The Lead with Jake Tapper Aired May 28, 2024 - 17:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [17:00:54] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news. JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We begin this hour in Manhattan as jurors have begun listening -- have been listening, rather, to closing arguments in Donald Trump's hush money cover up trial. Right now, they're taking a 20 minutes break. The prosecution still not finished with their presentation. Earlier, the defense laid out almost three hour closing argument, slamming the key witness, Michael Cohen, as the, quote, "MVP of liars." Jurors have agreed to stay late today to get these closing arguments done. CNN's Paula Reid is outside the Manhattan courthouse for us. Paula, walk us through what's been happening in court. The prosecution apparently, you know, almost halfway done in their long closing argument. PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jake. The judge just revealed that we could have at least three more hours to go, that the story might be here until seven or 08:00 tonight. But for the past two hours, prosecutors have been focused on this alleged conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 election. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. But this case has been charged as a felony because prosecutors alleged this was all part of a conspiracy to help Trump win the White House in 2016. Now this is part of how they elevate this. The prosecutors hate it when people refer to this as a, quote, "hush money case," instead telling the jurors that this was about election fraud and an effort to subvert democracy. And so far, Jake, they've been pretty linear. They've gone through this chronologically over the past two hours, going step by step, starting with that 2015 meeting with David Pecker about how the National Enquirer was going to help Trump, suppress negative stories, amplify ones that could help him. David Pecker promised to be Trump's eyes and ears. They start there and then Joshua Steinglass has gone day by day through 2015 and 2016, hitting all the relevant evidence and reintroducing it to the jury. It's quite a bit for them to take it all in, even joke with them at one point, quote, "I hope you're getting all of this." Now, as I said, they still have several more hours to go. But our colleagues inside the court, they report that the jury continues to be very attentive to this. And that's really a credit to this jury. Anytime I've been inside, I've observed the same thing. They are clearly taking this historic task that they have at hand very seriously, and their attention span has not waned, even though they have sat there almost an entire day of rehashing this case. I also want to note someone else who's in the courtroom today, that is the district attorney Alvin Bragg. He has only made a few brief appearances throughout this trial, but his presence today really underscores how significant these closings are for this critical case. Of course, it's significant for the defendant, but also for the man who brought this case. TAPPER: All right, Paula Reid, thank you so much. Let's bring in former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin. Alyssa, when I talked to you, I don't remember if it was a week ago or two weeks ago, but it was at a point that you said that if you were on the jury based on the information you had, you didn't think that the prosecution had proven its case. Do you feel any differently now? ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the prosecution has done an incredible job so far today, kind of consolidating both the campaign finance side of things, you know, the influence on the election, but also the falsifying of documents. I could definitely see how a jury will get there and convict. But the most interesting moment to me today was when the defense alluded to sentencing, when they brought up putting him in jail, which, of course, they were reprimanded for. That's what I think is going to stick in jury's minds. You know, they're not robots. They're people. They're humans. They know what happens even if the rules are that they don't, you know, broach into sentencing. And I think it'll be interesting to see if that impacts their decision. Like what a weighty decision to potentially be the jury -- the first jury to put a former president behind bars. TAPPER: In general, how do you think Trump feels about today and Todd Blanche's closing arguments, his defense attorney? GRIFFIN: Listen, Todd Blanche is probably the best attorney he's had in all of these plethora of cases we've seen. But Donald Trump does seem like he's pretty rattled over just not knowing what direction this might come down. We've seen him, you know, at the end of last week, giving lengthy remarks outside the courtroom. He's flanked by his members of his family, the most you've seen to date. I think he's worried, you know, a conviction that has major political implications and of course, the legal ones. [17:05:12] But even an acquittal, I think he's -- I think we need to get ready and buckle up to hear weeks and weeks of him saying it was a witch hunt, it was the Biden, you know, government that was pushing this. And whether he's exonerated or not, he's probably going to lean into grievance regardless of what the outcome of this is. TAPPER: And yes, he was posting on Truth Social last night, first of all, saying that, you know, why is the government allowed to make the final argument. And I guess despite, you know, all the episodes of "Law and Order," we've collectively watched, that is actually -- the prosecution is normally the one that ends the closing arguments. That was news to me, but that's how it works. And also going after the judge and Joe Biden, George Soros, his name was mentioned, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, he tends not to do that if he's feeling good. I think people like you have said before. GRIFFIN: Well, right, Jake, his Memorial Day statement, if you could call it that on Truth Social, was hardly that of somebody, you know, kicking back, having a beer, enjoying the holiday with family. That was a man who's rattled, who's angry, who, you know, hours deep into the night, going after who he sees as his adversaries. I think he's concerned about this. I think that just the lack of control over the situation, the lack of control out over the outcome is something he's never been good with. He's somebody who has just general control issues and wants to be able to have a say in how things are going to turn out. So, his campaign is already thinking about how they're going to message either outcome here. But a conviction or -- well, a conviction is going to be something that I think is incredibly challenging with swing voters. He needs to be ready for that. TAPPER: And I've spent the day surrounded by attorneys with 100 IQ points on me, each one of them. So my perspective of this case is very affected by how these lawyers, these brilliant minds to my left and right, are seeing this. As somebody who is a communications expert, who knows how to reach regular folk, how do you think this case is being received by people who, let's say, might be swing voters? GRIFFIN: I think that we'd be surprised how much of the public is tuning in day to day but I do think that they're paying attention to the recaps and the major stories that come out of each day. You know, just anecdotally, I was away at this Memorial Day weekend and people were talking about it. They know that there's likely going to be, you know, a decision soon, hopefully this week. And I think that a conviction, because it will have that asterisk of felon next to him, does matter with swing voters, even though this isn't the case voters care the most about, that would be January 6 or the depart -- the documents case in Florida. It's still, there's something to a lot of voters that's so unsettling about the idea of someone being president who's also a convicted felon. TAPPER: Well, but you and I have spoken about this also. The idea that of all the cases that have been brought against Donald Trump, this is the one we're definitely going to get a verdict in, whereas we're probably not going to get one in the classified documents case or the Georgia, I don't know what's going on with the Georgia case in terms of alleged election interference, plus the Jack Smith January 6 case. It seems right now on today's facts that we're not going to get a case -- and none of those are going to go to trial, at least before the election. GRIFFIN: Well, and that's remarkable. I mean, I think the dynamics of this race would be fundamentally different if January 6, for example, were being tried this summer and we are having to relitigate Donald Trump trying to steal an election, trying to overturn the democratic process. But that's not the reality we live in. This is likely the only case we're going to see before voters go to the booth and see a conclusion on. I think it has an impact. It's nowhere near, if were talking about those actions in that dark day, how that would change the turnout of this election. TAPPER: Are you surprised by what you've heard from your former colleagues in the White House? Hope Hicks testified, others testified, people that you knew well. There was a back and forth, I guess, Hope Hicks and this other woman whose name is escaping me right now, I apologize, Marga (ph) or whatever, she -- that they disagreed on how much Donald Trump was rattled by the access Hollywood tape. And with Hope saying that it was a crisis and the other woman saying that he was fine and nobody thought it. They thought it was bad, but just like another one of many bad days. GRIFFIN: Yes. And that was between Madeleine Westerhout and Hope Hicks. TAPPER: That's it. Thank you. GRIFFIN: Yes. Hope Hicks would have known better candidly, she was the one intimately advising him on public relations and communications around that time of the campaign. And that's when there was a very skeletal staff like the core people around Trump were only a handful and she was one of the most important who he listened to. So she'd have far better insight, I think, into how he felt than Madeleine, who was somebody who I think is a credible person but she just wasn't as intimately involved in that process and in that time of that campaign. She was really a little bit later in the White House. [17:10:02] TAPPER: All right, Alyssa Farrah Griffin, always good to see you. Thanks so much. GRIFFIN: Thanks, Jake. TAPPER: Prosecution is about to resume its closing argument. We're following every development minute by minute. We're going to bring everyone to you live. Plus, while Trump was sitting in a New York courtroom, he scored a win in one of his other criminal cases. We'll have the new details on that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: Look, moments ago from inside the Manhattan courthouse. Donald Trump after taking a brief break, walking back into court while we wait for closing arguments to resume in the hush money cover up trial. Trump's legal team scored a big win in a different case, this is the classified documents case down in Florida, where Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, rejected special counsel Jack Smith's request for a gag order against Donald Trump in the case. Prosecutors had asked for the gag order after Trump repeatedly and quite misleadingly criticized the FBI for having a policy in place around the use of deadly force during the raid at Mar-a-Lago, Trump claims his life could have been in danger because of the policy. [17:15:14] We should note the policy is standard protocol for FBI searches. The same policy was used in the searches of President Biden's homes and offices. CNN's Evan Perez joins us now. Evan, also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Donald Trump was purposefully not there when they did the, quote unquote, "raid of Mar-a-Lago, right? So, why is Judge Cannon saying she denied the request? I know prosecutors and people at the Justice Department are pretty upset. They think that Trump and his allies are making a false claim that he was going to be assassinated and they worry about the violence that might come as a result. EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right, exactly, Jake. I mean, the problem the prosecutors are really highlighting is the idea that because of the rhetoric from the former president and some of the even wilder rhetoric from some of his Republican allies, that there could be danger for some of the law enforcement people, some of whom are going to be witnesses in this case if this case ever goes to trial. And that's obviously a big if. But in this case, Judge Aileen Cannon made a very quick ruling, which has not been the case for her. She tends to weigh things a lot longer. But in this case, the federal government, the prosecutors for Jack Smith, the special counsel, had asked for this gag order on the former president on Friday night. Late Friday night, they made this filing. And just today, the judge has quickly rejected that. And what she cited was not following the rules. Essentially, the prosecutors didn't follow the rules of how you approach a filing like this in the southern district of Florida. And she called this a wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy type of filing. She said that there wasn't enough consultation done with the Trump team ahead of making this filing. And so we don't know whether prosecutors will take another crack at this. But one of the interesting parts of this, Jake, is that prosecutors were asking for the probation office for this to essentially be something that would hinge on the former president's release as part of this case. So potentially, this would have made this -- the probationary office would have been the one making the call on whether Donald Trump is violating the gag order. And of course, Aileen Cannon, Judge Cannon here summarily rejected this, saying that this is not the way it's done in the southern district of Florida. We, of course, the prosecutors could always come back and ask for a hearing. And we'll see whether they take that step, Jake. TAPPER: When is the next court hearing in this case? PEREZ: We have a number of hearings set in the next couple of weeks in -- later in June. There's, as she has pointed out, there are about eight different proceedings that have been pending before her for weeks and weeks and months. Some of them are to dismiss the charges for various technical reasons. And so, we expect that we're going to be back down in South Florida in the next few weeks, Jake. TAPPER: All right, Evan Perez, thanks so much. Appreciate it. At any moment, the prosecution is set to resume its closing argument in the Trump hush money cover up trial. Our legal experts have said the case is either won or lost in closing arguments. So how do they think Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, is doing? That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [17:22:49] TAPPER: And we're back with our coverage of the closing arguments in Donald Trump's hush money trial. Court has just resumed after a short break. But during that short break, the defendant, former President Donald Trump, took the opportunity to hop onto his social media website, Truth Social, with his take on the prosecution's presentation. And it says, in all caps, "BORING." That's at 05:11 p.m. And then at 5:11, also all caps, "FILIBUSTER." Let's bring in our panel. The truth of the matter is, I don't know that all of you disagree with that. This is a long -- these are long closing arguments, both the defense and the prosecution. Does it affect a jury's take on a case in any way? A long or short summation? BRANDI HARDEN, CRIMINCAL DEFENSE LAWYER: I think a long summation does just what you think. It just bores people. I mean, at the end of the day, everybody in a trial is just a human, right? Nobody wants to hear anybody talk for that long. Quite honestly, that's why they don't make movies four and five hours, because it's all just too long. So I do agree that, you know, you can say too much. And I think filibuster is probably right. I don't think in a situation like this where you have the president on trial, you may not see it on jurors faces, and it may be very different when it's the president, you may not get bored in the same way that you would normally be bored, because this is the decision of a lifetime. But again, four hours is too long. TAPPER: What do you think? TOM DUPREE, FORMER PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASST. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I totally agree, four hours is too long. And look, the jury's attentive now, I'll be interested if they are equally attentive at 08:00 after they've been subjected to five hours of all of this. I think the prosecutors really need to kind of just sit, figure out what the key themes are and present their case. One thing I thought they did do very effectively this afternoon is really start to build the larger framing device and explain to the jury, number one, what the actual election fraud consisted of, because I don't think that's something that was readily apparent -- TAPPER: Right. DUPREE: -- just in the course of the test one. TAPPER: Agreed. DUPREE: It was also important because what it did, I think, was communicate to the jurors why this is important, why they should care about this. Because I think a lot of jurors might be hearing this and saying, are we really sitting in judgment on a former president potentially sending him to jail for what could be a bookkeeping error? And I think the prosecutors did a good job in explaining to the jury why this was more than a bookkeeping error, why this potentially affected the outcome of the 2016 election, and why the jury should really care about this, and why a conviction was important. That's something that didn't come out during the testimony, and we started to hear about that today. [17:25:14] TAPPER: So in his closing arguments, Karen, Trump's defense attorney, Todd Blanche, brought up Stormy Daniels multiple times. Again, this is the defense attorney, "This case is about documents. It's a paper case. This case is not about an encounter with Stormy Daniels 18 years ago. An encounter that President Trump has unequivocally and repeatedly denied occurred." And later, Todd Blanche said, "Ms. Daniels has denied that there was ever any sex with President Trump in 2018 and earlier, but the government wants you to believe those statements were coerced." Now, so Blanche is saying it himself, that the case is not about the sexual encounter, alleged sexual encounter, but it is believable that the sexual encounter happened, whether or not one believes it is a subjective manner, but it is not out of the realm of possibility for a multimillionaire to have an encounter with a woman in that industry at a golf retreat, I guess theoretically. Does the defense risk credibility by saying Donald Trump says this never happened? KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think there's two things. Number one, why did they spend so much time on something that doesn't matter to the trial? I don't understand why they cross examined Stormy Daniels for as long as they did, why they went into the salacious details. And I'm talking about the defense. It doesn't matter if they actually had a sexual experience together or not. It's irrelevant. The point is it was that they paid her -- they paid her off so that she wouldn't say that they did, right? So, I'll never quite understand that tactic. And then to bring it up and spend all this time on summation this morning, I don't understand that either. I'd love to hear from the people who have more experience as defense attorneys than I do. TAPPER: Well, let's do you and then you. TIM PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Yes. GENE ROSSI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTTION: I think the defense blew it. Number one, when they said an opening that it didn't happen. Number two, when they had all those cross examination questions of Stormy Daniels. If I had been a defense attorney, I'm a morning mortar quarterback. I don't throw interceptions. After her direct testimony, I would have stood up, said, Your Honor, we have no questions. And what I would have done in closing is say you have been brought into this courtroom for slime salaciousness. Remember when I said no cross examination? The reason I said that members of the jury, is Stormy Daniels is irrelevant. What happened is irrelevant. We don't know what happened. But they had a moment where they could have said that in closing, but they over promised an opening by saying it didn't happen. TAPPER: That's interesting, Tim, because -- PARLATORE: Yes. ROSSI: Right? TAPPER: -- they did say, the defense did say the only reason Stormy Daniels testified was to embarrass the defendant. PARLATORE: Yes, I agree. And I think that -- I agree with this, to go through a detailed cross examination of her makes no sense. The concept that, you know, whether it happened or not, yes, sure. For purposes, the client's, you know, state of mind say to the jury that he denies it, but then quickly followed up with saying, but it doesn't matter whether it happened or not. What we're here to talk about is, you know, that she was going to tell something that was embarrassing and she was demanding money to prevent that from happening. If you go to the New York statute on extortion, it actually says in the language of the statute whether true or not. So it doesn't matter whether this encounter happened or not. If she's demanding money to keep silent about it, that's an extortion. So there you have that little defense point that you can use without having to get into the details of whether it's true or not. By bringing it up the way that they did on opening statements, he opened the door and allowed them to get into far more detail on the direct examination of Stormy Daniels than they ever would have if he just said it doesn't matter. AGNIFILO: And potentially loses credibility with the jury -- PARLATORE: Yes. AGNIFILO: -- if the jury believes Stormy Daniels -- PARLATORE: Right. AGNIFILO: -- and thinks that the encounter did occur. HARDEN: And I think the best thing that any lawyer could have done would be to stand up and say, no cross. But it's one of the most difficult things to do. It's just hard. ROSSI: Absolutely. TAPPER: Especially when you have a client like Donald Trump. HARDEN: Right. That's right. That's right. Exactly right. TAPPER: And this is not meant as a criticism, but he wants his people to fight for him. Certainly he wants his attorney to fight for him. ROSSI: Well, I would figuratively bring him to the woodshed because I say, listen, I'm the general in this courtroom, no cross is your best option. But here's the thing -- TAPPER: And then you might hear you're fired. ROSSI: That's true. But there's nobody within 50,000 miles of this courtroom -- TAPPER: Yes. ROSSI: -- that doesn't believe that Donald Trump had something to do with Stormy and something to do with Karen McDougall. You're arguing a fact that the jury's going to believe it anyway. TAPPER: Right. Because it's not -- and it's -- and as everybody has said, whether or not there was an encounter in that room is not material because there's no crime being alleged in Nevada in what happened there. And in fact, even paying her is not necessarily a crime. HARDEN: That's right. TAPPER: Hush money is perfectly legal. HARDEN: The whole trial, they talked about it. They talked about how they pay. They pay for all kinds of stories, true or not true. So it's clearly not a thing that seems problematic when you're paying a witness. And I just think to go into the salacious details was a mistake. It's just -- it's really what we called in law school, a red herring. [17:30:17] TAPPER: Yes. HARDEN: You have somebody here, you think, oh, my gosh, this cross examination is going to really hit some points. And then you go into it and it just doesn't make a lot of sense. TAPPER: Just to bring everybody up to speed as to what's going on right now. Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, is moving on to payments and cover up. He has a PowerPoint presentation, always very popular with a group of jurors who are there against their will. Who doesn't like a good PowerPoint? Steinglass says after the election, Cohen went around complaining that he still hadn't been repaid for the $130,000 he fronted to Daniel. Stineglass showed the jury more testimony from David Packer, the tabloid king, who said in December 2016, Cohen complained him about it, quote, I understood he was complaining that it has not been repaid. A portion of the transcript said Steinglass is now showing jurors something, what is this, the bank statement from Cohen that he brought into Allen Weisselberg. Right on the bank statement, Weisselberg and Cohen calculated all the money that was owed to Cohen, Steinglass said. PARLATORE: I hate using PowerPoint on closing. I always get in fights with co-counsel because I refuse to use it. The best defense is a simple one. TAPPER: Yes. PARLATORE: You maintain your credibility by conceding the points that don't matter. And in that way you can focus the jury on the points that do. And if Todd Blanche had simply, you know, shortened it significantly and said, hey, all this stuff doesn't matter, catch and kill doesn't matter. All that matters is the annotations on the checks, the drop down menu of legal fees. And by the way, Mr. Steinglass is probably going to bore you to tears for hours trying to prove things that we're not really contesting. And he's doing that to distract you from the main point, which is this legal fee drop down menu. That's the way that you win these cases. You try to simplify it as much as possible and concede the points that don't matter. TAPPER: So the law firm of Parlatore, Agnifilo, Rossi, Dupree and Hardin, you're hired. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Donald Trump just used social media to announce how he feels about the prosecution's closing argument. He said, boring all caps. But how is Trump world feeling as the trial enters its final lap? A former Trump White House official joins us next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) …