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CNN Live Event/Special

Hope Hicks Testifies In Trump's Hush Money Trial;Trump Campaign's Reaction To Controversies;Key Moments From Trump Tower Meetings. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 03, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back--

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN special coverage of former President Trump's hush money criminal trial. I'm Phil Mattingly outside court in New York. Just heard from Brianna Keilar who's in Washington. Just moments from now Hope Hicks, Trump's 2016 campaign press secretary will return to the stand. Now so far Hicks has described how deeply worried Trump's campaign was around the time of the access Hollywood tape and when it was released. Now how the campaign went into damage control has been a central point up to this point. Much more to come right Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah it really has and we heard from Hicks painting this picture of what that was like. So let's catch everyone up. Former federal and state prosecutor Ellie Honig with me here to lay everything out. Tell us what we heard from Hope Hicks.

ELLIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah Brianna, we had quite a morning in court. When court resumes in about 15 minutes or so, Hope Hicks will be on the stand continuing her direct examination. Hope Hicks, of course, was one of the first people to work on Donald Trump's campaign. She was his communications director and for a time, a very close confidant of Donald Trump's. Now, the key moment in time that Hope Hicks is testifying about is in the final month before the 2016 election. The Access Hollywood tape comes out. People, I'm sure, remember this is when Donald Trump was caught on a hot mic talking about grab him by the blank and all that. We remember this. And Hope Hicks told you what was happening inside the campaign. Now, the prosecution in opening said that Trump's campaign went into, quote, damage control mode. And I think Hope Hicks has really borne that out. She said, I was concerned, very concerned.

Ends up being an understatement of sorts. She said at first, Donald Trump's reaction was deny, deny, deny. Now, he denies some of the affairs here, but he didn't end up denying this tape. And finally, again, in a little moment, perhaps of understatement, Hope Hicks said, quote, this was a crisis. Indeed, this was a crisis. Another important thing that Hope Hicks has not yet been asked much about, but I think we can look for this after the lunch break. She was part of a very important August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower attended by Donald Trump, Michael Cohen. David Pecker testified about this meeting earlier. Michael Cohen will, too. He said, this is where we got together and said, we're going to use the inquirer, national inquirer, to try to control Donald Trump's PR. Hope Hicks was in and out of that meeting. So I expect her to be asked about that meeting when her testimony resumes after lunch.

KEILAR: And we also heard from a paralegal. Why was her testimony so important for this moment?

HONIG: I don't know if I feel bad for this paralegal or it's a great moment. I put a couple of paralegals on the stand on much smaller cases a decade ago. They still remember it. But this paralegal at the DA's office, Georgia Longstreet, took the stand purely as a vehicle to get in certain of Donald Trump's social media posts. All she said was, yes, this was in fact something Donald Trump posted. One example that the prosecutor showed the jury, Trump posted in August of 2023, if you go after me, I'm coming after you. Prosecutors argue this was an attempt by Donald Trump to intimidate witnesses on this case. And they'll argue that it goes to his state of mind.

KEILAR: We also heard testimony from a forensic analyst--

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HONIG: Yes.

KEILAR:-- at the Manhattan DA's office. Tell us about this.

HONIG: So this is Douglas Doss, a forensic expert with the DA's office, an investigator.

[14:05:09]

He went through two of Michael Cohen's cell phones, and part of the testimony that he gave led to the introduction of a crucial piece of evidence in this case. This is a conversation that Michael Cohen, while he was still Donald Trump's lawyer, secretly recorded of him and Donald Trump talking about the payoff to Karen McDougal, and the jury has now heard that for the first time. Let's take a quick listen to some of the most important excerpts from that conversation.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TUMP: I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David, you know, so that I'm going to do that right away. And I spoke to Alan about it when it comes time for the financing, which will be --

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Listen, what financing?

COHEN: We'll have to pay you. No, no, no, no, no, no. I got -- no, no, no.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: He's no, no, no. Don't worry yourself with the details, Mr. Trump.

HONIG: Yeah, so that's exactly what the defense is going to say. The prosecution is going to say, and they're right. This tape clearly establishes Donald Trump knew about and was okay with the payment to Karen McDougal. The defense is going to say, yeah, but if you listen to it, Michael Cohen is handling the details. He's essentially saying to Trump, quote, no, no, no, no, I got it.

KEILAR: Does that matter, though?

HONIG: Yes.

KEILAR: How much does that matter if the whole way you operate is to shield yourself and give yourself plausible deniability?

HONIG: The whole ballgame in this case is the minutiae, the details of how the payoff to Stormy Daniels was structured. And if Donald Trump just sort of stayed at 30,000 feet and didn't know about the whole Michael Cohen drawing down on his mortgage, paying her, and then Michael Cohen being reimbursed through a series of checks, if Trump wasn't part of that, if all he said was, I don't know, pay her, I'm fine, that's going to be a big problem for the prosecutors.

KEILAR: All right. It's something definitely to watch.

HONIG: Yeah.

KEILAR: Ellie, thank you for taking us through that. Phil.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, Brianna. Now, CNN's Paula Reid is back with me now. All right. Ellie gets the wall. We have your encyclopedic knowledge of this case before, current, and a balcony of decent view. Walk me through what you think we're going to see from prosecutors going forward. And also, the second piece of this that I'm fascinated by, it's Friday. It's just ahead of a weekend. There's about 90 minutes left. How are they handling the time issue here?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So we have 90 minutes. It's early release. So court will start at 2:15 and at 3:45. And I think you can expect prosecutors, even if they have to filibuster, they are not going to let defense attorneys have a crack at Hope Hicks. Because they want their narrative and their questions to remain in the hearts and minds of the jurors--

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MATTINGLY: They're actually thinking strategically about something like that.

REID: Absolutely. And you can tell from the timing, right? They put on those two summary witnesses this morning to give themselves just enough time with Hope Hicks. Their direct could even extend into Monday. But I would be shocked if they let defense attorneys begin their cross. But we still have a lot of space to cover. I mean, we're right now in the questioning. They were in early November 2016. The election hasn't even happened yet. And what's really unique about Hope Hicks as a witness, is that she can testify not only about what happened in the election, the transition but then she went to the White House. So even if there's no indication at this point that she was privy to Trump signing checks or any effort to reimburse Cohen, she can talk about any mention of Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal at the White House.

We know another witness testified that she was speaking with David Pecker about possibly extending Karen McDougal's hush money payment or her catch and kill deal. So we know that she has a lot to potentially talk about. She was in the room where everything was happening. She was often with Trump. So she can really be the first witness to meaningfully take us into 2017, which is when Trump was reimbursing Michael Cohen throughout like the first six or seven months of that year. And that's going to be the first time we will have heard really anything about that critical time period.

MATTINGLY: This is such a good point because I think everybody rightfully was waiting to hear from Hope Hicks, given who she was and her role both before and after former President Trump won the election and how little we've heard from her up to this point. Access Hollywood, obviously a massive moment, but we're not even to the point where these payments are actually happening, which we don't have a ton of insight into yet in this trial.

REID: Exactly. And Hope Hicks isn't necessarily going to be able to give prosecutors any sort of smoking gun. Obviously, she does not appear to have been directly involved in Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels or in then President Trump paying Michael Cohen back and why he paid him back. But again, she was in the room with him. She was around him during the time that he was doing this reimbursement. Which is what he's charged for. He's charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

So prosecutors are probably going to want to know, did you hear anything about Stormy Daniels? Was Trump taking calls from Cohen? Were you on any of those calls? What was discussed? But right now we're still pre 2016 election where the campaign is dealing with the fallout from Access Hollywood. And again, that's so significant because the reason this case is charged as a felony is because they argue that this hush money was paid and covered up all in an effort to get Trump reelected.

[14:10:09]

And in the wake of that Access Hollywood tape, I mean, they were really crumbling under the pressure, under the concern about any other sort of illicit sexual story coming out and really ending his chances for the White House. That's why we hear so much about Access Hollywood, even though there's no real crime there.

MATTINGLY: Right. Can I ask, if you're the defense team right now, we spoke a lot yesterday about the effectiveness of their strategy in the cross --

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REID: Yeah

MATTINGLY: -- with Keith Davidson. What's your sense, if you've talked to them or as you've watched this play out, how they would want to approach Hope Hicks whenever that moment comes? Probably Monday, we think.

REID: Oh, yeah, exactly.

MATTINGLY: Tuesday, Monday? Monday. Yes.

REID: I'm sure that they will probably take a light touch, right? This is not a hostile witness. This is someone that, even though she is estranged from Trump now, she's had pretty warm words for him, praising his messaging skills, his work ethic. You take a light touch and you just ask, you know, were you ever in a conversation where this hush money payment was arranged? Was my client, do you have any evidence of that? Do you have anything to say? Do you have any evidence that my client was somehow involved in falsifying business records or in a cover-up? I mean, she has really not much direct information, really almost no direct evidence to provide prosecutors to support the charges that have been levied at their client. So I think for them, this could be pretty quick and dirty. Just go out, be polite, be direct, and remind the jurors that, again, there's been no direct link made between the hush money, the payment, the repayment, and the defendant.

MATTINGLY: And you say again, because that has been a consistent theme throughout these first 10, 11 days of the trial. There has not been that direct link. We're still waiting for that. We know someone who will give it. Whether or not his testimony stands up to the scrutiny, it's certainly going to get. We'll have to see, Paul Reid. We'll be back to you shortly. In just a few minutes, you will start seeing alerts roll out on that left side of your screen. We've been covering it now for 11 days. Court is about to resume. Our special coverage continues right after this.

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[14:15:09]

KEILAR: And we are back now with the latest on the Trump criminal trial. You see the former president there, just walking back into court. That was just moments ago. Here, and our panel is back with us. Jim, to you first, what are you looking ahead to as we hear more testimony from Hope Hicks and perhaps even some other witness?

JAMES SCHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: I think, as we get closer and closer to the timeline, right, I think we want to see what she has to say about, you know, about the other meetings that happened. Who were in those meetings? The meeting that was in Trump Tower, where you had David Pecker, and she was in and out. I said, those are the things we want to hear about, and other witnesses going forward, who knows whether they'll call any other Trump insiders? I don't think they do. I don't think there's a purpose for calling other Trump insiders.

I don't think it brings anything more to the case, most likely, given what we've heard from Hope Hicks. They're trying to establish, through her testimony, that this was something the campaign cared about. And, you know, in the wake of the Billy Bush tape, in the wake of then the other things that followed up with Stormy Daniels, I think those, they're trying to establish that these were campaigning crises and that they were responding to a campaign issue. And that, and that these payments were really hush money payments and not legal fees.

KEILAR: Elliot, have they effectively done that?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST & FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, again, recognizing that we're, I think, nine or ten days into what could be a four-week trial, and there's still plenty of lawyering to be done, I think they've established three things: number one, that some payment was made; number two, that there was hysteria within the Trump campaign, particularly in light of the Access Hollywood tape. They were running around, frightening, friends of the campaign were texting, we're f'd, he's f'd. And so, that's been established, and also that Donald Trump was involved. The question is, how do you link those things together? And I think that link hasn't been made yet, but again, plenty more trial--

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GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And the question is--

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KEILAR: And just to note, Hope Hicks returning to the stand, so we are going to await what she says, Gloria.

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BORGER: Yes.

WILLIAMS: And to be clear, I said Trump involved in that. It was his campaign. It has not been established by any means that Donald Trump was the one directing the hush money payments--

BORGER: Right.

WILLIAMS: And more to the point, that they be concealed from voters. Now, that's something that prosecutors certainly can prove, and the kinds of witnesses that we're expecting to call, to see prosecutors call, are the ones who could establish that. But as of right now, that still is an open question.

SCHULTZ: Sorry, I think it really hinges on Michael Cohen, right? And I think that's the star witness at the end of the day. That's who they really relied upon to prove their case, and it's really going to hinge on whether the jury believes the guy or not. BORGER: Well, you have to try and figure out whether Trump in any way

was the architect of anything, right? I mean, and that tape proves that Michael Cohen was the architect of the repayment scehme. Not Donald Trump, who wanted to pay cash for it, and he goes, you know, Michael Cohen went,no, no, no, no.

KEILAR: And I do just want to read this update here. Hope Hicks did not look at Trump. She did not look in his direction as she passed him to the witness box. Her right hand was actually clenched into a fist, is what we're learning from observers there, our observers there in the courtroom, her left hand holding her purse. And Trump looked up at Hicks as she stepped into the witness box.

BORGER: So uncomfortable for her. I mean, she's been a close person to the Trump family, not only Donald Trump, for years and years, even though they haven't been close lately.

[14:20:09]

BORGER: And, you know, imagine how difficult this is. She's under subpoena. She has her own attorney. It's not being paid for by Donald Trump. So she comes in as an independent witness there. And I think it's very difficult for her because--

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT:At the same time, she's been testifying in some capacity--

BORGER: January 6th

CORNISH:--around Trump and his issues for a very long time. I think the Mueller team investigated, had interviewed her at least three times. There have been several, like, testimony before Congress.

BORGER: Right

CORNISH:So sitting in some position opposite from Trump is not unusual for her. And she has made it pretty clear she's there because of subpoena, not because she's there because they hate each other or something like that.

KEILAR: She's also been incredibly complimentary to the former president and making it sound, I think, in one way, trying to be complimentary that he was very involved and he took quite a hand in things. I don't know if legally that completely helps because that's sort of, I think, what the prosecution is trying to paint, which is that he's very much the one driving the ship here.

CORNISH:I'm also interested in how a cross-examine would work, right, because we don't know where that relationship does come into play. And you guys can probably answer for me. She hasn't really said anything in particular, as you've described, of saying that Trump somehow was involved in saying we should pay and also we should cover it up in some way.

KEILAR: Prosecutors now picking back up with the Wall Street Journal story. Why is this significant? HONIG: Well, because this is, I think, how the world learned that these payments had been made. And so I think now they're getting into it with Hope Hicks. OK, we talked about sort of what was happening in the throes of the 2016 campaign. Now we're moving ahead a bit. What was the reaction as this story started to leak out into the press? And with respect to the cross-examination. Which I think Paula Reid made a good point before. I think prosecutors are going to try to run out the clock today. Remember, a court's only in session until 3:45 today. They're ending a little early for some reason. And from the prosecutor's point of view, you want the jurors going into the weekend only having heard your side. You don't want to start with the cross from the defense.

KEILAR: Hicks saying that she believes she heard Mr. Trump speaking to Mr. Cohen shortly after the story was published. And she is wringing her hands as she does that.

HONIG: Well I'm looking forward to the next question, which is about what? What did you hear them talking about?

KEILAR: That will be updated shortly.

HONIG: Right. So we'll look for those three dots to tell us it's updating.

WILLIAMS: So on the praise of Donald Trump and to the point it can actually go both ways because she said-- it was an interesting moment earlier on where she said he runs his organization almost like a small business. It's a big, vast enterprise, but it's a small business and he's got his hands in everything. But also everybody reports to him. It sort of comes with this. Sorry.

KEILAR: She says there was nothing memorable--

HONIG: Oh well.

KEILAR:--about the call.

HONIG: Sometimes sometimes the answer is anticlimactic.

CORNISH: But you know what we haven't seen a lot of today. I don't recall or I don't remember. I mean, she for a person who was by his side constantly for all that time, she has been answering the questions that at least we can see in written form in an assured and straightforward way. And there's not a lot of hemming and hawing and like, well, I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

KEILAR: Is this believable, though, that if Donald Trump called Michael Cohen after that bombshell story? This is the story that broke wide open this allegation from which all of this stems, calls Michael Cohen. And there's nothing memorable about the call.

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WILLIAMS: Here's the thing--

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KEILAR: He's not pissed off

WILLIAMS:--As a matter of common sense. Us talking. What do we think? Well, duh. They were talking about something important. As a matter of reasonable doubt planted in the minds of a jury that has to establish that this defendant had the specific knowledge to commit this crime. It's really not great.

BORGER: What do you think that Donald Trump was saying to Michael Cohen, I thought you had this all under control. I mean, would that be memorable?

SCHULTZ: The non memorable part of it, is it was probably a rant. And she's probably seen that rant time and time again. Right. So I don't I'm not surprised at that answer because it was probably when it's not memorable. He was probably ranting like he normally would.

KEILAR: She said that Reince Priebus was in the car with her and Trump at the time of the call and that they were traveling to a rally. In Hershey, Pennsylvania.

HONIG: Even if Hope Hicks can't recall, well, isn't going to testify about the specifics of the conversation. The fact that the call was placed in itself is significant. It links Donald Trump right into the response to this story. It links Michael Cohen right into this response. Links Donald Trump to Michael Cohen.

KEILAR: But she talks about how groundbreaking this was or how seismic in a way some when there would be something seismic like the Access Hollywood tape. It's something that stood out to her. Anyone in politics understands what a moment like that is like. When this Wall Street Journal story came out, anyone in politics or covering politics understands it has a different feel. This isn't just a run of the mill Donald Trump blow up. Right. This is about something that--

CORNISH: Which didn't exist back then, by the way. Right. When you would think of that fall when that happened--

KEILAR: Yeah

CORNISH:--it was the biggest thing.

KEILAR: That's right.

[14:25:09]

KEILAR: But this is something that in particular, Jim, and so I challenge you a little bit on what you said. She's paying very close attention to this. She's concerned when the story came out. How does she not remember more about the phone call? And prosecutors right now are showing Hicks and the jury that Wall Street Journal story so that they can see it.

SCHULTZ: So we don't know, number one, but I do think that it's very plausible that he picked up the phone, called Michael Cohen, and just kind of blew up about the whole thing. And who knows what was said in the conversation? There was so much going on. She could have been focusing on other things, not particularly paying attention to the phone call, but was there for the phone call. There's a whole lot of reasons she might not remember. I think she has been very honest about her testimony so far, been very forthright, and there's no reason not to believe her in this case either.

CORNISH: I was just going to say, I can't speculate on this call but I think we don't want to use sort of our categories of how politicians behave in a scandal for Donald Trump. Because what we've learned and what we know, right, from our years of watching him in the public eye, is that he has a symbiotic relationship with the tabloid press. Here we're getting the actual mechanics of it. But the idea that a news breaks and it's about you and he'd be like, what's happening, is like not how it works for him. I think Washington politicians are used to going into a true panic mode for most kinds of stories. But that's not who this person is. And really what we're trying to do is find out how and whether it crossed over into wrongdoing.

KEILAR: And let's get in a quick break as we do note that Hicks has now read the denial that she gave to the Wall Street Journal for the story. Obviously more ahead on the sort of process behind that and coming to that denial. At the time, Hicks says, and this is just updating right now, that she told the reporter that the claim of the affair was totally untrue. Hope Hicks, one of the people closest to Trump, both on the campaign and in the White House, continuing her testimony right now. We are monitoring it. We're bringing the very latest in our special coverage when we get back.

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