this year and now you're saying this here publicly. david pecker has stood up for himself and saying, i remember what i said this is what was said to me. this is what i heard at these meetings right now. >> they're in a bit of confusing line of questioning where a mill beauvais, trump's attorney is questioning david pecker about that agreement that he struck with the federal government that provided him immunity. and is the reason he's on the stand right now and doesn't face any kind of jail time potentially as a result of this, it's not totally clear to me eric trump's attorney is going with this line of questioning and i do wonder if the jury can follow along. >> well are reporters in the courtroom are saying that jurors have been paying
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attention, their eyes have been followed, have followed the back-and-forth between beauvais& pecker, and it seems to be i'm going to go with our jds over here. >> that beauvais is when he's emphasizing the first paragraph of the non-prosecution agreement that says they will not prosecute. it seems like what they're continuing to try to do is say, okay, guys jury. this is why he's on the stand right now. he's on the stand because he got a promise that he wouldn't be prosecuted. right. so prosecutors are both trying to undermine david pecker is truthfulness, as caitlin said, and with this agreement, they're trying to undermine his motives. they said, first of all, when law enforcement came to you, it was that this vulnerable moment when you are about to sell your company? make a lot of money. >> and they had you, you had to tell them whatever they wanted to hear, you had to do whatever they wanted to say. >> okay. there's a sidebar monday, which means they're arguing over whether some question is admissible or not. and then the second part of that is, and as a result of that, you got a free pass. you've got a walk. they just
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read the first line that says you will not be criminally prosecuted for for this. and as a result, you're still indebted to them, not financially, but you still have an incentive, a motive to tell them what they want to hear to shape your story. maybe even in subtle ways, how the prosecution, we tell the process yes, to tell the prosecution what they want to hear to give them little details too to suggest these compromise cme are nodding. >> yeah, i agree 100% they are trying to show that he cut a deal. he's trying to take care of himself and throw donald trump onto the bus. and the process. yeah, something we haven't talked a lot about in the context of this, we focused so much on the criminal locations, the ami, but not the financial ones and someone can have a financial motive for testifying or even altering their testimony based on the fact that they're in dire straits are and what the defense is buying out that he had a financial incentive, number one, to behave the way he did, and maybe even for testifying today. now whether the jury buys it, who knows? >> can i just ask a question if
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you get an immunity agreement and they find out you're lying under the immunity agreement what happens to you? because my understanding is if you lose your immunity agreement, so doesn't that cut i mean, we'll see when they do redirect, but it doesn't that cut against lying when you have an immunity, jamie, you're doing the prosecution redirect right now i ten minutes from now, they're going to ask exactly there are savvy and streaming game you hidden on the head that will be the response. >> i want to. as we're waiting for that, what trump just tapped blanche, who his attorney on the shoulder and whispered something to him after blanche sat back down following the sidebar. the sidebar is over. let's see what happens with that objection. we don't know what the objections specifically was over but if i may, kristen holmes, i want to remind people of the politics and what is going on here very much outside
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the courtroom and a new cnn poll, which asks people who are trump supporters this is a national poll. this is specific question to people who say they will support donald trump right now in november, would they still support him if he is convicted of a crime 24% say they might reconsider how worried is the trump campaign about that figure? >> i think they're very worried. i mean, one of the things that donald trump's team repeatedly says when they're comparing him to joe biden, is that donald trump has a solid base that no matter what people who liked donald trump will show up for donald trump, there belief being that if president biden stays, if they lower popularity and people don't show up, that donald trump could become president again in november. so looking at a pool like that is actually very alarming to people who believe that every single person who supports donald trump will show up to vote in november 20, 4%
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might not seem like a lot, but just that number when they're banking on those people showing up and just looking back at what's happening in that courtroom, beauvais is now focused on paragraph three in the non-prosecution agreement, which discusses the august 2015 trump tower meeting. >> can i read you that section that they're talking about as we're trying to fill in the blanks following along here, which i get is not easy. that part of the section says in n14 about august 2015, david pecker, the chairman and chief executive officer of ami, met with michael cohen and attorney for a presidential candidate, and at least one other member of the campaign. and at that meeting, pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidates relationships with women by among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories. so they could be purchased and they're publication avoided. pecker agreed to keep cohen apprised of any such negative stories. thank you so much for finding that. and so jim, to you what does it tell you about the strategy right now by of the trump defense team reading
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that paragraph that katelyn just found, and i should say as you respond to that, i want to say that they asks pecker whether he recalls that his lawyer said at a 2019 meeting that hard of paragraph three watts boat wrong and inaccurate pack pecker says he does not. maybe that does answer my question. >> it's just going to go back to memory. it's going to go back to back to the credibility of the witness. what he remembered, what he said. again, it's just chipping away that this stuff is chipping away. i think the bigger one is the is the non-profit agreement generally, because they're going a hammer away on that. but we are getting to the end. this is the best stuff they have because that's what they want to leave the jury with. can i go back one second to the parts? so in pennsylvania native of pennsylvania, nikki haley was on the ballot and this last election she took 17% of the republican vote. this is a low turnout primary not allowed on the ballot. well, it's probably liable. >> right. closed primary. only republicans. and these are reliable republican voters,
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folks that come out for primaries are always kind of that, of that ilk. i think. you a couple the 24% with the 17% that's already dry drifted towards nikki haley. we don't know what they're gonna do this matters. and kristin, look at what's happening right now. trump is leaning forward staring at this green is pecker reviews the record from the 2019 meeting that's really interesting. color. >> yeah. he's been really engaged in this. i mean, we know that part of the reason that he goes to these various legal proceedings is because you actually does want to be here. obviously, he doesn't have a choice here, but in the past, he wanted to see who is testifying. he wants to engage in what's going on. he doesn't want to actually be in a courtroom being charged with anything. but once the legal stuff starts happening, he's been engaged and we saw that also with the jury selection, he was very riveted on listening to them at times, turning around particularly someone said that they read the art of the deal. that was one that prc tim up a little bit, but he is following this closely to try and glean what is going on here if i can get a
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little color about this statement of facts or they're talking about this is a document that's attached to the non-prosecution agreement itself. >> it's a public document. anyone can google it. and the reason defense lawyers are trying to dispute it was backer says there was a dispute over one word and paragraph three of that agreement, quote selling and purchasing is the same thing. someone has to buy them, quote he, meeting pecker said, here's what's happening. this statement of facts is written by prosecutors, not these prosecutors that the da's office, but the fed's across the street and southern district of new york all right, so it has a very pro prosecution. this was a crime slant to it. >> and what donald trump's defense team right now is doing is trying to undermine a, undermine the truthfulness of it, undermine the motives because the jury will see this and it reads like an indictment. but are they trying to undermine the motive of the prostate? putian that has nothing to do with this trial or trying to undermine pecker's credibility. and are they kind of hitting the same two things with the same style? but i think the last part, i
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think they're trying to do both things at once or trying to suggest the statement itself is not accurate and they're trying to suggest that as a result of this agreement, david pecker has bad motives picture it's not done yet. these feel like very small inconsistencies . and reasonable ones that someone might forget or who's in the room i'm also curious from the lawyers this trial is gonna go on for let's say six weeks and i'm sure from your experience, it ebbs, it flows. >> yes. the jurors take notes but once you get to week five or six, once you've seen michael cohen testified or stormy daniels testify, i just wonder whether these small inconsistencies fade into the background. >> you know, i was thinking the same thing. it does feel a little small ball when you think about the whole thing and the totality.& by the time you get to the end, it's going to look even smaller than the river mirror or is it about building the full the little
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inconsistencies or small ball. but what they're doing is hammering again and again, again, this non-profit agreement and they're going to say that david pecker was trying to save his own skin. >> i'm just going to call it the non-profit agreement because it sounds you know just play one on tv. we're going to take a quick break coming up. we are looking ahead to the next phase of this trial as david pecker's testimony hey, draws to a close. we're gonna go inside the strategy for the defense team and the prosecutors that's next seeking, the titanic, how would really happen, especially to our premier sunday at nine on cnn. if you spit blood when you brush, it could be the start of a domino effect new periodontics act of gummer pair breath freshener clinically
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choice day changes every day schedule a free consultation i'm caitlin polantz at the federal court in washington, and this is cnn welcome back to our special live coverage of donald trump's hush money trial. >> former tabloid executive david pecker is on this standard, right now. as defense attorneys appear to be nearing the end of their cross-examination, and as this goes down, we have cnn, chief legal affairs correspondent, paul read with us, as well as retired new york supreme court judge diane key. so thank you both for being with us. all attended of a successful cross-examination is undermining the witnesses credibility and much of today, donald trump's team has tried to poke holes in david pecker's testimony from yesterday, right? >> about david pecker is he's not really a witness that you have to destroy on the stand if
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you're the defense team here. so we have we have an update here, defense the defense team is reading from this agreement. this is a non-prosecution agreement between the government and peccaries saying they're talking about the thing that's different from an admission, right. so what's happening here is they're drawing attention to this non-prosecution agreement that pecker and ami, the company that owned the national enquirer, entered into where they, you know, they did acknowledge campaign finance violations for paying karen mcdougal to suppress her story. and so they're trying to get at the fact that pecker was under a lot of pressure to close this deal. we're trying to kinda take some of the bite out of this agreement in the eyes of the jury. so that's what they're focused on right now. but throughout the pecker cross-examination, they're not so much trying to undermine his credibility to have called up some questions about his memory instead, they're trying to poke holes in the prosecution story, noting that it wasn't just the national enquirer doing this for trump, right? caching, killing stories, buying unfavorable stories and
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suppressing them and they weren't just amplifying bad stories about his opponents like hillary clinton, to help him. this was just the way business was done at the national inquire. so they've been really focused on undermining the prosecution's case, not so much going at david pecker, but we're going to see something different with some other witnesses. >> potentially you see those three dots bubbling on your screen. that means that there's an update coming. so stay tuned for that at any moment. dianne, from your perspective, this effort to talk about the agreement that pecker struck and we've actually got an update beauvais noting that pecker was also accused of a campaign finance violation asking you certainly did not admit to a campaign finance violation. pecker saying no from the stand, what do you make of this effort by the defense and whether it's been effective to sort of say that he had to move forward with this testimony as part of the screen, you know, it's very hard if there's any trial in the world that cried out to be televised, this one certainly was. >> but of course, judge merchan
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is limited by what he's allowed to do under state law. it is very hard for us to be able to ascertain what is pecker like when he's on the stand, when he answers these questions, when he says no, is he saying fourth in a forthcoming manner? is he being furtive about it? >> all of that is so important when trying to judge its credibility is very tough, especially when we're giving these updates, beauvais noting that packer was not part of the ami conciliation agreement with the fec as pecker no longer worked at the company, some of this boils down to a question of the intense and pecker's ability to make deals, business deals, right as he was being potentially prosecuted how does that play into this polar? so really taking this back big picture, we're a little in the weeds right now in terms of the actual case itself, the reason david pecker, a significant is because he's laying out a pattern all right. and effort to suppress negative stories about candidate trump to help him get back in the white house story from a doorman falsely
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accused me of having a child out of wedlock. karen mcdougal allegedly had an affair with him, suppressing those stories until here is about a woman named stormy daniels and he says, i want nothing to do with that. and there are a lot of reasons, but then he hands that off to michael cohen. so he is really a polygamous that the prologue to the story, because at the heart of the criminal case here are it's another defense attorney is noting that david pecker provided a signed declaration that stated that he sought legal advice related to the karen mcdougal that that payment i was just talking about to suppress her story and he's asked her lawyers relied on the sworn declaration to argue to the fdc ivc that there wasn't a violation. he says yes. now this is significant because when he was buying karen mcdougal story, he consulted pecker, consulted with lawyers and said, hey, is this a campaign finance violation? are we gonna be in trouble and he's testified today here that they've said no, you well, not but this is not the criminal conduct that is charged. this is setting the stage from michael cohen to learn stormy daniels is selling her story at a critical time in the campaign. access hollywood tape has just come out and then
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the way that payment is handled and reimbursed, they are charged with the campaign finance violations. so right now, getting into the weeds of david pecker is non-prosecution agreement it's not necessarily going to make or break the case, but it isn't important detail to get across to the jury. >> it's largely table setting right. >> but it's important to know everything that a lawyer does in a trial is a setup for summation. so they've got to raise all of these little points and they may seem insignificant now. but a good lawyers get up down summation and wrap them all up we also have an update now, donald trump apparently is sitting back in his chair slightly turned toward pecker, and appearing to watch him robustly monitoring what the former president is doing in court because every little thing is a signal as to how he details about the proceedings, as to how his attorneys might approach the proceedings. >> i'm wondering how that weighs on. the jury. his movements and your experience are watching him like i like a
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cat watches a little hole for a mouse. the crowd they are looked, they don't take their eyes off them. jurors do two things. >> they look at the defendant. >> they of course, look at the witness but they also look at the judge, which is what makes being a judge, there are difficult because you can't your face has to be a complete blank slate. they want to know how everything is being in to standby because we're going to take a quick break coming up shortly. stormy daniels, hope hicks, michael cohen, they are all expected to take the witness stand. >> question is, who's coming up after david pecker? >> we're going to bring you the latest from inside the courtroom cnn in 2024, stanley cup playoffs presented by geico coverage is continuous zyrtec allergy relief works fast. and
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805 013636. that's 180501, 3636 called now, the white house correspondents dinner, live tomorrow at seven eastern on cnn welcome back, david pecker is on the stand right now cross-examination the former tabloid executive has now ended prosecutors are starting their chance to redirect back here with our panel caitlin. >> we know that steinglass, who is part of the prosecution, di and joshua steinglass is asking about the campaign lawyer who was consulted about the mcdougal deal. pecker says he never spoke directly with the attorney when we learned that pecker was when he revealed that he talked to an attorney about this deal some of our
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colleagues thought that it was very noteworthy that he discussed this deal with karen mcdougal with lawyers. >> well, an important moment just happened where it was actually it would be a win for the prosecution. i should note and this is the prosecutor right now asking david pecker if he told the ami the company general counsel about the arrangement that he had made with trump at that meeting between michael cohen, david pecker, and donald trump, and pecker says that outside counsel was asked to review the karen mcdougal contract talking about who had eyes on this. but an important moment happened when he was being cross-examined where trump's attorney was trying to say that his attorney, david pecker's once said years ago as all this is playing out that david pecker never agreed to suppress stories on donald trump's behalf at that august 2015 meeting? that is really the center of all this david pecker clarified, no, we never agreed to by all of them. but as we know, david pecker has testified, they did offer to serve as the eyes and ears that doesn't necessarily mean they
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were buying every single negative story that came their way. but as we do know, at least two of them. so what does that mean is this, again, just another attempt to chip away at his crime? credibility, is it as simple as that? >> so now the prosecution across right now, you can point that third thriving. >> now is there is a dividing line in the history between ami and donald trump before this famous august 2015 meeting, they were involved together. they were putting out hit pieces stories that were harmed full two political opponents of donald trump. but in august 2015, now trump's running for office. he announced two months prior. now, it shifts and this is the meeting that we've heard about the august 2015 trump tower meeting. cohen, is there. trump is there pecker is there? we believe hope hicks was there. there's some potential inconsistency and then they said, okay, now we're going into campaign mode. that's a really important piece of testimony for the prosecution. so they're trying to bring that back back to the jurors attention. this shifted from a sort of all-purpose protect trump's interest to now
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protect his interest because now he's entering the political fray and to be clear it for that reason, yes. yeah. and pull back a little bit. the point of redirect isn't just two have another crack at the witness. it's to clean up, create something that went wrong for lack of better way to put it during the cross-examination, what they want to leave the jury width when they when the witness has done is the word campaign, the idea that there was a direct next to the camera and jim steinglass is seeking to infer that the election law attorney reviewed the mcdougal agreement without the context of pecker's agreement to buy stories to benefit trump's campaign. can you take that from the way it's described here and what's going on there and put it into basic layman's terms. >> so i think what they're trying to establish here is that is that the you know, that the election law attorney didn't this agreement had nothing to do with the the the
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the campaign hip pain porn right? >> that there was this shift. right. and i think they're trying to look at it from the mcdougal and then distinguish that from ms clifford. >> and just another update, la steinglass has pecker reconfirm that the purposes of the contract with mcdougal was to acquire her life rights and to suppress her story, to influence the election. it's that last part, those last three words to influence or words to influence the election is the crux of what the prosecution is trying to do here. >> that in a sentence is what the prosecution wants the jury to take out of david pecker's testimony that this was an intentional effort to buy stories to bury them for the campaign. and i see now we're getting an update pecker confirms. yes. saying the provisions about mcdougal writing articles and appearing on covers were quote this is important included in the contract as a disguise, trying to disguise the campaign motive by making it look like she has a modeling contract. she's going to write for us also as a sweetener for karen mcdougal. has something to offer her. who
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she was focused at this time on restarting her career and so that's also part of this. and david pecker saying he never told the amide general counsel that the true purpose of the deal was to influence the election, but that doesn't mean he made very clear how he is trying to keep all of this very small circle. he had a separate email that his assisted didn't use. he sold to the editor and chief of the national enquirer, david howard and make clear to him sorry. dylan howard that they wanted to keep all the small circle and highly confidential. that's important here. and david pecker also said that he never told the attorney that he planned to transfer the rights to michael cohen, who pledged to reimburse him. that's also a key part of this because that was a big fight that they have where he was worried michael cohen wasn't going to pay him the money that he was paying too to karen mcdougal. >> this really shows that it was an apa citation effort, right? that's what they're trying to show here. that this was all they was trying to apa escape it with the internal lawyers to the karen mcdougal, to everyone involved trying to
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keep it as closely held as possible that the reason that david pecker was doing it was to help donald trump's camp hey yeah. >> i mean, which is in a nutshell, the entire point and the that whole premise, the hypothesis is what trump's attorneys are trying to chip away at, and it's part of the allegations the charges against donald trump is so i took two things away from this when i first saw the testimony, i thought, well, he's not reaching, you, don't want to create a reach, but following up on what jim said, it also says we know that he was worried about campaign finance and triggering that he researched and he researched it. >> and so by keeping it as circle, by keeping it away from the lawyer nobody knew about. >> and chris and the update from the courtroom now, is that pecker also said he never told the attorney that he planned to transfer the rights to michael
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cohen, who pledged to reimburse him right. so isn't this also undermining the fact that pecker has said he had a lawyer look at this and say it was fine. but if you don't give the lawyer all of the information, then how can it be fine? i mean, it feels like that's really the bottom line here. and just putting a little bit more meat on the bones, reviewing records on the stand pecker says the election law attorney build ami for 30 minutes of work. >> it's all a lot of work reviewing the mcdougal contract. i want to ask what 30 minutes work is for you guys. >> bills, at least wasn't that what the defense was trying to get up by saying that david pecker told michael cohen this agreement was bulletproof, but actually it just because an attorney said that the attorney didn't know that it had an election purpose drive. i'm so and so there's a few things happening here. >> number one, you're pulling out the election purpose number two, in the absence of a direct conversation or a direct quote, were donald trump says, please do this to cover up a campaign, something they can try to get in as number one. now is that
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this such as campaigns, but number two but they know they're doing something wrong& are trying to cover their tracks. knowledge of criminality, and attempts to hide are valuable. >> minute not even telling his own 30 minutes is standard work to review the wording in a contract not to go through an entire background of story. >> i mean, ironclad bulletproof again, if you go to the hospital and you don't disclose what your issues are and you die, then you cannot sue because you have to disclose what your medical can. >> we also be very clear here that they were trying as david pecker himself has testified, to cover something up to suppress a negative story. >> you're not just going to write down your crimes and a contract and put them on paper for and say, by the way, can you please sign this? the whole point of this is that it was a cover up but you want to write it in the contract. with the fact that he didn't own attorney to the lawyer said it was bullet proof based on the information that the lawyer was given, not based on the actual information that surrounded the event.
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>> exactly what donald trump is on trial for though michael cohen did legal work when actually it was the allegation that michael cohen was paying money to a porn star it's exact same thing. they're just doesn't have immunity. >> i think you need segregate the two the cover up that they're talking about here is the cover up. the ami the cover up for pecker, right? it's much different than what we're talking about. the business records case. so what this all goes to is that pecker himself thought that this was a problem that he was unlawfully help helping the campaign that doesn't that doesn't necessarily equate to donald trump knowing that pecker was unlawfully helping campaign or game directive to it. and i think this is all going to hinge on the one one guy that could put all that together is cohen update from the courtroom to prosecutor noted that the contract that the outside council reviewed had no details about cohen, the campaign, or trump. now, our reporters there say every juror is watching steinglass as he's asking questions. >> so gyms exactly all right.
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this doesn't necessarily establish that donald trump was engaged in a crime, but it does establish that pecker was involved in a crime. and then as jim said, they're gonna have to link that to donald trump. it also, this is very much of a trump world ami, world's way of handling lures, using them as useful dupes. and the thing that came to my mind i think caitlin, you're reporting from mar-a-lago and the classified documents case, what they did with evan corcoran, the lawyer who has now left the team, is they gave him very careful information, but they withheld other information for him. he in turn, unknowingly made incomplete representations to the fbi. that's why doj christina bobb was indicted and arizona because she signed it, but she made clear in that to say to the best of my knowledge, because as attorneys around don't know that they don't always know where i got snake and a quick break coming up more from inside the courtroom rome as prosecutors get one last chance to question david pecker great. >> he makes trust each other. we're gonna do a trust falls,
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the question of all right? will we hear another witness and who will it be judge, what do you think of how quickly this potentially is moving the redirect? i think it's amazing while the redirect, are you talking trial in general or just the redirect of david pecker? the redirect is steinglass is doing exactly what he should be doing, moving in, hitting all most important points and hopefully it's sitting down you don't want to prolong this, you just it's wanted to be sure you've plugged the holes. >> we didn't get an update a moment ago. pecker apparently responding yes to a question from prosecutor joshua steinglass that previous question about whether ami admitted to violating federal campaign election law. they're moving to this, the fec agreement a minor, but important part of peppers testimony. yeah, this is something that we've gone over a few times. a ami end david pecker entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the justice department and on cross-examination, i think they
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were trying to muddy the waters on whether pack pecker had actually admitted a campaign minus violation. we have another update now the prosecutors revisiting that the mcdougal agreement and pecker that the mcdougal agreement and that pecker only agreed to enter into it because cohen promised to ria in burst him. >> so this this goes back to the fact that they, the national enquirer paid karen mcdougal $150,000 to buy her story, which of course they never published the story of an alleged affair with canada, chump pecker expected to get paid back. >> he was not. now we've another update from our colleagues inside the court saying they had dropped on up a transfer agreement and you went so far as to sign it. now pecker says after speaking with the general counsel, he called up michael cohen and told him that the deal was off and to rip up the agreement. they're going through what happened after pecker paid karen mcdougal all of this again, just table setting for the explanation of why this relationship between trump and pecker was so important for the prosecution to prove that this was in their eyes, a campaign,
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an attempt to sway the 2016 campaign. >> let's take a look at this update. steinglass apparently has returned to the sides it's been source agreement. any recalls that beauvais had pecker testify that this was a standard source agreement. this isn't regard to that that door man that allegedly had information about an illegitimate child that donald trump reportedly had. there's another update now or rather, yeah, steinglass is bringing up the agreement to the amendment to the agreement which change the length of the agreement from 90 days to in perpetuity. judge, back to my previous question, all of this table setting, we really haven't talked about stormy daniels all that much. and she's key to the prosecution proven criminality in this case how do you think this first week of testimony has gone for david pecker so far? >> well, so far, david pecker has done what the district attorney it seems to me, hoped he would do which is set the scene and what also to make sure that the jury understands
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that this was an agreement designed to protect donald trump. i think all of this testimony about well, you did this for other celebrities too. well. so what you don't, whatever their motivation was for entering into this agreement is not an issue here. the issue is what was donald trump's motivation for entering this agreement? and the people, the state of new york maintain it was to protect them so he could get elected president, whether they can prove that is another question we have another update now, steinglass is asking if it is standard operating procedure for ami to consult a lawyer for a presidential candidate about a source agreement pecker answering no too, that we haven't seen in this redirect, the prosecution talk about the distinction between some of those other celebrities or arnold schwarzenegger. >> i think mark wahlberg was another one and donald trump who was running for president, who in august of 2015, had this meeting, the pecker testified about basically saying hey,
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this would be a great arrangement between the three of us. >> well, what sunglasses trying to do here is undercut what the defense was trying to do on cross, which was established. this wasn't just a trump thing that you did to help them get in the white house. you did this for a lot of people. this is the way you do business and prosecutor's going back at that saying, hey, here's the way you do business, right? is it standing on standard operating? procedure to consult a lawyer? so they're trying to show that this was different. now the prosecutor is now seeking to tay cohen to trump's campaign because there was a time when pecker testified that he didn't really see michael cohen as part of the trump campaign all right. but again, it was laid the foundation that the prosecutors that there was a meeting to help trump get into the white house and that this was done for the campaign. pecker confirms that cohen was known to work to work as media contacts for the campaign. well, michael cohen may not have officially had a campaign title. it is very hard given his close contig larry relationship, personal attorney relationship, to trump, to really separate him from candidate trump at that time.
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>> and he was go between trump and pecker to facilitate these payments, but that's why prosecutors are going back and like wait a second. you said you didn't associate colin with the campaign but come on. that's what they're doing right now. >> yeah, you're going who referred to himself as donald trump's fixer at one point, the two of them obviously we're close one of the outstanding questions now is when we might see michael cohen testify an outstanding question as we go back to washington, dc and dana bash whereas thank you so much and what we're hearing from our colleagues inside the courtroom, right now is pecker confirms that cohen was known to work his media contacts for the campaign. >> my professional one word answer to that, kaitlan collins is yeah, i mean, in no surprise is another answer. i think it's because there was they were trying to draw some distance between michael cohen and the inner workings of the campaign. what the prosecution is doing now is getting david
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pecker to clarify. yeah, michael cohen was seen as in the trump campaign, was not on the page the role never officially, but as anyone who covered the trump campaign at that time knows very well, when something went wrong or they didn't like, are you reported something? it wasn't unusual to get a call from michael cohen and that's what david pecker saying is saying here. that essentially michael cohen went on tv and different in the campaign he was on cnn multiple times and other networks, and that he was essentially seen as this arm of the campaign. there was not a real distinction between his legal work in the cabin, i should say in many moments, much to the chagrin of core lewd ascii, who was the campaign manager back there, and others. there was not there was some tension about michael cohen being involved in the campaign in those early days in 2016. but he was and the question is why and how is this relevant to the underlying prosecution argument? steinglass asks pecker if cohen was part of the 2015 agreement, he and trump had for his
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company to help the campaign? yes, he was. that answers the question. there they're using cohen as part of the campaign two, once again, tie, use another thread to tie this issue back to the campaign. right now, steinglass asked, quote in this case, did you suppress stories to help a presidential candidate? pecker says, yes, i'm sensing a thing that's what, and that's a headline, right? yes. that's that's exactly where they're going to gym. you talk earlier about how do you tie donald trump into all of this? we have not seen everything yet, but i think it's worth just reminding everybody that david pecker paid this money for two of the stories he expected to get paid back by donald trump. >> it did not happen. >> and that was the line. i am not the bank or somebody. i
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mean, so there is a context here certainly,& the setting that donald trump knew about these, that this had history. and if one of you three was in there and you heard him say yes, do you say you're honore know out of there right now? >> i know. actually going there's an update coming that i think we'll we'll show why they are continuing to ask questions to david pecker about what's the don't get out of talking while those three dots i like about no further your questions there is that he's in effect making a legal conclusion elliott steinglass asks pecker if he ever spent close to $150,000 for a story linked to arnold schwarzenegger when ami suppressed stories about him no. >> so that means is aural towards was at that time? yes, he was a candidate. but in this particular case, not running from right. it's it's in
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effect a legal conclusion. >> what he is saying here is that this operation paid money to suppress stories on behalf of the trump campaign. that's the argument. >> and big money not the kind of money. and was typical for them, not the kind of money, even in other cases. >> it's also important. so i'm sorry, jamie. it's also important that it came out of the last line of questioning trying to understand what michael cohen's role was because people didn't have official campaign titles that were established, that they were connected into the campaign and made the decision that it wasn't a rogue actor, but it wasn't just doing this on his own because he loved donald trump, which is what we've obviously seen them trying to paint him as somebody who would do anything for donald trump. this he would've gone out there but tie him to the meeting, tying them to pecker. all of these conversations in relation to the campaign that shows that he didn't just do that on his own so they're trying to show forgive me. >> i'm sorry, kris. and if you were you are a former trump attorney. if you were at the
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defense table right now, would you be concerned about what's happening? >> sure. right. >> this is a good narrative for them. >> this is their best narrative hundred and 50,000 for the prosecution. yes. hundred and $50,000 paid for paid for by ami. >> is that an illegal corporate contribution to the campaign that's the fundamental question here what did the campaign coordinate with it? that's another question that goes to the campaign finance issue. there we're going to hear more about that from michael cohen and again, if michael cohen's really the only one that ties all this together, he's got a lot of issues. i'm actually see what else they use other than michael go. >> but the other thing you let this go, if you're the defense, just don't fight it. don't object, don't because they knew this was coming. this is the central part part of the prosecution's case. well, let it go hundred percent. >> yeah. i mean, you don't because i think the more you kick and scream about it, the more you draw the jury's attention to it. they have other ways they can attack the credibility and the membrane is back to what you were saying
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about small ball at the end of the de, it's just there were these little inconsistency michael cohen is coming. >> we don't know what else is coming. i mean, let's just remember that landy davis, who was michael cohen's lawyer, has said that this case does not quote rise and fall on michael cohen's testimony that there is other evidence, but we haven't seen prosecutors are trying to answer the question for the jury. why was the donald trump situation different from the arnold schwarzenegger or mark wahlberg situation. and the reason is the amount of money and the timing and circumstances around the campaign. another person who was four and the person who was four exactly. but what the prosecution does not want to happen is the jury to go i don't know. they did this for everyone, all sorts of famous people are engaged in this stuff. what's the difference? this is their attempt to answer that question. what the difference? the other thing to keep an eye out for as we're coming up on lunchtime, you seriously jurors care about their launch. yep. yeah so i think prosecutors are aiming to sort of why yeah thank you, caitlin, for ordering as a prosecutor firms pecker's
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earlier testimony that because he was friends with trump, he didn't run negative stories about him, even before the campaign. >> we are continuing to monitor all of this news coming out from this testimony that continues from david pecker and this note to our viewers, be sure to watch kaitlan collins again tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on her program, the source, kaitlan guest is former trump attorney general, bill barr. i'm excited for them not to ask him about coming up more special coverage as this prosecution gets their final shot at questioning tabloid king david pecker, and we stand by to see who takes the witness. dan next, do details from inside courtroom are coming up every single second. look for those three dots. there'll be back riyad says
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