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Pecker: Trump, Cohen Asked Me How I Could "Help The Campaign"; Pecker Testifies About Tabloid's Business Records. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 23, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: That there was a long, repeated pattern.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And look at this, Pecker says that Trump introduced him to Steve Bannon in October 2016, the next year. And Trump told him he thought all of us could work very well together.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: We got to really take a second to and to your point, Jamie, to refocus everyone. I do want to go to my tablet on this very point to just make sure everyone realizes what you're trying to get out of the David Pecker testimony. It's important to think about that.

What you have to find is that there was this pattern that you're talking about, this catch and kill pattern. That's going to be the most important foundational aspect here. There was a pattern of behavior to try to do this very thing. We also learned that Pecker is recalling personally sending a box of magazine issues with negative headlines about Trump's opponents including Hillary Clinton to Bannon.

So that's a new sort of gift basket. First, there's hot covered strawberries, and now there's this in politics. Then you have to actually show there's a connection to the election, in 2016 election. That's the most important part here. Not that they were just the ideas of saying that this was tied somehow, but that it had a connection point in the election.

The idea of Trump giving the direct orders, though, that's the problem we're all talking about here, whether the boss, so to speak, was notified or otherwise. And then this cook the book scheme, whether it was nefarious or otherwise, or he was aware.

We've heard testimony today that Michael Cohen or that Donald Trump signed different invoices, but wasn't geared towards knowing that this was actually a fraudulent or false business record. That is still important to have here right now. But you have this pattern established and you got to keep in mind why you're calling this particular witness for this purpose. It's not everything, but it's a start.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: And to your first and second bullets there, the connection to the 2016 election, that's all Steve Bannon did, right? That's the relevance. Now they've brought in a campaign guy.

TAPPER: And one of the things that's interesting, though, Tim, is like this idea of a journalist or a publication doing favors for a candidate. That's not never been done before. The prosecutor's asking Pecker if Steve Bannon ever asked him to run any articles.

The defense objects as the attorneys are at the bench. Trump is shuffling through the papers in front of him and looking at them. But the defense is objecting, why do you think they're objecting, just because it's not relevant to the case?

TIM PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Correct, and I think there's probably some measure of a hearsay objection, yes, that Steve Bannon gets slightly outside because he's not a witness in this case. Whether it's a good objection or not, I don't know.

TAPPER: So let's just pause it for --

PARLATORE: Yes.

TAPPER: -- sake of argument. That President X --

PARLATORE: Yes.

TAPPER: -- has a political operation that does leak negative stories about opponents --

PARLATORE: Right.

TAPPER: -- to Publication Y.

PARLATORE: Correct.

TAPPER: That is I'm sure everybody would acknowledge is not unheard of. What is the difference between that -- well let me ask Karen because you guys disagree on this. What is the difference between that and what David Pecker is accused of doing?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think when David Pecker goes out and actually pays people the money, I think that's --

TAPPER: That's where the difference is?

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: That's where I interpret the difference to be when you're giving a -- it's like a campaign donation, because you're actually paying smaller numbers that they paid Karen McDougal and the doorman. Then, Stormy -- then they paid Stormy Daniels. But still, to me, this agreement, this criminal conspiracy, they got together and said that they were going to do this and then paid people off. To me, that's the difference.

TAPPER: As the attorneys are at the bench, Trump is shuffling through the papers in front of him and looking at them. The courtroom's so quiet that CNN's reporters say they can hear the pages. Trump is shuffling.

Tim, well, what is your take on what Karen just said?

PARLATORE: You know, and it is one of those things where I don't think that -- if I were cross examining Pecker, I probably would not attack his credibility because I think a lot of this stuff, you know, it is -- it's probably all true. What I would actually cross examine him on is more of the pattern of how this happens across campaigns.

I would be cross examining him on, you know, the Steele dossier. The allegations of a Trump pee tape, and all of those things. And the fact that this was happening, you know, across the board of false stories being being put out and that's -- the Steele dossier is something where a campaign paid somebody to put together a false document, you know, putting false statements about the opponent.

So I think I would try to bring that out and then try and say, look, ye, it is unsavory. It is immoral. It's not something that we want the people to know about when we do, but it's not a crime.

TAPPER: Interesting. Moments ago, a quick break in the Trump hush money trial. We're going to have much more on what David Pecker is telling the jury in minutes.

You're watching CNN Special Live Coverage. We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:39:21]

TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN Special Live Coverage. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington. Much has happened over the last 90 minutes. Prosecutors trying to connect the dots, trying to show the closeness of the relationship between David Pecker and Donald Trump. David Pecker, of course, the publisher of the National Enquirer.

That includes how Pecker agreed to help Trump buy stories that were potentially damaging to his 2016 presidential run, stories before they were published, and to bury them. As well as to publish unflattering headline after headline about his then rivals. Many of those headlines just completely made up.

The prosecutors telling the judge right now in court, quote, "The entire case is predicated on the idea that there was a conspiracy to influence the election in 2016."

[12:40:06]

Laura Coates and then Karen, I'd love for you to weigh in on the objection going on right now. What exactly is going on inside that courtroom and why?

COATES: So there was a question that was asked of the witness. David Pecker had Steve Bannon ever ordered you to publish any stories or to have any particular articles. That drew an objection from the defense.

TAPPER: Steve Bannon, the former White House aide. Yes. COATES: Exactly. This drew an effect (ph) from the defense. Now, one thing to keep in mind is, in front of the jury, they're not going to have what's called speaking objections. They're going to go ad nauseam and say, here's why I'm objecting, here's the criteria for it.

They don't want this in front of the jury. They will then approach the bench and then argue what their points are. We believe that the point they're trying to argue is that the next question that would have been asked, that line of questioning, would have tried to elicit hearsay, which is trying to get information from somebody who's not in the courtroom to prove that the actual substance of the statement is in fact true.

And so, that would be the reason they would say, I don't want the question to come up here at all. And then we have here after objection. Prosecutors say that he's making the larger argument about the case, including a conspiracy because this is an issue he expects the defense will raise again.

Karen, what do you think about the reason?

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: Yes. So hearsay is -- you hear someone say objection hearsay. Hearsay is an out of court statement being offered for the truth of the matter asserted, which is not allowed in a criminal case, period, full stop.

There are certain hearsay exceptions, however, and so they are trying to fit this into one of the hearsay exceptions, which is if there is a co-conspirator statement, if there's a conspiracy, it doesn't have to be charged, and a conspiracy is defined as two or more people agreeing to commit a crime together.

TAPPER: Right. And Trump's attorneys right now are pushing back on prosecutors saying anything involving Steve Bannon was very normal, standard campaign work. Steve Bannon, I think, was the campaign chair of the Trump campaign at the very -- toward the last few months of the campaign.

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: So, what they're arguing over is, are the words actual words or are the words evidence of a crime? So, in other words, are they just words of we're working on the campaign, I'm just doing my job, or was those words that were uttered in furtherance of the crime part of the conspiracy that would make it an exception to the hearsay rule?

And the defense is saying, but we didn't have notice of that. Trump isn't charged with conspiracy, but the law in New York does not require that. You do not have to be charged to establish it. The prosecution was very clear in their opening statements to talk about the fact that this is a conspiracy, because that is their theory.

TAPPER: You see Donald Trump walking inside the courthouse there. No comments to the press. Meanwhile, Trump's attorney pushing back on prosecutors. Steinglass saying that with Steve Bannon -- the former campaign chair for Trump in 2016, and then a White House aide -- with Steve Bannon, they're prepared to move on. Judge Merchan says that the issue right now is moot. What -- so what does that -- translate that for us, Karen?

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: Well, essentially, because they're going to not continue this line of questioning, there's no need for the judge to actually rule on this particular objection. They're trying not to go down a particular rabbit hole, and they're taking a break right now as Trump is actually leaving the courtroom. But the idea here, they do not want to go down a rabbit hole.

And remember, a jury, although they're not listening to the sidebar conversations and hush years (ph) are on, they are tuned in and watching every minute detail that's happened. They're wondering to figure out, is there an issue? Why do they want to talk about Steve Bannon? It might make people kind of think, well, what's the issue here?

If that's what you don't want the jury to be distracted from, the testimony you're already hearing about a catch and kill, about a pattern of behavior, about this trying to influence an election, that's where you want this jury focus for this witness. I believe there'll be plenty of time. Talk about it, Steve Bannon, if you'd like.

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: Josh Steinglass is a very seasoned trial attorney and he's tried cases in front of Judge Merchan before, in fact, he was one of the lead prosecutors when they prosecuted the tax -- when they got the tax convictions against the Trump organization. He's reading the room, too, at the same time. So he saw that this wasn't going exactly how he wanted to.

The judge was asking questions and he made a choice to pick his battles and not to just argue for everything. And that's a seasoned trial attorney to realize this point isn't that important. Let me move on. And as Laura was saying, the jury's watching too.

TAPPER: So let's go back to Kaitlan Collins up in New York.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Jake. And obviously, they are in a break right now. Trump has just left the courtroom for the first time since this got started. Typically, they'd be taking a lunch break, but it is a shorter day.

And Paula, David Pecker, as he's been on stand and talking about the relationships that he had with people who officially worked for the campaign, Steve Bannon, as the prosecution just said they're moving on from him. They're not really going to talk about Steve Bannon much more.

But Michael Cohen, who didn't have a formal role with the campaign, or at least that's what he told David Pecker at the time, but he certainly was from David Pecker's understanding involved in every facet of the Trump campaign life.

[12:45:03]

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And everything he was doing during this time period was part of an effort to get Trump elected to the White House. So that is why he is such a significant character right in this story. He's going to be a very complicated witness because he was the one who facilitated this hush money payment.

But they're trying to set up how Pecker was working with all these key figures in and around Trump in the lead up to the 2016 campaign with a very clear objective. Amplify bad stories about Trump's opponents and suppress any bad stories about Trump.

COLLINS: Well, and Trump was clearly counting on David Pecker to continue potentially helping him with this if he did win the election, because this is October 2016 that he's introducing David Pecker to Steve Bannon and Steve Bannon obviously went on to be a senior strategic adviser inside the White House.

And, obviously, we saw the relationship with David Pecker later unraveled, but at least that first year in the White House, it certainly had not yet.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. To the point where, as you mentioned earlier, David Pecker was coming to the White House, got the tour, had met with the former president. I don't think there was any sense at the time, certainly even after he won in November of 2016, that this was a relationship that was going anywhere, anytime soon. And why would it given how mutually beneficial it appeared to be.

And as David Pecker continues to say, it was. Also, I think, from a political perspective, when you look at the very unseemly and I think unusual warfare that was being carried out by David Pecker in the Republican primary, and then in the general election against Hillary Clinton, Michael Cohen was drafting the article.

It was basically getting copies of PDFs of articles about Trump's political opponents and then giving notes to them, adding things that should be talked about. Pecker would check with them, who should we be going after now, basically, and Cohen would be able to say that. If you're Trump, you want that on your side, going into the White House.

COLLINS: Yes.

REID: Yes. This is clearly an effort to influence the 2016 election.

COLLINS: Phil and Paula, stand by because we are in a break right now. We are waiting for Donald Trump and the jury and the judge to return to the courtroom. Trump just left moments ago. They have been going through critical testimony from David Pecker, the tabloid king.

We are expecting him to return to the witness stand. We'll be back with more of CNN's Special Live Coverage in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:51:51]

COLLINS: Moments ago, Donald Trump returning to that Manhattan courtroom where he has been seated all morning listening alongside a jury of his peers, hearing very important testimony in the -- from the first witness in his criminal hush money trial.

The judge also has just returned to the bench and so we are expecting David Pecker to continue providing his key insights into his relationship with the former president and those around him in the 2016 campaign and the lead up to it. And also how David Pecker put the entire apparent apparatus of the National Enquirer to work for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

We still have Brian Stelter with us, a contributing writer to Vanity Fair. And Brian, you have covered David Pecker and the National Enquirer for so long. You knew about so much of this, but to sit there and to listen to David Pecker talk about this environment, it's also incredibly revealing, not just of the National Enquirer, but also of how Trump views the media and how he believes that essentially the media should work for him.

BRIAN STELTER, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR: That's such a great point, Kaitlan. That's an under -- again, that's an undercurrent of this entire story. Donald Trump was being aggressively covered, fact- checked for his lies during the campaign by the real, reliable mainstream media.

So he went out and he found an alternative media. He found his own press corps. Places like the National Enquirer that would cover him in a gazy, starry light without any of those challenging questions or pesky fact checkers. That's exactly what he did, and Michael Cohen helped him do it.

I was thinking about how for a while it was really fun to be Donald Trump and David Pecker. You know, think about who Pecker is. He's a long time publisher. You know, enjoys the limelight, enjoys these magazines that he owns. It was a lot of fun for him to do favors for his friends, to put his enemies on the cover, all that sort of stuff, to be influencing campaigns.

It was a lot of fun until it wasn't, until the prosecutors came along, until the investigation started, until they had to sell the magazine, and eventually, he winds up in court today. I don't know about you, but I feel like I have to take a shower after listening to all those 2016 headlines.

You know, the Ted Cruz sex scandal, the Hillary has six months to live, all of those lies from 2016. And I would make the argument, this is relevant to 2024 now. Because, yes, we're hearing about how the 2016 campaign happened, we're hearing about all the worst smears of 2016.

But this is still the Trump media environment today, this is still the playbook today. Think about the smears against his primary opponents, against Tim Scott, against Nikki Haley. Think about the way they smear Joe Biden today. It's the same playbook. They just use different media outlets to do it.

COLLINS: But also, as we're waiting for David Pecker to retake the stand, I should note, the jury is entering the courtroom again. They just had a brief break. They probably needed it after absorbing so much information. And we know that from our reporters in the room, they say that the jury has kind of been at rapt attention listening to all of this.

But also, Brian, just looking at this, even, you know, as you're saying it's still tied to 2034, Marco Rubio is on the VP shortlist for Donald Trump. He is someone who's been asked if he's up for consideration. He says he hasn't had direct conversations, but it is remarkable also to see the relationship, the Ted Cruz --

STELTER: Yes.

COLLINS: -- and the Marco Rubio's of the world still have with Donald Trump that is quite close despite what we're listening to in court.

[12:55:07]

STELTER: That's a critical point. And what we're hearing in court is the opposite of a greatest hits album. These are the worst tracks. These are the deleted songs. These are the memories we want to forget about from the ugliness of the 2016 campaign.

And yet, you know, involving Ted Cruz, involving Marco Rubio, I'm sure they do not forget the way they were mistreated. And yet, because of Trump's cult like control over the party, they have come home to Trump, like so many others.

It is, if nothing else, today's testimony, even to the extent it doesn't really apply to what the jury will decide weeks from now, it is a harsh reminder of what we all lived through in 2015 and 2016. And that's one of the many reasons why, for Trump, this is a dreadful moment, you know, to have all this dredged up. And for the public to be reminded of all of this.

COLLINS: Prosecutors are now questioning David Pecker once again. It has not yet reached cross examination, where Trump's team will get to question David Pecker. Brian, if you were in their shoes and, you know, just with your knowledge of it, what would you ask David Pecker?

STELTER: I would love to know, and again, I don't know how much this is going to apply to the prosecutors, but given that journalists have never been able to interview Pecker about this, given that, you know, you and I, we've never been able to sit down with Pecker and learn about this catch and kill scheme.

I'd like to know how many stories were caught, how many other secrets were bought, how much money was spent. Are we talking about millions of dollars or only hundreds of thousands of dollars over time that was used to catch and kill these stories?

And then, I'm really, really curious, and I don't know if we're going to get to this on the stand, why did the relationship break up and how did the relationship break up in 2018 as the feds were investigating? What happened between Pecker and Trump?

COLLINS: Brian Stelter, stand by, we'll continue to check in with you. And I should note just for our audiences, this is getting underway where David Pecker is being questioned. He was just handed a thumb drive by the prosecutors as they are slowly introducing evidence into this, not just the testimony. And they're asking David Pecker about business records for AMI, American Media Inc., and if he had access to those business records.

And Paula, when you hear that line of questioning, the prosecutors have for David Pecker, where do you think they're going with this by asking, you know, what access did you have to these business records?

REID: Well, it's expected that they're going to get into the two catch and kill deals that AMI entered into. One with Karen McDougal, another one with a doorman who falsely alleged Trump had a child out of --

COLLINS: Can you just explain AMI for people who are --

REID: Yes, sure.

COLLINS: -- tuning in and catching up?

REID: So AMI, American Media Incorporated, they owned the National Enquirer at this time. So this was the larger company that the National Enquirer operated within. So that's who he worked for. Now, AMI has entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department admitting that these payments that they made, again, to the doorman and to Karen McDougal, right, were part of an effort to influence the campaign, which is illegal. It's a non-prosecution agreement.

As part of that, you know, Pecker was someone who cooperated and also as part of that, Michael Cohen pleaded guilty. I hear we have an update. So right now, Trump is passing a note with his -- to his attorney who put it in his pocket after Trump gave it back to him.

So passing notes back and forth, I mean, that's really the way that they can communicate right now, because if they talk, it'll be very distracting to the jury.

COLLINS: Trump's watching this so intently, Phil. I mean, that's what's clear from, you know, the most reaction from Donald Trump. He hasn't seemed very thrilled ever since that contentious hearing that he was at for the gag order violation this morning. But he's sitting there, he's continuously passing notes to his attorneys about the proceedings and about what's happening.

MATTINGLY: Well, it's also going from the beginning where I think there was a smirk when David Pecker pointed to identify Donald Trump and the kind of glory years of the 80s and 90s, which were kind of a nostalgic walkthrough of, I think, a better period of time in the former president's life to now.

Now, it's real. Now, these are the real core issues that are play here. And while he's been going back and forth with his attorneys, and we've been waiting to see whether or not he'd have any reaction outside of court when they took a break. He didn't. Once again, he did have a truth earlier in between the meeting this morning. But I think one of the questions becomes as they start digging into the business records, as they start getting further down this line. Remember what happened after the Sandoval hearing last week when it became very personal, very contentious kind of what he could be cross examined on if he were to testify and he walked out of that courtroom.

And you could tell, he took everything very personally at a very different response because of that. And I think the question that I've had throughout is, as they get deeper into the weeds on some of these issues, some of these very personal issues, issues that make him look perhaps particularly bad based on what the prosecution is saying, what he says and what he does coming out of a hearing if it reflects what we saw at the end of the Sandoval hearing last week.

COLLINS: And Paula, they didn't linger on this earlier, but they did ask David Pecker, what was the last time you spoke to Trump? He said it was 2017. Do you think they'll get to what Brian Stelter is curious about? What caused the break? I mean, it's pretty obvious, I guess, that all of this became public.

And I should note that they're walking Pecker through that AMI record keeping and the information on AMI's servers, like text messages that they have. Obviously, those could be really valuable to prosecutors.

REID: Yes.