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CNN Live Event/Special

Donald Trump's Hush Money Trial; Stormy Daniels Cross-Examined by Trump's Attorney. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired May 09, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: They are also criticizing her for criticizing Trump. He's the one who was calling her a horse face publicly from the White House is going after her.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: But the jury is now seeing a Stormy saint of indictments candle. Necheles asked if Daniels is making $40 per candle. No, I'm actually making about $7, Daniels.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: We are so far from the facts in this case. Again, it makes me wonder about the jury. In fact, I'm going to ask our team in there. How is the jury responding to this? Necheles asked whether Daniel is bragging with the candle that she got Trump indicted. No, I'm not bragging. I think it's funny. And then it goes to Daniels, sort of, smugness on the stand that, as we're told from our colleagues, hasn't really played very well with the jury. She laughs, they don't.

COOPER: By the way, someone has made one of those candles of me as well. I am not profiting from it at all.

COLLINS: You're not making even $7 from it?

COOPER: No, I don't know who's done it, but it's out there.

REID: We should get one for the set.

COOPER: Yes. Necheles asked about a $30 comic book called "Stormy Daniels Political Power". Keep in mind, I didn't write this comic book, Stormy Daniels says while laughing, but she confirms she is in fact selling it.

COLLINS: But she's had this demeanor the entire cross-examination, and I do wonder how the jury is seeing this, because they are seated this close to Stormy Daniels. She's dismissing all of Susan Necheles', you know, attempts to undermine her by saying, oh, you're just trying to make money, you're doing this. She's laughing.

I mean, she laughed the other day when she was asked about the tweet about selecting Trump to go to prison. She's laughing about the candles. She's laughing about the comic books. I mean, she's --

COOPER: I'm very --

COLLINS: -- making fun of their defense.

COOPER: I'm very curious to hear from our reporters inside once they're able to come out and go into detail about how -- whether her demeanor today, if she's more relaxed on the stand. It sounds like in this back and forth that she, may be, more comfortable in this back and forth on cross-examination than she actually was in the initial testimony when you saw her.

COLLINS: She's also -- it's shorter Q and A. You know, she's being asked direct questions and she's firing back. With the prosecution when she was kind of meandering at times, they had to ask her to slow down because she was speaking so quickly. It was hard to understand her. You know, those were kind of open-ended questions.

And Susan Necheles is now saying a large part of your livelihood for a bunch of years is now making money off your story. No, Daniel's response. I mean, she has not given Susan Necheles an inch on this. The question is if the questioning is effective with the jury, but she has not conceded essentially anything.

Every time that they bring up how much money she's made from this, she said, well, I've also lost a lot of money. Every time they bring up how it's boosted her reputation, she's also said that it's damaged her reputation. I mean, she has been pretty effective, at least in the eyes of the prosecutors, at pushing back on this.

REID: Yes, and it's unclear how that's coming across to the jury, because they're only hearing -- you know, you're selling this. Oh, but you're not making money. In her documentary, which is obviously her propaganda, you get a much more lengthy, nuanced story about how she is a mom. Like, how she grew up. And the fact that she doesn't really have a lot of other ways to support herself.

The argument that she has probably on balance, lost money is more credible through that. But here, I don't know that this is coming off terribly credible. You have these t-shirts, you have these candles, and then you're just saying, no, I'm not making any money off of my story. With all due respect, what else are you known for?

COOPER: Well, she also -- I mean, she does have a judgment against her for, I think it's now up to more than $600,000 which she's resisting paying. Necheles is also going -- Necheles asked if Daniels has claimed she can speak with dead people and that her house in New Orleans is haunted. I believe, Stormy Daniels was involved with some sort of paranormal show at some point.

REID: You have actually reached the limits of my knowledge of this case. I am not familiar with her paranormal work.

COOPER: I read --

COLLINS: No, remember the doll.

REID: That is the first question I cannot answer in -- on this month multiple --

COOPER: I read in the count yesterday. It mentioned she had done something with --

REID: It sounds unbranded (ph) --

COOPER: -- some sort of paranormal activity. That's Daniels said --

REID: I have no recording.

COOPER: -- adding they brought in experts, which is -- yes, they brought in experts on --

COLLINS: I mean, they're basically trying --

COOPER: -- paranormal activity. We are now -- I mean, literally, we're now in the toilet and the realm of paranormal activity. It was a lot of interesting and unexplained activity. A lot of the activity was completely debunked in a giant opossum, she says with a laugh.

She -- I mean, it's interesting -- again, I'm fascinated to hear from our people inside what her demeanor is. And if the jury is laughing along with her or smirking or if they are sort of in on this, that's going to be very interesting to see.

REID: We asked, I'm looking in our feed to see if we have any color from how the jury is responding, because how you cannot laugh at the, you know, the paranormal opossum I'm not sure. But the jury also might be annoyed because they might recognize that this has nothing to do with the case.

COOPER: I've been making money as a part of a ghost hunting team that we go into locations, Daniels says. So, that clarifies things. She's part of a ghost hunting team. Again, this has taken a turn that -- I mean, I don't know if the defense thinks this is powerful testimony or --

COLLINS: I don't understand how it --

COOPER: -- they're scoring points.

COLLINS: It's not clear how it goes to the heart of what they're actually trying to argue here, though. I mean, this is where the defense seems to be --

COOPER: If there are some para -- some strong paranormal activity believers on the jury, perhaps they will be more sympathetic to her. I don't know.

COLLINS: Yes, that didn't come across in jury election, so it's not clear.

COOPER: Yes, they didn't. Those were some questions they forgot.

REID: I'm trying to --

[10:35:00]

COOPER: Your boyfriend questioned your sanity, Necheles asked. The objection was sustained.

You know what? I think this is a good time to go back to D.C. and Jim Acosta. Jim, back to you.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Gee. Thanks, Anderson. I don't know. Are we watching CNN or QVC? That's the question I have right now.

I mean, there were comments about candles and paranormal, ghost hunting shows and so on. I feel like we're losing the narrative here, Laura Coates.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I think they may have lost the jury.

ACOSTA: Yes.

COATES: Because, remember, the jury knows they're here for a documents case. We're not even any longer talking about the sexual encounter. They're trying to make it seem like that she is all about the money. And guess what? That's exactly what the prosecution wants the jury to think. She's all about making her money because that means that then she was going to tell this story and they knew it.

She's also being asked about her history making movies. Saying -- Necheles saying, you have a lot of experience making phony stories about sex appear real. Well, yes, Susan, that is what porn is. That's exactly what it is. And again, this whole plan to try to look down your nose at Stormy Daniels. Now, she says, wow. She says, wow, with a pause. That's not how I would put it. The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that film. I'm trying -- this one is --

ACOSTA: Oh, my goodness.

COATES: Here's a mic --

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: The sex is real --

ACOSTA: Check please.

HUNT: The sex is real that's why it's --

COATES: The sex is real that's why it's pornography.

HUNT: -- pornography.

HUNT: Oh, Jesus.

COATES: But again, this is what Necheles is doing. She's trying to go toe and -- toe to toe with somebody who is unfazed by the room that she's in. Her -- she is trying, I think, in many ways to try to undermine her credibility, but she is simultaneously buttressing her as a force to be reckoned with. And the more the jury thinks, I don't want to mess with stormy Daniels. The more they'll think, well, I can see why you would have paid her before an election. ACOSTA: Yes. But Elie, I mean, the defense must think they're getting somewhere. I, obviously --

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well --

ACOSTA: -- it's lost on us but --

HUNT: Are they performing for the jury or for Trump? That's my question.

ACOSTA: Exactly.

COATES: It can't be the jury.

ACOSTA: Ye, yes.

HUNT: His lawyers, Trump's lawyers.

ACOSTA: Yes.

HONIG: So, going into her history and pornography, to me, is a mistake. It doesn't lead anywhere interesting, Jim. If that story was untrue, I would have written it to be a lot better. Daniels testifies. Let me say though, witty --

ACOSTA: Those goons (ph) are not known for their plot.

HONIG: -- witty rejoinders are -- do not always work from the witness stand. I mean, some of these are great zingers, right? If -- like, if this was a debate, they would be awesome lines. Juries don't always like awesome lines. Juries like direct yes, no answers if they're honest. And she could well say, yes, that's what I did. No, that's what it's not.

The fact that she's going out of her way to throw little shots at Trump, I actually don't think helps her, credibility wise. I also want to say this --

COATES: They're trying -- they're throwing shots at her as well, though, right?

HONIG: Yes, of course. Of course. But a better witness just sits back and answers straightforward. Yes. No, this is what happened.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: In fairness, though, Elie --

HONIG: Yes.

GANGEL: -- we don't know --

HONIG: That's true.

GANGEL: -- the tone. This is a problem of that not having --

HONIG: Very true.

GANGEL: -- TV cameras. We don't know her demeanor. We don't know her tone. We also don't know Susan Necheles tone.

HONIG: Very important.

GANGEL: So, how they interact, you know, is hard.

HONIG: Yes.

ACOSTA: And Daniel says she doesn't have to pretend to know how to have sex. "I'm pretty sure we all know how to do that", she says.

So, I mean, Karen, how much of this is a good idea? I mean, we're going down roads -- maybe Donald Trump is comfortable with. But at home, people watching this, the jury?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER MANHATTAN CHIEF ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This is a sideshow. I mean, there is a real defense to be had in this case. The prosecution, for example, have yet to link Donald Trump to these falsified business records. That's going to all be on the shoulders of Michael Cohen in the end, right? That -- that's what they have not proven yet. What does this have to do with any of that?

This was all about the election. It says Trump attorney Todd Blanche laughs at the defense table. Trump is now leaning forward. She says --

ACOSTA: Daniels, yes.

AGNIFILO: -- I didn't -- I don't work in sex clubs. I work in strip clubs. There's a big difference. She says in response to a question about how she's been making money. She is clearly holding her own on cross-examination. And I think it can backfire, something Stormy Daniels said just now. She said, if I was going to make this story up about this experience with Donald Trump, I would have made it a lot better. This is not a great story. It was a terrible story.

ACOSTA: And given Donald Trump's -- I mean, the track record here that Trump has with women. I just -- it makes me wonder, Nia.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND POLITICS AND POLICY COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG: Yes.

ACOSTA: Is this effective at all work for the defense here? Because the -- I mean, the -- you could select a jury that says, hey, I can be fair about all of this. But everybody has, in the back of their mind, you know, when it comes to Donald Trump, they're thinking about, OK. This guy has a track record.

HENDERSON: Yes, he has a track record of going after women, going after women in powerful positions, going after women who he thinks, you know, have crossed him, right? And I think that is what the motivation seems to be right now.

Him wanting his lawyers to go after her and take her down a peg or two because her story takes him down, right? If you think about that story, it's a sort of mundane, pathetic, sort of, 60-year-old man sitting on a bed in boxers. [10:40:00]

There's nothing sort of smooth about his interaction with this woman, right? It's very different from, I think, the image he would like of a sort of billionaire playboy. And so, I think some of that is motivating this.

I think politically, you know, if we want to sort of step back, this doesn't help him, right, in terms of what we already know is his weaknesses with women. So, here he is, kind of, going toe to toe via his lawyers with this woman who again is very much holding her own.

HUNT: I mean, one thing I would say about this section of the trial is that I do get the sense in talking to sources and also just kind of opening my own ears around town that this is breaking through, right? People are talking about Stormy Daniels and like kind of what has been laid out here.

And Jake Tapper in the courtroom sending into us that in the juror box, there are eight jurors in the back, eight in front, and they look like they're watching a tennis match as they go back and forth from the lawyer to Stormy Daniels as this kind of interplay is playing out here which, you know, I'm -- again, we're going to have to wait until our folks get out of the courtroom to really understand what's going on.

But, you know, I think -- my question here, too, goes back to some reporting that Kristen Holmes did for us overnight last night. Which is that part of why they were so upset about what happened on Tuesday was that there was this insinuation that perhaps not everything that happened between the two of them was consensual.

And now she's challenging -- Trump's lawyer is challenging her on Daniel's story itself. Saying it's changed a lot over the years. Now, Daniel's is saying, no. She's denying that. But I mean -- Elie, I guess, I'm curious, I don't know that -- how does this interact with the consensual question, if at all?

HONIG: So, this is exactly where it seems the cross-examination is going right now. Whether this sex was consensual or not, and even Stormy Daniels has said it was consensual, right?

HUNT: Yes, she has said that, Yes.

HONIG: Is irrelevant to the case. What they're trying to do right now on this cross-examination is establish that Stormy Daniels has added details, has added flourishes, embellishments to her story. And what they're going to do, I think they're going to say, for example, you sat down with Anderson Cooper for 60 minutes, for however long that interview took. Did you say anything about having blacked out then?

So, they're going to suggest to the jury she's adding details now. She's trying to twist the knife, so to speak. And I do want to say this --

ACOSTA: So, they're going to keep going with it? HONIG: Oh, for sure. And look, this is fair game to say you've given prior statements about what happened here that were materially different from what you just told this jury, standard fair game. Now, there --

AGNIFILO: But doesn't that open a door to details?

HONIG: Yes, I mean, it could. That's the risk. The risk is it could open the door to more details on redirect, and I'm not sure I would want to, metaphorically --

ACOSTA: There's an update. Necheles asking about various celebrities. Celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Asking if Daniels knew who was there for the tournament. I --

HONIG: Yes, I remember one that --

ACOSTA: Daniels remembering Charles Barkley, though not some others like Drew Brees.

HONIG: Everyone remembers Charles.

COATES: Well, Charles is more memorable than Drew Brees.

ACOSTA: Yes, Charles is very memorable.

HONIG: I don't know where this goes. I -- if I'm the defense, I don't want to go back --

ACOSTA: Just to poke and prod at her recollection of details.

HONIG: I'm not sure. I don't want to go back to Tahoe. I don't want to go back into that hotel room, metaphorically speaking. What I would do is go right to her prior inconsistent statements. There's too much fluff around this. They could do this in a much more direct way.

I mean -- again, the way they did that whole cross on the -- I hate this, the orange turd, you know, the tweets and that kind of stuff. It got out of hand, but they could have simply made a very powerful point, which is, you really want him to go to jail. You think it's great, you think it's funny, you've celebrated it. She would have to say yes to that.

ACOSTA: But this is -- I mean, we're talking about Donald Trump who has had rallies where they chant, lock her up.

AGNIFILO: Right.

HONIG: Yes.

ACOSTA: I mean, again, we're talking about shameless self-promotion in terms of selling products. Trump has sold bibles with the constitution. And I mean, the -- you know, we're talking about mean tweets. Really? We're talking about mean tweets.

COATES: I mean -- and plus, you know, this jury has only been in panel for several weeks. Much of what you're alluding to and talking about, they have been well aware of Donald Trump and the merchandising and beyond. This of course has postdated even his sale of the mugshot of his own, you know, own self in Georgia. So, the jury has had to forget everything.

But if I'm the prosecutor in this case, I am thrilled because I know that the more that they go down this rabbit hole of focusing on a sexual encounter. The more -- number one, to your point, Karen, it opened up the door for me to ask more details the judge would not allow, but I'm going to also think to myself, well, look, this is going to come down to the falsified records.

The more this jury believes that she would have done anything to get this story out for money, the more it builds my case that Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and company would have done everything they could to try to silence her beforehand. And then it gets to the falsified business records. Remember it comes down to the intent. Notice who we're not hearing about from defense counsel.

ACOSTA: I guess they can't argue about -- I mean, there's not as much you can do when you argue about records.

HUNT: No, you can't.

ACOSTA: The records are the records there. There it is in black and white.

COATES: Yes.

ACOSTA: You can't go back and forth with Stormy Daniels over details of this and that.

COATES: And I'm concerned for the defense if they're trying to suggest what they have to prove that this was somehow yes, if you tried the silencer, it was because of his family. Have we heard anything about Trump's family? Have we heard from this cross- examination, so far?

[10:45:00]

Have we heard anything about his wife or his children? No. And that's the path that this jury will have to be asked and questioned about. Whether he did these things, allegedly, with a substantial motivation being personal.

So far, what we are seeing is a personal animus towards her. And here we have, Necheles asking Daniels to confirm that she told in "Touch Magazine" that Trump personally asked her dinner. Now, of course, her testimony before was about this intermediary, a bodyguard asking that. Daniels response, I didn't specify. I left out the names of all the other people not to get them involved.

And so, they're trying to nitpick the story while focusing on it. But again, the prosecution wants --

ACOSTA: Trip her up. COATES: They want, in their defense, trip her up. But this comes down to knowledge about what she doesn't know, which is what took place behind the scenes at the Trump Organization and the business records. That's the part that she cannot answer, and they're not even going there.

ACOSTA: Yes.

AGNIFILO: One question I have is, will the prosecution argue in the end that there were three stories that were being peddled, right? There was the doorman, there was Karen McDougal, and there was Stormy Daniels. They paid the doorman $30,000 and that was a false story.

COATES: Right.

AGNIFILO: But these other two stories that presumably are true, they paid a lot more, $150,000 and $130,000. And I'm wondering whether the prosecution is going to argue that there's a price for a false story and then there's a price for a real story. And they're very different.

ACOSTA: All right. Anderson, let me -- I'll tell you -- send it back to you now. It sounds as though, I mean, this defense strategy of trying to put Stormy Daniels on trial -- that she's the one on trial is continuing here.

COOPER: Yes, that's right. And by the way, just so for you viewers, you know, at home, all of us here, we are reading off the monitor which is in front of us, so why we keep looking down. We're also reading off our phones, so we get the missives from inside the courtroom a few seconds before they appear there. So, I apologize for not looking directly at viewers.

But they're still having this back and forth. In fact, the judge has now told Necheles to give Daniels time to answer the question that they have been -- actually, Kara Scannell is reporting this, that they're going back and forth so quickly, they're actually stepping over each other. That was an issue when you were in the courtroom of Stormy Daniels talking very fast.

COLLINS: Yes, but this is different in the sense that it's kind of this jousting going back and forth where Stormy Daniels is holding her ground, it appears here. You know, pushing back on every characterization that Susan Necheles is putting out there about what she remembered about the night that she met Donald Trump.

She's also -- keeps bringing up her job and the fact that she does sex work. And I don't -- I'm not totally sure how that's going to go across with the jury. I mean, she keeps -- she was saying you had a bunch of other porn stars were there at that 2006 Lake Tahoe golf tournament when she met Donald Trump, that was the night that they met. She's now bringing up inconsistencies about whether it was Trump himself who asked her to dinner or if it was Keith Schiller, the bodyguard.

COOPER: Necheles is basically going through other interviews that Stormy Daniels has done. This is in "In Touch Magazine" interview she did in 2011, which we've heard about testimony before. Necheles was asking why Daniels didn't mention a bodyguard in the 2011 interview, the bodyguard being Keith Schiller, who in her testimony now, she said, Keith Schiller, you know, she got Keith Schiller's number -- Keith Schiller got her number. Keith Schiller's the one who interacted as a, kind of, go between her and Trump.

She told "In Touch", according to Necheles, that it was Donald Trump who asked for her phone number. Stormy Daniels is now saying, you know, she didn't want to bring other people into that story back in 2011.

COLLINS: But just a reminder, Keith Schiller was basically Donald Trump's right-hand man. I mean, he brought him into the White House. He was in the White House making a taxpayer funded salary for about a year and a half. And right now, Daniels is saying that they tried to get me to not mention other people at the time in 2011. The publicist didn't want her to mention other people. Reminder that the jury saw a screenshot of Stormy Daniels phone on Tuesday, showing Keith Schiller's number.

Obviously, they blacked out the first part of it, but she confirmed that it was indeed his number. And he was saved in her phone as Keith, last name Trump, because she didn't know Keith Schiller's last name. She now knows that it's Keith Schiller.

So, the jury already knows that, yes, she did -- you know, I think the question of whether or not this is going to make the jury doubt that this sexual encounter with Trump happened seems really unrealistic, given the level of detail.

COOPER: It's also just to point out inconsistencies in her story and that if she was lying to "In Touch" back in 2011 by not giving all these details. Again, it goes to her overall credibility. Necheles points out that Daniels did not mention Keith Schiller.

REID: And what she provided prosecutors in her testimony that actually is material to the case is what exactly happened during this alleged encounter. What was he willing to pay $130,000 for? But in addition to that, as we reported, they believe there was some reputational damage that happened when she testified. That she added new details, a different perspective. So, it's taken about an hour and 20 minutes, but finally we're back in Tahoe and they are going to go line by line through her testimony.

Again, I don't think this is for the jury. Open question as to how it plays. This is for their client, and in their eyes, the court of public opinion.

[10:50:00]

COOPER: Matthew Galluzzo joins us here in New York. He's a criminal defense attorney and a former Manhattan assistant district attorney. Matthew, I'm wondering what you make of this back and forth and how effective or not effective do you think the defense has been.

MATTHEW GALLUZZO, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY AND FORMER MANHATTAN ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Well, if you had asked me this morning at about 9:30, I would have told you that Stormy Daniels has been doing pretty well overall. But now we're hearing that she sees dead people, and is a ghostbuster, and it's starting to go off the rails a little bit.

But, you know, I think it's possible that Ms. Necheles is being a little bit too combative with her. You know, they're kind of making it an us versus them, sort of, me versus you fight when maybe she should just be going systematically through all these inconsistent statements that she has out there on the record. And just sort of making it plain for the jury that this person can't be trusted, that she's given different accounts.

COOPER: Necheles challenges Daniels account in the "In Touch Magazine" in 2011 that suggests Trump personally asked her for dinner. Daniels clarifies what she meant at the time. A bodyguard or a handler is a unit, it's the same as being asked directly. Daniels had also said moments ago, that "In Touch" is essentially a frivolous magazine and, sort of, you know, a general entertainment magazine and didn't go into much level of detail. She didn't want to go into details with them.

Do you think -- I mean, it's impossible to know at this point how the jury feels about this. Necheles asked if Daniels was telling the truth in that 2011. It is minus some details, Daniels says, of the "In Touch" article. I mean, does -- you were saying, you know, it should have been more systematic, point by point of inconsistencies. At a certain point, I mean, do you need to point out all the inconsistencies or I mean, do you think this has gone down a rabbit hole?

GALLUZZO: No, I don't think you have to chase every single inconsistency, but I mean, I think there's a lot of material to work with here for the defense. And I think they've done a good job actually with some of the bias or some of the obvious, either financial incentive that Ms. Daniels has to put out this story. Some of the personal animosity she has towards Mr. Trump, and also, you know, emphasizing this judgment that he has against her and, you know, that he obtained against her in court.

And so, you know, she has all these motivations but perhaps tell this false story, you know, in addition to all these different accounts that she's had. But, no, I think they're making their point. And -- but at the end of the day, I do think that the jury more likely probably believes that there was an encounter between Trump and Ms. Daniels.

It seems to me that, you know, I've done direct examinations of a lot of victims, you know, female victims of sexual assault. This is not a sexual assault case, but it's somewhat comparable in some ways where women have described these very, you know, terrible encounters, in front of a jury. And, you know, she has so many details, so many discreet details she's able to describe to the jury. She testified with a lot of motion.

And I suspect that even after all this cross-examination, there's going to be a lot of jurors who are going to come away from it saying that she's probably telling the truth about the heart of the matter, which was that they had this encounter in Tahoe.

COOPER: When I went to get dinner and didn't get dinner, Stormy Daniels says, Necheles is reading a few different interview accounts from Daniels from over the years. It seems like she is going to go through a number of these interviews and point out inconsistencies.

I'm wondering what you think, Paula Reid, was reporting, through sources that some of what the defense doing today may be, sort of, client maintenance. And essentially, the former president was very upset by some of the testimony on Tuesday from Stormy Daniels, and really wants his attorneys to, kind of, go after her in a way that he's not allowed to.

When -- in your experience, when you have a client who very much wants you to go down a certain road, I mean, how do you manage that?

GALLUZZO: Yes, it's always the tension at trial with the client who's making demands of you about say this, say that, ask this question, ask that question, make this argument. You know, the attorney is the one who's supposed to make these decisions, these tactical decisions about how to make an argument most effectively.

But at the same time, you are trying to keep your client happy and he's paying you to do a job. And so, you know, there's a lot of pressure to satisfy him when you can. You know, at the time during the other day's testimony, during the cross-examination, I felt that some of the questions might have been written by Mr. trump from Ms. Necheles because she was asking kind of open-ended questions that we're giving Stormy Daniels an opportunity to sort of, you know, really fire back and give a big answer.

Some of these sorts of home run type of questions that never really work for trial lawyers. It sounded like Mr. Trump was scripting a few of those. And so, you know, I don't really know what's going on behind the scenes, but I would think that an attorney experienced as she is would have asked a more closed ended question every single time.

And there were times when she was giving stormy Daniels a little bit too much rope to answer the question, you know, if you wanted to. And so, yes, some of this might be client maintenance for sure. And certainly speaking --

[10:55:00]

COOPER: Necheles continues to push stormy Daniels on this 2011 interview. Matthew, thank you so much. I appreciate you -- you've been with us.

All of these interviews, I would have talked about the food, Daniels says. Daniels is pointing out that, you know, we said we're having dinner, but there was no food. Again, Necheles of trying to get at any inconsistencies from prior interviews that stormy Daniels has told about this encounter. She's going back to this interview with "In Touch" in 2011. The defense trying to pin Stormy Daniels down now using her own words and tweets against her to show that she was out to get the former president of the United States.

Much more CNN special live coverage. We're going to take a short break. We'll be back in a few minutes.

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