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Testimony Continues in Trump Hush Money Trial; Supreme Court Hears Presidential Immunity Arguments. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 25, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The justices sounded skeptical about Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

But they also seemed to be signaling that they might not be prepared to green-light a speedy trial in special counsel Jack Smith's January 6 federal case against Mr. Trump.

We're also following Trump's hush money trial in New York City. Former tabloid executive David Pecker is on the stand, as he has been all week. He's been testifying for the first time today about a key figure in the case, adult film star and director Stormy Daniels.

Keep watching your screen for updates from inside the courtroom. They are -- well, they are on that side of the screen. We're bringing you the reports from our reporters.

Let's bring in CNN senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic, who was actually inside the High Court today as the oral arguments played out.

Joan, what stood out to you, and was there anything that you would be able to discern that we, just hearing it, would not?

(LAUGHTER)

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Well, first of all, it was incredibly gripping right there in the room, Jake.

I cannot -- I cannot overstate just the suspense going into it and then just hearing those questions, realizing the direction they were going, which is much further in a direction than I think any of us might have predicted.

Just to talk about some of the people in the room, Jack Smith is sitting there at the same table as Michael Dreeben, who was defending his position, John Sauer defending President Trump, Jane Roberts, one of -- chief justice's wife there, Patrick Jackson, husband of newest judges -- justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The room was filled with many dignitaries just trying to hear all this. And what they heard was an argument from the justices that went more in the favor of Donald Trump than I think some people were anticipating. He might not win on the whole shebang of absolute immunity here, but the questions really showed how sympathetic they were to his position and how skeptical they were to Jack Smith's side as articulated by government lawyer Michael Dreeben.

And I will tell you the surest sign of that, nature of the questions and then the fact that John Sauer did not even offer a rebuttal. I mean, he had a free five minutes at the end or close to that to reinforce his points. And I think he heard most of the justices themselves make those points.

First of all, the kinds of, I wouldn't call them quite off-ramps, but detours before a trial would be something that we weren't sure -- we thought was kind of baked into the question the justices took up, official acts versus private acts, just what is at issue here.

Jack Smith says it doesn't matter, that anything that has been charged here is something that can go to trial. But then a question that came from Justice Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's second appointee to the Supreme Court, asking about, should any criminal law that the president be subject to have a clear statement that it would have to cover the president?

That is a very high bar for prosecution of the president under these kinds of charges, because, of course, the president isn't singled out in any of these. That was another point.

And then the overlay, Jake, was really interesting in terms of the justices' fears about overzealous prosecution, the checks on the government, a grand jury, the attorney general, anyone who would have a hand in bringing a prosecution against a president.

They were concerned about a certain unfairness, retribution. And any time Michael Dreeben tried to really push the justices toward the actual acts that are -- that are at issue here and the kinds of crimes, they were brushed away by the more conservative justices.

Samuel Alito kept saying, I don't really want to talk about the offenses here. Neil Gorsuch said that. It fell to Justice Sonia Sotomayor to really stress what was at issue. And Michael Dreeben kept pounding away, pounding away on the allegations against former President Trump and his disruption of the peaceful transfer of power -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Joan Biskupic outside the Supreme Court, thank you so much.

Let's talk about the politics of all this, because I don't know how the Supreme Court is going to rule, but, certainly, if they put forward an argument like Alito did today, seeming more concerned about how, if a hypothetical president is fearing prosecution, he might be inclined to stage a coup, which is certainly an interesting way to look at this case, I don't know that that's going to bolster confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court among the members of the public.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Do you -- I think -- I'm told that we have that sound bite, if you want to play it. TAPPER: Do we want to -- do we -- if we have it, let's play it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SAMUEL ALITO, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?

[13:05:30]

And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TAPPER: Yes, we don't -- we don't have to look around the world for...

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: ... something that isn't a hypothetical that might show somebody in a very real, not hypothetical, situation that involved them clawing on to power, even though they lost it.

BASH: But it -- what it does is, it's a reminder that so much of what we hold sacred is not necessarily written into the Constitution with detailed words, but it is based on the notion that people are going to do the right thing.

And we know that that isn't always the case, which is why what Neil Gorsuch said, not only saying that this is not about this case, but this is about future cases, I was struck when he said, we are writing a rule for the ages.

TAPPER: Mm-hmm.

BASH: They understand that this has to be sort of finalized and has to set precedent and will set precedent in a very particular way.

And just quickly, on the politics, the fact that everybody seems to be reading the questions to suggest that this is going to go back to the lower court, if that happens, what does that mean? That is a victory for Donald Trump, because it's a delay. And it will be impossible to imagine that this will be resolved by the election.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Yes, I mean, it is really amazing that the idea of, rather than deterring people from taking the office and committing crimes in the office, the idea is to just make it easy for them when they leave so that they don't have to worry about it, they don't have to worry about trying to hold on to power.

I mean, literally, Maggie Haberman has -- a contributor here, has said this before on multiple occasions. Donald Trump sees the presidency as protection. That is why he wanted to stay in office, because he had all these potential things around him that were looming, cases that he wanted to avoid.

And that very idea might have been the thing that drove Trump to try to hang on to power as much as possible. So, look, you can look at it the way that Alito is looking at it, but I do think that we're experiencing actually quite the opposite.

And if there is not anything in the law to deter people from going into office to protect themselves from doing criminal things, then, basically, the presidency becomes the very monarchy that the founders didn't want.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It raises a fascinating question, because Trump's goal is always delay.

So you have the New York hush money trial going on right now, and I never thought I'd be sitting on set listening to arguments before the United States Supreme Court while, on the other side of the screen, we were following the testimony in New York and the publisher of "The National Enquirer," the former publisher of "The National Enquirer," is talking about how he was -- he didn't want to do business with a porn star.

That's all happening at the same time. Donald Trump...

TAPPER: Because it's too classy a publication.

KING: Donald Trump continues to take us to places we have never been before.

But, to Dana's point about the delay, now, politically, Trump believes that benefits him. This New York trial is under way. The Georgia election subversion case, no set date. The classified documents case, supposed to start in May, but the judge there has constantly pushed the bar down the road.

So it's possible, it is possible that the New York case is the only case resolved before the election, maybe some of the others. My question politically is, 193 days, America votes. Many Americans will vote early, but that's Election Day, 193 days away.

If this goes back to the trial court, and then there are decisions made, and that's appealed up to the appeals court, this all being in the news -- there may not be resolution. Donald Trump does not want to be convicted before the election, because even a lot of Republicans say, if he is convicted, that would make them think twice about voting.

Enough Republicans to swing the election think they would think twice. But is this just constantly being in the news, helps them raise money, but does it help them with the small universe of voters who will decide who wins?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: I would just like to point out to Justice Alito, forgive me, this is -- this is a Donald Trump problem, as the kids -- I mean, we have had president after president go on, leave office, and not do this.

I just want to go to what's underlying the January 6 case, and we had this whole discussion about official acts and personal acts. Let's just remember that Donald Trump's own top aides told him there was no widespread election fraud that would change this case.

The courts threw it out. His own attorney general, Bill Barr, said the same. So there's really no evidence of any official act in what he did. It was because he didn't want to be a loser.

[13:10:06]

TAPPER: Is Steve Vladeck still there? If so, I would -- so, Steve, let me go to you, because you had a particularly interesting acronymic response to Alito's argument: "WTF," Wisco (sic), Tango, Foxtrot, when he made that argument.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: Explain -- explain your reaction.

STEVE VLADECK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, I think it's -- it's exactly to Abby's point.

I mean, it's -- it really is remarkable how much the justices, especially the Republican appointees, during this morning's argument really tried to not deal with, engage with, accept how much this case is a referendum on exactly what former President Trump did.

And the irony of Justice Alito using what Trump did as a reason to be wary about holding him liable for what he did, I think, is -- where I come from we call it chutzpah.

(LAUGHTER)

VLADECK: But, Jake, I think, to John's point about the timing, I think one of the real questions here is, how quickly can the court itself move?

If there is a majority for some kind of remand back to the district court, can that opinion come out in three weeks, four weeks, so that we actually have movement by Memorial Day, or is this going to be one of the last decisions we get from the court at the end of June?

That could have a lot to say about the political calendar that John was talking about.

TAPPER: Abby? I mean, Laura?

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, there were two points I thought were really interesting too.

One was that Neil Gorsuch raised the issue of self-pardons today. He essentially was talking about forward thinking and saying, well, hold on a second. If every president is fearful that they may be treated by their successor to a criminal prosecution, then would that mean that, at the end of every single four-year period, you have got a president who starts to self-pardon?

He also said happily, we have never had the opportunity to address the issue of self-pardon. He doesn't want it. I'm sure it's now being teed up.

Another part of it was also mentioned, you talked about Bill Barr, attorney general. One of the things Justice Alito mentioned was the idea of, well, are -- if -- would it be a defense to your conduct if you had a preapproval by your attorney general that what you were doing was not illegal?

Would that give you a safe space, to which they said, yes, it would? Now, he then said, hold on, does that not incentivize you to appoint somebody to be your attorney general who becomes essentially your yes- man? I know you have written about the hatchet man in your book as well, Elie, and thinking about this.

Well, the response was, well, we have got structures in place, through the whole confirmation process, that will protect us against that. And we can also scratch our heads and say, you mean you think that no one could ever get through a confirmation process, Supreme Court, that having said things that you would get yourself in the office position and then maybe renege in some way?

(LAUGHTER)

COATES: And so it's kind of an odd moment that happened.

TAPPER: Yes, it just -- it does feel like some of the questions were from a planet in which January 6, 2021, never happened.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

And the challenge here, as I think it so often is, is, can we collectively remove the Donald Trump of it all and look at the bigger principle? And I thought it was notable, throughout the argument today, you heard Donald Trump's lawyers trying to focus on the presidency itself and not Donald Trump and not Donald Trump's conduct.

TAPPER: Wise by them to try to do that.

HONIG: Absolutely.

And the special counsel's lawyer was doing the opposite. It was all about the indictment, what led up to January 6, 2021, the fact of this case. And, as Justice Gorsuch -- I wrote this down too -- he said, "We are writing a rule for the ages."

And I think what they may well do is write a rule that does exempt presidents in certain, narrow circumstances, but ultimately say, whether Donald Trump is inside or out of those lines, that's not for us. That's for the fact-finder. PHILLIP: I do think it was just another line that struck out to me

from Justice Sotomayor where she said, the framers did not put immunity in the Constitution.

And she noted they could have. They knew what it was. There were other examples of it at the time. They didn't do it. And I do think that that is worth noting here, that they're going to have to create something. If there is immunity, they're going to have to create it in this case.

And that is going to be a huge landmark moment for this...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: So, one -- just one other thing is just there's this other trial going on right now.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: And I don't want to give it a short shrift, because that's where Mr. Trump is actually today.

And, right now, we -- just to try to bring you guys up to speed out there, guys and gals, the -- Mr. -- Mr. Steinglass, the assistant district attorney, has been examining David Pecker, the tabloid magnate, former publisher of American Media Inc., which published "The National Enquirer."

He had a very cozy, symbiotic relationship with Donald Trump. And Steinglass has been examining Pecker for the prosecution, talking specifically not just about the previous catch-and-kill deals that they had, where "The National Enquirer" would buy a story damaging to Trump, so that they would spike it, hide it from the public.

They did that with a doorman story from Trump Tower that apparently was just not based in reality. They paid $30,000 for it. It wasn't true. It doesn't even -- we don't need to go into the details of that.

[13:15:01]

The second story that, apparently, these individuals at "The National Enquirer" thought was likely to be true, had to do with Donald Trump's alleged long-term relationship with 1998 Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal. They paid her $150,000 for a column she was going to write for a magazine that was part of the AMI empire, not specifically "The National Enquirer."

And they -- they were just going to have a ghostwriter write it, and they ended up not publishing that at all. Then they got to the third instance of catch-and-kill. And that is the one that is actually at issue here, because that's the one that supposedly Donald Trump is accused of, at least, falsifying business records to hide that hush money being paid.

Elie, bring us up to speed as to some of the action that we have missed. While this rather august argument in the U.S. Supreme Court was going on up in Manhattan, they were talking about porn stars and hush money.

HONIG: Yes, shifting focus back to Manhattan now.

So we got through in the testimony of David Pecker the story of the Karen McDougal catch-and-kill. Essentially, they learned about Karen McDougal's story. They were concerned both within AMI, "National Enquirer," David Pecker's company, and the Trump campaign.

And, importantly, David Pecker testified that they wanted to buy up the story and silence it because -- quote -- "We didn't want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign."

It's a very important detail for prosecutors there. Ultimately, "The National Enquirer" AMI, Pecker's company, buys the rights to the story from Karen McDougal for $150,000. And then there's this interesting dispute between the Trump camp. They don't want to pay.

Shockingly, Donald Trump's people don't want to pay for something. AMI wants to get paid. Ultimately, they just back off and AMI says, you know what, we're going to pay for this. Donald Trump's team does not end up paying for that.

And that sets this -- the table then for the "Access Hollywood" tape. When that came out, there was testimony from David Pecker that, when that tape came out -- quote -- "It was very embarrassing, very damaging to their campaign."

Now, David Pecker and "The National Enquirer" folks, they're interested in first at trying to buy up Stormy Daniels' story, but then they quickly back off, because they decide, we don't want any part of this. There's some concern, actually, on "The National Enquirer"'s part that what they're doing may violate campaign finance laws, very important detail.

Ultimately, AMI, "National Enquirer," they're out. They're not part of the Stormy Daniels transaction. That is left to Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and their team. And that leads to the charge.

TAPPER: And that leads to everything else that we're about to hear in the Manhattan courtroom.

CNN's special coverage continues with updates on Donald Trump's hush money cover-up trial. Tabloid executive David Pecker is going to resume his quite often sensational testimony any minute.

Right now, we're going to squeeze in a quick break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:22:11]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And welcome to CNN's special coverage. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington, along with Erin Burnett in New York. And, today, Donald Trump has been back in court for his historic hush

money criminal trial. But his other team of lawyers was here in Washington over at the U.S. Supreme Court. They argued that Trump and any former president should have blanket immunity for actions undertaken while in office.

Those arguments have now wrapped up.

And Erin, in New York, testimony where you are will pick up right after the next hour or so. They're in lunch break.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: That's right. They just are on lunch break.

And we have been hearing from the former tabloid executive David Pecker, Wolf, who's going to be returning to the stand after this brief lunch break. Prosecutors have finally gotten to the details of Stormy Daniels and the hush money deal, the heart of this entire case, Pecker testifying that he wanted -- quote -- "no part in that transaction," despite the fact that he had orchestrated other similar payouts to benefit Trump during the 2016 campaign, the so-called catch-and-kill that they were executing.

Kara Scannell was inside court this morning. Phil Mattingly is also with me.

So, Kara, you were in there throughout the morning, and I know now on the lunch break. So take us in. What happened this morning?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, this morning, they finished -- they picked up where David Pecker left off on Tuesday.

They got into the heart of the Karen McDougal deal, and he was describing how...

BURNETT: She's the former Playmate who alleged -- had an alleged yearlong affair with Trump.

SCANNELL: Right.

And they had learned that she had this story. So he goes through how it came to be that they caught and killed the deal. And that was one of his deputies, Dylan Howard, who was the editor in chief of the "National Enquirer," had gone out to meet Karen McDougal.

And he was recounting to the jury how Michael Cohen, on behalf of Trump, was calling him frantically to figure out what her story was and what to do about it. And so he -- American Media, that's where the -- David Pecker had worked, had agreed to pay Karen McDougal $120,000 to buy the rights to her lifetime story, which included her story that she had had a 10-month-long affair with Trump.

And he said that they had done this deal, he'd agreed to do it, but that Donald Trump was going to reimburse him. And Cohen told him: "The boss will get -- the boss will take care of it."

So that was a reference to Donald Trump. David Pecker said he understood from this that Donald Trump knew about the payment AMI was making and that Trump was ultimately supposed to reimburse AMI for.

BURNETT: And these reimbursements, Phil, I mean, just going through some of the other things that Trump was asked when this came up, it was very clear. So I guess Michael Cohen was worried he wasn't going to get paid back for -- for the Stormy Daniels payment.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BURNETT: And Pecker testifies: "Don't worry" -- that Trump says to him: "Don't worry about it. I will take care of him," referring to Cohen.

[13:25:03]

And I guess it was -- quote, unquote -- "the Christmas bonus."

MATTINGLY: The Christmas bonus, which Cohen had actually had a conversation with Pecker, according to Pecker's testimony, of: I haven't been paid yet. I need you to talk to the boss, essentially, on my behalf.

And, also, Pecker testified that the bonus was a critical issue that Michael Cohen also wanted Pecker to raise.

And I think the process, if you look at kind of the first couple days of Pecker's testimony as kind of laying out the foundation for Pecker's role in trying to prove the prosecution's case, we're now drilling further into kind of the critical details, including the moment when the "Access Hollywood" tape came out, talking about that and Pecker talking about how damaging that appeared to him and appeared to what he believed the campaign was seeing in that moment, but also in the weeks after Trump actually won, and the fact that Trump kept Pecker very much within his inner circle to some degree.

They were talking about how they would communicate when Trump got into the White House. There was a meeting at Trump Tower, but also that Trump's view of things, these bad stories, in particular, that were related to what AMI and David Pecker were doing, had shifted, in the way Pecker testified, of -- from how Melania Trump felt about them, how the family felt about them, to, is this bad for the campaign?

BURNETT: The campaign.

MATTINGLY: Is this bad for my presidency now that I have won?

BURNETT: All right, so let me ask you about something on this, Kara, because that's the whole core, right, was whether this was done because of the campaign, right?

And that would be the -- what, opposite to the felony and the violation. OK? Pecker says, this is something that happened. You were there for this, I'm curious what happened. Pecker says Trump's family was not mentioned in conversations with Cohen and Trump about the stories, which had indicated that Trump could be embarrassed.

And so Pecker says -- quote -- "So I made the assumption the concern was the campaign." And then the defense stages an objection. What happened in that moment?

SCANNELL: So there have been a couple of objections. And the judge has been very clear on not wanting what they call speaking objections, where the lawyers would kind of explain what their issue was in front of the presence of the jury.

So, they often have sidebars about that to figure out what can come in and what can't come in and if the objection is valid or not. But this is the core of the prosecution's case here. They want David Pecker to establish that Trump was doing this, involved in these payments to influence the campaign, because that's what makes this case a felony case...

BURNETT: Right.

SCANNELL: ... of falsifying the business records.

So, David Pecker is connecting these dots for the prosecutors to say that, for each of these deals, the concern was the campaign, and that only escalated after the "Access Hollywood" tape, and then, even after that, when "The Wall Street Journal" had reported three days before the election that Karen McDougal had signed a deal with AMI, that David Pecker said he went out and put out a statement saying that the story was false.

And he said he did that to protect himself, to protect his company and to protect Donald Trump's campaign.

BURNETT: Yes, they're really connecting those dots.

And then there's this meeting -- sort of my jaw drops just when you think about it.

MATTINGLY: Right.

BURNETT: You got Trump in a room in Trump Tower January of 2017, if I'm correct.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: They were talking about this a few moments ago.

So there's Trump, there's David Pecker, James Comey, just three people you would always think would be, you know...

MATTINGLY: Current FBI director. Soon-to-be CIA Director Mike Pompeo was there as well...

BURNETT: Right. That's right.

MATTINGLY: ... Reince Priebus, who was the RNC chairman that was going to become the chief of staff at the White House, and Sean Spicer, who became the White House press secretary as well.

And Pecker recounts how he basically was tapped on the shoulder by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the former president... BURNETT: Yes.

MATTINGLY: ... to be brought into Trump Tower, and is in this meeting where the FBI director and Mike Pompeo, the future CIA director, are briefing the president, or soon-to-be-president, the president-elect at the time, on a shooting in Florida, a very serious kind of national security, like "This is the reality of the office you just won" type of moment.

And Trump introduces David Pecker, according to Pecker's testimony, and tells the assembled individuals, all of whom are there for a very serious meeting and a very kind of weighty moment...

BURNETT: Right.

MATTINGLY: ... for the future president: "This guy knows everything about everything," essentially. "He knows more about anything than any of you guys do."

And so the relationship between the two of them, which has clearly been established as close and certainly mutually beneficial, in the words of David Pecker, doesn't stop after the election, doesn't stop based on the catch-and-kill deals.

He's now being introduced to the future kind of national security team of the president-elect of the United States in the middle of a very important briefing.

BURNETT: The guy who knows more than anybody.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BURNETT: It is just sort of the moments to take us in those rooms. It is incredible.

All right, thanks to both.

And, obviously, we're going to be here in New York throughout the afternoon, Wolf, with you.

BLITZER: Erin, we're going to be working together all afternoon, so stand by.

I want to bring in Brynn Gingras right now. She's also in New York. She just emerged from inside the courtroom.

You were there. You were watching it all unfold, Brynn. Give us your thoughts. How did it go?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, most interestingly, Wolf, you're watching David Pecker, who was a longtime friend, a confidant of Donald Trump, testifying to the sort of inner workings of how these catch-and-kill deals were made, how they were paid, how they were reimbursed, how the reimbursement came back or didn't come back. And Donald Trump really wasn't reacting, quite honestly. He was

sitting there at times -- sometimes conferring with his attorney, but he was mostly just sitting back in his chair like this with his eyes shut, sort of taking in word by word how Pecker

[13:30:00]