Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees Aired April 23, 2024 - 20:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. [20:00:00] … ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening. Welcome to CNN's special primetime coverage of the Trump hush money trial, the first ever criminal trial of a former president. There's a lot to bring you from a truncated but busy day six that saw the judge warn a defense attorney he's losing credibility. Also, testimony from David Pecker, the former tabloid publisher who became the Trump campaign's eyes and ears. And tonight, new reporting and discussions underway about what to do if the former president is actually jailed for contempt. Quite a day. A lot to get to. Judge Merchan's warning came as Trump attorney Todd Blanche tried to answer prosecution evidence during a contempt hearing with the jury not present. The judge saying, "You're losing all credibility with the court," but making no decision on the matter. Then testimony continued from David Pecker, who took jurors deeper into the world of catch and kill, detailing how his National Enquirer sought out stories that might damage the Trump campaign in order to catch them and then bury them. Afterwards, the cameras rolling, viewers watching, the former president spoke out about not being allowed, he believes, to speak out. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a gag order, which to me is totally unconstitutional. I'm not allowed to talk, but people are allowed to talk about me. So they can talk about me. They can say whatever they want. They can lie, but I'm not allowed to say anything. I just have to sit back and - look at why a conflicted judge has ordered me to have a gag order. I don't think anybody's ever seen anything like this. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Well, nor has anyone seen what might happen if he's jailed for violating that order, which, to be fair, does not yet appear to be on the table, seems unlikely. That said, there's breaking news and discussions underway on how that might work, and we'll bring that to you in our special coverage tonight. Joining us is criminal defense attorney Arthur Aidala, best-selling author and former federal prosecutor; Jeffrey Toobin; CNN anchors Kaitlan Collins and Abby Phillip; CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig; and CNN's Kara Scannell, who watched the proceedings today from inside the courtroom. Kara, let's start with you. What was it like? KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, Donald Trump was there at the defense table again, this time sitting across from his longtime friend David Pecker, who was getting into the actual heart of this testimony. Because the day before, he was kind of setting the table to explain to the jury what the National Enquirer was and what they did, and today, it was really bringing them into this alleged conspiracy, this August 2015 meeting where Donald Trump, David Pecker, Michael Cohen all hatched this catch-and-kill scheme and made the decision that they were going to bury some stories, promote negative stories, made-up stories about some rivals, all to help Donald Trump's campaign and David Pecker really underscored that today. And then, of course, getting into some of these two of the three catch-and-kill deals, both the one involving the doorman, one involving Karen McDougal. And all throughout the time, David Pecker was very composed, I think a credible witness. He was being specific in his testimony and he was addressing the jury for most of the time. At the time, Donald Trump was variously, intently watching David Pecker and then otherwise looking, appearing to either be staring off or looking at this monitor in front of him, which actually gives a feedback. It's the video feedback that plays in the overflow courtroom, and so he's kind of watching himself watch the trial, so to speak. COOPER: That's kind of surreal. I mean, it's interesting the - David Pecker made the point several times today that they were - he was doing this to benefit the campaign. He wasn't - he didn't say he was doing it to benefit, to protect Donald Trump's family. It was to benefit the campaign. JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: That's the theory. That's the prosecution theory and that's what they're really trying to establish, that this was not about helping Donald Trump preserve his marriage. This was a conspiracy to get Donald Trump elected president. The question is and I think it was a coherent theory about all the ways that Pecker was going to help Donald Trump. Where's the crime? That's the question. Is a magazine editor helping someone get elected president? That's what magazines do in this country. The expenditure of money is allegedly the crime, but you can be sure that on cross- examination, Pecker is going to be talked to - they're going to say, you're just supporting the candidate you wanted. That's what magazines do, right? COOPER: Kaitlan, how do you think he did on this one? KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm not sure that's what all magazines do, maybe some of them. TOOBIN: Well, not in that way, perhaps. Yes. COLLINS: I think some people would like to have a word. [20:05:03] But I think as watching all of this play out, it's fascinating to see David Pecker sitting there and testifying in this way, and they're laying the groundwork to get to something bigger, obviously, with all of this and with his relationship with Trump. But he met Trump and visited Mar-a-Lago, met him in the '80s, worked through them in the '90s, worked with him when "The Apprentice" became a show. Trump would send him Apprentice ratings, and they would publish them in the National Enquirer. And David Pecker was kind of saying there was this mutually beneficial relationship between the two of them, this two-way street. And then, he was helping promote Trump. And then when it got closer to the election, he was helping bury negative stories. He said ... COOPER: Which he had never - he talked about he had never done that before. COLLINS: He had never paid anyone for a story related to Donald Trump until it was the doorman who was shopping around an untrue story about Trump fathering a child out of wedlock. But still, they were worried about it. And mainly, he kept making the point, I only wanted to keep it out of the press, and so did Michael Cohen, until after the election. And so that was the key point that they really got David Pecker to make today, which was saying things were different as we got closer to the 2016 election. COOPER: Arthur, what did you think of Pecker? ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I mean, he got to just back up before he even takes the stand. The prosecutor opens - opening statement, this is a conspiracy. And who's in the conspiracy? Donald Trump, Pecker and Cohen. Now, there is no conspiracy charge. They could have easily charge some form of a conspiracy if they could have figured that out. But one of the reasons why I don't think they try to even charge a conspiracy is you have three people in a conspiracy, two of them are going to be witnesses and one's a defendant, why? Usually, it's one cooperator and two defendants, not the other way around. Additionally, Anderson, he got immunity. Not a cooperation agreement, immunity. Which goes to Jeffrey's point, I think, like, there is really no - we haven't spoken about a crime yet. There is no crime at this point. Everything he's talking about, there's nothing in the penal that say this catch-and-kill theory is criminal. So, that's - obviously, in summation, the defense is going to focus on who this guy is and what he's all about. But here's what they have to get out in cross-examination. Isn't it true, Mr. Pecker, that at one point, Mr. Trump said - in addition to the campaign, Melania doesn't need to hear about this, that's all they need. And he was like, yes, he was concerned about Melania. He was concerned about Barron. Because it's got to be that the expenditure is a hundred percent for him to become president of the United States. ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I'm sorry, that's wrong. That's just not the law. It does not have to be 100 percent - actually Jeffrey is agreeing with me, it does not have to be 100 percent campaign-related. There's campaign motivation ... COOPER: You're saying it could be both ... HONIG: Yes. COOPER: ... I wanted to protect the campaign, but also I was worried about my wife. HONIG: Yes. It has - the campaign has to be a substantial factor. It does not have to be 100 percent. Nobody would ever be able to prove that. Now, look, my view of David Pecker today is he was a rock-solid start for the prosecutors. You're not going to win your case with the first witness. It's a mistake to try to do that. I agree that if the case ended right now, we'd have no crime made out. COOPER: So he's sort of setting the table. HONIG: Exactly. And what I think he did that was really interesting is he took the jurors inside this seedy, unseemly world of catch and kill and what happens behind the scenes at the National Enquirer. He painted a very vivid picture, even just following along with the updates as we were doing real-time. It was riveting. And he explained how this world works. He explained who the key players are. He explained what the relationships are that Michael Cohen is sort of Donald Trump's lieutenant and Dylan Howard was his lieutenant. He explained the chains of communication. So you're not going to win it all with one shot right off the bat, but I think it's a good start. And by the way, prosecutors should not be high-fiving in the beginning, middle or end of direct. It's all about cross because then you're going to have a good defense lawyer like Arthur Aidala trying to tear you down and they will score points on it. AIDALA: I got to ask you this question, because here's the problem with this whole case, we don't exactly know what that secondary crime is, right? So you and I are talking about the election law. We're not talking about whether he falsified - I think it's an open and shut case that he put something in his books that wasn't accurate. But if he put down - I bought this suit to be - to run for my presidential campaign, but he was going to wear it also to a wedding, he can't write that off. It's not a campaign expense. It's got to be - campaign expenses are, this is my campaign headquarters. I'm paying rent for it and I'm only running my campaign out of it. He can't say, I'm running my campaign out of it and I'm doing some real estate out of it ... COOPER: Right, but it's ... AIDALA: ... then that's not a campaign expense. COOPER: But if they were having this meeting, this now infamous meeting with Michael Cohen, and Pecker and Trump in 2015 and the whole purpose of the meeting was, what can I do to help your campaign? Isn't that setting up the framework for what this deal was? SCANNELL: David Pecker gets them to intent and that's the secondary part of the crime. Trump is charged with falsifying business records, but with the intent to conceal or commit another crime. And prosecutors were talking about this in court today with the jury out of the courtroom. [20:10:00] This - that's what they're trying to prove with David Pecker, that the intent was to violate New York state campaign finance laws, which is just to promote a candidate. It's more artful than that, but that's the essence of it. COOPER: If you're spending money to influence a campaign, there are laws that regulate how that money can be spent. Is that what you're saying? I mean, that's the core. HONIG: Yes. How much you can give, first of all, way less than $130,000 and that you have to report it. And I think it's worthwhile to step back and just reflect on what exactly the charges are here. And I think Arthur's doing an effective job showing where some of the questions are going to be raised. But the core charges here, you have to start with falsifying business records. And so this goes to what we were just talking about. They paid this money to Stormy Daniels to hush her for the election. And the allegations, they falsified the payments. They tried to make it look like an attorney's legal fees, a retainer. And the argument is there's the falsification. And you have to tie that to Donald Trump, which is not going to be easy. And then the sort of back half of it is you have to show that the motivation was political. Not a hundred percent, but that a substantial portion of the motivation was political. ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And this is where I think that the nature of David Pecker's relationship with Donald Trump changing in 2015 is going to be critical information for the jury. They were friends for a very long time. They were in this seedy New York world. Donald Trump was, as someone put it, a friend of Pecker's. They had that close relationship. But it wasn't until 2015 that suddenly David Pecker was talking to Michael Cohen every single day almost trying to give them advice about where the story - the bad stories are. Their - the nature of the relationship changed when Trump started running for president, which suggests that the motivation was the election. That was right there. COLLINS: And what we learned today that was also different than what I had remembered being characterized at the time when there was a lot of reporting in the Wall Street Journal and whatnot when we were covering the White House was it was written that August 2015 meeting that Pecker had gone and said, what can I do to help your campaign? But what we testified to today was that Trump sought this meeting with him, that Michael Cohen set it up. And then when they went to the meeting, they asked how David Pecker could help with the campaign, that it was the reversal that they were asking him how he could help, not him asking them. TOOBIN: There's a history here which makes the prosecution's case, I think, even a little bit stronger. I mean, the relationship between Pecker and Trump was one of hero worship, period. I mean, Pecker revered Trump. I wrote about Pecker in 2017 in The New Yorker. COLLINS: But for all of us was (INAUDIBLE) ... TOOBIN: Right. Well, before that. COOPER: Which I re-read the other day and it's fasting ... COLLINS: So did I. (CROSSTALK) TOOBIN: Yes, it was a trip down memory lane. But one of the odd facts that I always remember from that story is that and you mentioned it briefly, he actually published a vanity magazine ... COLLINS: Trump Style. TOOBIN: ... called Trump Style, which when you checked into a Trump hotel, it would be there with The Gideon's bible that you got a free copy. But it was so over the top in its praise of Trump and his style and his wealth and his glamour and that was how Pecker saw Trump. But in 2015 he took that hero worship and turned it to the campaign. And it makes sense and it's ... PHILLIP: It was mutually beneficial, too ... TOOBIN: Right. PHILLIP: ... because Pecker talks about they surveyed the audience of the National Enquirer about a Trump run and it was overwhelmingly positive. Trump was a fixture in that magazine but the viewership wanted to hear about Trump too in a positive way perhaps not (INAUDIBLE) ... TOOBIN: I went ... COOPER: In The New Yorker you cite an example, I don't know if you were listening in on the call, of a new - of a call in the - among National Enquirer editors about stories there, it was a story pitch meeting, and that's how the piece opens up. They're pitching a story about, I think, Melania Trump not holding down Trump's hand or something and David Pecker says on the call, well, I didn't see that. And then they try to pitch the story again which was a negative story about Trump and Pecker again says I didn't see that and they get this sense move on. TOOBIN: Right. Well, and I went to editorial meetings of the National Enquirer where they decided what was on the cover every week and Pecker was very active in this. COOPER: It was all about the cover (INAUDIBLE) ... TOOBIN: All about the cover and they had lists of who sold and who didn't. Jennifer Aniston sold, Jennifer Lopez didn't sell, I don't know why, but that's true. They also had words that sold or didn't sell on the cover. Tragic last days always sold. Also, the last days to ... COOPER: (INAUDIBLE) to live, I believe. TOOBIN: Well ... COLLINS: So as the Hillary Clinton one while Trump was the healthiest man ever elected. TOOBIN: That's right. But Trump sold. That was the thing that in addition to - I mean, and this may come out in cross-examination that in addition to the fact that Pecker wanted to help Trump, that during the campaign, 2015, 2016, Trump was good for the Enquirer. That's what you're suggesting, Abby, in the sense that it was mutually beneficial. [20:15:03] Because when they put him on the cover, it's sold. SCANNELL: And David Pecker said that today. He said we needed it at the time. COLLINS: Yes. COOPER: Coming up next, a look at the trial transcript that we just got, some of the key and detailed moments from inside the courtroom and more what David Pecker said about the catch and kill scheme designed to protect the man he said was known as the most eligible bachelor. Also, what Karen McDougal, one of the women whose story he caught and killed, told me about the deal she took. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: (INAUDIBLE) news now, we have the full transcript from the trial today. And even though virtually nothing happens in court without a team of reporters posting it online, almost in real time, even the fastest reporter can't capture the scope and the sweep and the full context that the complete record does. CNN's John Berman has been going through it, including more of David Pecker's testimony in the catch-and-kill scheme at the heart of the case. Some of it deals with former Playboy model Karen McDougal, whose story of her alleged relationship with Trump was caught and killed by David Pecker. Before we bring you details of the transcript, I just want to play for you what Karen McDougal told me in her only television interview about why she decided to tell her story. [20:20:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAREN MCDOUGAL, FORMER PLAYBOY MODEL: I feel like the contract is illegal. I feel like I wasn't presented correctly. I was lied to. And everybody involved in this deal. I want the rights back, and I want to share my truth because everyone else is talking about my truth, which - I need to share my story. COOPER: Do you have any regrets about the relationship that you say you had with him? MCDOUGAL: Back then? COOPER: Yes. MCDOUGAL: The only regret I have about the relationship that I had with Donald was the fact that he was married. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: And John Berman join me now. So John, you've been digging deeper into the transcript. What stands out? JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: First of all, this is the transcript of just today, so you can see how much paper comes out here. And the part where they talk about Karen McDougal was at the very end of today's hearing. The prosecution saved the Karen McDougal part. And in here, David Pecker recounts being pulled out of a meeting from a phone call by Donald Trump to ask about the various whispers that have been going on about Karen McDougal. We don't have graphics of this, but let me read this to you. Pecker says in the testimony, "He mentioned to me, he said, 'I spoke to Michael,'" Michael Cohen. "He said, 'he told me about, uh, uh, that time.' He told me about that. He said, 'He told me about Karen.' He said to me, 'What do you think?" This is Pecker saying that Trump asked him, what do you think about Karen McDougal. Pecker goes on to say, I believe you should buy it. I believe you, Trump, should buy the Karen McDougal story. Trump said to me, "Look, everything he says, I don't buy stories." And he said that anytime you do anything like this, it always gets out. Pecker says, "I still believe we should take the story off the market." Trump says, "Let me think about it and I'll have Michael Cohen call you in a few days." And this we do have a graphic of. Later in the testimony, Pecker talks about how he was speaking to Michael Cohen. This is Josh Steinglass, the prosecutor, "How would you describe Michael Cohen's tone during those calls about Karen McDougal?" Pecker says, "Michael was very agitated. It looked like he was getting a lot of pressure to get the answer, like, right away." Steinglass asks, "What makes you say that?" Pecker says, "He kept on calling; and each time he called, he seemed more anxious." "Steinglass says, "Did you understand - did you understand as to where that pressure to find out more was coming from?" Pecker says, "Well, you know, I assumed he had a conversation with Mr. Trump. AIDALA: Objection. BERMAN: And Mr. Trump was asking Michael Cohen, 'Did we hear anything yet?'" COOPER: You would object there? AIDALA: Objection, you can't assume. As soon as you hear the word assume, objection. Look, he was jumping up before I was. I mean, a witness can't testify. HONIG: Yes, (INAUDIBLE), yes. AIDALA: I assume this or I assume that, that's not - those aren't facts, so objection, right? I apologize for just screaming. COOPER: No. I mean ... AIDALA: It's just my instinct. But I do find the transcript fascinating and I'm dying to read it. And actually, a friend of mine, Jim Walden (ph), who's a brilliant attorney, he's the one who filed the motion asking for the daily transcript to be released. The people who aren't too happy about it are the court reporters who get paid daily copy to do this. But again, these aren't crimes. Like, nothing that you just spoke about is a crime. Michael Cohen being anxious is not a crime. It just means it's something that they're interested in. And, Abby, when you talk about their relationship changing in 2015, we now know that when you declare yourself for public office, whether it's city council person or president of the United States, they come out. They're coming to get you, which is now why we don't get good people running for office anymore, because they go back to high school and see what you did back then. So I'm not surprised that once Trump goes from being a TV star and a real estate magnate to being president of the United States, all these people come out. And, yes, it's a mutually beneficial society, and they're there to help each other. PHILLIP: The - to me the anxiety of Michael Cohen was - spoke to the pressure ... COOPER: From Trump. PHILLIP: ... assumed from Trump. So, I mean, that's the only reason that that matters. But the other thing I would just note, I mean, the Karen McDougal story is not over. This is just beginning of what we will learn about this Karen McDougal story. And when you look at the charging documents here for Trump, there are some hints about where this goes next. David Pecker ends up paying her, but at some point, he decides to not get reimbursed from Trump World and I'm curious as to why that happened. So this is the opening salvo, but there's more to come. HONIG: Yes. So, again, you're not going to find the crime A to Z found in any one paragraph of testimony. Prosecutors have to build a case here. And I think two things jump out at me from that transcript. One, this is a full nine alarm fire in Trump World and in the National Enquirer in Pecker's environment. They are - I mean, they're pulling each other out of meetings. They're borderline panicking. The other thing is it establishes a really important chain of communication, because this is one of the rare instances - there's a few - where David Pecker has direct contact with Donald Trump. Most of it's with Michael Cohen. And the weakness that Arthur just pointed out is, well, how do you know that Michael Cohen was truly acting on Donald Trump's behalf? You can't assume. You're right. And you're - maybe Michael Cohen was just a free agent. I mean, Michael Cohen's not super reliable, but the chain here is David Pecker makes contact with Donald Trump, who essentially hands him off to Michael Cohen and says Cohen's going to handle this. You two go and do your thing. BERMAN: I'll have Michael Cohen call you back in a few days. HONIG: Exactly. [20:25:00] COOPER: One of the things, though, that David Pecker said today, and correct me if I'm wrong on the stand, was that according to him, Trump was very detail-oriented and actually paid attention to a lot, of the mundane details of this transaction. He's not saying that he was aware that the line item was a legal fee, but he's indicating Trump was very much involved in this. And what you just read, John, also backs that up, that, according to Cohen, and what Cohen will probably testify, is that Donald Trump is breathing down his neck very closely following the Karen McDougal situation. COLLINS: Well, also, he talked about how he would sit with Trump in Trump Tower on the 26th floor, and Trump's assistant, at the time, would come in and bring him invoices and checks, which I thought was a really notable moment. BERMAN: I have that. I can read that. COOPER: Sure, go ahead. COLLINS: And Donald Trump would sign it. BERMAN: I can read that. This is from page 1,002 of the transcript, signing checks. Steinglass, Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, asks, "Did you have occasion over the years to observe Mr. Trump's business practices?" Pecker responds, "Yes." Josh Steinglass asks, "In what context?" Pecker responds, "I was - I had a meeting with Mr. Trump in his office, and when I was there, his assistant," Rona (ph), "brought in a batch of invoices and checks to sign, and I observed Mr. Trump, and I noticed that he reviewed the invoice and looked at the check, and then he would - he was signing them." TOOBIN: That tells you a couple of things. First of all, it's very important that the prosecution establish that Donald Trump signed - knew what the corporate records were. That's what this whole case is about. The other thing it tells you is that David Pecker is not on team Trump. He didn't have to give that kind of testimony. COOPER: Yes. TOOBIN: That was - he was burying Donald Trump with that. Why ... AIDALA: But why, Jeffrey? Why? I agree with you, but why? TOOBIN: I'll tell you exact ... AIDALA: Why (INAUDIBLE) ... TOOBIN: ... I'll tell you one good reason, because 2000 ... COOPER: Because where the shark moves on, there were more fishes all alone. AIDALA: Well, okay, I agree with you. But he could also be - they could have figured out a way to charge him. TOOBIN: But wait a second - David Pecker ... COLLINS: Look, I feel like we're putting the horse before the cart. I mean, this is witness number one. He hasn't even been cross-examined yet. There is still a lot of road left to go here, and I think what they're pushing, though, is that Trump paid very close attention to what we all know, his finances. He doesn't part easily with his money. I was looking - Karen McDougal wrote a lot down about her relationship with Trump when they were having this alleged affair, which Trump denies. But she wrote down that Trump was so careful with his money, and he was so worried about creating a paper trail of their relationship that she would book her travel when they would meet places and Trump would reimburse her. COOPER: Yes, I mean, let's just step back for a second. If a guy - a married guy is having an affair, and having sex, allegedly, with a porn star, and it's starting to unravel, he's going to pay very close attention, I would imagine, to every detail of how this is being hushed up. I mean, is this not just - this is not something you would - I don't care if he's the top executive of whatever. You would think, this is actually something I would actually want to know all the details of. TOOBIN: And that's why ... COOPER: Like is this - he wanted to know - he wanted - he says, at one point, to Michael Cohen, this has to be paid in cash, doesn't he? I mean, at one point, he's talking about this needing to be done in cash. HONIG: That's on a tape that Michael - that we're going to hear soon in this trial. Michael Cohen secretly recorded Donald Trump. A shady move, by the way. I asked - I had four defense lawyers in the green room with me today. I said, have you ever even thought about doing this? COOPER: I'm just saying, if you've done something that threatens your marriage, are you going to leave it up to Michael Cohen ... HONIG: Well, but that tape ... COOPER: ... to handle every detail without checking, like, being an overlord on him? HONIG: That's what a common-sense, rational person would do, but the tape that we're talking about here that Michael Cohen makes of Donald Trump actually suggests Donald Trump is like, just get it done. He's not in the weeds. In fact, at one point, Michael Cohen says, no, no, no, no, no. I got it. Allen and I are going to handle. You don't worry about it. We're going to pay him. You don't worry about the how. And the how is the crime. So when that tape comes up, that's going to be a problem for the prosecutors. PHILLIP: Well, I also think that part of the thing about Trump paying attention to details is more to what Caitlin was saying, which is the amount of money, even for a very rich person like Donald Trump, he didn't really want to part ways with $150,000 for Karen McDougal, $130,000 for Stormy. He did not want to part ways with that money. He tried to get ... COLLINS: He still hesitates to pay his attorneys. PHILLIP: ... he tried to get out of it once the election was over. So it's really about the dollars here that was concerning to him. COOPER: When we come back, a decision still looming for Trump on whether he violated the judge's gag order multiple times. The hearing earlier did not go well for the Trump attorney, with the judge warning Trump's lawyer at one point that he was losing all credibility. More on that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [20:33:46] COOPER: Before the testimony from David Pecker today, there was that tense hearing on whether the former president violated the gag order he's under. A prosecutor cited 10 separate incidents they say were violations since that order was issued last month by the judge. We're still waiting on the judge's decision, but the hearing did not go well for the defense. Judge Merchan repeatedly showing frustration with defense attorney Todd Blanche for failing, he said, to offer any facts in his defense of his client's social media posts and reposts about two likely witnesses and jurors. Judge Merchan saying at one point, "Mr. Blanche, you are losing all credibility." Here are some of the posts that prosecutors flagged as violations. This one on April 10th from Trump on Truth Social, writing, "Look what was just found with the fake news. Will the fake news report it?" It was above a photo of a 2018 statement from Stormy Daniels denying her relationship with Trump. Another three days later, trashing Michael Cohen, the witness, asking, quote, "Has disgraced attorney and felon Michael Cohen been prosecuted for lying?" And four days after that, a repost of a Fox host slamming prospective jurors allegedly undercover Liberal -- alleging, I should say, undercover Liberal Activists are quote, "lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury." The prosecution also brought up this remark from the former president outside the courtroom just yesterday. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When are they going to look at all the lies that Cohen did in the last trial? He got caught lying in the last trial. So he got caught lying, pure lying. And when are they going to look at that? (END VIDEO CLIP) [20:35:14] COOPER: Prosecutors say that, too, was another violation. They'd be filing another order to show cause today. And just tonight, Trump blasted Cohen again in an interview with a local station in Philadelphia, calling him a liar with no credibility. Prosecutors are seeking the maximum $1,000 fine for each violation. Back with our panel, also joining us is Olivia Nuzzi, Washington Correspondent for New York Magazine and former Pennsylvania Federal Judge John E. Jones. Judge Jones, let me start with you. What do you make of the judges rebuking Trump's attorney like that? JOHN E. JONES III, FORMER CHIEF JUDGE, U.S. MUDDLE DISTRICT COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA: Well, I'll tell you what, Anderson. I've been in this situation and under relentless questioning from a judge, sometimes an attorney is just out of ammo, and I think that's exactly what happened today with Todd Blanche. And, you know, he can't retreat. He's got a difficult client. I -- there's no question in my mind that former President Trump violated the gag order at least in part. Sometimes an attorney will look at you when you're the presiding judge and, you know, his eyes kind of convey, look, Judge, I got nothing. I mean, I've used all the ammo that I have. Your attorney panelists will identify with that. COOPER: You've gotten that signal from an attorney every now and then? JONES: Yes, well, you know, they will and it's sort of a beseeching look. Sometimes I go to sidebar and said, look, I know judge you want me to answer that question. I've given you all that I have at this point. So it was like the charge of the light brigade. He had to just keep going at that point until finally Merchan got frustrated and made that comment about his credibility. I do have some empathy for him because, frankly, you know, a lot of that was indefensible and I don't think he had an explanation that he could render for it in good conscience. COOPER: Judge, the Secret Service and other law enforcement are preparing for the very long shot possibility, I should say, that Trump might be incarcerated for violating the gag order. It's highly unlikely it would ever get to that point, isn't it? JONES: He's not going to incarcerate him. I don't think under any circumstances. You know, he could make a statement and assess a financial penalty on some of the violations. I think the problem is, I said yesterday is that he's going to have to tighten this order up. Because there are instances where there is a collision between, you know, the former president's First Amendment rights and what's happening here. And there's another point that I would make here. I don't follow Michael Cohen on social media. But, you know, if I were the judge, I might call the prosecution aside and say, look, you know, I know he's not your client, but he's your witness. Tell him to stop, you know, posting because in a sense, you know, he's inciting the former president. That's not a justification for violating the gag order. But, you know, fair is fair, and I think you have to manage this thing as it moves forward as the presiding judge. I think that's one option. He could also drop a gag order on everybody, I suppose. COOPER: Elie, do you think any other defendant would have been thrown in jail? HONIG: That's pretty drastic. I mean, let's understand, first of all, it's very rare to have a gag order in place in any case. This type of defiance though is something I've never seen before to have somebody -- I think the judge is clearly going to find most or all of these now 11 alleged violations to have been met. The big question I have is, what's the judge going to do the next step? Because there will be a next chapter. I'm sure this will not be the end of Donald Trump violating this gag order -- COLLINS: He was talking about Michael Cohen on the way -- HONIG: Right. COLLINS: -- to this gag order hearing this morning. HONIG: He's violate -- COLLINS: That's when he recorded the interview with the local Philadelphia station. Trump did that this morning and then got in the motorcade and drove to the courthouse and had this contentious hearing where he was seated in the room. TOOBIN: The judge has an option. Please, Olivia. OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: His argument is not that he's not violating the gag order. His argument is primarily that he shouldn't be under a gag order, right? So he's not trying to say, this is not what I'm doing. He's trying to say, I'm the president, it doesn't matter. COOPER: Olivia, you were in the courtroom yesterday. Generally speaking, what is the dynamic like between the judge and the Trump legal team? NUZZI: It's very interesting. You can see that he's just getting totally exhausted by dealing with them. And the other day, they had kind of a smackdown moment where the judge said at a certain point, I'm paraphrasing, but at a certain point, you are just going to have to accept my decisions and accept that this is my courtroom, basically. And it seemed like it reached another another moment of blows today where the judge is just losing patience. AIDALA: Well, let me say that, in my opinion, that means the defense is doing -- they're doing their job. When the judge is like, oh, there's too many motions, there's too many motions. Anderson, in the last case, I was involved in where the judge said there was too many motions. There was a conviction and guess what? The appellate court reversed on those too many motions and threw the case out. It wasn't even a reversal. It was, they threw it out altogether. [20:40:00] But on the flip side, and I agree with the federal judges with us, there are some things that a client does that are indefensible and you kind of -- you have to walk that line. I mean, you never want a trial judge on the second day of testimony to say, counselor, you're losing credibility. COOPER: That's not a good idea. AIDALA: You cannot lose credibility with a judge or a jury. Once it happens, you're done. COOPER: Let me -- Judge Jones, go ahead. JONES: There's another point. And again, I think the attorneys in the panel will identify with this. There's nothing more maddening for a lawyer, and I don't care whether it's a prosecutor or a defense attorney, to have somebody sitting next to you buzzing in your ear and banging your shoulder and poking you and passing notes to you when you're trying to concentrate. In this case, you know, Todd Blanche is trying to concentrate on incoming fire from the judge. And he's got the former president of the United States buzzing in his ear about what's happening. This is a miserable position, you know, for an attorney to be in. And it's just really rough, you know, to get through it. This was not a good day, you know, for Todd Blanche. You know, I hope he gets a good night's sleep because this is tough. I mean, this is the kind of client who has, you know, lawyers waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I mean, this is a very, very difficult situation. COOPER: This is why lawyers have Ativan prescriptions. TOOBIN: Yes. Todd Blanche doesn't have a judge problem. He has a client problem. I mean, this, the, the issue here is he has multiple audiences. He's trying to win the case in front of the jury, but he's got to please Donald Trump and a lot of what he said. I thought of this in opening statements as well, where he was talking about calling him President Trump and, you know, talking about, you know, enormous deference to his client. That is not necessarily a way to win this case, but it is a way to keep your client happy, and that's going to be a challenge for Blanche throughout this whole endeavor. COOPER: Arthur, I mean, Trump says that these alleged violations were political speech. Even if they were, doesn't a judge's gag order supersede that? AIDALA: Yes. I mean, they do, but it just goes down to, should there be a gag order to begin with? And again, with our colleague who's the judge said, you know, Michael Cohen is kind of, you know, baiting him. I think that's going to work to the defense and he'll be cross examined on all these most recent tweets and all of that stuff. But, you know, it is -- look, I was in that position with the Harvey Weinstein trial. You know, we had a gag order on us and every day after court, we can't leave and we can't say a word. And there's Gloria Allred having these huge press conferences beating the heck out of us, glorifying the witnesses. The jurors are walking past her as she's saying these wonderful things about these witnesses and we didn't say a word. But I think what you said, I've never seen someone violate a gag order the way Donald Trump, I mean, we were very careful. And to Mr. Weinstein, like he didn't even think about violating the gag order -- COLLINS: I'm sure Trump is going to love being compared to Harvey Weinstein. AIDALA: Well -- NUZZI: Yes. I'm not sure, that's the -- AIDALA: You never know. COOPER: I want to play the soundbite that I mentioned, the intro of Trump again attacking Michael Cohen. It's from an interview he did today with our affiliate WPBI. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Michael Cohn is a convicted liar, and he's got no credibility whatsoever. He was a lawyer, and you rely on your lawyers. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: So yes. OK, that seems like a pretty clear. HONIG: Pretty straightforward. COOPER: Pretty straightforward. HONIG: Yes. PHILLIP: I mean, the places where it's not so straightforward is the retweets and the amplifications, perhaps, of his opinion, maybe, but maybe not threats or violence. I mean, I think what the judge mentioned, maybe there is room here to put a little bit more of a barrier around what exactly is in this gag order because right now a lot of things could qualify. And it almost seems like Trump is pushing the boundaries of what it all could be just to kind of get under the skin of the court and to prove that he is not subject to this gag order. Perhaps, a more specific gag order that it really does limit Trump and the threats that he can make against witnesses and people who are part of this proceedings might tamp down on Trump's sort of defiance instinct, which really kicks in in moments like this. COLLINS: What the judge is so worried about and made clear when he was expanding the gag order is this affecting the judicial proceedings and throwing off the entire case. And we've already had two jurors who are concerned about the media attention this case is getting and the scrutiny that they are getting after -- as the prosecutors are pointing out today. Some hosts on other networks were being really detailed about the details of who these jurors were, what they did, where they live. And so it is a real concern about juror safety as well, and Trump is now commenting on the jury. COOPER: Judge, and then we have to go. JONES: I, you know, I think from the judge's standpoint, I would just say, you know, I talked about from Todd Blanche's standpoint, this is a really rough situation for Judge Merchan. I mean, he has to be super clinical in doing this and be really careful how he deals with the -- whatever his order is going to be in the sanctions case. COOPER: Yes. JONES: And tough stuff for the judge too. COOPER: Yes. More special coverage coming up after a quick break. We're going to talk to a former prosecutor who investigated Donald Trump in a different case. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [20:49:14] COOPER: In Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial, the prosecution and defense both talked about this case as an effort to influence an election. They disagree, however, on whether or not a crime was committed. In opening statements, prosecutors argued that Trump is guilty of a planned, coordinated, long running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. The defense countered in their opening statement, saying, "I have a spoiler alert. There's nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It's called democracy." Joining us, the co-authors of "The Trump Indictments," Andrew Weissmann, who was a lead prosecutor in the Mueller investigation, and NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray. So Andrew, you hear Trump's attorneys say there's nothing illegal about trying to influence an election. It's called democracy. If a person or a company spends money to benefit a campaign, doesn't that money have to be disclosed and reported? Isn't that the core of this? [20:50:02] ANDREW WEISSMANN, CO-AUTHOR, "THE TRUMP INDICTMENTS": Yes, I mean, you know, literally what Todd Blanche said is true that influencing election. If that is the only thing that was proved, that's not a crime, but it sort of hides the ball, which is how are you doing it? If you are a corporation and you're spending money when you're prohibited from doing that, that's a crime. If you are spending more than the maximum of what you can contribute, that's a crime. So, you know, it was one of those things that reads like a good bumper sticker, but I think that's one of the reasons I think that the state tried to get a very smart jury because, you know, with a smart jury and a long trial, you basically can break that all down to explain why those sort of slogans don't work here. COOPER: So Melissa, what is the underlying crime? MELISSA MURRAY, CO-AUTHOR, "THE TRUMP INDICTMENTS": So it's a New York election law that basically says it is a crime, a misdemeanor crime for an individual to prevent or promote the election of another individual. And so here, the allegation is that by capturing these stories for Donald Trump, preventing them from being disclosed, paying off these individuals, all of this is basically favorable treatment for Donald Trump. In addition to the fact that David Pecker also testified today that he was planting favorable stories and also running disfavorable stories, unfavorable stories for Donald Trump's opponents. So that's a big contribution and that's the way the prosecution is framing this. This was a big up for Donald Trump's campaign and it essentially constituted election fraud. COOPER: And so, in your opinion, when Donald Trump comes out and says, well look, you know, I was paying a lawyer and we said legal fees, what's wrong with that? What's the answer to that? MURRAY: So in this case, it's not just legal fees -- which professor would you like? COOPER: Sorry, go ahead, Melissa. I think in this case, it's not simply that he's paying Michael Cohen. It's that Michael Cohen is being -- is reimbursing. They're paying these payments to Stormy Daniels. There's the work that David Pecker is doing and bringing and coordinating all of this together and that's sort of the misdemeanor part. There's also the tax fraud issue that is also been pointed to. Hasn't been brought up in David Pecker's testimony. I think it will come out later on Thursday. But the idea that Donald Trump had to gross up Michael Cohen in order to make him whole for the payments, because he's actually reimbursing him for what was being classified as payments for legal services, even though there had been no legal services rendered. So that's the difficulty here. And I think what the prosecution is trying to show, and there's a lot of discussion of Donald Trump's hands and all of this, is that he's very much a micromanager. He is taking really close looks at what the money is, where the money is going, to whom it is going. And this is just David Pecker and Michael Cohen doing his bidding, but he is the mastermind, essentially the puppet master, and they are simply the puppets. COOPER: Jeff, the prosecutor questioning David Pecker noted today in court that one of the election statutes the case is based on does have a conspiracy provision. What does that say to you about the way that the prosecution is trying to frame this? TOOBIN: Well, I think there's a technical reason for that, which is under the hearsay laws, if there is a conspiracy, even if a conspiracy isn't charged, the statements of other people can be used against the defendant. Like, for example, if you believe that Michael Cohen is a member of this conspiracy and Weisenfeld (ph), the accountant is a member of the conspiracy, their statements can be introduced even though they are technically hearsay because there is a conspiracy charge. That's very important, especially when we get into the money stuff where Wiesenfeld will not be a witness probably. It looks like he's not going to testify, but his documents and his handwriting will be introduced. And because there's a conspiracy, that will be admissible against Donald Trump. COOPER: Andrew, I mean, is it a weakness of the case that, I mean, if there was a conspiracy, why aren't they charging conspiracy? WEISSMANN: Well, you know, this is one of the weaknesses because of the timing of the charge. So the statute of limitations, the time period in which you had to bring a case, that had passed with respect to the misdemeanors. So that's why we're all talking about, well, what makes it a felony and it has to be in furtherance of, or it has to be concealing some other crime. And so we look to the election laws or as Melissa just talked about, tax laws, because those misdemeanor charges can no longer be brought because the statute has run. But there's a longer statute with respect to felony counts. And that's why what you have here is sort of the product of the federal government having sort of sat on its hands for quite some time before this case was brought to Manhattan and then finally indicted. TOOBIN: Can I ask Melissa a question about something she said earlier? Because I was a little -- I was -- it jumped out at me. I understand Melissa about how, you know, paying witnesses can be seen as part of a conspiracy. [20:55:07] But you seem to say, and correct me if I'm wrong, that advocacy on Trump's behalf, like the magazine supporting Trump's candidacy, that could be seen as part of a conspiracy. Isn't there a First Amendment problem with that, because magazines do support candidates all the time? MURRAY: I think there's something -- I think I've said something different, Jeffrey. The point that David Pecker was making on the stand today and what the prosecution elicited was that Donald Trump was coordinating with David Pecker for this favorable treatment. I think in most campaigns, you don't see that. It may be the case that a newspaper or a media outlet will endorse a particular candidate. But I don't think we've ever seen a situation where a particular candidate goes to the outlet and negotiates with them for favorable treatment of his campaign and unfavorable treatment of his opponent. So that's unusual. And the way the prosecution has framed it, this is essentially a stop to the Trump campaign as though it were a contribution in kind. And I think that's a theory of the case, whether or not the jurors by this as a contribution, I think is a different story. But that seems to be where the prosecution is taking that. This is a coordinated effort. It is unusual and extraordinary. And it essentially amounts to the kinds of influence peddling that we typically don't see between the media and a campaign. TOOBIN: But the money is the core of it, isn't it? I mean, the fact that -- MURRAY: The core of it, yes. TOOBIN: Yes. I mean, that seems to me, you know, the strongest ground that the prosecution is on in that part of the case. MURRAY: I think a big part of this, too, is that it's the details. I'm like, it's they're painting a picture of a coordinated effort between Donald Trump, David Pecker and Michael Cohen. And, yes, some of this is about the payments to the individual to the fact that Donald Trump is coordinating with David Pecker over and over and over again, that he is going to Trump Tower, that he's inviting David Pecker to the opening of his campaign, the launch of his campaign. All of this is to show that they are deeply imbricated with one another. This isn't a one off. He is in Donald Trump's pocket. And I think that's the point that the prosecution wants to make, because it makes it much easier than to make the point that he is now working with Michael Cohen to catch these stories, to kill these stories and to advance Donald Trump's electoral prospects. COOPER: Melissa Murray, Andrew Weissmann, thank you so much. Everyone else, a lot more ground to cover. We're going to through -- go more on the trial transcript. We'll be back with some details we haven't heard yet. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) The Source with Kaitlan Collins Aired April 23, 2024 - 21:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [21:00:39] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Our special primetime coverage of the TRUMP HUSH MONEY TRIAL continues, 9 PM, here in New York. Day six now in the books, a day that began minus the jury with a hearing on whether the former President should be held in contempt, for violating his gag order. No decision on that. Then, more testimony from David Pecker, the former tabloid publisher, on his role, as eyes and ears and protector to Candidate Trump, from potentially embarrassing stories, which he would catch and kill. And just a short time ago, we got some video from CNN affiliate, WPVI, of the former President, this morning, just before the gag order hearing, appearing to violate that gag order, by talking about prosecution witness, Michael Cohen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Michael Cohen is a convicted liar and he's got no credibility whatsoever. He was a lawyer. And you rely on your lawyers. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Back now with the panel, including CNN's John Berman, who has been going through the trial transcript, which just came out, and has gleaned more details from it. So John, what's the insight? JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, again, this is the transcript. So, there's a lot to go through here. But it does provide more details, even some of the word choice that both the prosecutors and David Pecker uses. This is where they talk about the August 2015 meeting, between Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Hope Hicks is in there for a period of time, and David Pecker. The prosecutor, Josh Steinglass asks, "Well, can you describe for the jury what happened at that meeting, please?" Pecker responds, "At that meeting, Donald Trump and Michael, they asked me what I can do and what my magazine could do to help the campaign. So thinking about it, as I did previously, I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump, and I would publish negative stories about his opponents... I said I would be your eyes and ears because I know the Trump Organization had a very small staff." And then, he went on to say, "I said that anything that I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself or if I hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen," over -- "I did over the last several years... I would notify Michael Cohen and then he would be able to have then kill in another magazine or have them not published or somebody would have to purchase them." Steinglass asks, "Purchase the negative stories about Mr. Trump so that they would not get published, you mean?" Pecker responds "That they would not get published, yes." COOPER: And Jeff, what's the significance of that, do you think? ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm not -- I know I'm not Jeff. But like, what's the crime, you know? OK. What's the crime, right? OK, so fine. They're working hand-in-hand, to have some influence on an election. Here's -- we've been here for an hour, right? Here's what I would like to know. I still don't exactly know what the secondary crime is. We heard that there's this misdemeanor, that only lives because the statute of limitations passed, only lives if there's a felony. My friends says that it's state election law. The professor says it's tax law. Many other people say it's federal election law. Anderson, that's why this case has me very upset. And if it was Barack Obama sitting there, with these same charges, these same facts, I'd be saying the same exact thing. JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well-- AIDALA: For me, this is not about Donald Trump. It's about a United States citizen. COOPER: You think it's a weak case? TOOBIN: I-- AIDALA: It's the case. It's the facts of the case. The fact that learned counsel don't know exactly what the other charge is, is insane. ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I agree that when that indictment came out, I think I was sitting right here, I said, OK, the other crime, they have to prove falsifying business records to commit an other crime, is unclear and a mess. And it remains that way until now. Because even now, the prosecutor's saying, well, there was federal election crimes. There were state election crimes. There was tax crimes. I don't know where they're getting that from. They overpaid Michael Cohen, so he could pay his taxes. But I think the primary theory here is that the other crime is a federal campaign finance violations. And the theory is they falsified these records. It was a $130,000 payment, a campaign donation, a campaign expenditure, way over the limits. They falsified the records, rather than calling them, pay -- hush money payments, whatever might be an accurate accounting of it. They called it attorney fees, retainer. And so, there's the falsification. And that, by falsifying those records, it enabled them to essentially violate federal campaign finance laws. There's a lot of gray area. I agree it that -- but this issue-- AIDALA: I mean, you never tried a case, where there was any gray area? In your whole career, you never tried a case, when you were prosecuting another human being, where it was up in the air, or it wasn't in the indictment, what exactly you were charging them with? HONIG: Every -- well hold on. AIDALA: And that's what we're up right here. HONIG: Every case I tried had gray area. The other ones pled out. I mean, that's why you have a trial. [21:05:00] AIDALA: No, no, no, not what the charges-- not what the elements of the crime are. When the judge, at the end of this trial, reads the jurors, here are the elements of the crime? You and I don't know what he's going to say, these felony that was committed. HONIG: Yes. I think-- AIDALA: You don't know. I don't know. Jeffrey won't know. TOOBIN: Well we do know. HONIG: I think that's right. I think that's right. TOOBIN: I mean, I think Elie gave a very coherent and apt summary of the case, which is not-- AIDALA: A possibility. TOOBIN: --all that comp-- AIDALA: It's a possibility, though, Jeff. TOOBIN: Not all that complicated. AIDALA: It's the -- it's not in the indictment. TOOBIN: It is-- AIDALA: It is complicated. It is. He said he sat here when the indictment came out. He's the senior legal guy at CNN. And he's got a look at it, and he's not a 100 percent sure of what exactly the felony is-- TOOBIN: But the-- AIDALA: --that the President of the United States is charged with. That is not America. That's not the way we're supposed to be doing things here. If you told me he took a bag of cash, he took a bribe, he extorted people? That's different. Here, we are still figuring out, on the second day of testimony, after opening arguments, what is the second -- what is the felony? Is it federal election law? Is it state election law? Is it tax? We don't know. That's not the way the system works. You know that. He knows that. Us trial guys know that. COOPER: Jeff, what is -- Jeff, what is your response to that? TOOBIN: I think it is the -- the crime is -- the underlying crime is paying $150,000 to wit -- a $130,000 and then $150,000, way more than you're allowed to under either state or federal campaign law, and then lying to cover it up. AIDALA: Well which one is it? TOOBIN: Why is that so complicated? AIDALA: Which one is it? Is it state or federal? You keep changing it to say-- TOOBIN: It's both. AIDALA: No. But that's not how our system worked. COOPER: So look-- AIDALA: OK. If you're committing a burglary, ends in? TOOBIN: I mean-- AIDALA: If you're committing a burglary, to commit a crime therein, you have to tell the jury, what is the crime-- TOOBIN: I think-- COOPER: Let me ask if is-- AIDALA: --that you're going into the house to commit. COOPER: If it said on the line item, hush money, would that have been OK? Would that have negated it? HONIG: No, because the amount's too much, because the amount's excessive. And I will -- maybe I can boil this down. I think yes -- because I want to hear more from Berman, from the trial. I think it's going -- it's quite clear already, and it will be quite clear that one of the substantial motivations, behind all of this, was to try to impact the election. I don't have much rational question about that. We'll see. BERMAN: And just to be clear. It may be that the prosecution does make clear, in the coming days, what crime they say they are highlighting here. What they seem to be doing is laying the groundwork here, to say this was a campaign meeting. "They asked me what I can do and what my magazine could do to help the campaign." And the other thing that they establish, in this testimony, was that it was Michael Cohen, who called for this meeting. Let me just read you this. But we don't have a graphic then. I'll get you a part of the graphic. How did this meeting come about? How did you know to go? He says, Pecker says, I received a call from Michael Cohen, telling me the boss wanted to see me. And that's how, when I spoke to Michael Cohen, that's how he would refer to Donald Trump, as the boss. COOPER: This is important about this being a campaign meeting. This is being about the campaign and protecting the campaign, because that is the argument, we have heard, from a lot of the former President's supporters, who say, look, he was concerned about his wife finding out, the embarrassment of that, didn't want to upset her. This was not -- there was no mention of that in this meeting. BERMAN: I think-- COOPER: This was all about the campaign. KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: But also-- BERMAN: And Pecker -- and just once -- Pecker talks about that. Pecker talks about for a campaign, why this issue of women could be important. Steinglass asks, "Can you explain to the jury how the topic of women in particular came up?" Pecker says, "Well, in a presidential campaign I was the person that thought that there would be a number -- a lot of women come out to try to sell their stories because Mr. Trump was well-known," and the "most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women. And it was clear that based on my past experience, that when someone is running for a public office like this... it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer" and "try to sell their stories." COOPER: And this was before -- this was before the -- the Access Hollywood tape. COLLINS: Well-- COOPER: So the Access-- TOOBIN: Yes. COOPER: The importance of the Access Hollywood tape, in this is that it's sort of, the drumbeat got much louder, about indiscretion. COLLINS: Well it changed everything, because remember, Stormy Daniels was shopping around her story, and was essentially offering to sell it. And they argued that the price was too high, and said no, that they weren't interested. After the Access Hollywood tape came out, that changed everything. Karen McDougal had a similar experience where initially, when you look at the reporting, the offer was quite low for her story. It was someone who had suggested hey, you should sell your story, that guy is running for president, you want to be the one to tell your story. And then, she came out with that. Also, to speak to what this is all going to -- what these people at least believed it was about, David Pecker researched whether or not he was violating campaign finance laws, when they were making the payment to Karen McDougal, because obviously corporations also cannot donate that much money to a political candidate. So, he even thought that this was on the brink of violating a law. ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: And again, like, look, I think -- I can't speak to the legalities of whether it's state or federal. [21:10:00] But the way that the system also works in this country is that you can't just have people handing $130,000 to a candidate, or a corporation handing $130,000 to a candidate. That's not how the system works too, in order to protect the voter. I mean, there is an interest here in the voter. And if-- AIDALA: But they're covering -- you know, we call this hush money. That's what makes it sound fake -- it's a confidentiality agreement. They're happening all the time. They're happening right now, all over the place. PHILLIP: If it's a confidentiality agreement, then it needs to be disclosed, if it's done for a campaign, like that, I think that's the -- that's the idea here. It's, call it whatever you want, hush money, confidentiality. But it's for a campaign. And there are rules around that. And clearly, David Pecker didn't really think that these-- AIDALA: You -- you'll-- PHILLIP: --were within the corners of the law here. TOOBIN: And just to emphasize what Abby's saying. It's not -- it was not a legal fee, which is exactly-- AIDALA: OK. What-- TOOBIN: --what was on the records. COOPER: Let me just-- TOOBIN: That's what this case is about. COOPER: Let me just get one more thing from the transcript, and John. TOOBIN: Sure. COOPER: Because this is about not putting stuff in writing. BERMAN: Well, it wasn't in writing. It was an agreement. Whatever it was, it was an agreement initially, and not in writing. Here's a question from Josh Steinglass, the prosecutor. Were any of the agreements, the agreement to print the negative stories about the opponents, positive stories from Trump, or the agreement to notify Michael Cohen about potentially negative stories about Donald Trump, "Were any of those agreements put into writing?" Pecker says, "No, they weren't put into writing, it was just an agreement among friends." HONIG: Well, here's why that's significant. I mean, obviously, they didn't start using -- reducing things to writing until money got involved. But to Abby's point, I think people may be wondering why is the Stormy Daniels' payment charged a crime, a state crime here, but not the Karen McDougal payment? The evidence of Karen McDougal will come into this case, because it's relevant as background. But it's not charged as a crime. And the reason is the state crime here is falsification of business records. The allegation, as I said before, is that they did that with Stormy Daniels, because it was really a hush payment. But they called that attorney's fees. But they did not do that with Karen McDougal. It was structured separately. It was structured essentially as a catch-and- kill. There was no falsification. They paid her for the story, and then they killed it. PHILLIP: Yes. HONIG: And so, the state law doesn't quite apply here. PHILLIP: And on top of that-- HONIG: Which is a point you were making before, yes. PHILLIP: And on top of that, with Karen McDougal, there was discussion of the Trump -- Trump-world giving AMI basically back that money. HONIG: Right. PHILLIP: AMI didn't do that. And that's the next step that did not happen in that case, what makes it different from what happens going on. COLLINS: And Rudy Giuliani is on television, in 2018, saying that Michael Cohen wasn't doing legal work for Donald Trump, when he was paid that amount of money. It's higher than the $130,000. It's closer to $340,000. So, he didn't have to take a tax hit. And that is what Michael Cohen has made -- and $60,000 for his legal work, and for his troubles, because he drew down a home equity line to do this. But Rudy Giuliani, who was still representing Trump, at the time, is on TV, saying Michael Cohen wasn't doing any legal work for Trump, when he got this payment. This is what they marked it as. AIDALA: Yes, but Pecker says just the opposite today. He says he's getting all the phone calls from Cohen. COLLINS: That was a different time. But that was -- that was during the campaign. And he's saying that when Michael Cohen was paid, which is when Trump was in the White House, and when they put that in the ledger, that he wasn't actually doing any legal services for Trump. He was doing this. COOPER: Much more ahead, including more breaking news. The judge just handed the defense another setback. That, plus Devlin Barrett from The Washington Post, who was in court today. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [21:17:18] COOPER: Back to our continuing coverage of the TRUMP HUSH MONEY TRIAL. I interviewed Stormy Daniels for "60 Minutes." I want to show you some of that interview. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Was it hush money to stay silent? STORMY DANIELS, PORNOGRAPHIC FILM ACTRESS & DIRECTOR: Yes. The story was coming out again. I was concerned for my family and their safety. COOPER: I think some people watching this are going to doubt that you entered into this negotiation-- because you feared for your safety. They're going to think that you saw an opportunity. DANIELS: I think the fact that I didn't even negotiate, I just quickly said yes to this very, you know, strict contract. And what most people will agree with me extremely low number. It's all the proof I need. COOPER: You feel like if you had wanted to go public, you could have gotten paid a lot of money to go public? And then you didn't (ph). DANIELS: Without a doubt. I know for a fact. I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, in my heart, and some people argue that I don't have one of those, but whatever, that I was doing the right thing. I turned down a large payday, multiple times, because one, I didn't want to kiss and tell and be labeled all the things that I'm being labeled now. (END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: That's Stormy Daniels, from 2018. More breaking news, tonight, just in. Judge Juan Merchan tonight, denying the former President's efforts to subpoena information, from Stormy Daniels, including her communications with other potential witnesses in the case. Back now with the panel. Also joining us is the Washington Post's Devlin Barrett, who was in the court today. What stood out to you in, from what you saw today in court? DEVLIN BARRETT, THE WASHINGTON POST: So, a lot of what David Pecker is talking about so far aren't really crimes. But they're sort of setting a -- setting a stage and setting a scene for this. He's kind of the tour guide to this case so far. But the other thing that really stood out to me was, while none of this may be crimes, the person he's describing, Donald Trump, behaves like a jerk. And I think that can be really, really painful for a -- bad for a jury, because-- COOPER: That came out through Pecker's testimony today? BARRETT: Right. I mean, you're describing a guy, who knows he has apparently when he's running for president, like one of his first, like, meetings he's got to have, or an important meeting he's got to have, is like, OK, how do we keep women quiet about telling stories about me? That's not great. Jurors, I think, are especially attuned to who's likable in the room. And the stories David Pecker were telling were not stories about a likeable person. COOPER: How does David Pecker come off on the stand to the jury, do you think? BARRETT: Well, he is-- COOPER: I mean, what does he -- what's his-- BARRETT: --strangely cheerful and chipper through this process, like he laughs, sometimes very loudly, which, good for him, like, he's not the one on trial. COOPER: Right. [21:20:00] BARRETT: But it is his longtime friend. They've been friends for decades. He concedes very cheerfully, again, that Trump was very good for his business. He admitted, I needed Trump to sell magazines. And that's part of why he made this deal with Trump, during the 2016 campaign. COOPER: I keep obsessing of-- PHILLIP: Yes. COOPER: --what must be going through Donald Trump's mind, sitting there, behind this defense desk, watching his former sort of friend, who is a keeper of probably a lot more secrets about him than he has led on, what must be going through Donald Trump's mind. I mean. COLLINS: The thing is, when Donald Trump became president, I mean, this was someone who had a lot of dirt on Donald Trump, and knew a lot about him, and had a lot of leverage on him. And obviously, David Pecker loved Donald Trump. We talked about Trump's style and what he was publishing. He was someone who, when Trump first won the White House, before all of this became a thing, before AMI signed this non-prosecution agreement, which is probably why he's in such a good mood, sitting on the stand. David Pecker came to the White House. He was in the Oval Office. He got a tour of the Lincoln Bedroom. COOPER: He was in the Trump Tower, when he came down the escalator, which I had not realized. COLLINS: Yes, he was. Michael Cohen said, it's very important for you to be here. You've been such a good friend. PHILLIP: But let's be honest. I mean, at this point, Trump is pretty used to people, who worked for him, who were friends with him, turning on him and saying that he's a bad person. I mean, this is actually happening more often than not, these days, for Donald Trump. So, this is just one in a series of things that Donald Trump is, is being confronted by people, who were once very close to him, who kept a lot of his secrets, who knew him, who maybe idolized him at a certain point. Now, telling the world, not just the stuff that about Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, but just a mode of operating that suggests that Trump is kind of a shady character. HONIG: Yes. And he should get used to that because it's going to get worse, as this trial goes, as certainly when Michael Cohen takes the stand, when Hope Hicks, if she takes the stand, if Kellyanne Conway takes the stand. I'm not so sure that's going to happen. PHILLIP: Yes. HONIG: But these are going to be people, who are really close to him. And the problem for Donald Trump here is this is a structured environment. This is not the bare-knuckle political environment. There are -- he can't jump up and say things to this person's face. I mean, there's a gag order in place that he's violating. The other thing that struck me today is isn't it jarring to be reminded of what Michael Cohen was, before he flipped? I mean, he flipped six years ago, right? It seems like not that long. PHILLIP: Yes. HONIG: But 2018. And we're being reminded that Michael Cohen was a no- holds-barred unapologetic. We hear this phrase, fixer. I mean, that's an understatement. He is a-- COLLINS: I mean, some of us don't need to be reminded. TOOBIN: Yes. Yes. It was a-- PHILLIP: I was going to say those of who knew (ph) him. (CROSSTALK) HONIG: Well right. You guys knew him, yes. PHILLIP: I know. TOOBIN: My family still talks about being in a car, when Michael Cohen called me on the phone, and he was screaming at me so loud that they could hear, in the front seat, even though it was -- it was -- the phone was held to my ear. I mean, he was the-- HONIG: Yes. TOOBIN: --he was the ultimate loyalist. But Devlin, I thought with your point about, he doesn't seem like a nice person. It's worth remembering about Donald Trump, that a month before he was elected President of the United States, the Access Hollywood tape came out. Not a nice person, not a nice. And he still won. So, all of this stuff about extramarital affairs, and -- he could still win this notwithstanding being a not a nice person. BARRETT: Well, and remember when he -- when the -- a lot of the jurors walked in the room, their immediate reaction is a physical reaction to a celebrity. That is the first physical reaction. But I think -- I do think, juries out -- juries always seem to really key in on who's a good person, and who's a bad person. And watching Trump go through the E. Jean Carroll trial, you could see a physical, physical, palpable dislike between that jury and him, as that trial went on. And watching it today, I thought this could be the start of that process repeating itself. HONIG: Have you noticed-- AIDALA: Well-- HONIG: Have you noticed any reactions? Without -- without giving any specifics about the jurors, have you noticed any dynamic happening within the jury box? BARRETT: I haven't except for this. They are some of the cagiest folks, I have seen on a jury panel, in a long time. COOPER: In what way? BARRETT: When they were asking questions -- well I'm -- apologies. When the lawyers were asking questions of the panelists, I have never seen jurors giving more practiced and careful and cautious answers. Some of the Trump lawyer questions, they just wouldn't answer. They literally would not answer them, because they felt like -- they clearly felt like it was a trap. And I think the jurors are, you know, there's a lot of professionals in that panel. I think the jurors are fairly savvy, about how, you know, questions about bias, questions about what you think of this guy. I think the jury is very savvy about that. And I think they're being very guarded, as they start this process. AIDALA: To Kaitlan's point about him being in a jovial mood. I mean, as in myself -- well let's see how he is in cross-examination. I would stuff that right up their nose in my summation. You see how happy he is? Yes, that's because he's the architect really -- not really the architect. But he's the executioner of this conspiracy. He's the one. He does it all. He decides what goes on the cover of the magazine, what doesn't go on the cover of magazine. They could have easily charged him with a conspiracy in this case. And not only don't they make him take a cooperation agreement, they give him full-blown immunity. COOPER: But-- AIDALA: So, of course, he's skipping on the stand. COOPER: But let me ask you. Isn't that all -- AIDALA: Happy and go-lucky. [21:25:00] COOPER: I mean, isn't that what prosecutors do all the time? I mean, that-- AIDALA: Not. COOPER: --that between two thugs-- AIDALA: Only -- yes, when they have -- when they have-- COOPER: --they give one thug the deal. AIDALA: When they have a weak case. When they have a weak case, when they need the cooperator. But if they have the documentation, when they have other witnesses who aren't culpable? Then no, they don't. PHILLIP: Well, to Arthur's point though, just on the role-- AIDALA: Oh, so you do agree with me. It's-- PHILLIP: I mean, look, I'm just going to-- AIDALA: This is news alert. PHILLIP: All I'm going to do is just raise the possibility. AIDALA: OK. Thank you. I'll take what I can get at this point. PHILLIP: Look, David Pecker, in a lot of these examples, he was the one who said you need to buy this story. You need to do this. You should get this off the market. If I were Trump's defense attorneys, I would be like, well, Trump was pushed into this. He didn't really want to do it. He wanted David Pecker to help him by writing nice stories about him, and bad stories about his opponents. But Pecker was the one who, it seemed, in some of these cases, who was pushing the idea of paying money, for the stories, so that Trump could get it off the market. COOPER: But isn't that his expertise, which is why he was in the room, which is what -- why Trump asked him to be in the room, in the first place to-- PHILLIP: I mean-- COOPER: --to have this meeting? That what can you do for? PHILLIP: Yes. COOPER: I mean, what Pecker's saying on the stand today was, which you pointed out earlier, which is what can you do for our campaign? COLLINS: Can we actually-- COOPER: What can you do for our campaign? COLLINS: So but -- and to take us back to that time, and what was happening, and the effect it had on the 2016 campaign, and looked -- what that looked like? I keep going back to the Senator Ted Cruz stories, and where there were stories about Marco Rubio and Ben Carson. But the Ted Cruz ones were especially egregious-- TOOBIN: Yes. COLLINS: --to where he felt the need to come out and respond to them. Trump was commenting publicly about it, in Fox interviews. I think we have this moment where Ted Cruz had to come out on the campaign trail, and say that this story that was published in the National Enquirer wasn't true. And he got closer than anyone did until the Wall Street Journal, and everyone started reporting on this, that it was David Pecker and Donald Trump coordinating. We don't have the moment. But he came out and he said-- COOPER: And teed it up. I was-- (CROSSTALK) AIDALA: --me. (CROSSTALK) COOPER: --I was set. PHILLIP: Yes. I hear that. Again-- TOOBIN: Tune in tomorrow. PHILLIP: But again, I think -- I think that there's a distinction, between coordinating with David Pecker, over positive or negative stories, and the decision to pay to take stories out of the marketplace. I think that it is the payment here that is the most important part of the story. HONIG: The decision to immunize David Pecker is going to be a difficult one, for the reasons that Arthur pointed out, because that was a decision made by the Feds, by the Southern District of New York, a few years ago. When you're making that decision, you have to do a calculus, there's no science to it. You say, well, do we need this person's testimony? And is it worth giving him a free pass? And what are we going to get out of it? The decision was clearly made. We're more interested in building a case against higher-ups. But there's some jury appeal to the argument that Arthur's articulating, right now, which is folks, how is this fair? The guy, who was running this, David Pecker, as you're describing it, the guy who was running this, gets a free pass. He waltzes in here, he testified, he waltzes on out, and they're trying to hang a felony conviction and lock up Donald Trump. How is that fair? How's that equity? AIDALA: Well just-- TOOBIN: Well the -- well the-- AIDALA: So, either one of you, how hard is it to get full-blown immunity from the Feds? They don't hand that out like-- HONIG: It ain't easy. It ain't easy. TOOBIN: But-- AIDALA: It ain't easy. TOOBIN: But I think Elie was raising exactly what the defense will argue. I think there's a response to that, which is who benefited from this conspiracy. Who got elected-- AIDALA: Both. Both. TOOBIN: --President of the United States? AIDALA: Both of them. TOOBIN: David Pecker was President of the United States? AIDALA: No, but he sold them-- (CROSSTALK) AIDALA: He had testified he sold a lot of magazines. PHILLIP: Yes, and that-- AIDALA: He said, I made a lot of money, I needed him. TOOBIN: But he didn't-- AIDALA: That was his testimony. TOOBIN: But he didn't violate campaign finance laws. And-- AIDALA: We don't know if Trump did either. COOPER: Well, they also said that there was no financial benefit for killing the story. PHILLIP: Right. I mean, for the National Enquirer, it was -- it was better for them to take bad stories about Trump off the market. Maybe with the exception of the, a legend love child story that turned out to be false. I think Pecker was actually intrigued by the potential, if that were true, to run it, maybe after the election. But generally speaking, they didn't want to run negative stories about Trump. COOPER: But they didn't want to run it, not because it wouldn't have been profitable, because Trump's stories sold. They didn't want to run it because-- PHILLIP: Because-- COOPER: --David Pecker didn't want them to run. PHILLIP: And because positive -- it seems that the National Enquirer audience was positively inclined toward Trump. So, there is the kind of it's not just any-- COOPER: That's what the market was wanting. PHILLIP: Not just any Trump story, but stories that aggrandized Trump worked well for their audience. COOPER: Is that what you found when? TOOBIN: Absolutely. I mean, it was -- I mean, they -- I saw the graphs that Trump -- and this was surprise to Pecker. When I was talking to him in 2017, he said, well, I wanted to help my friend. So we started -- we ran stories. But then we saw that they worked. AIDALA: So he did get a benefit. TOOBIN: As-- AIDALA: You just got to-- TOOBIN: He does. AIDALA: --yourself, my dear friend. COOPER: All right. AIDALA: He said he didn't get a benefit. He did get a benefit. COOPER: Devlin Barrett, thank you very much for joining us. We got to take a quick break. Coming up next, with the former President still venting about the trial taking him off the campaign trail, the question is, is this all helping or hurting his candidacy. Answers on that end. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [21:34:23] COOPER: And welcome back to Trump on trial here, with a team in New York, talking about the day's events in the courtroom, in Lower Manhattan. Mitt Romney was asked about the trial today. Here's what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump's character. And so far as I know, you don't pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Mitt Romney, breaking out of the shell. He's -- I mean, he's just-- PHILLIP: Did he say the word, sex? COOPER: Yes. I guess so. AIDALA: He did it in Utah. (CROSSTALK) COOPER: Yes. AIDALA: He did it in Utah. COOPER: He's on his way out and just keeping it real. Doug Heye is joining us, a Republican strategist. What are you hearing from people, in Republican circles? I mean, you hear Trump's allies, arguing he just wanted to make this story go away, to protect his family. [21:35:00] DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, to protect his family, but also to protect his political campaign. And what I hear often is it really depends on who you talk to. But of the Trump core base, none of this matters. It's all baked in for Donald Trump. And whatever happens, as we've learned is great and glorious for Donald Trump. Not exactly true. The other thing I'm hearing is a lot of concern that if he is convicted on this, regardless of the fact that most Republicans feel that this is the most political of the cases against Donald Trump, that a convicted Donald Trump will struggle, to some extent, whether that's 1 percent or 4 percent, with voters in Pennsylvania and Arizona and North Carolina, and so forth. If he's convicted, it's a very real problem for him. And then there's the operational part. Donald Trump is right. He can't go to all those states that he needs to, because he's going to be in a courtroom, during the week. So he'll be a weekend warrior, going to campaign rallies. But he can't do what Joe Biden is doing, during the weekdays. COOPER: Yes. I mean, how much, even at the height of a campaign, or at this stage of the campaign, would he normally have been out doing rallies, in various places. COLLINS: He hasn't been out a ton, since Super Tuesday. So he's-- COOPER: And he's doing like one or two a week, right? COLLINS: At most. And so, his complaint that this is denying him an ability to be out there? It's constraining him. He can't physically plan a rally. He does have to actually be in the courtroom four days a week. But they didn't have a ton planned. He did have a rally scheduled in Saturday, in North Carolina. It was canceled because of the weather. But I think they're looking ahead to what this is going to look like, as he wants to do fundraisers. He needs to be raising money, to compete with what the Biden and the Democrats have raised. That has really been their sore point on this. AIDALA: It's also psychologically though. HEYE: And to Kaitlan's point? AIDALA: When I sit next to a defendant, yes, I'm working, and I'm stressing out. But it's their life. Like, I know, I'm going out that door, no matter what happens. They may be going out the side door. And it's all-encompassing. I don't care how, this is an E felony is the lowest. Nobody thinks Judge Merchan is putting him in jail. But he's definitely not sitting there, thinking about strategy, thinking about fundraisers. I mean, maybe he drifts off every once in a while. But he's looking at this guy, David Pecker, right now, who he knows and, god knows you asked earlier, like what's running through his mind? COOPER: Yes. AIDALA: And it's going to take up four weeks of his life. PHILLIP: Well look-- TOOBIN: Can I-- AIDALA: That could be occupied running for President. TOOBIN: Can I ask you, how much do you think Republicans like the idea of how much emphasis Trump is putting on his martyrdom? It's like, they're after me. I mean, it seems like every time you see Trump publicly, he's complaining about the cases against him. HEYE: Yes. TOOBIN: Is that -- is that something that's motivating beyond his base? Is that effective? HEYE: Yes, for the base, it is rallying cry, number one. Beyond that, as you start to get to voters, who are more concerned about think of the top 10 issues that we could talk about, this sort of distracts from that, and they don't like that. And to Kaitlan's point, big -- big term in political campaigns, donor maintenance. Donald Trump is not able to do that now, whether it's at a lunch here in New York, or somewhere at Mar-a-Lago during the week, because he's in a courtroom. That's very important. He's not going to do a ton of rallies at this point. But he should be doing more donor maintenance than he's able to. It's one of the reasons you're starting to hear people say, perhaps they may announce the vice presidential nominee early, so that that person can do some of that work. PHILLIP: Here's the other part of this. 2015, 2016, in the minds of most American voters was eons ago. It was so long ago, most people don't care to remember any of this stuff. And this trial, day by day is unearthing all of these stories. We were just talking about whether Trump sounds like a good person or a bad person. While it's reminding people that he had all these accusations against him, of infidelity and affairs, that he used tabloids, to smear his political opponents when he knew those stories were false. All kinds of things are going to come up in this trial, whether he is convicted or not. Politically, that is a disaster for Donald Trump. COOPER: Yes. PHILLIP: Because he wants to run just on, maybe the first two years of his presidency. He's not going to be able to do that anymore. Because from now until November, it's going to be a constant drumbeat of this case, of the other federal cases. That's going to be making the Democrats' case against Donald Trump that he is just a mess. He's a -- he's a bag of controversy rolled up into a former President. HONIG: In my role as an amateur political pundit, I've tried to ask the question, who is this going to sway? Who's the outcome of this trial going to sway? There's actually polling on this by Politico that showed that 36 percent of independents said a conviction would make them less likely to vote for Donald Trump. 9 percent said it would make them more likely. Not sure how that works. But even if you net that out, that's a lot of independents. And it has to be -- I mean, I think everyone is sort of familiar with the story. Interested in what you think, Doug. It has to be people who just say, look, even if I might be inclined towards Donald Trump, being a convicted felon is too much baggage to put someone in the White House. HEYE: Yes, I remember the day after the Access Hollywood tape, that morning, I was at a political campaign event, for Richard Burr, in North Carolina, in Raleigh. And that's the base, who shows up at a political rally, on a rainy Saturday morning. They wanted to make sure that Burr was standing by Trump, whether he approved of what Donald Trump had said or done, what have you. But that's the base. If you're one of those voters that doesn't like Donald Trump, and doesn't like Joe Biden, this does not help Donald Trump. [21:40:00] PHILLIP: Chaos is not good for Donald Trump. I mean it's just not. Going into the 2020 election, one of the big things that voters really disliked about Trump was just the fact that everything around him was always controversial. It was loud. He -- his political opponents, even in this Republican primary, argued that he's not a good role model. I can't think of another case that more exemplifies this idea that Trump as a person may not be the type of character that you want as president. That is just a narrative that is not positive for him. Putting aside whether or not the jury comes back with a guilty verdict, or not. COOPER: Kaitlan mentioned this Ted Cruz sound. COLLINS: Did I? COOPER: A while ago. COLLINS: I don't remember that. COOPER: That we didn't have. But we do have it now. But I think it's worth showing, because I hadn't actually seen it before. But he is pointing out the relationship. This is when the National Enquirer had put Cruz's father on the cover, and in a story that was completely made up, which David Pecker admitted on the stand today. Here's Ted Cruz talking about the relationship between Donald Trump and David Pecker. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): The CEO of the National Enquirer is an individual named David Pecker. Well, David is good friends with Donald Trump. They have a friendship that goes back for many years. In fact, the National Enquirer has endorsed Donald Trump, has said he must be president. TRUMP: I had nothing to do with the National Enquirer story. And frankly, I hope it's not true, because it's pretty bad. (END VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: 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 with David Pecker and Donald Trump. Obviously, as we now know, and we'll hear from him on the witness stand, it was Michael Cohen, who was 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 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 doing other interviews, about the claim that Ted Cruz's father was involved with Lee Harvey Oswald. Trump would go on TV and say, well, the National Enquirer has gotten other things right, you know? Would point to John Edwards. And he'd say, well, they haven't denied it, you know? Even though there were these strenuous denials from Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. And it's just remarkable also, given Marco Rubio today was asked about this, and kind of mocked the National Enquirer, even though he's someone who's on Trump's VP shortlist, right now. And you see the impact that David Pecker saying, yes, when Marco Rubio was surging in the polls, we were putting out negative stories about him. COOPER: Yes. AIDALA: I was thinking about what you said about the Politico poll, and 9 percent of people saying they'd be more likely to vote for Trump if he got convicted. I'm trying to think all right, what would that be? I think that would only be -- and I think the prosecutor said in the courtroom today about these violations of the gag order. We're not asking for jail. We don't want jail. And I think they said because that's what he wants. He wants us to put him in jail. Because I think, you know, I think people would say wait a minute, on an E felony-- COOPER: Yes. AIDALA: --and a violation of a gag order, you're putting him in jail? PHILLIP: I mean-- AIDALA: That's not good. COOPER: Yes. TOOBIN: They just talk about that (ph). PHILLIP: I don't think any voters are calling it an E felony. COOPER: Yes. PHILLIP: But I get -- I take your point. COOPER: Doug Heye, thank you for being with us. HEYE: Thank you. COOPER: Still ahead. Today's gag order hearing did not go well for Donald Trump. We'll talk to a retired judge, who's known Judge Juan Merchan, for more than a decade, on how she expects him to rule. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [21:47:38] COOPER: We mentioned at the top, Donald Trump continues to attack Michael Cohen, calling him a liar with no credibility, in a new interview, released tonight, despite the gag order barring him from attacking witnesses, in the New York criminal trial. It's far from the first time that Trump has publicly targeted Cohen, or any of his other perceived enemies. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Deranged Jack Smith, have you ever heard of him? Jack Smith, the deranged one, I call him. This judge is a lunatic. And if you've ever watched him. And the Attorney General may be worse, maybe worse. You ever watch her? I will get Donald Trump. And the Attorney General is a total -- she's a corrupt person. A terrible person, driving people out of New York. Letitia James, the corrupt Attorney General of New York. You have a racist Attorney General. I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family. What else can you expect from a Trump-hating Clinton-appointed judge? (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Joining us is Judge -- excuse me, Judge Jill Konviser, a former New York State Supreme Court Justice, who has known the judge, overseeing this case, Judge Juan Merchan, for more than 15 years. Judge, welcome. Do you expect him, do you think, to rule on the gag order soon? JILL KONVISER, FORMER NY STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, RETIRED JUDGE: I think he probably will. I think it is typical of Judge Merchan to take his time and be thoughtful about the process and dot T's -- and dot I's and cross T's and get it right. I've said on this show before. I think that the gag order is a challenge for the judge, because he does want to get through the process. And of course, fining Donald Trump a few thousand dollars doesn't mean that much. Jailing him, well, he could. He has that. He is within his rights do that for 30 days. The legislature hasn't given a whole lot -- a whole lot of tools. But at the end of the day, it appears that Donald Trump is baiting this judge, and perhaps wants that, so that his constituents will be appalled, and up in arms, and he loves that riotous context. COOPER: Want to ask you about the moment in court today, where the judge told Todd Blanche that he's losing credibility with the court. I mean, you've been on the bench a long time. What did -- how did you read that moment? KONVISER: That moment was I think Judge Merchan telling him, your argument is just not making any sense. And I'm hearing you. I'm listening. And give me a good argument. Help me through this. But you're not doing that. You're losing your credibility, Counsel. COLLINS: And it was remarkable because it was -- the prosecutors had gone through each of where they say these violations happened, and essentially, were saying this post, this post, this comment. [21:50:00] And the judge was asking Todd Blanche, well, if you're saying that he's just defending himself, point to that moment. And I read that the transcript, Todd Blanche never points to a specific moment. And that really has seemed where things kind of careened off the rails, for Todd Blanche. HONIG: There are hearings as a lawyer that go well, and there's hearings that are so slow, and there's hearings that are bad. This was a debacle for Todd Blanche. I mean, it was embarrassing for him. And to hear the judge openly say, you're costing yourself credibility? I mean, here's how bad it got. This is the quote that I remember. At one point -- so remember, Donald Trump reposted this quote, from a Fox News personality. But it turned out that Donald Trump had manipulated it. The judge asked Todd Blanche. And Todd Blanche had to say this in court. Quote, "I wouldn't use the word manipulation, Your Honor. But the rest of the quote was not part of the quote." I mean, that is the definition of manipulation. So, this was -- let me just tell you one thing. Todd Blanche has gone through a little bit of cultural shock here. Because like me, he came up as a prosecutor, a federal prosecutor. You guys know, nobody is as cushioned as a federal prosecutor. And now, he's got to deal with something he never had to deal with as a federal prosecutor, which is a client, and probably the world's most difficult client, whispering in his ear and passing him notes the whole time. So, it's a tough road. But he lost a lot today. TOOBIN: But isn't the real message of Merchan's upset today, it's really at Trump. It's not at his lawyer. HONIG: Oh, sure, yes. TOOBIN: I mean, it's -- the person who put the lawyer in this impossible position of defending the indefensible, is the client. HONIG: Yes. TOOBIN: Not the lawyer. And judge, I wanted to just ask you, what would you do? OK, you're the judge. What -- you've got someone, of violating a gag order repeatedly. What do you do? KONVISER: Look, this is a unique situation, right? So, I have had to deal with gag orders. I have had to deal with unruly lawyers and unruly clients of lawyers. This is unique to some extent. What would I do? I would not put him in jail. I think that's what he's looking for, at this point. At some point, maybe, maybe you have to. I don't think we're there yet. You fine him. You let him know, this cannot go on. And if it does, there's going to be additional punishment. Again, back to the legislature, where there's not a whole lot of room. But yes, you fine him. He complains about it. And you move on. The point is, this judge has a responsibility to ensure the fairness of the proceeding. And that is why the gag order laws are in place, not necessarily to punish, but to maintain order. And that is what Judge Merchan has done with some grace, in this case, in the face of an extremely difficult defendant-- COOPER: But it-- KONVISER: --and attorney. COOPER: It also seems clear he doesn't want this thing to go off the rails. He wants this to keep moving. I mean, the trial has begun. It's well into it. He wants it to keep moving forward. He doesn't want this to -- this kind of stuff. AIDALA: No. And if I can, just defend Todd Blanche? I mean, any of us who've tried cases, it's you're in the heat of the moment, this is one little piece of what happened today. You do the best you can, under that pressure. The whole world is watching this guy. And I think you're right. I don't -- you know, he's not an -- I'm not saying bad about him. He's not some veteran criminal defense attorney. He hasn't tried 30 criminal trials, as a defense attorney. I don't know what he did in the prosecutor's office. But what you're saying about a judge, in the Southern District of New York. They, you know, they're almost like having another prosecutor, in the room, and they take very good care of that. They are prosecutors. And this is culture shock. HONIG: That's true. That's true. AIDALA: It is culture shock. COOPER: Well let me ask you, as a defense attorney, if you have the client from hell, who's passing you notes, to things, they know everything, and, you know? What do you -- how do you do that -- how do you deal with that? AIDALA: Well there's some language that I can't use, because of the FCC rules and things like that. And you just tell them, look, bro, this is your life on the line. I've been doing this for 32 years. You haven't been doing this for five minutes. So, you're going to let me do my job and defend you, or just get someone else. Because -- just chill, bro. You got to just chill and let me do my thing. COLLINS: But Donald Trump-- HONIG: Yes. AIDALA: I mean, even if he was the President of the United States. COLLINS: Donald Trump, you said, get someone else. That's what he would just do. Donald Trump thinks he's the best-- AIDALA: No, no, but he can't get someone else right now. COLLINS: He thinks he-- AIDALA: The judge won't -- the judge won't let him. COOPER: Donald Trump can also-- COLLINS: Donald Trump thinks he is the best attorney. He thinks he is-- (CROSSTALK) COOPER: He can also say, I've been doing this, for 70-something years. AIDALA: Yes, but yes, but he doesn't know-- COLLINS: Yes. AIDALA: He doesn't know -- he doesn't know the rules. COLLINS: Well-- COOPER: Yes. AIDALA: And I think you mentioned about having a sidebar. There are times, when you're like -- and that's why the relationship between the defense and the judge is so important. There are times when you have a sidebar, which means no one could hear, not the media, no one, it's off the record. And you're like, judge, I'm in a tough situation here. And here's the key words. Just let me make my record. And I'll back off. COLLINS: But it reminded me of when-- AIDALA: And you just go up and you make these things you got to say. COLLINS: It reminded me, and probably you too, Abby, of the White House press secretaries, always having to defend Trump's tweets, and suss them out, and here's what he meant and repost -- or retweets were not endorsements. I mean, it was this cycle that every press secretary went through. Sean Spicer said they were official White House statements. [21:55:00] But what's different about this, and what's different for this? And sure, maybe Todd Blanche doesn't have experience doing this. Well, he's doing it now. And he's representing the former President, in the first criminal trial ever. And what we're seeing that's different about this is Donald Trump's words are being used against him. He's being held accountable for them, in a way that he's never been before. PHILLIP: Although I do wonder, I mean what is ultimately the impact of Trump violating this gag order, on the actual case? This is what Trump is calculating is that he might be irritating the judge. He might be annoying his attorneys. But when it comes to the jury, they're looking at the evidence. And he gets to influence the public. But it doesn't really affect the case, because the judge is not going to put him in prison. And until he -- I mean, until that happens, nothing is going to happen. COOPER: I'll just leave it there. I want to thank everybody. Our special primetime coverage of the Trump trial continues next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) … CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip Aired April 23, 2024 - 22:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. [22:00:00] ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Donald Trump essentially dares a judge to fine him or send him straight to jail. This is a special edition of NewsNight, the Trump Hush Money Trial. Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip. KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: I'm Kaitlan Collins. We are here in New York. And today, you saw a tabloid king who was all too willing to do Donald Trump's bidding, giving an unvarnished view of the former president of the United States. I'm talking about David Pecker, the former National Enquirer boss, who outlined in carefully choreographed testimony today how he boosted Donald Trump and his tabloids, how his entire apparatus blasted Trump's rivals with blatantly bogus stories, and how he struck an off-the-books pact with Trump to bury stories to bolster his 2016 election chances by bamboozling American voters. The former Trump friend has spent two-plus hours on the stand today as the former president was there glaring, as you can see here in this court sketch, from across the room and what marks a no doubt about it, betrayal for the politician who most prizes loyalty. And new tonight, Donald Trump is again testing the limits of what he can say and how far he can push the judge who is presiding over this trial before he is actually punished. Now, in a new interview, Trump is it is committing what looks like and sounds like a pretty clear-cut violation of that gag order that restricts what he can say about some of the main characters in this case, the witnesses, such as former fixer Michael Cohen. And here's what he told that CNN-affiliate WPVI just a short time ago. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Michael Cohen is a convicted liar and he's got no credibility, whatsoever. He was a lawyer and you rely on your lawyers. (END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: We've got a whole big panel here with us today, but first let's bring in CNN Anchor John Berman, who has been poring over these transcripts all day. John, there you are. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm over here now. PHILLIP: You've switched over. So, John, which -- just tell us, what is catching your eye today at this hour? BERMAN: All right. So, you're talking about the gag order hearing. First of all, I mean, all my papers are messed up now. There's a lot of papers and transcripts from the hearings today, more than 50 pages of transcripts from the gag order hearing. None of those pages are particularly good for Donald Trump or his lawyer, Todd Blanche. He got very contentious between the judge, Juan Merchan and Todd Blanche. Let me just read you a little bit of this. Blanche, the attorney says, this gag order, we are trying to comply with it. And there is no doubt that we are here about ten different purported violations. President Trump is being very careful to comply with Your Honor's rules. And the judge cuts in, you, Mr. Blanche, you are losing all credibility. I have to tell you that right now, you are losing all credibility with the court. Goes on a little bit later with Blanche saying, to the extent that Your Honor views the post about Mr. Cohen and the system is being too close to the line, tell President Trump, tell me, and we will make sure it's not violated. Help me, help you, in other words, he's saying. The judge says, as far as the whole distinction between reposts, you have stated it's ambiguous. You stated you didn't know. But, again, I hate to come back to this, but you're not offering me anything to support your argument. Blanche, the attorney says, but Your Honor, the judge says, I was not done. Never a good thing. You are not giving me anything to hang my hat on to say, yes, you're right. The reposts, that was unambiguous. COLLINS: Unambiguous, as is the rest of our panel who is here with us. We've got Brian Stelter, who is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, Robert Ray, who was a former counsel to President Trump, a lot of questions for him during the first impeachment, Stacy Schneider, Manhattan criminal defense attorney, and Temidayo Aganga-Williams, who is a former senior investigative counsel for the January 6th committee. And, Tim, given what you just heard from Berman there, you know, talking about how this day started for Trump's legal team and what this looked like, what does that spell -- we'll talk about what it means for the gag order, but what does it mean when that's the relationship between the judge and the lead defense counsel on, really, Day 2 of this. TEMIDAYO AGANGA-WILLIAMS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You know, as a litigator, that really just made me cringe. I mean, I think I cannot imagine a more problematic way for a judge to perceive you so early in a trial. To have your credibility questioned by a judge, that's about as low as you can go as a lawyer in a courtroom. So, I think it was a really bad day. I think why it matters that it sets the tone going forward. There's going to be a lot more skirmishes in front of this judge. Clearly, we're going to learn more and decide more about the gag order. There's going to be other evidentiary rulings. This judge, you want him to like you if you're the defense lawyer here. I think to have him say he doesn't believe you, that you weren't credible on Day 2 effectively, that's a really, really bad sign. Because going forward, when you make that argument, when it's a close call, he's going against you and going for the people. PHILLIP: So, can I pose the question to you that I sort of asked at the end of the last hour, which is, what is the impact really on this trial, Robert, of Trump repeatedly violating the gag order? I understand it's about protecting the witnesses, it's about protecting the jurors, but on the actual trial itself, what's the impact, if any? [22:05:01] ROBERT RAY, FORMER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: I mean, my first reaction is that's really a sideshow. The jury is, of course, not a prize of any of this and likely will be kept in the dark about any resolution with regard to the gag order unless somebody's doing what they're not supposed to be doing, which is following media stories in the press while the trial is ongoing. So, I think the effect is zero. As far as Todd Blanche is concerned, I mean, maybe I've gotten into more trouble than some of my colleagues than I should have. But, I mean, as a defense lawyer, I'm more than happy for the judge to be taking me on as opposed to my client. And, look, Todd Blanche is not going to be easily intimidated. I think he's going to try to encourage his client to follow the letter in the spirit of the gag order. But, look, the fact of the matter is this is what everybody warned about, including me, which is a trial in the middle of a campaign cycle. And there is inevitably going to be collision between the terms of a gag order that prevents the former president of the United States, who was the leading presidential candidate, from being able to respond with regard to information that is potentially politically damaging. If Michael Cohen is free to go out there and speak, it's a little odd to be trying to put a muzzle around the defendant on trial, partly understandable because you're trying to protect witnesses, but this is an unusual case. And you've got perhaps the government's lead witness out there in public and frankly should be, I think, admonished by the prosecution to just stop what you're doing until you're done testifying a trial. Then you want to have at it, want to talk all you want, go right ahead. But to muzzle Donald Trump when you've got other witnesses or at least one other witness out there speaking -- what? Well -- COLLINS: Is he muzzled? RAY: I mean, that's under threat -- COLLINS: He can't attack witnesses. And he can't talk about the jurors and he can't go through the (INAUDIBLE). RAY: But what difference does that make? COLLINS: A big one. RAY: It doesn't make -- look, the safety of the witnesses or paramount, but the president, who is a candidate for office, has got to be able to respond with regard to matters that involve the campaign. And, you know, if this becomes what everybody was concerned about, what I was concerned about was essentially a sideshow for people to explore how to do damage to Donald Trump in the political process. That is not something that he is going to tolerate. And he will tolerate contempt and not allow that line to be crossed. The judge -- I understand the judge can do what it is the judge thinks is right. But Donald Trump is a presidential candidate, has to do what he thinks is right. And there's going to be a collision. And if it's pressed and this thing goes beyond like a thousand dollars fine or whatever with regard to each violation and the judge decides to take him on and try to put him in custody, I can tell you that that will bring this trial to a halt. PHILLIP: Well, that's probably why that's not happening. RAY: Because there will be an immediate appeal. The jury will be held in advance and it will stop. PHILLIP: I do wonder if you think that there's any validity to the idea that maybe what the judge also might have to do is say to a Michael Cohen or say to prosecutors, you got to get your witness under control. He cannot be out there talking about this case and creating the spectacle on the side. STACY SCHNEIDER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE TRIAL ATTORNEY: The problem is the defendant himself doesn't have that type of gag order. The gag order is to protect the witnesses in the case from vitriol from Donald Trump, but a typical trial might have a gag order where no one is allowed to talk about the case because the judge doesn't want people trying their case out in the court of public opinion. They want it to stay inside the courtroom. We don't have that kind of situation. But to say that this case is political and preventing Donald Trump from exercising his First Amendment right, this is a business fraud allegation, pure and simple. It's about allegedly falsifying business records and things that went on that Trump is alleged to have run an expense of paying somebody's silence through his business records and doing it falsely. I don't see the political connection until we get into the campaign influencing, which is the second part of this complicated felony charge. COLLINS: Also, Donald Trump spoke to the cameras on multiple occasions today. He did an interview on his way to his gag order violation hearing today criticizing Michael Cohen, calling him a criminal, and saying all these other things. So, at this moment, he is certainly not muzzled. But, Brian, I wonder when you're looking at this and after that got out of the way, David Pecker took the stand and resumed the stand. This is this tabloid king. And it was just remarkable to see him sitting there, not this far from Trump, but going into detail about when he met Trump and he was so impressed by him, but obviously we've seen how dramatically that relationship has been reshaped. BRIAN STELTER, AUTHOR: Totally, admitting to a scheme to help get Trump elected. You know, look, I covered the Enquirer and Pecker back in the mid-20-teens, back when this was history. But, you know, this was eight years ago when these tabloid covers were coming out promoting Trump and disparaging Hillary Clinton. I was covering this pretty extensively, but I learned a lot today. [22:10:00] There's a lot that we didn't know at the time that's been exposed under oath. Pecker has never given an interview about these secrets. So, now, for the first time, these have come out. And, you know, whether you call it a conspiracy, the way the prosecutors do, it was clearly an alliance that went much deeper than was evident to readers or viewers or anybody at the time. So, from a from a media standpoint, we learned a lot about how this worked and how Trump was using one of the most sleazy brands out there, the National Enquirer, to launder his attacks against his opponents. Now, of course, he's much less subtle. He just does it in front of the cameras. But even at those pressers you've been describing, they're not really pressers, he's not taking questions most of the time, at those moments where he's speaking in front of the cameras, he's not saying much. He's repeating the same talking points. He's reading the same tweets from his friends. He seems to be in a very narrowed echo chamber without much new to say anything. PHILLIP: Or you could argue that this is just the art of repetition. STELTER: That's a great point, yes. PHILLIP: Which Donald Trump knows very well. He understands that if he just reads the same thing over and over again, we're still going to take it live. STELTER: Touche. BERMAN: You know, Brian was talking about how David Pecker admitted to his scheme to help Donald Trump get elected explicitly testifies to the scheme and where he was when it was hatched in this testimony. We heard really for the first time today, he talks about this August 15th -- August 2015 meeting where Michael Cohen calls him and says, hey, come to Trump Tower, meet with Donald Trump. And then this is the exchange here. The attorney, the prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked, can you describe for the jury what happened at that meeting, please? Pecker testifies at that meeting, Donald Trump and Michael, they asked me what I can do in what my magazines could do to help the campaign. So, thinking about it, as I did previously, I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents. I said, I would be your eyes and ears because I know the Trump Organization had a very small staff. And then I said that anything I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself or if I hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen, as I did over the last several years, I would notify Michael Cohen and then he would be able to have them kill in another magazine or have them not to be published or somebody would have to purchase them. Steinglass, the prosecutor asks, purchase the negative stories about Mr. Trump so they would not get published, you mean? And Pecker says that they would not get published, yes. COLLINS: I mean, and, Brian, and what they basically laid out with those questions and answers from David Pecker and the questions from the prosecutors was, the National Enquirer would get a tip. It was on Donald Trump. David Pecker would be alerted. He'd call Michael Cohen and ask Michael Cohen what to do. And Michael Cohen, according to David Pecker, and we'll hear the cross-examine and what Michael Cohen has to say about this, but he would say, well, let me call the boss and see what he wants to do with the Karen McDougal story, with other stories. What do you want to do about this? STELTER: Ironically, this is the kind of scandal that the National Enquirer would have exposed in almost any other scenario. The Enquirer had a history, for all of its flaws, for all of its faults, of reporting on politicians on both sides of the aisle for exposing scandals and controversies in politicians' past. COLLINS: John Edwards, they did it multiple times before anyone else did. STELTER: But instead, Pecker, because he had a long relationship with Trump and saw a benefit to the Enquirer, decided to pick a horse, right, decided to get in line with Trump and create a pro-Trump propaganda outlet, which is really what the Enquirer was. But he's never fessed up to this until today in court. PHILLIP: It's not just that part. I mean, if it were just that, then it would be unsavory, bad for journalism, maybe bad ethically. The issue now is what happened next? RAY: Is it a crime? PHILLIP: Is it a crime? RAY: And, hello, let's take everything that you just said is true. If the campaign had gone to the Federal Election Commission and said, we want to make a payment to suppress this story, and we want to use campaign funds to do it, what would the Federal Election Commission have said? They would have said, are you out of your mind? That's a personal expense. STELTER: We also don't have a competent FEC in this country. RAY: That's not a campaign expenditure. And the flipside of that, if that's so, is that it can't be, you asked the question, is it a crime, the prosecution is going to have to prove that this is a concealed illegal campaign contribution, and that's going to get hung up on the axle, I think, of testimony that you're likely to hear on my imagine during the defense case or through cross-examination about, wait a second now, that's not the FEC's view of this. They would not have viewed this as a legitimate campaign. BERMAN: I don't think, and just as I go through this transcript and you look carefully at the exchanges, it is why I think the prosecutor and David Pecker always leads into this was a campaign meeting What can I do for the campaign. It maybe that they closed the circle in the next few days, but that's in here, that's in the transcript. RAY: And you'd expect that to be there, because they know they have to prove it. BERMAN: Sure. I'm just saying, so it does seem like they're conscious of this issue that you're bringing up. [22:15:01] RAY: Yes, and as I sit here, I don't know the answer to that question. You know, definitively, as a matter of law, I'm just suggesting that I think that's a legitimate defense. We don't know how that's going to come out. And in large part, it will depend on ultimately the judge and what the form of the jury instructions will be. But I think it's a legitimate legal question. It's not entirely clear what the answer is. PHILLIP: The other thing, I mean, just to drill down a little bit on what you're saying, and I'm curious about the other lawyers at the table, if Trump had just made the payment himself, it's a personal expense, he labeled it as such, we wouldn't be here. But he did not do that because he was trying to conceal it. So -- AGANGA-WILLIAMS: Yes. And I would say all the surrounding facts here, I think, Robert, undercut the hypothetical you put forward, right, if this were simply a personal matter, he could have done something that was far more simplistic. And I think what the prosecution did here effectively was to set the table as to how this was all connected to the campaign, how David Packer effectively was brought on as kind of a campaign actor to help further Trump's chances of winning the presidency. Now, there is a world where perhaps the FEC might have taken a view that is not -- there's not the facts that we have here. I think when you're talking about Donald Trump's intent, when you're saying, why did he, if it's proven, direct these falsification of business records and was that for the purpose of concealing an election -- unlawful attempt to favor the election? I think the facts here are coming out the gate strong from the prosecution. I feel very good about this first witness. And the other word I want to put out there is corroboration. We've talked a lot about Michael Cohen being the star witness. I think what's so effective today is that we're not talking about Michael Cohen and his credibility issues. We're talking about Michael Cohen and corroboration. David Packer is going to be a great witness. It has been because Michael Cohen, even before he's on the stand, is becoming a stronger and stronger witness. And I think when you add in the documents, you add in more testimony, it's going to make the prosecution have a really strong outcome. COLLINS: And, Stacy, what did you hear when they made a point of having David Pecker, or related this back to the campaign, say, you know, we had been doing all of these positive stories, looking for good stories about Trump. This was the first time we ever paid for one, which is there are three stories that are involved in these allegations. It was about a doorman who was shopping a story that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. It wasn't true. And in that, do you have that moment? BERMAN: I have that. I can read you part of the doorman's stories. We have this, if you have this in the control room, he's talking about the story of the doorman. And Pecker says, if the story was true and I published it, it would probably be the biggest sale of the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley, okay? So, he's acknowledging it would have been a huge story have they published it. The prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, says did you have any intention of publishing it at the time you negotiated this deal? Pecker says at that time, no. Steinglass says, what was your intention in terms of publishing it depending on how your vetting went? And Pecker says if the story came back true, I would have published the story shortly after it was verified. Steinglass says, before or after the election? I would have published it after the election, Pecker says. Steinglass just dives in a little deeper, so even if the vetting came back and you believe the story to be true, you would have held the story until after the presidential election of 2016? Pecker says, that was the conversation I had with Michael Cohen and that's what we agreed to. SCHNEIDER: So, here's what's going on underneath. This is not going to be a case about eventually disclosing an illegal campaign contribution. This is a local New York case and there is a New York statute that says that it is illegal for two or more people to either promote or prevent a candidate from taking office who's running for public office. So, we'll get the word promotion here. So, allegedly in this case, burying the Stormy Daniels story and all the other stories as well, but particularly this one, that's going to fall under the New York state statute. We're not getting into issues of campaign finance fraud. We're getting into local law violation. And this case, really the funny part about it, if you could call it funny, is it's really similar to taking your family out for a very expensive dinner and running the expense through your business. Trump allegedly had a personal matter, allegedly, he's denying it, and he ran the expense allegedly of paying Stormy Daniels off through his business records, called it a retainer to Michael Cohen. And Michael Cohen is going to come in and be the linchpin here and say there was no retainer agreement. This is what we think. The D.A. has foreshadowed this. There's no retainer agreement and I wasn't doing what they said I was doing, what the Trump Organization and Trump said I was doing. I think that's how the case will eventually fall out. RAY: But if the jury finds that it was done and they believe that it was for personal reasons, remember, Todd Blanche, in opening statement, tried to, quote/unquote, humanize the client. Everybody kind of dismissed that as, oh, it's kind of quaint that they're trying to establish that Donald Trump is both a father and a husband. [22:20:02] That wasn't done for just some idle purpose. That is done for the purpose of summation later on after evidence is all in, to say, hey, listen, if the jury finds that there's reasonable doubt and believes that Donald Trump's motivations were not principally to advance his interest in a campaign, but to conceal an affair from his wife and his child, and the jury buys that, or at least one juror buys that, or at least one juror finds that there's reasonable doubt as to whether or not it's for an illegal purpose as opposed to a personal purpose. That's why Todd Blanche did what he did in opening. That's a set up for what's to come later. STELTER: It might help if his wife came to court, though. SCHNEIDER: It would help. It would help. COLLINS: Or any family members. None of his family members -- SCHNEIDER: Yes. But this is all about Donald Trump's intent. So you have a point. You have a point. PHILLIP: And we will get to -- look, there's so much to get to. You've raised a lot of questions actually with that last comment. Everyone stand by for us. Up next, breaking news from the court tonight, the judge denying Donald Trump's demand to subpoena Stormy Daniels for information. We'll have more on that. Plus, how the Secret Service is preparing for the possibility the possibility that Trump may be thrown behind bars for contempt of court. This is CNN's special live coverage. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [22:25:40] COLLINS: Breaking news tonight, as a judge has just denied Donald Trump and his legal team's request to try to get information via subpoena from Stormy Daniels, including whether she's had contact with any of the other witnesses in this case. Before we discuss, just a reminder, here's what Stormy Daniels told Anderson Cooper when they sat down. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Was it hush money to stay silent? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. The story was coming out again. I was concerned for my family and their safety. COOPER: I think some people watching this are going to doubt that you entered into this negotiation because you fear for your safety they're going to think that you saw an opportunity. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the fact that I didn't even negotiate, I just quickly said, yes, to this very strict contract and what most people will agree with me, extremely low number, is all the proof I need. COOPER: You feel like if you had wanted to go public, you could have gotten paid a lot of money to go public in an interview? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know for a fact I believe without a shadow of a doubt in my heart, and some people argue that I don't have one of those, but whatever, that I was doing the right thing. I turned down a large payday multiple times because, one, I didn't want to kiss and tell and being labeled all the things that I'm being labeled now. (END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: And the panel is back with us along with Olivia Nuzzi, Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, who has been inside the courtroom watching all of this play out. And I want to get to what it's like inside the courtroom in a moment. But, Tem, just your first reaction to this judge denying the request by the Trump team, they wanted to be able to subpoena Stormy Daniels for her communications. And, basically, the judge said their request was too broad. AGANGA-WILLIAMS: It's not surprising. I mean, I think that one thing about this trial that we have to remind ourselves that it is a normal criminal trial, and at times, the Trump-esque of it makes it feel like this grand process from beside the courtroom. But beside the courtroom, I think if this were not Donald Trump, that's a request that would also be denied. I think here, when you add in the additional factors of the witness intimidation and everything else you've seen for Trump, I think that hurts them in these kind of applications. PHILLIP: Do you think that this was even -- I mean, it seems kind of like a bit of a Hail Mary to me, but as a lawyer, I mean, was it a standard motion for them to file? SCHNEIDER: It's also a little bit late. We started trial already. The time for a trial is motion -- you make your motions. They're called pre-trial motions. If the defense had discovered something different, a change in circumstances from before when the trial started, they'd have every right and they'd probably win this motion to get this. But I think Trump's lawyers are going to reach for every opportunity they can and test the limits and that's the best way for them to mount this defense. COLLINS: Robert, I mean, when you look at how Trump's legal team is handling this, Todd Blanche, from what happened today, we don't have to revisit the entire gag order hearing, but I wonder how would -- would you be doing this differently? What would you be doing if you were that defense counsel sitting next to Trump? RAY: The defense is entitled to prior statements of anyone who's expected to be a witness, but they have to be statements that are in the possession, custody, or control of the prosecution. So, that's sort of your frame of reference in terms of having evidence prior statements used to impeach the testimony of a witness if that witness testifies a trial. It's a little more complicated when it's like Stormy Daniels, and she's made statements, not to the government, but to other people in the media and otherwise, I think they were trying to get access to the universe of those statements. I don't know why the judge thought it was overbroad or how it could maybe have been narrowed or tailored to get the defense what it's after, but, I mean, I think you can still explore that even during trial up until the time that the witness testifies, indeed, all the way through the witness' direct examination before cross-examination starts. So, I imagine this will be revisited. I don't think it's the last of this. My guess is they probably took the takeaway message, okay, it's overbroad, why was it overbroad? Is there some way we can narrow it to get subject matter, material information that would go to the witness' prior statements about things that she'll testify to at trial? So, I don't think that's the last word, I guess is what I'm saying. [22:30:02] PHILLIP: And, Olivia, I mean, look, at the end of the day, I don't even know, when was the last time Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels were in the same room? That's going to be a bombshell moment in this case. Trump's entire demeanor around this woman, who is the center of not only this controversy, but an embarrassing episode in his personal life and in his public life. OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I noticed when prosecutors mentioned Stormy Daniels' name, when they mentioned Karen McDougal, and when they mentioned Michael Cohen, Trump seemed to sort of shift uncomfortably in his seat in the courtroom the other day. He was not looking over at prosecutors. It was not totally clear what he was looking at, but he was sort of shifting, playing with papers, scribbling notes to his attorney. I can't imagine how much more uncomfortable he's going to appear when he is actually in the same room with them. But I will say, if the defense is looking for communications between Stormy Daniels and other witnesses, she's become friends with Michael Cohen, by both of their accounts. They've taped, I think, two podcast episodes together, at least. There's a lot of public-- I'm sure that Donald Trump is not listening actively to Michael Cohen's podcast or to Stormy Daniels' podcast, but there is some public information about that. RAY: It's a very hush-hush moment. COLLINS: But it does speak to the moment of Trump sitting in the room with these -- I mean, David Pecker is one to start, but we believe Stormy Daniels is expected to take the stand. Michael Cohen, obviously, but Karen McDougal as well. Hope Hicks. Maybe Kellyanne Conway, it's not totally clear. I mean, it's a pretty remarkable witness list that we could be watching play out here. STELTER: And he's rattled already. How do we know he's rattled? Because of the lies he's telling. Four years ago today, this was the bleach day, if you remember that, right? Trump had no control over COVID, over the pandemic, and he talked about bleach. That was four years ago today. What's the lie he told today? He said that thousands of people are being kept out of the courthouse and out of the neighborhood because it's become an armed... COLLINS: Well, you weren't at the courthouse today. What did you say? STELTER: I was there. I took an Uber like a normal person, got out, walked around, came over, visited all of you. It's a normal day with a beautiful park in lower Manhattan. And yeah, there's some police officers and they're pretty bored because nothing's going on outside. If you live in the city, come on down tomorrow, see it for yourself. He's doing that thing where he lies about what you can see with your own eyes. And he only does that when he's really rattled. So if he's rattled already, sitting in this freezing cold courtroom and then going home at night, listening to his friends on television, tell him it's like Guantanamo Bay, how much more rattled will he be, to your point, when these others are up on the stand? PHILLIP: It is so interesting that when the Access Hollywood tape was being read out loud in court yesterday, Trump also reacted. He started passing notes to his attorneys. These are things that actually happened, things that he said, things that he did. But when it is out in the public sphere, I find that interesting. Kaitlan, you know him well. Olivia, you know him well. It is interesting to me that he is still, it's almost like embarrassed by it or he doesn't want to own up to it publicly. What's behind that? NUZZI: I think that he thinks that he can define his own reality. And he has succeeded doing that for a long, long time. For as long as he has been in public life, he has attempted to set the terms of the world around him and how people perceive him. And that's what's so interesting about seeing him in this courtroom, just completely with no power, not able to dictate when he even stands up or sits down. He is probably for the first time completely out of control. And it's pretty remarkable to see. STELTER: There is a note of sympathy there. None of us are our worst. Speak for yourself. None of us are our worst moments. None of us are, and so listen, you know, I'm happily married. I don't know what it would be like to go and try to sleep with a porn star, as alleged. But if you go and do that, if you have your worst moment, your worst moment in your life, am I going down the wrong road, Olivia? None of us are our worst moments. And yet Trump is sitting there having to relive what are alleged to be some of his worst moments of his life. There is a moment of sympathy there. NUZZI: It's strange to hear from his attorneys, though. He has not accepted that these things happen that we all know about and that are being alleged, and yet they are claiming that they're not illegal. So it's just strange. It's sort of an OJ defense. You know, it's very strange. COLLINS: And the difference here is 12 jurors are there watching as he processes this and watches these witnesses come up. We have much more to discuss about what this is going to look like in the courtroom coming up. We're also going to hear from a former judge who is going to join us to talk about what it looks like when that judge today and how he was reacting toward Trump's defense, saying that he was losing credibility with the court and what his options are for these gag order violations if he finds that he did violate it, plus how the Secret Service is preparing for the very long shot possibility that Trump may be thrown behind bars for contempt of court. This is CNN's special live coverage. Back in a moment. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [22:39:12] PHILLIP: We're currently waiting for Judge Merchant to decide whether or not Donald Trump actually violated his gag orders in multiple posts online. And CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson is joining us with more on that and what the judge's actual options are. Joey. JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So this is what Trump cannot do pursuant to the gag order. What is that? Let's talk about it. Speak publicly about witnesses. Why witness intimidation and, of course, their public safety. Speaking publicly about prosecutors and staff members cannot do that. Bragg's office. Bragg is fair game. He's the district attorney. However, his court staff and family members, they are off limits as well. And let's not forget speaking publicly about jurors. These are all the things the gag order forbids. Now, with respect to what Trump has done, let us take a look at all of his posts on Truth Social. [22:40:06] Those posts relating to a variety of alleged violations of the gag order, which prosecutions wants to hold him accountable for. Right? The prosecutor said that's a no-no. They were at a hearing before the judge. The judge has to make a decision as to whether these constitute a violation. And so what is the law with respect to that, right? This is the law. Don't want you looking at that. Let's break it down further as to what this means in English. And that is as follows. These are the options. Option number one, an admonishment. What does that mean? Mr. Trump, don't do that. You put people in jeopardy. You can cause safety and other issues. It's problematic. Stop. That's what the judge can do. Will that be enough? Potentially not. He could fine Trump up to $1,000 per post that is in violation. Last thing, he could put Trump in prison for up to 30 days. Many people not believing that that's a viable option. However, he can certainly put him in for a couple of hours. Would that work? We'll see. PHILLIP: We certainly will, Joey. Thank you. And stand by for us for more on this. I want to bring in Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell. Judge, at one point during the hearing today, Judge Merchant told Trump's legal team they were losing credibility with the court. If you're a judge and those words have to come out of your mouth, what does that mean for you? LADORIS HAZZARD CORDELL, FORMER JUDGE CALIFORNIA SUPERIOR COURT: That means that things aren't going well for the attorneys, for Trump's attorneys, and the judge is trying to listen objectively to decide whether or not criminal contempt has been committed. So when the other side, Trump's lawyers, propose ridiculous defenses or responses, such as, well, reposting isn't really posting, so maybe there's no violation of the gag order. That's absurd. And it's a waste of the judge's time. So the judge was clearly agitated, irritated, and the good thing the judge did was like, hold up, I'm not going to make a decision right now when I'm in this mood, in this frame of mind. And that's why I think the judge will likely issue an order, if not later, maybe it's too late on the East Coast or by tomorrow, so that Trump can know what behavior is acceptable and what is not. I mean, it's clear, I think, after the evidentiary hearing today, that Donald Trump crossed over into criminal contempt land at least ten times. So the issue is, you know, what is the judge going to do? And the whole purpose of criminal contempt is to, first of all, preserve the integrity of the court proceeding, to make sure people follow the judge's orders, but for the person who has violated an order, the purpose is to punish the person and also to deter them from doing it again. A fine's not going to deter him. So what's left? Incarceration. PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, is that what you would do? I mean, would you go there? You heard Jody suggest it could be not days, maybe a couple hours. What would you do? HAZZARD CORDELL: Sure, I understand that. So if there are 10 criminal contempt violations, and it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's required in this instance, so what would you do with a person who is not Donald Trump's high profile? That person would serve some time in jail for blatantly violating the court's order, not once, not twice, but ten times. So it should not be any different for this person. And Donald Trump has really just pushed the envelope consistently all through this process. So it's not an issue as far as I'm concerned. I mean, this isn't rocket science, right? You violate a court order ten times, then you go to jail. The only issue, I think, is when he goes to jail. If he goes now, that delays the trial. That's what he wants. You don't want to do that. So the judge can basically hold off and say, I'm going to give you, could be a day for each, could be an hour for each, 10 hours in a cell, and hold off and say you're going to start that sentence at the end of the trial because the trial and the contempt proceeding are two separate things. PHILLIP: We have Robert Ray here on the panel. Robert, do you have any questions for the judge? RAY: I guess my question, Judge, is whether in terms of incremental ratcheting up of penalties, if an admonition won't work, why wouldn't it be the case that a judge would look next to, okay, I have my doubts about whether or not fines will do the trick, but maybe I'm going to be cautious here and do that first and actually find out whether or not that's sufficient and lay that record down before I go down, travel down the road of incarceration, whether a matter of hours or days or months. [22:45:00] HAZZARD CORDELL: The New York law gives the judge the option of the fine, jail time, or combination thereof. And by the way, it's 30 days for each violation, a maximum that the judge can impose, but this could be a total of 300 days in jail if the judge were to impose a maximum. So I think we're all making too much of this. If anyone violates a court order and does it blatantly and has been warned, has been fined in other instances, there's only one thing left to do. This person is thumbing his nose at the judge and at the court process. So the issue becomes, and this is entirely up to the judge to say, okay, you're going to go sit in and cool your heels. He could decide for a few hours and bring Donald Trump back out because, let me tell you, I've seen the jails, and I think the jails here where I live are similar to the jails in other parts of the country. They're not particularly clean, very noisy, and if you go in for a few hours, he won't have to perhaps change his clothes, but if he has to go in for a few days, he's got to wear a jail garb. So there's a lot that thousands of people have experienced who are sitting in jails now, and I just don't think we should make it such a big deal because this happens to be Donald Trump. He's violated the law, criminal contempt, then he serves his time like anybody else. It's entirely up to the judge, and the judge may want to do an increment, but we all know a fine, a warning, they're not going to deter him. He's pushing the envelope all the time. PHILLIP: Yeah, and I think most people agree. Any other defendant, this wouldn't, to your point, really be a question, but with Donald Trump, here we are talking about it. Judge Hazzard Cordell, thank you very much for joining us. And up next for us, the role that former Playboy model Karen McDougal will play when she takes the stand. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [22:51:25] PHILLIP: Tomorrow, the former "National Enquirer" executive David Pecker will continue to testify about the catch-and-kill process. He's going to detail how he handled that process when it came to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. So, which witnesses are expected to testify, and which ones will be the most impactful? So, starting with Karen McDougal, because I think this is actually fundamentally different, we were just talking about, from Stormy Daniels. This was longer term. This was something that Trump, I mean, he still denies, actually, the Karen McDougal relationship. What are you expecting from her? NUZZI: This one's more complicated. She has not been antagonistic about Donald Trump. She still speaks with him with some affection. She described in her interview with Anderson Cooper, she described that they were in love. It was an actual relationship, and that she ended it because she felt very bad about it being an affair. She's a religious woman. And I think it's going to be very different for him to see her in that courtroom versus Stormy Daniels, where that was a more surface-level affair. It was transactional. They were talking about a role on "Celebrity Apprentice" for Stormy Daniels. It was not an emotional affair where he talked about having a child with Karen McDougal in her account. I think it's a much more emotional thing than the Stormy Daniels one. PHILLIP: That's really fascinating. I mean, for the lawyers in the room, from an evidentiary perspective, what's the thing that you need the most for this case to be rock solid? AGANGA-WILLIAMS: From the prosecution perspective? Yeah. I mean, I think it's fitting to that pattern that we've been talking about, right? That's what the prosecutors want to set forth, that the catch- and-kill was part of this scheme. We use the word conspiracy. I think that's where she really fits in, is that before we get to Stormy Daniels, we're going to have these other data points that show this is part of a broader agreement, and that's where this fills in. I think if I'm the defense looking at her, and what I just heard, it might impact how she's cross-examined. I mean, if she goes up there, and she's not a hostile witness, and she comes up in a more favorable way, it might impact how you go after her, meaning you don't hit her the way you might do with Stormy Daniels, who you might be aggressive and call a liar. With her, you might try to fit her into that framework of Donald Trump, the softer figure, that he's the man with the family, a man who's real and has emotions, and she may be able to fit into that defense narrative about Donald Trump as a more sympathetic character, but I think that's going to be hard to do. NUZZI: It seems very complicated. You're trying to humanize Donald Trump, someone who is larger than life, as the defense noted in their opening remarks, but if your attempt to humanize him is by bringing in an alleged mistress of him, that could really backfire. PHILLIP: I mean, she is a prosecution witness. She's a defense witness. NUZZI: That could backfire. SCHNEIDER: I mean, look, I think the attempt to humanize him is a tiny part of the case. I think what they'll try to do with Karen McDougal is be consistent with the defense's opening statement, which said -- Todd Blanche said, Trump didn't do anything wrong, he was just protecting his family. And if you look at Donald Trump, before he was elected president, he was an international celebrity, and the cost of doing business is getting rid of people who are nuisances in your life, and it doesn't cost very much money for Donald Trump to pay these people off. They would say this is something he would do anyway, it has nothing to do with the election. PHILLIP: So, Brian, one way or another, though, this is like, I mean, look, I was there for so much of this. A lot of this, rereading it, remembering it, this is going to be a process of that for voters all across the country, whether you like to or not. This case is going to be front-page news probably every single day for the next six weeks. [22:55:05] STELTER: So beyond the jury, so beyond the jury, beyond the legal arguments, I was just thinking today about what this is like to be dredging up bad memories for the country. And some people could say, these are great memories, Trump was elected in 2016, yes, 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 Becker, all of this is being dredged back up. And a lot of casual news consumers will barely hear it, but it will seep through, it will seep through for the next days and weeks. I personally love 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, right? He screams all day on social media. We forget that we used to live in a political environment where people were kind of nice to each other in the political arena. There was some 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 become. PHILLIP: There are parallel things going on. There's a legal case, but there's also a character case about Donald Trump that is happening at the same time. Thank you all for being here. And thank you for watching "Newsnight's" coverage of the Trump trial. "Laura Coates Live" starts right after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)