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Court Wrapping For The Day; First Witness To Resume Testimony Tomorrow; Trump Speaks As Hush Money Trial Wraps For The Day; Trump Downplays Relationship With Cohen As Court Wraps For The Day. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 22, 2024 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:02]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And David Pecker likes the idea of being friends with somebody who is the president of the United States and being able to somehow benefit from that.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, mutually beneficial business relationship for many, many years. But then if you read profiles of David Pecker, it does appear that he really considered Trump a friend and admired him in many ways.

All right, so our colleagues reporting now, Trump is sitting alone at the defense table, watching the lawyers discuss scheduling with the judge and it just reminds us of something we've been talking about all day, the powerlessness, right? He has to sit through these proceedings often very dull, very procedural and there's really not much he can do.

Now, he previously said he wanted to be an active participant, go to sidebars, and whatnot. We haven't seen him do that so far.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: But for -- on the David Pecker aspect of what's in it for him, I mean, he was doing this for Trump, though, long before --

COOPER: Yes.

COLLINS: -- he ran for president. That meeting was notable in August of 2015 with Michael Cohen and Donald Trump because he was asking, how can I help your campaign? What can I do from my platform with the National Enquirer to help?

But when Donald Trump started "The Apprentice," they had this longstanding relationship where he was even still doing it then. Donald Trump had more of a national platform, a national name, as he -- as "The Apprentice" was a popular television show.

And the National Enquirer was helping then as well when women or people were coming forward with, with allegations about Donald Trump. So they have a very long history here. On what they're going to be talking about tomorrow and as they're figuring out the scheduling here on the gag order, this is significant as well because Donald Trump wants this gag order to be basically almost entirely lifted from him.

He keeps asking for it to be released. Obviously, the question for the judge and how he handles this is what he does with these alleged violations of it. What the prosecutors have said are multiple times that he has violated that gag order, they believe he should be fined. And whether or not, one, he is fined, and two, if it works as a deterrent, and three, what the judge does if he continues to violate it.

COOPER: There's not a lot of options. I mean, really, I mean, obviously the final option is imprisonment, but, I mean, that seems --

REID: Yes.

COOPER: -- highly unlikely.

REID: Extreme, certainly. Prosecutors right now seeking a fine. They want Trump to be warned that he could be sanctioned, or eventually, of course, there is always this option of incarceration.

Now, that does seem farfetched given the circumstances here. But there are at least seven violations that prosecutors have pointed to so far on this gag order. And this is going to be a challenge for the judge. How do you handle this? Do you hit someone with a monetary penalty that will barely register in their bank account?

Does that make a difference? Is there anything you can say or do to deter this man? It's really going to be fascinating to watch the judge grapple with this.

COOPER: In terms of other -- let's talk about the other big witnesses moving forward. I mean, David Peck will be back on the stand tomorrow. Who do you see as the other big witnesses?

REID: I mean, this case is all about Michael Cohen. Like, let's be serious. There are other witnesses, certainly Kellyanne Conway, Hope Hicks, they can provide important context for the way the campaign viewed the Access Hollywood tape, the crisis that it was, though they're reviewing these stories. But Michael Cohen is the name that we're just going to hear multiple times an hour.

COLLINS: Well, and right now the Trump team is trying to address other issues that they expect to come up with David Pecker's testimony. So they're trying to discuss right now with the jury -- with just the judge, what that is going to look like when David Pecker is back on the stand tomorrow.

And it's going to get into more of the questioning and the emails and the conversations that he had with Donald Trump. They're already trying to address that now before that jury -- that testimony continues.

COOPER: I want to bring in Adam Kaufmann, who used to work in the Manhattan District Attorney's office. Adam, thanks for being with us. So, you worked there for 18 years. Take us inside, if you can, the prosecution's thinking behind this morning's opening arguments. When you hear the -- when you hear, you know, the reports of the opening arguments, what are they trying to do?

ADAM KAUFMANN, FORMER EXECUTIVE ASST. D.A., MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: So thanks, Anderson. Basically, the prosecution is trying to put forward the whole case. They want to distill it down to make it as simple and straightforward as they can, break it down for the jury, and tell a story.

You have to tell a story that the jury wants to listen to, that they get excited about hearing as the details come out, and you want to try to put that all in context for the jury, so this isn't just about writing some false entries in ledger. It's really about the election. It's about a much broader conspiracy and you lay that all out for the jury to get them hooked and attentive.

COOPER: Well, to the end, I mean, in the opening arguments, the prosecution framed the cases as a criminal conspiracy and a cover up, and they said this was a plan coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election to help Donald Trump get elected. How challenging do you think it is for the prosecution to convince the jury that this case is about more than an embarrassing affair?

KAUFMANN: I think that's why they let off with Mr. Pecker. You know, having him come out and talk about that relationship and the catch and kill that really sets the table. So we're not even talking about the false business records at this point.

[12:35:03]

We're not talking about Cohen, we're not talking about the payments, we're talking about the background and the context in which this develops. And who better than Pecker to come out and set the table in that way and, you know, put this in context, this is going to bring us back to Karen McDougal, who will also come in.

That might have been one of the key rulings in this case. Judge Merchan's rulings that McDougal would come in, that the Access Hollywood, if not the tape, which he, of course, kept out because it was too prejudicial, but the content and substance of those messages, putting all of that in front of the jury at the beginning allows the prosecution to tell the whole story of the false business records in its proper context. So I think it's a great opening move by the prosecution.

COOPER: When you have a, you know, a witness like Michael Cohen, who, you know, has clearly lied publicly before, they've said, look, he made mistakes in the past. How does the prosecution try to, you know, protect their witness, bolster his testimony?

Obviously, they want to bring in what other evidence they have that might back up anything he says. But how do you deal with a witness, you know, who's with -- a prosecution witness who has such a checkered past?

KAUFMANN: You know, in the scheme of prosecution witnesses with checkered past, Michael Cohen is a veritable angel. You know, prosecutors put on drug dealers, murderers, thieves. It's the nature of the business and juries listen to them.

The prosecution has already signaled that this is coming. The jury knows it. The jury's heard of Michael Cohen. They know about this whole checkered past. It's almost, in this case in particular, given all of the notoriety and publicity, Michael Cohen's baked into the case.

No one's going to be surprised when he gets on the witness stand. And what the prosecution will want to do, exactly what you just said, they want to point to the corroboration. So they want to be able to say to the jury, you know, yes, Michael Cohen, he has lied in the past. He does -- he has done all of these bad things, but look at what he's saying, and then look at all of the other evidence.

Look at the paperwork, look at the checks, look at the documentation, look at the bank records, look at the phone records, look at all of the physical evidence and documentary evidence that simply can't lie, it is what it is. And that's really how you protect and bolster the testimony of a cooperating witness in any case.

COOPER: Donald Trump says that he wants to testify. You've actually said you think that might be a good idea for the defense. Can you explain why?

KAUFMANN: You know, it's such a crazy case. I mean, usually defense attorneys want to keep their clients off the stand. Donald Trump has said he wants to testify. You know, he's a compelling figure.

And remember, he doesn't have to win the case. He doesn't have to convince 12 people that he's not guilty. He doesn't have that burden that the prosecution has. He's looking for one person. He needs one person to believe in him to hang the jury. And he might be able to do that testifying himself.

So, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if he does testify in this case. And then, of course, there's the political aspect, which is missing from most cases, but he's running for president. And, you know, part of his calculus has to be how does this play on the campaign trail if I do testify and if I don't testify. So I think that's going to be one of the really fascinating aspects of the case to wait and see how it develops.

COOPER: That's really interesting. Adam Kaufmann, thank you so much. Good to talk to you.

Back here now with Paula and Kaitlan. I mean, I -- it's interesting what he said, so many lawyers you talk to will say, look, it would be crazy for Donald Trump to take the stand, but he makes a good point both what impact would it have on the campaign trail if he didn't take the stand, but also just the idea of, you don't have to convince all 12, you just got to convince one to believe in you.

REID: Just that one. And when talking to Trump's team about this, I mean, I said, really, you want to have him on the stand? Are you sure? Pretty much every -- almost clearly, expert in the land said this is not a good idea. But I was told that they believe that he has learned lessons from his participation, or lack thereof, in the civil trials that have happened over the past year or so.

And I took that to mean that he has learned that, you know, you don't want to antagonize the judge in front of the jury, you don't want to make a scene, but it actually seemed more like he's learned just how far he can go, and what would be truly effective here. So it does appear that they're confident in their client, and very well may put him on that stand.

[12:40:05]

COLLINS: But I think the issue is that, it's two things. One, Donald Trump is heavily influenced by what happened with the E. Jean Carroll case where he did not take the stand and didn't even show up for the first initial before that was the defamation damages determination.

And he is deeply influenced by that because he's upset that he didn't do it. Even though there was kind of agreement among his legal team that he shouldn't get on the stand, he believes that he was adversely affected in the outcome ultimately there where he was found liable for sexual assault.

And then, of course, defamation as we later saw the damages there. And so that is a driving factor for him here, too. He always thinks that he can woo people, that he can persuade people. But I think with Donald Trump, you know, he always says he wants to do it until he doesn't.

We saw it with Robert Mueller. We've seen it in many other instances. And getting up in front of an actual jury in a criminal trial is much different than doing it in a civil fraud trial, as he did for mere minutes, as you'll recall. And so I think it's really a game time decision. It's ultimately that. But for him, at least, in his mind, and what he's been telling people, is that he does want to take the stand here.

REID: I know we didn't talk too much about it, but earlier today, the judge really decided against his lawyers. In terms of most of the issues, they were trying to keep out of any potential cross examination. Instead, the judge ruled that, yes, you can ask him about the Trump the Trump fraud case, you can ask him about the E. Jean Carroll case, gag orders that he's violated.

He did rule that he can't be questioned about some litigation related to Hillary Clinton, some frivolous lawsuits that he filed. But otherwise, I mean, all of that is fair game for the prosecution and that could give them pause.

COOPER: Yes, it would certainly give them a lot to talk about.

Jake, back to you.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Thanks, Anderson. So let's recap while we wait for court to fully adjourn. The jury has been dismissed, but Mr. Trump, the defendant, is still in court, sitting at the table, talking with one of his lawyers as another is discussing records with Judge Merchan, what we had today.

The jury was seated for the first time. The defense and the prosecution were both given opportunities to present their opening statement. The prosecution went first, it lasted about 45 minutes. They presented what the case would look like and how this was a scheme that Donald Trump was involved in.

The defense came after that and talked about how nothing the prosecution said was accurate. There was going to be plenty of reasonable doubt Donald Trump was innocent of the charges. They even denied that Donald Trump had any sort of rendezvous with Stormy Daniels.

And then the prosecution presented their first witness, David Pecker who is the CEO of America Media tabloid enterprise. The judge is asking both sides if there's anything more they want to submit ahead of tomorrow's hearing on the gag order. The lawyers are asking to approach the bench.

So before we get to the summary of what we saw today, what is this hearing on the gag order, Elie?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So the gag order that's in place on Donald Trump says that he cannot make public comments about jurors, about witnesses, about court staff or prosecutorial staff, and about all family members.

What he is free to --

TAPPER: Not just Donald Trump, but his legal team too.

HONIG: His whole team, right.

TAPPER: Yes.

HONIG: What he is free to comment about negatively, aggressively, as he has done, is Judge Merchan, D.A. himself, Alvin Bragg, the case itself, even the gag order. He's allowed under the gag order to criticize the gag order.

Now, the D.A. has brought forward to the judge 10 different instances. First, a batch of three, including calling Michael Cohen on social media, a sleaze bag, and then another batch of seven more, where Donald Trump attacked various witnesses, and including one where he quoted a Fox News personality talking about jurors in a negative way.

And what the prosecution is asking the judge to do tomorrow is, first of all, find Donald Trump in contempt. And second of all, the penalties available to the judge, and they're not great from a prosecutorial point of view, is a max fine of $1,000, yes, $1,000 --

TAPPER: Here's Donald Trump coming our right now.

HONIG: -- per violation. Here we go. TAPPER: So you can keep talking, Elie.

HONIG: Yes. And there is the possibility of imprisonment. The D.A. mentions that, but they're not asking for it, and I think it's very unlikely.

TAPPER: All right, here's the defendant. Let's listen in.

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, you heard that yourself. This is a case that nobody wanted to bring, including Alvin Bragg. It was just at the last minute they decided to do it. It's a case that if you're looking back, it goes back many, many years. 2015, maybe before that.

And it's a case as to bookkeeping, which is a very minor thing in terms of the law, in terms of all the violent crime that's going on outside as we speak right outside, as we speak. But this is a case where you pay a lawyer, it's a lawyer, and they call it a legal expense.

That's the exact term they used, legal expense, in the books. And another thing that wasn't even said was we never even deducted it as a tax deduction. So that takes a whole vast, most people want to deduct everything. We never even took it as a tax evasion. But they call the payment to a lawyer a legal expense in the books.

[12:45:09]

They didn't call it construction. They didn't say you're building a building. It called a payment to a lawyer because, as you know, Cohen is a lawyer. Represented a lot of people over the years. Now I'm not the only one. And it wasn't very good in a lot of ways in terms of his representation, but he represented a lot of people.

But he puts in an invoice or whatever, a bill, and they pay and they call it a legal expense. I got indicted for that. What else would you call it? Actually, nobody's been able to say what you're supposed to call it. If a lawyer puts in a bill or an invoice and you pay the bill and the book, it's a little line, that's a very small little line.

I don't know if you can even write more than two words. It's not like you can tell a life story. They marked it down to a legal expense. This is what I got indicted over. Think of it. I got indicted. I'm the leading candidate. I'm beating Biden. I'm beating the Republicans now. I have the nomination.

And this is what they try and take me off the trail for. That checks being paid to a lawyer. He is a lawyer or was a lawyer. And also the things he got in trouble for were things that had nothing to do with me. He got in trouble. He went to jail. This had nothing to do with me.

This had to do with the taxicab company that he owned, which is just something young and medallions and borrowing money and a lot of things but had nothing to do with me. He represented a lot of people over the years. But they take this payment and they call it a legal expense, and you heard it today for the first time.

This is what I got indicted over. This is what took me off and takes me off the campaign trail. Because I should be in Georgia now. I should be in Florida now. I should be in a lot of different places right now campaigning, and I'm sitting here. And this will go on for a long time.

It's very unfair. The judge is conflicted as you know. It's very unfair what's going on. And I should be allowed to campaign. And whoever heard of this, he got indicted for that? People in the courts just said to me, I can't believe it. This is the case. So we did nothing wrong.

The other thing is, if this were such a great case, why didn't the Southern District bring it, who looked at it, turned it down? Why didn't numerous other agencies and law enforcement groups look at it? Because it was shown to everybody. And very importantly, why didn't the federal elections do anything about it?

Because this is federal, it's not state. They're trying to make it a state case, whatever. And it's not state, it has nothing to do -- it's never happened before. I believe, never happened before. This has never happened before.

When the state tries to insert itself in federal elections, never -- nobody's ever seen it. But, you know, federal elections took a total pass on it. They said essentially nothing was done wrong, or they would have done something about it. They're tough. They would have done something about it.

But they said nothing, and they said we're going to take a pass. Because they couldn't even believe it. Actually, if you read their letter, they couldn't even believe it. They were incredulous. And yet, Bragg mixed it up.

Now, with Bragg, if you look, when he first came in, he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to do it. Now, when are they going to look at Pomerantz and what Pomerantz did? Because that's bad stuff. And 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?

Now, we'll go to another subject because just a few blocks away, as you know, they had a trial on the $175 million, that's Letitia James. It's all coming out of the White House, by the way. And that's in front of Judge Engoron. And the judge really didn't know anything. He didn't know about collateral security.

He said, supposing it goes down. Well, it doesn't go down because it's cash. I put up $175 million in cash and we have a bonding company do it. And he challenged the bonding company that maybe the bonding company was no good.

Well, they're good, and they also have $175 million of collateral, my collateral. But the judge didn't know anything about it. He didn't know what the $175 million cash meant. He had no idea what anything meant, and he had no idea what he did in the trial. And he charged me hundreds of millions of dollars on something where I'm totally innocent.

But if you look at what happened today, Judge Engoron should not have done that trial. It should have gone through the business division, where they have complex business trials. But actually, it should have never been brought because I didn't overestimate.

[12:50:12]

You know, they say I overestimated. If you look at the numbers, they're underestimating. I underestimated. I did the opposite of what they said. And the reason that they tried to -- and they did it for their own narrative, they valued $1 billion asset at $18 million.

They valued other assets in, as little -- in order to build their narrative. They want to build a narrative. But if you look -- and I have a complete record of what happened, Judge Engoron had no idea what was going on, didn't understand the most simple concepts, and this is the man that took a case, and this is why businesses are -- they're moving out of New York, because they can't be subject to this, they'd be put out of business. They're moving out of New York because of it.

But Judge Engoron had absolutely no idea what had happened. He didn't realize we put up $175. But when he found out we put it up, he said, what happens if it goes up or down? I said, it doesn't or they said it doesn't go up or down. It's cash that we put up, all cash. Very few people could do that.

And the deal was approved with the attorney general. You can believe that. But the deal was approved. She just tried to embarrass everybody and she tried to embarrass a very good bonding company by saying they weren't credit worthy.

Well, they were credit worthy and what was more important is they had a security, $175 million that I put up. But the point here is that the judge had no idea what was happening. And this is the same judge that two months ago made a ruling that shook the world.

It shook the world because everyone knows going to that trial, I did nothing wrong. And over here, I did nothing wrong also. This is a Biden witch hunt to keep me off the campaign trail. So far, it's not working because my poll numbers are higher than they've ever been because the public understands that it's a witch hunt. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Trump, most likely (INAUDIBLE).

TAPPER: All right, the former president, Donald Trump, the defendant in the case of the state of New York versus Donald J. Trump speaking there, going through a list of grievances having to do with this trial, really actually mainly having to do with the last trial having to do with the business fraud trial that he has already been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for.

Elie Honig, your response?

HONIG: So, first of all, we keep hearing this claim by Donald Trump that this and all the prosecutions are somehow the product of Joe Biden's White House. We've said, and I'll say it again, that is absolutely false. And here it's demonstrably false. Here's why.

Department of Justice is technically part of the federal executive branch, which falls under the president. No evidence Joe Biden's had anything to do with those indictments. But this case here was brought by the Manhattan district attorney, independently elected by the people of Manhattan.

Not accountable to, not under the command of anyone. Not even under the command of the governor of the state of New York. Certainly not the president of the United States. So that is a patently false claim that Donald Trump continues to repeat over and over.

The other thing that Donald Trump said, and this is why judges instruct juries, you are not to watch any news coverage of this. If you see it on TV, change the channel. If you see it on -- don't go on social media, because Donald Trump said a couple things that will never get in front of the jury.

He said, Alvin Bragg, the D.., did not originally want to bring this case. Not even clear if that's true at all, but that will never become part of the proper evidence in this case. Similarly, Donald Trump did say, correctly, that the Southern District of New York passed on charging this case. That's true, but that's also wildly and completely inadmissible, won't get in front of the jury.

TAPPER: But is it not true that Alvin Bragg did refrain from bringing charges against Donald Trump and then one of the deputies in his office wrote a book criticizing Bragg for not bringing the charges --

HONIG: Right.

TAPPER: -- and then Bragg did bring charges.

HONIG: So the sequence was right. Alvin Bragg declined to bring charges based on the falsification of records relating to the value of apartments and value of property. So Alvin Bragg said, I'm not going to charge that criminally.

Then Mark Pomerantz went public, said that was an outrage. Alvin Bragg should have charged the inflation case criminally. Alvin Bragg took a lot of backlash for that. At some point thereafter, Alvin Bragg returned this indictment --

TAPPER: A different case.

HONIG: -- on something else, something.

TAPPER: A different case.

HONIG: Yes.

TAPPER: OK, and the original one, Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, did bring a case.

HONIG: Exactly. That became the civil case, which we just heard Trump ranting about.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The --

TAPPER: Yes?

BASH: I just want to add something that you were saying when we were listening to Donald Trump. What you just said is all 100 percent accurate when it comes to the confines of the case in that courtroom. That's not who he was talking about.

HONIG: Yes, no -- yes.

BASH: He was talking to voters, prospective voters, the American people, the American electorate. And there was a lot of stuff in there that might've been borderline true. There was a lot that just was -- just not true. Not true.

[12:55:06]

There's no evidence that President Biden is involved in this.

HONIG: Yes.

BASH: None. I mean, that's just one of many things. And his entire goal here is to go right on the line of the gag order legally in order to make his point politically.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: But he's also reframed this case in a way that I think is could be powerful to the court of public opinion you're talking about, not the actual jurors. He's trying to be very reductive in saying, this is a case where I paid a lawyer and therefore, I called it a legal expense.

It was a lawyer. I called it legal. What else am I to do? That was not at all what this case is about. It's about a falsified business record.

TAPPER: Day five of Donald Trump's trial is now done. One of the CNN reporters who was inside court all day is going to be here in a second to walk us through the important moments as you saw them firsthand. Much more CNN special live coverage just ahead.

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