. >> david cruz is with the guardians of the city, an organization that preserves the history of first responders in the san francisco. >> remembering our history, remembering the survivors, remembering those who perished is an incredible way for us to remember who we are as a city, how resilient we are as a city as we continue to move forward today. >> as events this week mark 118 years since the 1906 earthquake and fire, reminders of the impact on this city can be found everywhere including the san francisco elks club lodge number three. it was destroyed in 1906 and rebuilt at the location it stands in today , a place at the time to help house survivors. this week, it hosts ceremonies to honor those who help to protect pieces of those history. and, even welcomed artifacts that remain a part of the collection. these events help david to remember the 1989 loma prieta earthquake which had a lasting impact on him. >> i lived here. i was a young child. it was a scary moment for me. that is what i think about, when the next one hits, what our community will look like, the type of support t

. >> david cruz is with the guardians of the city, an organization that preserves the history of first responders in san francisco. >> remembering our history, remembering the survivors, remembering those who perished is an incredible way for us to remember who we are as a city as we continue to move forward today. >> events this week mark 118 years since the 1906 earthquake and fire, reminders of the impact on the city can be found everywhere including the san francisco elks club large number 3. it was destroyed in 1906 and rebuilt at the location it stands in today, a place that was used to help house survivors. this week, it hosts ceremonies to help those -- to honor those who helped prevent history and weave and welcome artifacts that remain a part of the collection. these events help david to remember the 1989 loma prieta earthquake which has a lasting impact on him. >> i lived here. i was a young child. it was a scary moment for me. that is what i think about. when the next one hits, what our community will look like, the type of support that they will need and how we will contin

. >> reporter: david cruz is with guardians of the city, an organization that preserves the history of first responders in san francisco. >> remembering our history, remembering the survivors, remembering those who perished is an incredible way for us to remember who we are as a city, how resilient we are as a city moving forward today. >> reporter: as events this week mark 118 years since the 1906 earthquake and fire, reminders of the impact on the city can be found everywhere, including the san francisco elks club lodge number 3. it was destroyed in 1906 and rebuilt at the location it stands in today, a place at the time to help house survivors. this week it hosts ceremonies to honor those who helped to protect pieces of that history. and even welcomes artifacts that remain part of the collection. these events help david to remember the 1989 loma prieta earthquake which has a lasting impact on him. >> i lived here. i was a young child and it was a scary moment for me. that's what i think about when the next one hits, what our community will look like, the type of support that they'll

. >> reporter: david cruz is with the guardians of the city, an organization that preserves the history of first responders in san francisco. >> remembering our history, remembering the survivors, remembering those who perished, is an incredible way for us to remember who we are as a city, how resilient we are as a city, as we continue to move forward today. >> reporter: and as events this week mark 118 years since the 1906 earthquake and fire, reminders of the impact on the city can be found everywhere. including the san francisco elk club lodge number 3. it was destroyed in 1906 and rebuilt at the location it stands in today, a place at the time to help house survivors. this week, it hosts ceremonies to honor those who helped to protect pieces of that history. [ bell dinging ] and even welcomes artifacts that remain a part of the collection. these events help david to remember the 1989 loma prieta earthquake which has a lasting impact on him. >> i lived here and i was a young child and it was a scary moment for me. and that's what i think about if -- when the next one hits, what our c

. >> reporter: david cruz is with the guardians of the city.serves the history of first responders in san francisco. >> remembering our history, remembering the survivors, remembering those who perished, is an incredible way for us to remember who we are as a city, how resilient we are as a city, as we continue to move forward today. >> reporter: and as events this week mark 118 years since the 1906 earthquake and fire, reminders of the impact on the city can be found everywhere. including the san francisco elk club lodge number 3. it was destroyed in 1906 and rebuilt at the location it stands in today. a place at the time to help house survivors. this week, it hosts ceremonies to honor those who helped to protect pieces of that history. [ bell dinging ] and even welcomes artifacts that remain a part of the collection. these events help david to remember the 1989 loma prieta earthquake which has a lasting impacten him. >> i lived here and i was a young child and it was a scary moment for me. and that's what i think about if -- when the next one

infamously going after ted cruz. david-- it was manufactured, right down to the photo. defense lawyers tried to say the whole program was just a routine thing they did. in other words, however bad it looks, it was not a campaign thing. it was how they roll. they brought up arnold schwarzenegger and that deal. they say the agreement i had with arnold is -- i would acquire them and buy them for a period of time. the defense also highlighted he did not pay them back for the mcdougall story. that is trying to get the jurors to doubt whether this was a campaign thing or maybe just an inquiry thing. now, mcdougall, i spoke to her lawyer back in 2019 with keith davidson, who told us this. >> the affairs happened in 2006. michael cohen and i first contacted each other about the matter in 2011. at a minimum, they knew about me and about stormy at a minimum in 2011. they knew about it when president donald declared that he was a candidate for president. >> they knew about this the whole time and the money only gave through at the en

i kept thinking about ted cruz, because in david pecker's testimony, he confessed that not only did hesh headlines, but he made up a photo of cruz's father with lee harvey oswald by mashing up two photos together. when we look back, thanks to von, at what ted cruz had to say at the time, he was excoriating about the "national enquirer" and the lies they were telling ant him. trump, similarly, divorced himself from it and said that has nothing to do with me, that's the "national enquirer." yesterday today, confronted with this testimony, what did ted cruz have to say? that's ancient history. i have no interest in revisiting it. >> it is an interesting divorce from reality. i mean, this was testimony -- let's deal with david pecker now. i mean, what david pecker -- and the idea that like trump -- trump has no appreciation for irony. because you describe what jesse watters has been charged with -- >> these characters -- >> i missed his rise, but i guess he's been around there for a long time. >> he was the one that did the lovely thing, mimicking chinese people downtown where he was imita

cruises father on the cover and a story that was completely made out which david packard admitted on the stand today. here's ted cruz talking about the relationship between donald trump and david pecker the ceo of the national enquirer's an individual named david pecker well, david, his good friends with donald trump. they have a friendship that goes back for many years. in fact, the national enquirer has endorsed donald trump he said he must be president. >> i had nothing to do with the national enquirer story. and frankly, i hope it's not true because it's pretty bad so ted cruz got one thing wrong in the extended version of those comments, which was he implied it was roger stone who was acting as the emissary would david pecker and donald trump, obviously as we now know oh, and we'll hear from him on the witness stand. >> it was michael cohen who is doing all of this. >> but what ted cruz got closer to than really anyone did at that time was that relationship between the two of them and it then it was not a known entity, a known quantity like it is now, like we saw the details come being out and you saw donald tr

cruises father on the cover and a story that was completely made out which david packard admitted on the stand today. here's ted cruz talking about the relationship between donald trump and david pecker the ceo of the national enquirer's an individual named david pecker well, david, his good friends with donald trump. >> they have a friendship that goes back for many years. in fact, the national enquirer has endorsed donald trump he said he must be president. >> i had nothing to do with the national enquirer story. and frankly, i hope it's not true because it's pretty bad so ted cruz got one thing wrong in the extended version of those comments, which was he implied it was roger stone who is acting as the emissary. >> would david pecker and donald trump, obviously as we now know we'll hear from him on the witness stand. it was michael cohen who is doing all of this but but what ted cruz got closer to than really anyone did at that time was that relationship between the two of them and then it was not a known entity, a known quantity like it is now, like we saw the details coming out. and you saw donald trump also do

cruz had dropped out of the race but not before responding to the allegations. >> donald's source for this is the national inquirer. the national inquirer is tabloid trash but run by his good friend david the ceo who has endorsed him. >> the national enquirer has become his hit piece. ted cruz was talking about it on the campaign trail. today was the second day of witness testimony in the trial of donald trump. the focus was the sam thing ted cruz highlighted years ago. the ways in which the national enquirer helped donald trump in the 2016 campaign. david the former ceo of the enquirer testified that his tabloid would run negative stories about each of donald trump's primary opponents when ever they started to do well in the polls against trump. stories like bungling surgeon ben carson left sponge in patient's brain. that came after a poll showing ben carson leading trump for the first time. and there was shocking claims, ted cruz caught cheating with five secret mistresses. that came out after polls showed ted cruz ahead of donald trump. what is going down here wasn't even subtle. trump was using the national enquirer to smear his opponents and undermine their candidacies and the enq

it's detective cruz with the clark county sheriff's office. >> reporter: and david, during that exchange, the alleged scammer agreed to meet with authorities but never showed up. they have not been caught. brock, who has been charged with murder, has pleaded not guilty. david? >> david: let's hope they find who was behind all this. alex, thank you. >>> we turn now to the race for president. tonight, more than a dozen members of the kennedy family have now endorsed president biden, speaking out publicly today about their own brother, rfk jr., who is running for president. they are concerned that their brother could take votes from joe biden, with the kennedy name, in this very close election. rfk jr. main tans he's no spoiler. here's mary bruce. >> reporter: tonight in pennsylvania, members of the kennedy family, including brothers and sisters of presidential candidate robert f. kennedy jr., throwing their support behind president bind, concerned rfk jr. will hand the white house back to donald trump. >> that's right. the kennedy family endorses joe biden. >> reporter: the kennedys worrie

it was not a photograph of ted cruz is dead add with the jfk assassin, lee harvey oswald steinglass, the prosecutor asks david whether the articles were published in the spring of 2016 and of cruise was gaining popularity around that time? i believe so says and this is significant. karen, because ted cruz was a threat to donald trump's candidacy. so the national enquirer sprung into action to destroy ted cruz and help donald trump one small point that i think you're going to hear come back up in summation when the prosecutor sum up is something that said he says, i don't recall michael cohen saying he shared the headlines with trump. >> and they're going to say that shows you that, that david is telling the truth because if he were lying, he would make it better. he would make it stronger. he would say things like that, but he's telling you the truth, how he remembered. >> here's a steinglass showing headlines about marco rubio and asking whether they ran when rubio was gaining popularity and says he believes so as well, i forgot, forgot about the national enquirer slamming marco rubio. there were doing a who

theory is that there in fact, was new content with respect to, let's just take ted cruz they famously ran stories that david pecker had already talked about regarding an alleged affair, which they said it was false. >> they ran a story which they said was false about his father and his relationship to the jfk assassination and you also don't see any negative stories about donald trump so this is i think sort of taking pot shots, which is a fair thing to do. >> but one of the things that i think jurors look for at the end of the day is who's narrative sort of holds together and i think that these are sort of disparate points that the defendant this has made. but when you think about it logically, it i think it doesn't really hold up, but obviously it'll be called for the jury and we will find out how they decide you spent years andrew investigating trump and you closely annotated this manhattan hush money case in your excellent brand new book, what are you learn during this week of testing? good one that actually surprised you well, i think the details from david pecker were quite fascinating. >> first of al

also to plant negative stories about his opponents, incluing from the likes of ted cruz to hillary clinton. we also have david pecker testifying this morning that donald trump was a micromanager, somebody who evaluated the invoices that were provided and the checks that were provided to him, and had a good understanding about the finances that he was involved in. and we have david pecker, over the course of these last two hours, testifying they have been friends, dating back to the 1980s and for the better part of a decade, they had a mutual relationship when donald trump was on the air with the apprentice and in which the two would exchange, number one, money from david pecker to donald trump in exchange for stories about behind the scenes secret information related to "the apprentice" and "celebrity apprentice" there is back and forth over steve bannon's role in 2016 in this scheme, in which david pecker says he was introduced to steve bannon by donald trump and was told to work with steve bannon about some of these potential stories as it related to hillary clinton. we also have testimony here coming from

david describes the process. michael cohen would call me and say we would like to have you run an article for arguments sake on ted cruz. then he would send me information about ted cruz, ben carson, then we would embellish from there. prosecutor stein glass, you said michael cohen would call you periodically and say we would like you to run a negative story about this political opponent or that political opponent, is that correct? yes. michael cohen always told me he was out of the part of the campaign so i assume he was talking to mr. trump. when he said we i thought he was talking about himself and mr. trump. david and the national enquirer influencing the 2016 election at the direction of his lawyer. and there was what prosecutors allege was doing behind the scenes. prosecutors asked mr. exclusive rights to and then sat on so the accusations against trump would not come out before the election. a process that is now known colloquially as catch and kill. it was a story the inquirer determined untrue but bought anyway so it couldn't be sold to anyone else. then there was ken mcdougal the model and actress, who like s

aunque el pueblo de watsonville al sur del condado santa cruz puede no ser conocido como una meca gastronómica en la cocina de un restaurante cerrado, davidy proveedor, ahora está explorando una perspectiva distinta sobre ciertos alimentos. las bayas, frutas y verduras que recibo son las que estados unidos considera no lo suficientemente buenas. su negocio, que ella denomina tierra en un frasco, crea mermeladas, con lo que otros podrían llamar ingredientes imperfectos. tenemos una visión idealizada de la comida y exigimos perfección. mientras que la madre naturaleza nunca recibió ese mensaje, lo que se especializa en hacer es tomar esos productos imperfectos que las granjas locales no pueden vender y convertirlos en algo que sí puedan. las fresas duran poco y después de un día de verano en un mercado de agricultores, comienzan a degradarse y empiezan a madurar demasiado y allí es donde entro yo. en este ciclo de nutrición y economía struct toma los excedentes de las granjas, los convierte en mermeladas u otros productos y luego los vende de nuevo. esto permite a las granjas comercializar sus productos de una manera diferente. we have and

attacks which might have been dragging down cruz, he obviously felt they were big enough to actually respond, were coming from this secret deal. it was david pecker not just having fun with tabloid stories, but actually trying to do something to distort that election. pretty interesting. we're also going to hear more testimony from pecker tomorrow. it is all in all has been a big and tough time for defendant trump in this case. >> prosecution in donald trump's hush money trial drew the sharp outlines of its case against the former president. >> prosecution started. they laid out a dispassionate, straight forward very linear, very blunt -- >> telling the jury of seven men and five women today, it was election fraud, pure and simple. >> the defense gets right up, and the defense says the story you just heard isn't true. >> you heard the prosecution lay out a clear road map. >> you had a reference to the tape recording. that's a terrible tape for donald trump. >> the defense was like a circus leader. >> it has been striking that there is no family. he is by himself. >> the defendant is by himself. and in court he was quiet. and there is a rul

come up with that idea about a rival like ben carson or ted cruz and send the nugget over and the national enquirer would, according to david pecker, quote unquote, embellish it and ride a negative story about it. it was story after story about like headlight after headline came up and i have to say, david pecker , justin delivery was incredible. unlike michael cohen he was calm and cool and a colleague of mine wrote in the times in a post that he was almost he was giving a deli order. mustard and all types of relish. i will have turkey. his delivery was so smooth and calm. it was very powerful and ironically for someone who makes up stories partly for a living and if for years. he was, like, very credible. >> one of the things, the family versus campaign concerns, and it came up in court and the prosecution asked, did he and and that he is trump, are they asking david pecker did he ever say anything that made you think his concern about the stories getting out was for his family rather than his campaign? and he said, i thought it was more for the campaign. and he says, why do you think that? and it was like every time i ha

cruz en sociologÍa. y esta propuesta de ley es 25 86 y el legislador david alvarez la estÁ promoviendo. de san diego.ios. para estudiantes sin documento y sin permiso de trabajo poder tener la oportunidad de trabajar en una universidad. es muy caro ir a la universidad por ejemplo para mi humo estudiante de doctorado. no puedo trabajar. como un asistente de profesor o como asistente de investigaciÓn porque no tengo permiso de trabajo. >> dÉjame hacerte una pregunta, sÉ que muchos estudiantes trabajan en las universidades pero esos son trabajos de medio tiempo y son trabajos sencillos segÚn tengo entendido, pagarÍan un salario muy bajo. lo que ustedes buscan es trabajar en alguna especializaciÓn con miras a poder tener mejores ingresos, esos lo que estoy entendiendo? >> depende. para un estudiante graduado como yo en doctorado. necesitamos de experiencia de ser asistente de profesor para poder desempeÑarnos como profesores se algÚn dÍa tenemos la oportunidad de trabajar despuÉs de graduarnos. tambiÉn estudiantes que quieren ser mÉdicos. necesitan tener experiencia en ciertos programas para que puedan s

former publisher of the national enquirer, david pecker, testified about some of the negative stories he published in 2016 about trump's opponents, including ted cruz and hillary clinton. trump's defense lawyers argued that the decision to publish those stories was based on what was best for the magazine. mr. trump denies that he tried to illegally influence the 2016 race by paying to suppress stories about alleged affairs outside court. mr. trump continued to attack the judge. >> i think we have a judge that will never allow this case to be over in a positive way, and he's highly conflicted. the most highly conflicted judge i've ever seen. >> the prosecution claims that mr. trump has repeatedly violated a gag order in this case. the judge is scheduled a hearing on that matter for may 2nd. >> president biden says he's willing to take on donald trump once again on the debate stage. >> i don't know if you're going to debate your your opponent. >> i am somewhere i don't know when i'm happy to debate him, president biden said in an interview with howard stern today that he's willing to engage in a debate. >> until now, the biden campaign had not promis

cruz. then at that point, the "national enquirer" in the words of david pecker would, quote, would embellish it from there. and that is what led to these negative stories against donald trump's republican rivals. so what the prosecution is getting at is that this scheme was not only just to catch and kill of potentially negative stories against donald trump but also the creation and in the words of david pecker, the embellishment of stories against his rivals. ones that became so prevalent in the heart of the republican primary in 2016 that led to donald trump's domination. >> vaughn hillyard from outside the courthouse. thank you very much for that update. we appreciate it. >>> and coming up next, supreme impact. my conversation with retired supreme court justice stephen breyer on a number of topics, including his view on how justices should interpret the constitution. the subject of his new book. that's next on msnbc. that's why i use secret whole body deodorant... everywhere. 4 out of 5 gynecologists would recommend whole body deodorant, which gives you 72 hour odor protection from your p

the spine of these men, and you know, if this trial goes on, think about what david pecker did to marco rubio and ted cruzy've said about lindsey graham and they're all there kissing donald trump's toes. it is beyond pathetic. >> so much of marco rubio around with the covers. i think they were first out of the gate to endorse him when he said he was running again and he literally defamed both men. >>> we'll keep searching for answers. thank you. >> thank god for women. >> amen. claire, thank you my friend. and feel better. charlie will be back later in the broadcast. another break for us. we'll be right back. k. it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. wooooo! when you have chronic kidney disease, there are places you'd like to be. like here. and here. not so much here. farxiga reduces the risk of kidney failure which can lead to dialysis. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪♪ farxiga can cause serious side effects, including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract or genital yeast infections and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking far

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talk to me about why david pecker's limit, moral limit, was a porn star on the cover. he was willing to say ted cruzping with all sorts of women. he was willing to put that on the cover. why not a porn star relationship? >> it comes back to money. we were talking about it, he was worried about blowback from walmart. walmart is one of our biggest outlets, distributors that put the enquirer on all of their new stands. he was concerned if a porn star was featured in the enquirer, had anything to do, there would be blowback from walmart because so much money ami made from walmart. >> you can say ted cruz's father killed jfk, but you can't have a porn star on the cover. >> also, they were worried walmart might learn about the payment. i think it was both. >> i want to go into it a little bit. there was also this sense that the "wall street journal" would learn about the deal with karen mcdougal, that once it started to get out and her story starts to leak out, you know, you see pecker start to panic that maybe the way he's doing business is getting out, which is also, i found, kind of interesting. >> the

some information, and david pecker said they would quote, unquote embellish it at the magazine and run a story but it was story after story after story on ben carson, on ted cruz, was mutually beneficial at a point early in their relationship, you know, in the apprentice days, but this just became -- it was clear sitting there from the way david pecker was telling it, they were trying to influence the election at this point. and every time somebody was trending in the polls, one of donald trump's opponents, they would turn up the volume on the negative stories at the "national enquirer,". >> so it is probably not true there were aliens from another dimension living among us when the "national enquirer" was publishing that kind of stuff too. it gives you the level that they were talking about and the things that they were creating. >> and the number of stories that were going on. it wasn't just one story on ted cruz. it was repetition and we know from donald trump for years that repetition is a powerful thing. a lie told over and over can become a truth. and in this case, you saw story after story after story the effect it had. ben carson was doing surgery, lea

remember, cruz and trump, they were competing for the gop presidential nomination at that time. and today, david pecker, the ceo of the "national enquirer" publisher, american media, inc, giving bombshell testimony, admitting that story was completely manufactured, including a fake photo, pecker saying -- >> and it was all done at the direction of trump's lawyer at the time, michael cohen. pecker testifying -- >> cruz today denying comments telling nbc news that he's not interested in revisiting ancient history. pecker detailing a mutually beneficial agreement between trump and the tabloid magazine, pecker admitted when he promoted trump with positive coverage like this, what you're seeing right now, it helped both his magazine sales and it helped trump. but when the prosecution asked if buying negative stories of trump helped the magazine, he said no, that didn't help, it benefitted the campaign. by that, he means the trump campaign. pecker testified about the catch and kill scheme involving karen mcdougal, a prosecution witness. when she first approached the "national enquirer," pecker told tr

to attack his opponents in the 2016 election, ted cruz, marco rubio, and number three, they're going to promote good stories. we're hearing now from davidker at the end of trial today, he's going into this emails. he has two emails. a number of telephones. we're going to start hearing these communications, texts, emails. it's the documentation, the checks, all of that that will back him up, and as danny said, he could be as important a witness as michael cohen. >> so thank you for being here, you were in sdny. i'm going to bring our off the record conversation during the break online. the issue here is that michael cohen was prosecuted by the southern district of new york, where you used to work. but the southern district of new york could not prosecute trump at the time, he was a part of the conspiracy. he's named in the cohen indictment, right? >> individual one. >> individual one, but he was president but he was untouchable at the time. to me, the problem the defense is going to have is explaining how what cohen did is a crime but he did it for individual one, but that person also isn't guilty of a crime. >> right. at cohen's guilty

david pecker testimony. they're yelling "fake news." they obviously want people to know donald trump lied about jfk's assassination, tried to blame ted cruz pecker. they worked together to lie about ben carson, to lie about hillary clinton. fake news all around. i want to thank him for actually framing it for us. we want to make sure you're okay. but also we want everybody watching to know that that person screaming "fake news" is obviously talking about all of the lies donald trump told about hillary clinton in 2016. >> reporter: in terms of where the supreme court could come out on this, few legal experts believe they are going to adopt donald trump's argument that the president has absolute immunity. there are some decisions presidents make, for example in the national security realm, that perhaps shouldn't be subject to the scrutiny of a prosecutor. they may ask the judge which of these acts would constitute official acts? almost none of them would because we're talking about trump's effort to over turn a presidential election as a candidate, not as a president. asking the judge to do that could significantly delay this case and mean

also the likes of ben carson, marco rubio and ted cruz, those negative stories that were intended to hurt their campaigns, and the defense team asked david pecker whether they would have run those stories regardless of the relationship that they had struck with donald trump, and pecker, according to our team, lisa rubin inside, said pecker was hesitant in responding, but said yes. this was a long-standing relationship dating back to the '90s that donald trump and david pecker had, and that this was also just par for the course for the way that american media and the "national enquirer" operated, that they would obviously run negative stories about other republican candidates and the clintons, because, frankly, it was good for their business and it turned cover stories that allowed them to sell papers. >> vaughn, thank you for the update. john, how do you see the defense strategy working here? what are they trying to do? >> i think they're trying to have it both ways. i think they're trying to make nice with david pecker, and they're going to do the obvious. they're going to challenge his memory. they're going to point out that he has a n

things up like michael cohen david pecker, publisher of the national enquirer, da rags witness, he testified made up a negative story in 2016 about the father of senator ted cruzand oswald. rags team cites a felony using new york state law. the underlying crime is a conspiracy to affect election. that's a state law musto a misdemeanor. state law only covers new york state elections, not lateral collections. this is a frankenstein case that the da is not allowed to touch federal election, that's the u.s. justice department federal elections commission. they looked all of this and decided not to go with it because the same problems you're talking about. they don't want to rely on michael cohen is a star witness for the government, they don't want to put david to chris witness because you got cloud witnesses in the case of covid are people testifying favorably to trump. that's why the case -- is left out here. one juror thinks this is not worthy and hangs the case, it's a mistrial and will finish before. >> the southern district of new york, the d.o.j. doctor. manhattan da bragg sets it back into life when trump decided to run again. that's where that basically s

cruz caught cheating with five secret mistresses. hillary clinton's satanic inner circle. those headlines are obviously salacious, and they're clearly not true. given that davids behind the scenes doing all that, pumping out these lies, what does that do for his credibility with the jury? >> right, that's a really good point. so you think the idea that here he's writing all these stories that are mott true and he knows it. now is he going to be truthful on the stand? we have to remember that he is there by subpoena. so he is forced to be there. also, he has immunity, and what that means is what he says he cannot be charged with a crime, so he has a safety net to be honest and truthful and forthright and can say, yes, i wrote these stories. these are not true and i know that, but i'm telling you the truth. and that's key. >> there is an interesting contrast, lisa, from what we heard from david pecker to what we heard from todd blanche in his opening statement in terms of trump's role in all things, and blanche on monday said this, quote, president trump had nothing to do -- had nothing to do with the invoice, with the check being generated or with the entry in

enquirer chief david pecker was clearly the hottest unloading details, dishing on the original sorted meeting that formed the trump alliance which involved a heavy dose of defamation including ted cruz and his family. details how the enquirer acted as an arm of the campaign, meaning that its so-called media decisions were phoned in by cohen himself and the money to silence women came from both the enquirer and cohen who, of course, was reimbursed by trump. karen mcdougall and stormy daniels, they got money from different places but it went back to the original campaign motivation. pecker told on cohen for how he tried to hide their contacts back in the day when i using secret messaging app? how secret is it if we all are hearing about it in court? that didn't work. the da said trump's side knew this was wrong, pecker got nervous when election regulators probed and cohen claimed jeff sessions was in his pocket over at the doj. that adds to the evidence that team trump knew they had criminal exposure from this and their thinking was not we didn't do a crime, their thinking was, our appointees will protect us, we have them in our pocket. i don't know how jeff sessions would fit in ther

cruz shamed by porn star." [ laughter ] "hillary framed trump family." [ laughter ] you understand donald trump calls "the new york times" fake news, was admittedly generating fake news with his friend, davidecker. everything he accuses anyone else of, is something he actually did. and yet these bootlickers on fox news, they cannot believe the injustice. >> i consider myself a proud person. after sitting in that dirty, disgusting, criminal courtroom today watching the former president of the united states being persecuted like a criminal, i don't know if i'm so proud to be an american anymore. >> the judge is ridiculous, the conflict of interest is ridiculous this whole case is ridiculous. >> these are the types of election year shenanigans that happen in other countries. in third world autocracies. >> trump's not even allowed to complain about the thermostat. it's a meat locker in there. he gets mocked for just closing his eyes. >> my father was focused on running the united states of america. not bookkeeping. this isn't lawfair, it's torture. >> a totally corrupt judge and a totally corrupt district attorney are going to try to put a former president of the united states in jail. i mean,

david pecker today was a history of this, the context. this wasn't the first time. and there were stories we saw about going after marco rubio, going after ted cruzhistory of trump using this relationship. >> yeah. get rid of opponents. yeah. and john, i mean, these guys have been buddies since the 80s came up together, you know, wealthy guys in new york symbiotic relationship, trump's old magazines and news vapors. and david pecker provided trump with very flattering headlines what do you make of today? >> look any day you're sitting at the table and you are the defendant at a criminal trial is not a good day, whether your name is donald trump or john q. public. it's a bad data. be there, but to the point you're making here, just like in the january 6 testimony, wanted the things trump says out on the road and his rallies to his supporters and his emails& as many, many fundraising appeals is that they're out to get me joe biden's out to get me. democrats are out to get me woke. prosecutors are out to get me. and what happens when you actually have hearings, january 6 hearings or now a criminal trial, people who were velcroed pretty close to dona

can think what you want about ted cruz, but they were damaging allegations that hit he heart of a family in the middle of a campaign. now we know from the testimony of davidreen bay, wisconsin, with a trump voter. and when i asked her about this trial, she said, truth doesn't mean anything anymore. that stuck with me. this was a trump loyalist. the truth through the media has large le been resolved. truth when it comes through election is largely dissolved. whether trump is found guilty or there's a hung jury, or found innocent, right? this is a moment where inside of that courtroom, we still know where truth exists, and both sides, they will have the opportunity to present their truths. now it's a matter of folks will agree with that truth, whichever side it ultimately comes down on. >> vaughn, trump's belief, i think, there aren't enough people like his voter in green bay. he's seen the polling that there aren't enough voters like that, if he should be found guilty, many, many many news cycles away. the jury hasn't even been selected, but that's a political fate for trump that's as daunting as the legal one. >> reporter: even if you listen to steve bann

but the ted cruz sex scandal, the access hollywood tape all the lies about trump's opponents that we now are learning. trump was helping push through the enquirer with michael cohen and david pecker all of this is been dredged backup and a lot of casual news consumers will barely hear it, but it will see through, will seep through for the next days and weeks i personally, i'm of the view that a lot of americans have short-term memory loss when it comes to the trump years and the pandemic and all that, they don't want to remember how ugly some of this was. we live in a political environment now where it's all caps, tweets, he screams all day on social media. >> we forget that we used to live in a playful environment where people were kinda nice to each other in the political arena. >> decency and, decorum and this entire trial beyond the politics, beyond the legal part, the politics is reminding us of just how indecent and ugly it's because they're parallel things going on. there is a legal case, but there's also a character case pointing at the same time. thank you all for being here and thank you for watching news sites. coverage of the trump trial. laura coates live star

of wisconsin during the wisconsin primary where david pecker and the "national enquirer" flooded social media with stories of the alleged affairs of ted cruzi'm also having a flashback to october 7th, 2016, just listening to the story. and what i think people need to understand is the context of this, that this is not just hush money to a porn star. on october 7th, 2016 the presidential election was on a knife's edge. and when this story broke, i was texting back and forth with my fellow wisconsinite reince priebus all night. at first i didn't think this was going to make that much of a difference, but reince priebus who was then chairman of the republican national committee, was in absolute pure panic. in fact, i've written about this. and he texted me, he said charlie, i'm in tears about all of this. we later learn that the chairman of the republican national committee told donald trump that he should drop out. republicans all around the country were thinking do we bail, do we flip the ticket, is it all over? so october 8th, october 9th everything was hanging fire. there was a real chance that donald trump's presidential campaign would e

cruz, marco rubio were written up and published. photos were doctored, like this one, amounting to a phenomenon andrew weissmann referred to as ground zero of fake news. davidker comes back for more tomorrow. court is quiet today. it resumes today. he takes the stand tomorrow. likely picking back up where yesterday ended on the role the "national enquirer" played in silencing the story of donald trump and karen mcdougal. she had a 10-month affair with donald trump in 2008. mcdougal was paid $150,000 by the "national enquirer" to keep her story silent ahead of the 2016 presidential election. mcdougal is among the other potential witnesses that the prosecution could call. we could soon hear her firsthand account about their alleged relationship from the stand, which would set up quite a moment in that manhattan courtroom where trump would have to watch her tell her story. as this is a criminal trial, the ex-president is required to be present for all of it. the fact he keeps complaining about. he can't be doing trumpy stuff. he says he would rather be on the campaign trail. just yesterday, there was a rather stark split screen of the two 2024 presidential can

also signposting how david pecker or operated as something of a hatchet man for the 2016 trump campaign publishing lightly false stories about his then campaign rivals from ted cruz to hillary clinton. pecker was also asked about karen mcdougal, the former playboy playmate of the year, who allegedly had a tenant month to a year long relationship with mr. trump. the name we've yet to get to in packers testimony, stormy daniels. stormy daniels is the woman whose silence trump allegedly tried to buy and who is actually at the center of the 34 criminal counts mr. trump is charged with in this case. let's go to laura and ellie at the magic wall now for more information. >> really important quite a de to have testimony from david pecker number today, number two, came out with a bit of an reminders though about who he was really getting to. i mean, there was moments he talked about who he was, of course, to donald trump in the catch and kill scenario. but these two are looming pretty large here. michael cohen and hope hicks riveting day of testimony really, and david the packers testimony was crucial in its own right. but what he's also doing a prosecutors doing, they'r

it, and this was david pecker putting it on the front page, and he's testifying that that wasn't true, that he put it up there because it was helpful to donald trump to diminish ted cruz him and donald trump all together came up with this, the prosecution is calling it a scheme, to make sure that negative information about donald trump's opponents, andrea, was put front and center, and positive information about donald trump was put front and center to help this campaign. this outsider campaign. >> if you remember at the time, katy and chris, that's when donald trump said, as vaughn has been pointing out, he doesn't believe it, and he doesn't have any idea how that happened. he disavowed knowledge of that enquirer story. and one of the points i was going to make about the expectation of family. i don't think any of us expected the family to show up so much, certainly not melania and ivanka. but i'm questioning the lawyers at the table, whether the jury is surprised to see him alone. did they have an expectation of seeing somebody with him in court? >> catherine, does that matter? >> it does matter when you have -- unfortunately a lot of defendants are indigent, and th

election from the negative stories i'll ted cruz and ben carson and marco rubio to what's happening here. there now noting the prosecutors are that trump invited david to trump tower to trump tower after the election to thank him for his help and suppressing the stories they were brought to the oval office fascinating here is keep in mind david michael cohen, adult drunk. none of them speak anymore. these are three people who have known each other for decades. none of them speak anymore. and it kinda just speaks to what this happened with all of this checks that were written to michael cohen, part of the reimbursements were actually written. were actually signed in the white house, sits in the oval. there's also a meeting where michael cohen was there in the oval office meeting with donald trump allegedly to discuss being reimbursed because trump had kind of faltered at the idea of reimbursing. i'm saying michael cohen has plenty of money before. that is something that it's almost guaranteed. prosecutor there's will ask michael cohen about when he takes the stand and again, david expect it to be the first witness. >> he will be testifying about what