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CNN Live Event/Special

Testimony on Trump's Direct Involvement in Suppression of Negative Stories; Trump's Reaction to Court Proceedings; Role of Michael Cohen Highlighted; Trump's Campaign Claims During Court Breaks. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 23, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Before that, Pecker said, Trump said, anytime you do anything like this, it always gets out, which is at least, you know, I don't know if that's hearsay, but that's an admission of guilt, at least by Donald Trump to David Pecker, according to David Pecker.

ELLIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Important hearsay point. It's never hearsay if it's coming out of the defendant's mouth.

TAPPER: Okay. So --

(CROSSTALK)

HONIG: So, anything Donald Trump says

TAPPER: So, according to David Pecker, Donald Trump admitted that he had this relationship.

HONIG: Right

TAPPER: Anytime I do anything like this, it always comes out. And Pecker says, we need to get this off the market. And Trump says, OK, I'm going to think about it. Michael Cohen's will call you back.

HONIG: And up until now, all the important conversations relating to the doorman and up to this point to McDougal have been through this intermediary, through Michael Cohen. But now we have direct contact between David Pecker and Donald Trump.

TAPPER: Pecker says Michael Cohen kept on calling me to ask about Dylan Howard, the editor of the National Enquirer's interview with Karen McDougal. And David Pecker says that he told Michael Cohen, relax, I'll let you know when I hear back from Dylan Howard. So Dylan Howard flew out to California and interviewed Karen McDougal. Every time Michael Cohen calls, according to David Pecker, he seems more anxious as if he's under pressure, which I would imagine he would be because the boss would be saying, what have you heard? What have you heard? And Michael was very agitated. David Pecker said it looked like he was getting a lot of pressure to get the answer, like right away. KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think it's really significant that Pecker said- that he's saying that that Michael that he spoke to Trump directly and Trump said, talk to Michael Cohen about.

TAPPER: Right. That's an interesting point.

UNKNOWN: That's a really, I think, interesting point that's come out here because when Michael Cohen testifies and says, I was-this was my job, I was the fixer. I think that that's an important point that they just brought out.

TAPPER: And as we hit two o'clock p.m. East Coast time questioning is finished for the day. The jury is getting instructions from the judge before being let out. But this is this is really been an interesting line of questioning, because we have Michael Cohen established as the person--

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah

TAPPER:-- for David Pecker to talk to. And this last significant chunk of information about the Karen McDougal alleged affair that in this, according to David Pecker, Michael Cohen is not operating as some rogue operator. Right. He is designated by Donald Trump. Michael is my guy on this.

COATES: He's to run point. And just think about the timing of this. You're building a case as a prosecutor. You know that there's no court tomorrow on Wednesday. Where do you want to leave this? And you're coming back on Thursday. You leave it at this moment in time. Michael was very agitated. It looked like he was getting a lot of pressure to get the answer like right away.

TAPPER: The judge just left the bench by the way.

COATES: You're now ending the testimony there. So now what's the jury thinking over the next day and a half? Well, hold on a second. We know that this is the point person delegated and designated by Donald Trump. There's pressure about this particular story. David Pecker saying this one feels different. Having Dylan Howard go out to California to meet with her. He recommends that Donald Trump get this story out off of the market. We know already from the Dorman case and beyond getting off the market means giving you a payment, having some sort of an NDA. You can't put it anywhere else. You put a lever above you about a million dollars if you go someplace else. All being established to build the momentum and leave it for the jury to say, OK, now hold on over the next day and a half I'm thinking about it. This sounds like Donald Trump has directed something. I've got a point person. He's coming out right now. Let's start talking to the audience. And of course, what he will say is his own version of what's happened in the courtroom, because we know there's no cameras there. But you can believe he's going to talk a great deal about how he feels about all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's totally unconstitutional. Can't even allow articles to be put in. As an example, these are articles that were over the last day and a half. They're very good articles. Actually, the case is a sham. And it shouldn't even be tried. It shouldn't have been submitted. And I don't even know if you're allowed to put them in. 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 said anything like this.

I'd love to talk to you people. I'd love to say everything that's on my mind, but I'm restricted because I have a gag order. And I'm not sure that anybody's ever seen anything like this before. And even having to do with articles. Somebody writes an article. If I read every one of these articles, incomplete, I read some of it and I'll look at headlines, all good headlines, and the case is a sham. But I can't read the whole thing. I'd be reading, this is like reading a novel. So I put an article in and then somebody's name is mentioned somewhere deep in the article and I end up in violation of the gag order. I think it's a disgrace. It's totally unconstitutional. I don't believe it's never, not to this extent, ever happened before.

[14:05:09]

I'm not allowed to defend myself, and yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. Very, very unfair. Having to do with the schools and the closings, that's Biden's fault. And by the way, this trial is all Biden. You know, this is all Biden, just in case anybody has any question. And they're keeping me in a courtroom. It's freezing, by the way, in a courtroom all day long. Well, he's out campaigning. That's probably an advantage because he can't campaign. Nobody knows what he's doing. He can't put two sentences together. But he's out campaigning. He's out campaigning, and I'm here in a courtroom sitting here, sitting up as straight as I can all day long because, you know what, it's a very unfair situation. So we're locked up in a courtroom, and this guy's out there campaigning, if you call it a campaign.

Every time he opens his mouth, he gets himself into trouble. So that's the story. I have an unconstitutional gag order by a highly conflicted judge that should recuse himself. Very simple. On the schools, should have never happened. What's going on in this country now should have never happened. But of course, the Ukraine war would have never happened. The Israeli attack would have never happened. Inflation would've never happened. We have the worst president in the history of our country, and he's the one that has us in all these different lawsuits. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And you are hearing from Donald Trump there. He just emerged from the courtroom after listening to David Pecker, the tabloid king of the National Enquirer, testify in length about efforts that they took to suppress negative stories about Donald Trump as he was running for the White House. Trump came out there and notice he was speaking to the camera, speaking to the media. He says that his gag order that is in place violates him from doing that and from defending himself. It doesn't. It does prevent him, though, from going after witnesses in this case, including Michael Cohen and people like David Pecker and others who are expected to take that stand. He was armed with a stack of papers. He said that they are positive articles that he wanted to enter into the record. And Daniel Dale is here with us, was listening to all of that statement, CNN's resident fact checker.

And Daniel Dale, you know, aside from what, Trump is trying to enter into the evidence, it's not clear that his attorneys wanted to enter that into the evidence. Can you just walk us through what he said about the gag order here and what's true and what's not true?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, Kaitlan, he perpetually makes the gag order sound like it gags him more than it actually does. So I don't know what was in those specific articles, but he said he had an article saying this case is a sham. It shouldn't have been brought. And he's not sure if he could even say that. Well, he can say that, that is clearly not prohibited by the gag order. I have the text of the gag order in front of me. What it does, Kaitlan, is bar him from three specific kinds of speech. Number one is speaking publicly or directing others to speak publicly about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses in the case, specifically about their potential participation in the case. Number two is speaking publicly, directing others to speak publicly about prosecutors other than DA Bragg, staff members in Bragg's office and the court and the family members of prosecutors, staff members of the court.

And it qualifies that if those statements are made with the intent to material interfere, then the court will not be able to speak publicly about the case. And then number three, he's barred from speaking publicly about or directing others to speak publicly about jurors or prospective jurors. So if he just wants to say this case is a sham, as he has pretty much every time he's appeared before those cameras, he's perfectly allowed to. He's not barred. And I'll just add, Kaitlan, I've heard you fact check this. Others on our team fact checked this. He said this case is all Biden. There is zero, precisely zero evidence that President Biden had anything to do with bringing, orchestrating, running this case. So he says that pretty much every time. It's completely out of thin air.

COLLINS: As Lanny Davis, who was Michael Cohen's attorney and is now his legal advisor, was just pointing out to me last night, you know, as prosecutors who worked for the Trump Justice Department, when Bill Barr was the attorney general, that were the ones who were asking questions about Michael Cohen and these payments and where they went. Daniel Dale, great to have you. Thank you for fact checking that Trump statement for us. My panel is back here with me and Paula and Phil, obviously, Trump's coming out and he can't talk about David Pecker individually and go after what he just listened to for several hours, him on the witness stand. And clearly that's bothering him. PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I was surprised that he started with the gag order. Clearly that hearing did not go well for his attorneys earlier today, but he repeated some of the arguments that they either made in court or had hoped to make before it went off the rails, arguing that this is unconstitutional. Defendants are routinely subject to gag orders if it is necessary, but Trump's argument is that because he's a candidate for the presidency, that anything he says or most of the things he says are political speech and enjoy a heightened protection. Now, this is an argument he and his team have used creatively in other criminal cases and have just not been successful.

[14:10:09]

I don't think that's an argument that's going to carry the day, but that is the point that he's making there. He believes that a gag order on a presidential candidate is unconstitutional, but this is unprecedented to have a candidate for the White House as a criminal defendant. We've never been here before. Also, once again, taking aim at the judge, suggesting that he is conflicted because his daughter works for a company that does fundraising for Democrats. Now, the daughter is covered by the gag order. The judge is not.

COLLINS: I mean, is there any greater irony than complaining about a gag order and saying it restricts you from speaking while you're speaking to cameras and media who's in the hallway?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: You know, he's pushed the bounds on great ironies over the course of the last several years, eight or nine years, but this is definitely high up there. I don't think there's any question about that. Also, the idea of, you know, for somebody who wasn't campaigning a lot heading into this trial, maybe once a week, once every couple of weeks, making very clear that he would have been campaigning on a very regular basis, that he not had to be involved in this trial, even though he voluntarily had gone to courthouses repeatedly over the course of the last several months and made that a central part of his campaign as well. And there's no indication that either from a financial perspective or from a political perspective, they had grand plans to be traveling a lot. It is very clear he's cold. He has made that point several times.

REID: So have reporters, to be fair, in the room.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that is very clear. But I also think that what that statement underscores is that this is a complicated moment where he is not in control, as I think you guys have talked about repeatedly, both on the political side and the legal side. And over the course of the day, that can be pretty frustrating.

COLLINS: I want to bring in Jeffrey Tsai as well, who is joining us. He is a former federal prosecutor and was one of the lawyers who tried former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards for campaign finance violations. A lot of similarities and some differences here. And I just wonder, as you were listening to those, that line of questioning that the prosecution had for David Pecker, this tabloid king, as he was saying that they were actively trying to help the Trump campaign by suppressing negative stories, publishing favorable ones and paying for ones that even if they weren't true, to make sure they didn't get out. What stood out to you in that testimony today?

JEFFREY TSAI, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, it's great to be with you this afternoon. I think the word of this trial is going to be corroboration. What you see in the testimony from Mr. Pecker, and there's not a coincidence that he's also the first witness, is that what the prosecutors are trying to build brick by little brick, ultimately building, hopefully for themselves, a wall for this prosecution, is this idea that this does not rise and fall on Cohen. If that's the case, the prosecution is going to have a problem. So very intentionally, you see the prosecution calling a different witness. In this case, Mr Pecker, who serves as that introductory narrator to lay the framework for this story that then later is corroborated by Michael Cohen. And why are they doing this? Because they know fundamentally the biggest issue they're going to have in convincing this jury beyond a reasonable doubt is whether or not Cohen is believable. If he's not, the case is in trouble. The way they try to do this is to show that certain facts and circumstances, stories, vignettes are all backed up by other people.

COLLINS: And do you believe that that testimony from David Pecker will help make Michael Cohen a more credible witness, given we know that Donald Trump and his legal team are going to try to undermine whatever he does say on the witness stand?

TSAI: I think it can, and I'll tell you for the following reason. What we see so far in Pecker's testimony is this idea that not only is it Michael Cohen as a person who's coming to him with requests regarding McDougal and Miss Clifford, but what you also have is direct lines of communication, as you all talked about earlier, with Mr. Trump. Those are critical pieces to all of this. That serves the master of corroboration, which is what the prosecution's really looking for. And then there's one other component to all of this. Each piece of the testimony that they bring in also needs to serve this larger piece that they're focused on, which is making sure this is a case of substance, not just of paper.

So as much as the vehicle for the case relates to whether or not there are 34 falsified business records, they need to make sure fundamentally, kind of at its root, that it relates to election interference, what the DA has referred to as election interference. That is ultimately going to be what the jury could hang its hat on if it decides to convict.

[14:15:09]

COLLINS: Yeah. And we saw those ties to the campaign as they were saying this was one of the first stories. The story of the doorman was the first one that they had actually paid for. And it was obviously close to the 2016 campaign. Jeffrey Tsai, great to have you. Thank you for joining today.

TSAI: Thank you. COLLINS: And questioning in Donald Trump's election interference, hush money trial is has just wrapped up for the day. The witness has now left the witness stand. And you saw Trump there turning that hallway appearance into a moment to have a campaign stump speech, even a brief one. We have much more of our CNN special coverage in just a few moments.

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[14:20:09]

TAPPER: Welcome back to special live CNN coverage, Catch and Kill. Today, prosecutors running a Manhattan jury through a detailed presentation of how David Pecker's National Enquirer acted as a safety net for the then-candidate for President of the United States, now former President of the United States, Donald Trump. Government attorneys also signposting how David Pecker operated as something of a hatchet man for the 2016 Trump campaign, publishing blatantly false stories about his then-campaign rivals from Ted Cruz to Hillary Clinton. Pecker was also asked about Karen McDougal, the former Playboy Playmate of the Year, who allegedly had a 10-month to a year- long relationship with Mr. Trump. The name we've yet to get to in Pecker's testimony, Stormy Daniels. Stormy Daniels is the woman who silenced Trump, allegedly tried to buy, and who is actually at the center of the 34 criminal counts Mr. Trump is charged with in this case. Let's go to Laura and Ellie at the Magic Wall now for more information.

COATES: Really important. Quite a day to have testimony from David Pecker. Day number two came out with a bit of an explosion. Remind us, though, about who he was really getting to. I mean, there was moments he talked about who he was, of course, to Donald Trump, the catch and kill scenario. But these two are looming pretty large here, Michael Cohen and Hope Hicks.

HONIG: Yeah, riveting day of testimony, really. And David Pecker's testimony was crucial in its own right. But what he's also doing, what prosecutors are doing, they're setting the table for key witnesses who are going to come later, including, most of all, Michael Cohen. Now, David Pecker's testimony established Michael Cohen was Donald Trump's fixer. We hear that expression all the time. It's hard to remember now sometimes because Michael Cohen is so anti-Trump now. But boy, oh, boy, in vivid detail, David Pecker is showing us that communications with Donald Trump almost always ran through Michael Cohen. He also mentioned, and we will hear from this witness as well, interactions with Hope Hicks, how concerned the campaign was after that Access Hollywood tape came out in the closing days of the 2016 election.

The other thing that we really saw is the buildup here, the sequence of this catch and kill. That's such a key phrase from today, catch and kill. What Donald Trump, David Pecker, and Michael Cohen would do is they would hear about potentially damaging stories, and they would get the rights to them, and they would kill those. We heard in detail about the way that they purchased the story from the doorman, Guido Sejudin, about a story that turned out to be untrue about a child Donald Trump had out of wedlock. We ended the day with David Pecker talking about the effort to catch and kill, the story from Karen McDougal, and where we're building up to that they'll resume on Thursday is any involvement that David Pecker has or knows about with the payoffs to silence Stormy Daniels. So the prosecutors are building their story here sort of brick by brick up to the most important allegation.

COATES: And also remember, catch and kill as an actual theory is not illegal. What's being charged here is that it was being done to try to undermine the ability to have transparency for one's campaign finances and beyond in an ultra-election. Karen McDougal and Dino as well, really important here in terms of what the catch and kill and checkbook journalism was about. But the biggest thing here is that it has to be for Trump's benefit and the why. This date's so important to think about, August 2015. Remember, it was June 2015 when Donald Trump came back down that escalator in that famous moment. Before this, David Pecker talked about he really didn't have any moment or did anything to catch and kill stories about Trump before that. The timeline will be very important, Jake, thinking about why now and why this time. Remember, there was an election in 2016.

TAPPER: That's right. I remember. Thanks so much. Let's try to get some big picture thoughts right now from our panel. Casey, as we end this momentous day where David Pecker has really rolled out some fairly sleazy behaviors by the National Enquirer, Mr. Trump, and Mr. Cohen, what are you thinking?

KASIE HUNT, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think I'm just struck by the fact that in some ways this feels completely inevitable. When you think about what the arc of covering Donald Trump on our political stage. When he first, when I went to one of his first rallies in Iowa in 2015, he was a reality television star running for president. And this obviously dripped out over the course of that campaign. And then we had four years of a Trump administration. It seems like ending in this place in a courtroom where it's all being litigated and we're all reliving it eight years later was probably inevitable. And I think my big question is now we're on the eve of his third presidential campaign, his third major election day. Are Americans going to see this? Are they sitting at home rolling their eyes, tuning it out and walking away? Or are they being reminded of the chaos that was the Trump time on the stage and here in Washington?

[14:25:09]

UNKNOWN: From the political point of view, obviously, it is all of the people outside the 12 men and women on the jury that matter most. But that is not what he's facing probably for the next six weeks. It's those 12 people and how he comports himself. And most importantly, how his defense tries to beat back this painting that that the prosecution is putting out there for them about somebody who tried to, in their words, change the outcome of the election in a way that was illegal. It's going to be up to them to determine whether or not they can prove that.

TAPPER: An action-packed day inside court for Donald Trump. The CNN reporters inside the room who watched every moment are going to join us next. Much more special live CNN coverage of this unprecedented case against a former president of the United States. We're going to squeeze in one quick break.

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