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CNN Live Event/Special

Longtime Trump Aide Hope Hicks Testifying In Hush Money Trial. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired May 03, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:31:59]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our special coverage of former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial.

And right now, former Trump confidant, one of his closest aides and advisors, Hope Hicks, is back on the stand. And she's being asked specifically about Trump's campaign's reaction to the bombshell story published on November 4, 2016, just four days before the election.

That story revealed the hush money payment made to playmate, Karen McDougal, by the "National Enquirer." Hicks has been asked about the official response she gave to the paper at the time, which was, quote, "We have no knowledge of any of this."

She then went on to say that it was, quote, "Totally untrue." You can see it right there.

They've since moved on to more about the Stormy Daniels and the response to the Stormy Daniel stories as well.

Let's bring in CNN correspondents, Paula Reid and Kristen Holmes.

Paula, I want start with you because as this is continuing to roll out, we're seeing more updates on the left side of your screen. The jury has seen texts that Michael Cohen sent to Hope Hicks, the back- and-forth.

Hicks, when it comes to Stormy Daniels, just few moments ago, saying she was explicitly told to deny that story and what it entailed.

What are you seeing right now as the prosecution continues its questions?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So our colleagues in the courtroom are reporting that Hicks seems quite nervous, which she has been throughout her testimony, but especially here.

She's sort of giggling through some of her answers, smiling nervously, wringing her hands.

And part of the reason is because she knows that prosecutors are now going to walk her through a series of public statements she gave that we now know were false.

Now, one text message between her and Michael Cohen reads, "Call me," at 7:08 p.m. "Any news," 8:50. "Any news" at 9:02.

So this is going to be actually something to really watch, the communication between her and Michael Cohen as it pertains to this "Wall Street Journal" story about Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels.

I mean, this could potentially -- depending on what these text messages say, this could be helpful for the prosecution, but we'll wait until more comes in.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's interesting, one of the kind of connections that has not been directly made, from what the former president, the role he had, how much he knew, firsthand knowledge of where he was during all of this.

You were on the campaign, you were covering the Trump campaign in this period of time, as we continue to see these updates come in.

What's being described or what you're seeing about what was happening behind the scenes. Was that known publicly?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, absolutely not. Remember, this was kind of shock after shock at the time on the campaign trail.

I think what the prosecution is doing here, successfully, with this witness is you have someone here who's not really in the underbelly of society, like we have seen with so many of these other witnesses.

They're taking somebody who was in Trump's inner circle, who is next to him day in and day out. And she's giving what seems to be, at least through reading the transcripts -- we're not in the courtroom -- a very honest testimony of what she knew and didn't know, what the campaign looked like at the time, and how all of this unfolded.

Now of course, some of the basics we didn't know. We did know that she had this kind of meteoric rise with no political background to become the head of communications.

We knew that Donald Trump had everything that he said, every statement that went out about him, vetted through him, himself, that she was not just given carte blanche to go out there and respond for him like so many other communications directors are.

[14:35:15]

But what she's really doing here is giving a walk-through of every single thing that happened and really kind of linking a lot of this together.

Now of course, it's not necessarily linking anything together for the case, but just what exactly was happening in the background there.

Particularly what happened after that "Access Hollywood" tape because there's a lot of us that remember, yes, there was a lot of talk about whether or not this was going to end Donald Trump's political career.

But Donald Trump himself came out with this kind of air of confidence. And as we know, it did not end his political career.

But to see the kind of decisions and conversations that were happening behind the scenes, that has been very interesting as it all unfolds.

MATTINGLY: Yes, there's no question about that.

I want to read some of the updates we've gotten where they're reading a text from Cohen to Hope Hicks as they're trying to be updated on when the story was going to be published.

Hicks sent the story to -- a link to the story to Cohen when it published. Cohen responding, "Poorly written and I dot" -- I think he meant don't there -- "she is getting much play."

Hicks, apparently, according to reporters in the room, laughing when she was reading the typo there. Now, Hicks saying, quote, "I agree with most of that, and it will get play because the media is the worst. But we should just ignore and blow past it."

REID: And this is significant because, of course, they're talking about a story from the -- related to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels four days before the election.

Now at this point, both women have received compensation to keep quiet about their alleged affairs with then-Candidate Trump. But there is a heightened concern, a heightened vigilance within the campaign at this time, concern about any more damaging stories related to really any sort of illicit sexual behavior.

That's why I think these text messages are significant. It shows that Cohen, and Hicks as well as the campaign press secretary, are watching this very closely to see how the story plays out.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and no mention of the family here --

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MATTINGLY: -- focus on the campaign.

All right, Paula Reid, Kristen Holmes.

Much more to come as we continue to watch the testimony or read through the testimony of Hope Hicks. It's gotten back underway here in New York.

Longtime Trump aide, Hope Hicks, capping off this week of testimony, talking about her time working on the former president's 2016 campaign and how it handled potentially damaging stories. Also worked in the White House as well.

We will keep you updated. Back in a minute.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right. We're following all of the updates from the former president's criminal trial in New York that Trump was worried about the story breaking, the "Wall Street Journal" story in November of 2016.

Which specifically was about Karen McDougal and a scheme in basically for the "National Enquirer" to capture and kill her story.

And also an update that -- from Hope Hick's testimony that Trump did not want the newspaper delivered to his house. He didn't want his wife, Melania Trump, to see this in the paper.

So let's bring our panel back as we look at these updates coming in from Hope Hicks.

What do you think, Elie, as you see what she's saying?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, in isolation, the piece of testimony about how Donald Trump did not want his wife to find out about this, did not want to pay for delivered to the residents, is really good for the defense.

Because they've been arguing all along his primary motivation in making these payments was to protect himself, his wife, his family, reputationally.

But it seems like Hope Hicks is also confirming that he also, we all were concerned with the campaign as well.

And when you have a mixed motive situation like this, you would rather have it be clean, from the prosecutor's point of view.

But the prosecutors can still make their case if they can show that a substantial motive, even if it's one of several motors, a substantial motive was the campaign, that's still good enough for prosecutors.

JAMES SCHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Yes. They went on to say everything they were dealing with, they looked through the lens of the campaign, right? So it was just commonplace.

If there was anything going on in Donald Trump's world, it had to be - have something -- they had to look at it from a campaign perspective. And that's the case with every campaign.

KEILAR: She turns, Hope Hicks does, just a moment ago, to the juror and said -- she -- to explain what the outer Oval Office looks like as she's talking about sort of the machinations of what's going on.

But she had said that everything we've talked about in the context of this time period, in this timeframe, was about whether or not there was an impact to the campaign, to your point.

She -- her office, as she's explaining, when she joined was in the outer Oval, which she says was right outside of the Oval. She was very much truly the gatekeeper.

As anyone who covered the White House understood or was looking in for access to the Oval Office, there she was sort of to run interference.

And it's not -- it's a very small space, as she explains. It's pretty -- it's not grand, even though you think of the White House. It's actually pretty little within the bounds of a historical building.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: To Elie's point and to echo his words from a moment ago, "in isolation." Yes, not that great a fact. It is relevant though in that she would have had proximity to conversations that were happening.

She might have been able to have conversations with the president and his team because he was coming in and out and overheard things. And she will -- my guess is that she probably testifies to some of that as it comes up.

But more to the point, these might be basic facts about the world, the Oval Office is small, but prosecutors have to establish virtually everything to this jury that knows nothing about the facts at all.

So we're getting a little bit more now.

[14:45:05]

KEILAR: This is just -- she's just explaining to people --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KEILAR: -- Madeleine Westerhout, that she sat in that same area with her at the time. She was Trump's executive assistant at the time.

So she's just going through how things worked there outside of the Oval Office.

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GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: She's within earshot. You know, he could -- he could just scream, "Hope, get in here" and --

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HONIG: He bellowed.

BORGER: -- as he did. And she would. You know?

KEILAR: And so could others, so could others hear as well.

BORGER: Yes.

KEILAR: But this is -- this is a really interesting moment that we're going through right here, which has to do -- we -- can we imagine this?

Just a few days before the election, Audie, and this "Wall Street Journal" story is breaking. The stories of two women that the Trump orbit has really tried to keep silent ahead of the election and failing in this case when it comes to Karen McDougal.

The "Wall Street Journal" breaking this story. Eventually, more than a year later, they'll break the Stormy Daniels payoff as well.

But all of this is -- all of this is happening. Obviously, they're not in the White House. They're on the campaign. But all of this is happening and there must just be chaos inside of the campaign as they're figuring out how to deal with this.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: I'm also struck by what a time capsule this case is. I mean, there's so many aspects of it that feel like can't be replicated anymore.

Just the fact that we're talking about the tape, right? We've just seen the advent of A.I. in the last year go mainstream. I don't know who is going to believe tapes anymore. And I know politicians of all kinds will be able to deny things that they say can be manipulated.

The sex scandal, even for a politician, were in the end of shame. Nobody is going to say, I have a sex scandal, and therefore, I need to not do this job anymore. That's not been the take -- the takeaway from the last couple of months.

So there's something about this case that feels -- it's historic for many reasons. But at this point, it also has a kind of like ancient element to it.

BORGER: What about hiding the story from Melania by saying don't give us the newspapers --

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KEILAR: -- probably going to work so long as well.

Just to see here, the judge -- and I'm curious what our legal minds think here.

The judge overruling an objection over a question about Hick's awareness of Karen McDougal suing AMI to be released from her NDA.

WILLIAMS: Yes, I'd be curious about what the basis for the objection was. It's probably because it brings in facts that aren't relevant to the parties here.

You know, I can see why the judge overruled this one, only on account of the fact that it establishes -- these are all facts. She filed this lawsuit. She had the NDA and so on. There's nothing that's going to unduly prejudice the defendant or cause a problem here. So I think the judge was right.

KEILAR: All right, Hicks saying she hadn't remembered that, independently, but says that she recently had her memory refreshed about that lawsuit. So this is ongoing. Hope Hicks on the stand. Obviously, a very

important person during those years in the White House and prior in former President Trump's orbit.

We're going to keep an eye on her continued testimony. Our special coverage continues ahead when we talk to one of the people who represented Donald Trump during the second impeachment trial.

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[14:52:26]

MATTINGLY: Welcome back to CNN's special coverage of Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial. Just moments ago, the prosecution revealed a text message from a White House aide to Hope Hicks in 2018.

Now the message was sent on the day Playboy playmate, Karen McDougal, sued AMI and read, quote, "Hey, the president wants to know if you called David Pecker again."

We continue to follow the latest updates from the Hicks testimony.

Joining us now, David Schoen. Schoen was Donald Trump's attorney during his second impeachment trial.

David, when you watch kind of what's transpired over the course of the last several hours, there are a lot of people who claim they know what Donald Trump is doing, how he's operating.

There are very few who actually do. Hope Hicks is one of those people.

What was your takeaway from her testimony up to this point?

DAVID SCHOEN, TRUMP ATTORNEY DURING SECOND IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: You know, look, I think she's been a pretty good witness all around. She comes across, I think, as an honest witness. He's in a very difficult position.

But I think she's helped him. He's hurt, you know? And that's the way, you know, as you know, the ebb and flow of most files go.

I think that there's no surprises at any of her testimony and the evidence that's come in so far.

The question is, can the defense eat that evidence and encompass it within its defense theory?

MATTINGLY: The text messages that I read at the beginning, Donald Trump wanting to get in touch with David Pecker, wanting to know if Hope Hicks had spoken to David Pecker. He seems to be pretty involved here. Is that fair?

SCHOEN: I think that's fair. Yes and no. You know, there has been a lot of testimony that all of the communications between Davidson and Cohen, Trump wasn't involved. Even Hope Hicks kept some things from them until the last moment. But I think they can't credibly go to the jury and say, you know, President Trump didn't know anything about any of this, wasn't at all concerned and all that. That's not a cogent defense strategy.

A cogent defense strategy would be, you know, have a few prompts to it. But one of them is a defense strategy and theory of defense that can eat all of this evidence and say, at the end of the day, there was no crime.

Either there was no misdemeanor because he believed Davidson's testimony that this money was for a settlement, not pay off. Then the business entry was either correct or pretty close to correct but not with an intent to defraud.

So there's no misdemeanor, therefore, no predicate for any felony.

Or technical defense. The grand jury never identified what the target prime was. The defendant can't defend against that. Because this is one of his Fifth Amendment rights.

Or if the felony is 17-152 under New York election law, conspiracy to promote or prevent an election through unlawful means. But they didn't do that.

[14:55:05]

There was nothing -- there's nothing unlawful about entering into a settlement to stop defamatory, true or untrue, information from coming out that might look bad for a candidate. They would say that's not a crime.

MATTINGLY: Right.

Can I ask -- is this -- and I've got a fairly decent understanding of how the prosecution has operated up to this point, what the defense team has put together that is pretty solid.

I think everybody would acknowledge the cross-examination yesterday of Keith Davidson. Is Michael Cohen everything here? We're learning a lot. We're seeing a lot of things from an industry and types of operations that maybe we didn't want to know about but certainly weren't aware of before.

But does this all really come down to Michael Cohen?

SCHOEN: It's a great question. I think that's kind of been one of the things from the beginning. But, you know, the juries don't interest in some of the latest details. They're meeting new personalities all the time. Hope Hicks, the person they wanted to meet, and they met and made an impression.

But, yes, at the end of the day, you're going to see a huge battle royale with Michael Cohen. And the prosecution's well aware that they're going to have to eat many bad facts, many previous lies, misstatements, inconsistent statements and all.

And the question is whether they can overcome all of that.

Also, the question is, to my mind at least, whether the defense is going to call witnesses like Bob Costello. You know, the judge found that they cannot put on evidence that the Federal Election Commission or the Southern District reviewed all of this and passed on it.

But they could put on evidence from Bob Costello, who is Michael Cohen's lawyer, who told the defense and the grand jury in this case that -- that Michael Cohen told a completely different story.

And that he told Cohen he had every incentive to bury Donald -- Donald Trump. Now is the time to do it. And Cohen said, no, there is nothing against Trump.

Costello would be a compelling witness, as a former chief deputy of the Criminal Division in the Southern District of New York. And Cohen waived privilege with him.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

SCHOEN: So it's going to be very interesting to see how it all plays out. But the cross-exam -- the direct and cross of Cohen are crucial to this case. You're right.

And even, by the way, I still would say that a cogent defense theory, a smart one in this case could even eat all of what Michael Cohen has to say. But you can be sure he's going to be as strong as he can in trying to put it -- put it to Trump in every way he can.

MATTINGLY: There is no question that is going to be very interesting, both legally and somewhat entertaining perspective, over the next couple of weeks.

David Schoen, my friend, it's always great to see you. Thanks so much.

SCHOEN: Same here. Thank you very much.

MATTINGLY: Well, moments ago, former Trump aide, Hope Hicks, testified that when she asked ex-Trump lawyer, Mike Cohen, about the hush money payment revealed by the "Washington Post," he claimed the $130,000 was never paid. It never happened. Our panel reacts to that and much more, coming up next.

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