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CNN Live Event/Special

Now, Hearing on Trump's Latest Alleged Gag Order Violations; Any Moment, Testimony Resumes in Trump Hus Money Trial; Now, Former Lawyer for Stormy Daniels on the Stand. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 02, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The judge, Juan Merchan, in Donald Trump's hush money cover-up trial, is listening to arguments right now about whether the defendant, the former president of the United States, broke a gag order that he had issued four additional times. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

Judge Merchan pointedly saying moments ago that Mr. Trump does not have to speak to reporters when he walks in and out of court. That's his choice, and a choice that raises his exposure to penalties when he crosses the lines on outlining what he can say and cannot say.

My panel is back here with me. And, Kasie Hunt, Todd Blanche, Trump's attorney, right now is saying that Michael Cohen is making comments about Trump that are, quote, personal attacks on his character, mocking him for being on trial, and also his candidacy for president of the United States, unquote. So, he's basically saying it's not fair to say that Donald Trump can't respond. Yes, this guy is a witness, but he's out there beating the snot out of my client every day.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: One way to put it. And, look --

TAPPER: that's the clean version.

HUNT: Michael Cohen has, I think it seems recognized that potentially he's in a different position, because he's come out and said, okay, I'm not going to say any more of these things now that we're this far. Because, I mean, I'll be honest, I think all of us sitting here can tell the difference between a Michael Cohen, who is a public figure in his own right, who went to -- lie to Congress, basically on Donald Trump's behalf, you know, was part of his inner circle, went to prison, et cetera, very much cuts a different figure than the jury, especially, which is the other one on this list that I think is actually one of the more interesting things that could come out of this, because we haven't seen that, as well as even some of these other witnesses that are not as front and center in the public eye.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Can we just talk about what's behind intimidation? What the judge is worried about here is that when Donald Trump says these things, some of his followers or people might act upon them. That's why -- TAPPER: At the very least, death threats and perhaps even worse.

GANGEL: Right, that's why jurors are worried. I'm not excusing what Michael Cohen is saying, but I don't think there is the same level of concern that people who are going to rally behind Michael Cohen to intimidate Trump.

One other thing about Donald Trump, which we have known for years and years, as a friend of his said to me, he doesn't just get up every morning and decide he's going to punch someone. He gets up every morning and decides who is he going to --

TAPPER: So, Todd Blanche, Trump's attorney, is right now showing the judge one of Michael Cohen's re-tweets, not tweets, but re-tweets from April 8th as well as a post from Michael Cohen on April 14th, where Michael Cohen posts a photo of Trump in an orange jumpsuit, not a real photo of Trump in an orange jumpsuit, either -- let's call it A.I. perhaps.

But, Elliot Williams, generally speaking, if Mr. Trump were not running for president of the United States, this would be pretty open and shut. Who cares? You just have to take it. But there is an argument here that Donald Trump is running for president and his First Amendment rights, when it comes to responding to attacks, need to be respected.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. And this is partly why they are hammering these Michael Cohen points so aggressively. Because the fact that these are probably of the four arguments, the strongest one that the Trump team has, it's someone who is, in some measure, going back and forth with the former president.

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TAPPER: Okay. I apologize for this update ahead of time, but Todd Blanche, the Trump attorney, is specifically reading a post that Michael Cohen made on Twitter on April 22nd, in which he refers to Donald Trump as Von Schitzenpants (ph). That is just a factual record that I am bringing before you. This is in the court transcript, Von Schitzenpants.

Blanche also said there are repeated attacks on Trump and his candidacy on Cohen's podcast and TikTok account.

Dana Bash, I know you want to weigh in on Von Schitzenpants.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think we did it on behalf of all of us.

TAPPER: I have been calling it Von Poops and Pants for weeks now, but now it's a part of the official transcript.

BASH: But I do think that when it comes to just the raw politics of this, the argument that Donald Trump is making out in the world, not just when he comes into court and when he leaves court, but when he's on social media, when he's at his rallies about I'm gagged, I can't speak, when you look at this, which we should say he can speak about the judge, he can speak broadly about a lot of things, it's very narrow what the gag order is about, but it does include Michael Cohen, because Michael Cohen will be a witness.

And when Michael Cohen makes very clearly political statements against Donald Trump, it gives Donald Trump a much more credible political argument saying, this is ridiculous that I can speak. Blanche just showed articles quoting Cohen, quote, talking extensively about Trump's presidential campaign.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's the point I was making earlier, right? It doesn't matter that there's a legal aspect to this and then there's the political aspect to it. And the political aspect is, you know, Trump is -- every rally from now to Election Day, he's going to talk about this.

If Michael Cohen is out there just punching and punching away and, you know, acting like Beavis and Butthead, you know, there's going to be retribution from the president in terms of response.

WILLIAMS: Now, this is not Von Schitzenpants.

TAPPER: One second, I'm coming right back to you, Elliot. After Todd Lance shows the two additional articles about Michael Cohen attacking Mr. Trump, Judge Merchan interrupts him saying, you made your point, you made your point.

WILLIAMS: Yes. All I was going to say is something interesting in the gag order that the judge said, having resolved the question for the first time, re-tweets can count as speech or statements for the purposes of the gag order.

One of the ones that was just quoted was Michael Cohen re-tweeting something about Donald Trump. It will be interesting to see how the judge handles that, saying that not Von Schitzenpantz, but I think this was another account that was critical of Trump and he re-tweeted.

TAPPER: So, I think that you're also saying suggestively that re- tweets do constitute (INAUDIBLE) from now on. Yes, exactly. That's accepted status.

Blanche says, Mr. Cohen has started going on TikTok nightly and literally making money.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, there is some hope that we can emerge from this muck. The timing is important here. The four alleged violations that are being heard right now, they all happened early last week. Donald Trump has now gone, world's record, eight or nine days without a specific violation.

TAPPER: But Todd Blanche is saying of Michael Cohen, this is not a man who needs protection from the gag order. In other words, this is not Karen McDougal, who's been quiet in her life, or even Stormy Daniels, who's being relatively quiet these days. This is somebody who's out there throwing punches, seeking the limelight. HONIG: It goes to Kasie's point from earlier. There's a real question here of who's vulnerable and who's not. You started it. Well, then you're opening yourself up to attacks. And the jury always has to be number one. You know, saying comment and one of the four comments at issue right now is about the jury, completely unacceptable. I think the judge is going to smack that. Oh, here we go. The judge asked --

TAPPER: The judge asked Trump's attorney to address the comments that the former president made about the jury. Now, this is the question about Donald Trump saying that 95 percent of the jury are Democrats, an assertion that he has absolutely no basis, in fact, for making. Although Manhattan is generally regarded as a fairly liberal area to live, he does not know the political leanings of the jury.

Blanche says, we very much believe this is a political persecution. The judge cuts him off saying, did he violate the gag order, yes or no?

BASH: And if I may, Blanche, right before that, told the judge it was only 15 seconds of a 20-minute interview.

HONIG: Blanche has nothing on this one here. He has a plausible defense on Michael Cohen, just striking back, but comments about the jury. And let's remember, these comments were made after the jury was seated. So, he's no longer talking hypothetically or about hundreds of people in a jury pool. He's talking about these 12, plus 6 alternates, these 18 people, the judge is definitely going to focus on that.

TAPPER: And let's also note that when you talk about, Jamie, what national security experts refer to as stochastic terrorism, which is, in other words, a politician says, oh, my God, I hate barbers, and then all of a sudden, his followers start beating up barbers. That's stochastic terrorism. You never gave a direct order to do it, but you created an environment that's unsafe.

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Michael Cohen is one thing. He's out there throwing punches. He's doing TikToks. These jurors want to be anonymous. And we have already had jurors express the fear that they are going to be outed.

HUNT: One of them left.

TAPPER: Trump's minions on Fox were out there like talking about how one juror shouldn't be on the jury. Trump right now leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped in front of him as attorney argues he didn't violate the gag order.

But this is one of the concerns about the jury and I think it's probably more of a treacherous terrain for Trump than Michael Cohen, Kasie.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, I think that that's absolutely right. And, you know, it seems very -- as much -- the way that Todd Blanche doesn't have anything to say seems to say everything in terms of the jury. I mean, you just said it very well, Elie, right, that Todd Blanche doesn't have anything on this. And it seems like this is why.

And in some ways, you know, I'd be interested to know if Trump, he made this one comment, and it was part of this really long interview, it was something I thought I might hear more from him. But I do wonder if behind the scenes they said, hey, you can't do this, because it's a very Trumpian thing to do. He does this, generally speaking, across the board with the travails that he has.

TAPPER: Apologies, Blanche argues that Trump didn't single out any specific jurors when he made an overarching statement about the jury.

GANGEL: That's ridiculous. It is a group.

But just to follow up on what Kasie said, I think it is also important to remember that Donald Trump pushes the envelope. This is his M.O. He's been doing this January 6th. We have seen real-time results when he goes after people.

One other point --

TAPPER: Oh, I'm sorry. But Blanche is reiterating that Cohen should not be protected by the gag order. Blanche is just making the argument now, like just it makes no sense for your gag order to protect Michael Cohen. Judge Merchan is wrapping the hearing up. Let's take five minutes, he says, before we bring the jury in. He says, before leaving the bench, let's take five minutes. It's not a bad idea. Let's take five minutes right now, not five, really, just a few.

We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We'll be right more with more coverage of Donald Trump's testimony cover-up trial. You're watching CNN. Stay with us.

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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN's special live coverage. Any moment now, the jury is going to enter that courtroom you see there on the right, and testimony will pick up in Donald Trump's hush money cover-up criminal trial.

Right now, the former president is inside that courtroom, and so far, the morning has focused on whether he violated that gag order again after he was found and violated it nine times. Now at question are four more instances where Donald Trump has commented on witnesses or the jury.

The hearing just ended, but Judge Merchan did not yet rule from the bench. So, we are still waiting to see what his decision here will be.

Back with me now is my panel, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Paula Reid.

And, Karen, what we're about to see after just a very brief break in the courtroom is Keith Davidson is going to get back on the stand. And how Tuesday ended was Keith Davidson, the former attorney for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who helped negotiate their payments, he's going to get back on the stand. And the line of questioning on Tuesday when they stopped was about that Stormy Daniels payment, and Donald Trump being at the heart of it, as he argued, and also his interactions with Michael Cohen.

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: When you read, go back and read the transcripts of his testimony from Tuesday, you can start to see the defense starting to take shape by what they're objecting to and what they're not objecting to. And, really, what the defense, I think their strategy is they're not going to attack whether these things happened, because, of course, it did, right? Of course, there were payments made to Stormy Daniels. What they're trying to do is distance Trump from that.

And so they're going to make it all about Michael Cohen, that somehow Michael Cohen orchestrated this. Michael Cohen is the one who -- if there was a campaign finance violation, it was him. If there was false business records, that was a Michael Cohen thing, that you've only dealt with Michael Cohen, you never dealt with Donald Trump, and that somehow this was just all by Michael Cohen, who was trying to curry favor with Trump or something, and maybe get a position in the White House, whatever it is, that's what it seems like they're doing. They're not going to dispute the facts, they're just going to say Trump had nothing to do with it. That was all Michael.

COLLINS: We are told the cross of Michael Cohen -- or, excuse me, Keith Davidson is expected to be pretty lengthy from Trump's team. But what's been funny about how the prosecutors are handling this is Michael Cohen is obviously the star witness here, but they've kind of been letting the witnesses make fun of him.

I mean, there was a moment on Tuesday where everyone in the courtroom laughed to the jurors and attorneys from both sides when Keith Davidson testified that nobody wanted to talk to Michael Cohen. No one wanted to deal with him, talking about how difficult he was to deal with.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. One thing that everybody agrees on is that no one has anything nice to say about Michael Cohen. And that is a real problem for the prosecutors when he's your star witness. So, that's why they have to work to really buttress what he's going to say.

But Keith Davidson's testimony is so critical because he's the one who personally received Stormy Daniels' hush money directly from Michael Cohen. And you can hear through his testimony that he believed that his client really had a good opportunity here to make some money. He believed in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape. He said that there was renewed interest in her story.

So, that is certainly good for the defense's argument, right? Perhaps this was opportunistic, but he's also clear that he knows that suppressing the story will help Trump in the election. And that, of course, helps the prosecutor.

[10:20:00] COLLINS: And Keith Davidson is back on the stand right now under questioning from prosecutors. I was in the courtroom on Tuesday. He's a really compelling witness. Keith Davidson has this thing that he does where when the prosecutors ask him a question, sometimes he'll look at them directly. But often he turns to the jury and speaks directly to those 12 jurors who are sitting there paying close attention, often taking notes, looking at the screens in front of them as the evidence and the text messages are being presented.

And he comes across as genuine, maybe certainly involved in some unseemly dealings, but telling the story of his negotiations with Michael Cohen and with Donald Trump. And Davidson, we should note, just glanced into the galleries. He walked to the witness stand. Trump has a stack of papers that he's shuffling. I should note the witness walks in front of Trump's political team, but behind Trump at the defense table.

We also have former New York State, retired New York State Supreme Court Justice Jill Konviser here with us.

And, Judge, just as you're watching all of this, I mean, the question is still hanging open, how the judge is going to handle potentially four more violations to this gag order.

JILL KONVISER, FORMER NEW YORK STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: I think you're going to see much of what you've already seen, which is a very measured response from Judge Merchan, he's going to review the arguments and make his decision on his timeline.

You saw in the first order that he handily rejected every one, but one, every charge, but one that the people did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt from his perspective. And he handily rejected all of the defendant's arguments from reposting to First Amendment, to sort of selective enforcement here. I expect he will take his time continuing to be measured and reasonable.

COLLINS: And I should note, the jury is back in the courtroom. They weren't in the courtroom for that hearing earlier today. One question that Karen, a good point that she made earlier, was why not just have everyone gagged? The witnesses here, why should they -- I mean, I understand that they're not the ones who are under indictment here or facing these charges, but is that not a reasonable point for the judge to consider?

KONVISER: I don't know that that's reasonable. There is one defendant in this case and it's Donald Trump, and the gag order applies to him. But you're right, there is a bigger picture here, which is that the integrity of the process must be maintained. And that is of paramount importance here to the court, and it should be to all of us.

I can pretty much guarantee that the D.A.'s office called up Michael Cohen and gave him a tongue lashing and said, stand down, stop it, you're not helping things. So, in a very unusual circumstance, the judge probably could do that. I don't see that we've gotten to that point. But you did see in the decision that Judge Merchan wrote that he talked about witnesses and he talked about whether or not a witness can use this order as a shield and a sword, saying, listen, people, you want me to hold the defendant responsible under this gag order for things that he says. If your witnesses persist, guess what, this may not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. He sent that message loudly and clearly.

COLLINS: Yes. Judge Konviser, thank you for your perspective on that. It's very important.

And, Karen, now that Keith Davidson is back on the stand and we are seeing prosecutors question him once again, I wonder what you make of what I observed on Tuesday, which is him speaking directly to the jury. I mean, is that unusual? Is that typical? I mean, it just stood out to me that he was directly telling them a story, basically.

AGNIFILO: Yes. Well, prosecutors often tell witnesses to look at the jury because, really, that's what you're doing is talking to the jury. The jury and the jury alone are the ones who are going to decide the facts beyond a reasonable doubt one way or another. And it's not about the judge, it's not about the prosecutor. The prosecutor tries to fade into the background and not make it about them self, because it really is about the jury.

So, it's common for prosecutors to say just talk to the jury, look at the jury. You'll even see prosecutors standing kind of at the end of the jury box, so that if they are looking at the prosecutor, they're looking in the general direction of the jurors.

COLLINS: And one thing that they've been doing is bringing in text messages and emails that Keith Davidson is involved. And he's kind of reading them aloud and explaining what happened. They're showing an email right now from Dylan Howard, who was at the National Enquirer, to Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson. They were kind of the three at the heart of the emails, the texts, the calls of figuring out how much money, who was going to buy this, and what they were going to do with it.

REID: And there does seem to be an acknowledgement within these communications that they know if they suppress her story, it will help Trump with the election.

Now, there's an October 26th, so we're just a few days away from Election Day, email from Dylan Howard to Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson saying, thank you for both chatting with me earlier. So, clearly, they're in discussions in these final days.

This is such a critical period. I mean, this could help the prosecution's case and that clearly the reason for all the expediency here is that there's an election a few days away.

[10:25:06]

And in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape, it's important for them to suppress this. But as Karen pointed out earlier for the defense, you don't see Trump on any of these emails, you only see him occasionally referenced. There's no indication that he is directly involved in the initial steps of this hush money paper.

COLLINS: Yes. Trump just now started texting, I think, a year ago or so. He was famously never a texter. He always just calls multiple times a day. I'm told he still does. Most of his phone calls very early in the morning to his attorneys.

But, you know, October 26th has been a singular date in this trial. That was the date that Michael Cohen was desperately trying to get that account open, the home line of credit, which we know is immediately what was used to pay Stormy Daniels the $130,000.

And Keith Davidson is testifying that he had lost trust in Michael Cohen, and that it had to do with the delays in funding. He was basically saying Michael Cohen is giving him every excuse under the sign about why I didn't paid, Jewish holidays, Trump's campaigning, banks being closed. And he was saying, you know, the other day, I just couldn't deal with Michael Cohen. And they thought he was stringing him along until after the election.

AGNIFILO: Yes, that's what you're going to see, I think, on cross. It's all about how you don't trust Michael Cohen. You don't like Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen, you thought, was a liar. They're just going to use the prosecution's witness to make their own case. I mean, that's how they -- they don't have to put on a defense and they don't have to put any witnesses on. But when you can use the prosecution's witnesses to get all the facts out that you want, you've got them all right there. I mean, the cross is clear what they're going to do.

Because you can't deny that this is right before the election. You can't deny that these were false business records, right? You can't deny that the payments were made. You can follow the money. But what they can do is distance Donald Trump from it and say, this is all about Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen was the one who wanted to do this. And the only thing tying Trump to this are Michael Cohen's words. And you can't trust Michael Cohen. He's a convicted liar. Nobody trusted him. Nobody liked him. He lied here. I mean, that's what you're going to see the defense is going to be here, because you could just tell from the questions that they're asking and not asking.

COLLINS: And Michael Cohen responded in an email at 6:47 A.M., the day after October 26th, on October 27th, saying that the money -- asking Davidson to confirm that the wire had been received. Davidson said I confirm that I will work in good faith that no funds shall be dispersed unless and until the plaintiff personally signs off all necessary settlement paperwork.

All of this is going on, I should note, that many times, as Keith Davidson has been answering questions from prosecutors, you'll see Donald Trump with his eyes closed for sustained periods of times. He's not always sleeping. He's often, it seems, kind of ignoring the answer that is coming from the witness stand, only relatively and intermittently looking over there. This is Keith Davidson, the attorney who brokered these hush money deals to keep Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal quiet. He is now back on the witness stand.

We have much more insight from inside the courtroom in minutes as you are watching CNN's special live coverage.

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