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CNN Live Event/Special

Now: Fourth Day of Testimony In Trump Hush Money Trial. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired April 26, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Once we learn whether or not that happened.

[09:30:02]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And also to reinforce these, then now, he's going to consider four other violations --

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- before he's even ruled on this.

BERMAN: Yeah. David Pecker back on the stand very shortly for cross- examinations.

One programming note, Sara and I are going to host coverage of the White House correspondents dinner tomorrow night beginning at 7:00. We will have a reporter inside --

BOLDUAN: Deeply sourced, deeply sourced.

BERMAN: Our mole inside the deeper. She got invited.

CNN's special live coverage of Trump's hush money trial continues right now.

(MUSIC)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We are alive outside the criminal courthouse here in Manhattan, where Donald Trump just arrived and walked into the courtroom for another day of his historic hush money trial, which is getting underway at this very moment, Judge Juan Merchan gaveled the court into session as we await more dramatic witness testimony, the potential ruling on, whether Trump violated his gag order.

Good morning to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Anderson Cooper in New York.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, and I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. You're watching CNN's special live coverage of Donald Trump on trial.

Minutes from now, we expect Trump's attorneys to press ahead with their cross-examination of David Pecker, the former tabloid executive and Trump ally, who spent the week on the stand detailing the alleged scheme to kill negative stories about Trump, the defense, trying to poke holes in the prosecution's theory that Trump's arrangement and with Pecker and the payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels were conspiracy to corruptly influence the 2016 election.

Also at any moment, Judge Merchan could rule on a major question looming over this entire trial. Did Donald Trump violate his gag order by attacking witnesses? And if so, what punishment could he phase? We're standing by for his decision.

Anderson, it's going to be very big day in court. A lot at stake, yeah.

COOPER: A big day in court, that's for sure. There is a lot at stake.

I'm joined here by our chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid.

Paula, yesterday, cross-examination began. We -- that is going to take place pretty much probably we expect all throughout the day.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I think that's right because David Pecker spent about seven hours under direct examination by the prosecution and David Pecker, of course, the tabloid king is setting the foundation for the prosecutors case that Trump and Cohen were working to suppress negative stories about then candidate Trump to help his odds in the election.

Now, yesterday, on cross-examination --

COOPER: Trump -- excuse me, Trump just walked in the courtroom carrying a two inch stack of papers altogether by a binder clip. These are for notes from our team of journalists inside the courtroom and in the overflow room will be sending us play by play of what is going on. We'll be reading those out to you as we discussed, the judges on the bench.

REID: And when Pecker takes the stand, the president's attorneys are likely going to resume their efforts to try to poke holes in the prosecutions case. Yesterday, they were trying to make two points. One, they were trying to show that Pecker's memory isn't perfect, that he forgot small details, for example, that Hope Hicks was not at a 2015 meeting.

Anderson, I understand were talking about things that happened nearly a decade ago. I think you were I could potentially forget who was at a meeting. We were at probably ten years ago.

But the other thing they were trying to drive home for their questions to Pecker so the judge notes that a hearing on this gag order that you are were just talking about actually happened next Thursday at 9:30. This will be the second time the judges had a hearing related to an alleged gag order violations since this trial started. And again, we're still waiting for his decision on the first one.

But the other point defense attorneys made was that this arrangement that Trump had with "The National Enquirer" was not unusual and this is keeping the defense attorneys because they're trying to show that this was not something that they did special just for Trump ahead of the election. And Pecker talked about how they also suppress negative stories for other high-profile men like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Wahlberg, they didn't get too deep into their questioning.

COOPER: I want to turn to CNN's Elie Honig at the magic wall.

Elie, yesterday, we heard a lot for the prosecution, finished questioning Packer in Trump's defense team began cross-examination. Talk about the takeaways for you.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah. Anderson, six hours of testimony yesterday from David Pecker, here's the most important points. Pecker, of course, just to remind people, longtime friend of Donald Trump's, he was the chair of AMI, American Media, Inc., which published the "National Enquirer".

David Pecker, on direct examination, took the jury deep inside three separate catch and kill schemes. One of the involving a door man who had a story that was false about a child that Donald Trump allegedly had did not have out of wedlock. And then two stories relating to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, both of whom alleged that they had sexual affairs with Donald Trump.

David Pecker told the jury that, quote, we didn't want the story, meaning Karen McDougal, but applied to all that, we didn't want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrassed or hurt the campaign.

[09:35:00]

Now, with about an hour left in the trial yesterday, it came time for cross-examination. Everything changes when cross-examination starts, it was done by Emil Bove, one of Donald Trump's lawyers, former federal prosecutor, and he drove home a few key points. First of all, Trump's lawyer got out of David Pecker the following about Michael Cohen. He asked in your relationship with Michael Cohen, he was somebody that was always wanted something for himself correct? And Pecker said yes.

So what the defense is doing there is using one prosecution witness, David Pecker, to undercut another prosecution witness, Michael Cohen, who will hear from in the future the defense team also focused on a discrepancy in something that David Pecker has said, he testified on direct examination about this crucial meeting in August 2015 between him, Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, and whole hicks.

But Trump's defense team pointed out that the first time David Pecker told prosecutors about this meeting, he made no mention of Hope Hicks. Now, was that a failure of memory? Is he lying? We'll see, I think they're going to try to flesh that out today.

And the third point that Trump's lawyers made on cross-examination yesterday towards the end of the day of David Pecker, was that this practice of catch-and-kill was done all the time for many years. It was not something they did specifically only for Donald Trump.

So they're trying to make the point to the jury of this was nothing out of the ordinary, and I think they're trying to suggest that the jury what's the big deal, what's the crime. That cross-examination will continue today, Anderson, in a few moments.

COOPER: All right. Elie Honig, thanks so much.

Back here outside of the courthouse with -- with Paula Reid.

It was very interesting yesterday to just get a sense from David Pecker the amount of time that they have known each other the amount of information that they kind of, the long, the length of their relationship.

REID: Yeah. This is a relationship, a friendship really that went back decades, long before Trump who is running for the White House. And it was a mutually beneficial relationship for a long time.

Trump provided a lot of news where the "National Enquirer", that sold when he was the height of his fame, Pecker said, during "The Apprentice" that the "National Enquirer" would run helpful stories to Trump's threat to amplify the great ratings, and he said the stories also did well.

And if you read lots of profiles of Pecker, I will stop for one second to get outdated inside the court, saying for now, the judge says the Trump team should continue to object to text messages as the prosecutors tried to admit them to evidence, so they're having a little dispute, the prosecutors and the defense attorneys about which text messages in this case can come in as evidence. So the judge said he's going to take those on a case-by-case basis.

But it seems if you read the history of their relationship Pecker and Trump, Pecker really admire of Trump. He admired his success, his fame his wealth. The women who are around him now the judge says he agrees with Trump's lawyers generally that at some point the text messages could become sort of cumulative -- cumulatively prejudicial to Trump so what the judge is saying here is that at some point, all of these text messages together could become too prejudicial to come in to the case. So this seems like something the judge just going to continue to monitor a dispute again over which text messages can come in, in this case.

COOPER: We're also still waiting to hear whether the judge is going to say anything about the gag order.

REID: Yeah. What's the holdup? I mean, we expected a decision by now, the judges had a few days to consider what the prosecutor says is more than ten violations of the gag order. The judge is weighing whether he wants to find or imposed some other punishment on Trump for these alleged violations. Its a little surprising that we haven't gotten that decision and now they're piling up as we kicked off in the past 24 hours, the prosecutors have added additional alleged violations.

COOPER: Trump is sitting back in his chair as the lawyers go back and forth with the judge. There's going to be another hearing next Thursday on new -- alleged new violations of the gag order.

But again, it's interesting they're going to have another for hearing. We still don't know the ruling on the former get -- violations.

REID: It's really surprising and Anderson, I hope that next week, it goes better because this past week, it was a disaster. It really devolved into a contentious exchange between the judge and the defense attorneys.

COOPER: The prosecutor is asking whether the judge will instruct the jury about Trump's attorney misleading David Pecker yesterday about an FBI interview.

REID: And during the last hearing, the defense attorneys really didn't want to focus on the post themselves and it was clear that's what the judge wanted. So going into next week, it'll be interesting getting to see if the defense attorneys switch up their tactics, and instead, try to defend these individual statements or post these infractions as opposed to just complaining about the case writ large because that did not go well for them earlier this week.

COOPER: All right. Let's go back to Jim in D.C. -- Jim.

ACOSTA: Anderson, thank you very much. I'm here with my panel here in Washington.

And, Elie, let me go to you first. I mean, I'm just kind of wondering just to echo what Paula Reid was saying a few moments ago, what's up with the gag order?

I mean, are we going to see something you think by the end of today? What do you think?

HONIG: Yes, but I said that yesterday as well. Look, anyone who's raised a child knows that discipline only works if it's swift.

[09:40:05]

And the longer he leaves this out there, I mean, in the time that the first batch of gag order motions has been pending, Trump has committed for alleged new violations, so I'm actually surprised though, because Judge Merchan for them most part has done a really effective job of keeping control of his courtroom, running things efficiently. He has tolerated no B.S. from anybody.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

HONIG: Yet he's tolerating quite a bit here. He must -- I'm guessing.

ACOSTA: Yeah, Elie, it looks like were getting an update from the trial as we speak that says the judge agreeing that Trump attorney's apology will be sufficient. So it sounds as though one of the Trump attorneys did apologize to David Pecker at the start of the testimony for not being clear enough during some of the cross-examinations. So, all right, so --

HONIG: Sometimes, sometimes judges and prosecutors just work things out in formal. Yeah. Sometimes you can do it. Yeah.

ACOSTA: Now, not work out with the gag order. Yeah.

HONIG: No. Right, yeah, an apology is not going to do it, but the judge has got to get control of this because it's not going to resolve itself and I'd be shocked if he doesn't rule today.

ACOSTA: And, Elliot, the other excerpt that were getting right now, so as the prosecutors asked, the judge to give the jury more instruction about how they should consider references to Pecker's meetings with prosecutors ahead of Trump. There's going to be a lot of back-and-forth over these meetings that David Pecker was testifying about, which are just fascinating that this was going on during the campaign.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. So there's two things to learn from this and these meetings. Number one, it's very common for judges to instruct juries as to anything really and the jury's understanding of the law and the facts really hinges on how the judge often explains it to them. And these jury instructions end up being pretty controversial. You know, the parties will fight over them quite a bit.

Here, the extent to which a witness as --

ACOSTA: Pecker has entered the courtrooms, yeah.

WILLIAMS: No, the extent to which a witness has met with prosecutors, speaks to the witnesses credibility, and often, jurors may regard lots of meetings with prosecutors as a as a sign of bias on the part of the witness. What they're working out here, I think is how the judge will explain what the jury should do with those can just say you can glean credibility issues from someone's meeting, but don't read too far into it.

ACOSTA: Yeah. And, Kaitlan, I mean, one of the things I'm really struck by, I mean, just to look at the politics of this you and I both remember the 2016 campaign. And what was going on during that cycle and yet all along behind the scenes, its, it just seems with all these legal cases, we think we know everything that there is in the world to know about Donald Trump were still learning new things.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it's shocking yesterday how we learned those details from David Pecker about the White House and his line into the White House, his presence at the White House, walking right outside the Oval Office where we saw world leaders and the president walking down that colonnade and we now know the tabloid king was there.

And the jury is now in the room, Jim. And I should note, what I've been hearing from people this morning is that David Pecker is obviously returning to the way but the stand as you just noted, they do expect -- and of course, we'll see what happens once he's actually on the witness stand. They do expect him to finish his cross- examination today and then prosecutors will have a chance to do their redirect. They expect all of that to end today, so we may see a second witness take the stand as soon as this afternoon, potentially. ACOSTA: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we were kind of

expecting potentially, Jamie Gangel, is that maybe Donald Trump would testify himself during all of this. But last night, he was sounding a little different on that question. Is there a little bit of sound of that we can play and then talk about it on the other side?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, if it's necessary, right now, I don't know if you heard about today. Today was just incredible. People are saying the experts -- I'm talking about legal scholars and experts -- this say what kind of a cases is this? There is no case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Of course, not all the legal experts are saying that, but the first part of that, oh, maybe, maybe not, it sounds like now.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

GANGEL: If it's necessary.

Look, how many times have we seen Donald Trump say, I'm going to take the stand? I'm going to do this and then when push comes to shove, his lawyers and he also knows better, you can't take the stand and then face cross-examination --

ACOSTA: Right.

GANGEL: -- when you're Donald Trump.

I just want to go back to David Pecker for a minute and in something that the lawyers, Elie, you can talk about that credibility, I thought David Pecker was a very good witness for the prosecution. This is no Michael Cohen. This is not someone who's hostile.

He's a friend. He calls Donald Trump a mentor. He says, even though we don't talk anymore, I still consider him a friend.

When they did the cross-examination, they focus not on any of that. Not on the substance of what he was saying about what they were doing with the catch and kill or the money. But just he met with prosecutors a lot of the time. I don't know, Elliot's nodding.

[09:45:01]

WILLIAMS: No, I agree, no, I agree. I -- and its one of the most useful things that defense attorneys can do is attack a witnesses' credibility and even little things like meetings they had, what motive they have to be truthful to the jury is the kind of thing you can attack a witness on.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it was they did a really good job of attacking Michael Cohen subtly during that. I mean, that was clearly what they were doing when they set up the entire him having to go to Trump and say, this guy would throw himself in front of a bus for you.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

HOLMES: Would you give him his Christmas bonus? He's really worried about it. I mean, they were clearly there trying to set up who Michael Cohen was at that time, remembering people who you know, now is not the same guy from --

ACOSTA: We're going to ask Jim Schultz about all that in just a moment. Jim, standby, we're coming to you in hot minute here.

All right. Coming up more official testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial defense attorneys now cross-examining tabloid executive David Pecker. We'll be right back.

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COOPER: And welcome back to CNN's special live coverage of Donald Trump on trial. We just got our first picture of Trump from today's court session. Defense attorneys now are talking to David Pecker, star witness for the prosecution.

I want to bring in criminal defense attorney Adam Kaufmann from more analysis, along with CNN's Paula Reid.

So, first of all, what are we expecting the defense to focus on initially?

REID: So they're going to continue to try to poke holes in the prosecution's case and where they started yesterday, was trying to establish that this arrangement between Trump and Pecker wasn't unusual, and this was the kind of thing this catch and kill by a story and then bury it or tip you to other unfavorable stories that this whole thing was done with other high profile people. And he named several other people, including Mark Wahlberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So that's where the defense attorneys started. They're also trying to note some lapses in Peckers memory. So that's where they pick up today.

COOPER: Adam, how do you think the defense will handle David Pecker as a witness? I mean, there's different ways to approach it. He is somebody who obviously knows an awful lot of secrets of Donald Trump. It doesn't seem like they will be as aggressive as they might be with somebody else.

ADAM KAUFMANN, FORMER EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT D.A. MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: Yeah. So, typically, when you have a witness who has some things that you want and then places where you need to go after his credibility, you start with the places where there's agreement. So it's a friendlier cross. You're pulling out the things that you know, the witnesses going to say that you want to establish with the jury.

And you do all that in a way to establish a rapport. The witness is friendly. He's talking to you, and then at a certain point if there are key items where you need to question his credibility. That's when you change tones, changed tactics, and go after him a little bit more and perhaps use prior statements and the like to impeach him.

COOPER: Trump's attorney Bove is focusing on the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting.

I also want to bring in Brian Stelter, who's joining us, a special correspondent for "Vanity Fair" and author of the book "Network of Lies".

Brian, one cross-examination began yesterday, Trump's attorney tried to emphasize that these catch and kill arrangements were not unique for Trump. That paying -- I mean, in your experience, was paying to cover up stories the norm for the tabloid industry at the time?

BRIAN STELTER, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR: It was -- it was the norm at the "National Enquirer". I don't think we can extrapolate and say that other tabloids were engaging in the same behavior. But there were certainly a lot of this kind of sketchy behavior going on at the "Enquirer" and some of the other publications that were also owned by American Media, Inc. Remember, the "Enquirer" is just one of those brands.

When you talk to ex-staffers from the "Enquirer", some of them now have regrets. Some of them look back and say that they were engaged in so many morally dubious, so many ethically compromising behaviors that it all became normal than it all started to feel like a normal part of the job when it was anything but.

And I think that's interesting subplot to this trial, Anderson. Yes, this is all about the legal case, but there's an ethical dynamic and ethical component to this.

Trump's character is also being tested. Who was he -- who is he taking advantage of? In this case, David Pecker, and, of course, Becker was taking advantage of him a little bit to try to sell more copies of this magazine.

COOPER: And Bove is focusing right now and the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting and his questioning with David Pecker in the courtroom, that's the critical meeting where it was Michael Cohen, Donald Trump, David Pecker. And according to Peckers testimony, Trump and Cohen were saying to him, what can you do for us on the campaign to help, and that's where Pecker said I'll be your eyes and ears catching and killing though he says he didn't use that term, catching and killing stories that might be negative against Donald Trump.

One of the strategies of the Trump attorneys, Brian, is to show that these deals between AMI and Trump helped AMI as well. Pecker agreed when Trump's lawyer called it a mutually beneficial relationship.

What do you think the benefit that Pecker and his company got from this was?

STELTER: It's hard to quantify because American media is that was a privately held company. You know, we don't have access to the bank statements to show how much better at Trump issue would sell on the newsstand versus issue about some celebrity.

But I do think we do know back in 2015, the context was --

COOPER: Hey, Brian, just hold on. Bove is asking about "National Enquirer" stories about the Clintons confirming with Pecker that AMI had decided to run negative stories before that August 2015 meeting.

Sorry. Go ahead, Brian.

STELTER: And back in that time, Trump was just beginning to consolidate control over the GOP. Remember, there were so many people running for president back in August 2015, Trump, at that point, might have still been considered a long-shot, right? His candidacy was a surprise to many people, but he needed to create this alternative reality, this alternative media universe in order to get his story out.

[09:55:04]

So, the "Enquirer" was really important for him. This is why that Trump Tower meeting, it was so important. Here we are a decade later, we're all used to Trump's lies. He's claiming today that his fans cant get out here to the park outside the courthouse?

COOPER: Yeah.

STELTER: Just so you know, Anderson, I count six or seven protesters today seems to be a grift to they're trying to sell some Trump's swag.

COOPER: Brian Stelter, thanks very much.

Bove is saying that running those stories were beneficial to AMI, correct? Pecker says of the Bill and Hillary stories, this is an important point, Paula Reid.

REID: Yeah, this is incredibly important because remember prosecutors really started their story without 2015 meeting, that August 2015 Trump Tower meeting with Cohen, Trump and Pecker, were they decided that, yeah. I'm going to be your eyes in years. Pecker said, help them suppress negative stories to help him win the White House.

Now, here again, Trump is once again sitting in his chair. But the reason this is important is because Pecker is testifying that their decision to run negative stories about Clinton happened before that meeting.

COOPER: We're going to take a short break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

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