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Michael Cohen's Detailed Testimony; Evidence Of Payoffs; Trump's Awareness And Involvement; Prosecution Strategy; Defense Challenges. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 13, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:01:13]

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: Here we are following developments out of the Donald Trump hush money trial here in New York. He is back on the stand. The prosecution's star witness, Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, now back on the stand after taking a quick lunch break for the court proceedings. Prosecutors were at least getting to the very heart of the matter, the $130,000 payment to adult film actress, Remy Daniels, and of course, the disguised reimbursement to Cohen. Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Thank you, Laura. Cohen also described how in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Trump told him that Daniels' story would be, quote, a disaster for the campaign, and that Trump told him to stop the story from getting out. Cohen also testified, and I'm quoting him now, Trump wasn't thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign. And Cohen added this, don't worry. Trump goes on to say. How long do you think I'll be on the market for? Not long, close quote. Let's go to CNN's Ellie Honig. He's over at the magic wall for us. Ellie, take us through more of today's very powerful, dramatic testimony.

ELLIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah Wolf, a remarkable morning of testimony from Michael Cohen, finally facing his former client, Donald Trump, face to face in the courtroom. A couple of things that prosecutors tried to do with Michael Cohen throughout his testimony. First of all, they've corroborated him at every possible instance. Any time possible, prosecutors have pointed to phone records, to text messages, to back up the story that Michael Cohen is telling to the jury. The other tactic that we saw prosecutors doing throughout the morning was fronting the bad stuff for Michael Cohen, getting it out there for the jury from the prosecution side. For example, at one point, the DA asked Michael Cohen, would you sometimes lie for Trump? And Michael Cohen said, yes, ma'am, I would. Now, Michael Cohen took the jury through his early days with Donald Trump, how he first came to Trump's attention, and he did things like renegotiating invoices, meaning refused to pay them for the most part, dealing with media relations, calling people to try to get more favorable news coverage, and then helping Donald Trump with his early on political ambitions.

You hear Michael Cohen called the fixer. Well, this all is why. Now, there was a very important moment when Donald Trump decides he's going to run for president in 2015. And Michael Cohen testified that Donald Trump warned him at this point. Really important piece of testimony. Donald Trump said to Michael Cohen, according to Cohen's testimony, you know that when this comes out, meaning the announcement that he's running for office, just be prepared, there's going to be a lot of women coming forward. And in the wake of that statement, there's this really important meeting, August 2015, and we heard about this before from a prior witness, David Pecker, from the National Enquirer. Now we've heard about the same thing from Michael Cohen. Cohen said there was a meeting with the four of us where we discussed the fact that David Pecker and I, Michael Cohen, we'd be on the lookout for damaging stories about Donald Trump, try to make him go away. Now, to that end, Michael Cohen has walked the jury through three separate catch and kill schemes, one relating to a doorman, the second one relating to Karen McDougal. And now when we left off, Michael Cohen's right in the middle of talking about the Stormy Daniels payoff, which of course is the crux of the crime here. Now, there was a really important audio recording that the jury heard today of a conversation that Michael Cohen recorded between him and Donald Trump back in 2016 when they were talking about the Karen McDougal payoffs. Let's take a listen to that because it's a really important piece of evidence.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, DONALD TRUMPS FORMER ATTORNEY: Correct. So I'm all over that. 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 REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE: Listen, what financing?

COHEN: Well, I have to pay you, so --

TRUMP: Pay in cash --

COHEN: No, no, no, no, no, no. I got it. No, no, no, no.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HONIG: So prosecutors will argue that shows Donald Trump knew about these payoffs, but the defense team will argue it shows that Donald Trump was not in the details and the weeds. Now, a couple of really important pieces of testimony right before the break.

[14:05:09]

HONIG: Michael Cohen said that when the Stormy Daniels allegations surfaced, he felt it was, quote, catastrophic. This is horrible for the campaign and that Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to work with David, meaning David Pecker from the Enquirer, work with David to get control over this, over the Stormy Daniels allegations. And finally, Wolf, Cohen testified that Trump said it at the time, I want you to just push it out as long as you can, just get it past the election, because if I win, it will have no relevance because when I'm president, and if I lose, I don't even care. And this goes to the central point, Wolf, that the prosecution has been making throughout, that Donald Trump's concern here was first and foremost with the campaign. So Michael Cohen left off his testimony at a really important point, and he will resume about 10 minutes from now. Wolf, back to you. We'll kick it around at the desk.

BLITZER: Yeah, the lunch recess is over. The jury is back. Cohen is back. We'll watch what's going on. Very dramatic stuff indeed. Ellie Honig, thank you very much. Laura, back to you.

COATES: Really important conversation happening. With me now is CNN's Kristen Holmes and also Paula Reid You know, first of all, he's back on the stand. We cannot overstate the importance of this particular witness, ladies. I mean, everyone's been waiting for this person. Nearly every single witness has talked about Michael Cohen. They've given a preview to the--

(CROSSTALK)

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not all good things.

COATES: --jury. Not all, mostly not good things--

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: There's been a lot of bad things

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah

COATES: --which tells you maybe why his actual demeanor is all the more important to establish rapport and credibility. He will certainly be attacked, right, on the cross. I mean, this is kind of a lulling into a false sense of security, the way a horror movie is like, oh, what a pleasant neighborhood this must be. The cross is not going to be this kind.

REID: Yeah, he knows this is not going to be friendly turf, especially when it comes to the cross. The cross examination of Michael Cohen is the Trump defense. They're expected to call a few witnesses, but this is how they're going to make their case on behalf of their client. They're going to try to paint Michael Cohen as a liar who is out for revenge against his former boss. And they plan to do that not so much by even focusing on his criminal record, but instead through a multimedia presentation using clips from his podcast, excerpts from his book and his many, many, many interviews over the past six years where he has pretty much exclusively just attacked the defendant. That is his brand. So that is going to be a large portion of the cross examination. And it's a challenge for Todd Blanche because, of course, he wants to go at Michael Cohen. But you have to be careful. You don't want to go at him so hard that you throw sympathy to Michael Cohen. So this is a huge test. But this is effectively this will be the defense's case, which is why you haven't seen Todd Blanche do many cross examinations. He has been almost exclusively focused on Michael Cohen.

COATES: It isn't to, you talk about the sympathy because he did really come across, Kristen, as somebody initially just hearing his testimony as how the defense wants to paint him a sycophant, a somebody, a people pleaser, that he would do anything he could to make him happy. That he said he felt on top of the world when he got praised. Now, that might counter to the idea of who he maybe eventually became after all of this. But there are all people in the courtroom right now, politicians who are hoping to be Trump pleasers as well, who are making their presence known. And they are some sitting members of Congress and some who want to be on the VP short list.

HOLMES: Yes. Some people who we think are on the VP short list. We've been told that Vivek Ramaswamy is coming tomorrow. We know J.D. Vance, a senator from Ohio, was there today. These are people who want to show Donald Trump that they are loyal to him, because as we have heard Michael Cohen say, and as we have heard time and time again throughout this testimony, the most important thing to Donald Trump is actually having loyalty. Now, one of the things I do want to point out is that Trump had told some members of his team that he was upset that there were not more people there to support him. Also, not more people there protesting on his behalf in front of the actual courthouse. Part of the reason that they ended up kind of making these campaign stops to various areas in New York, trying to show there's all these people here supporting him.

(CROSSTALK)

COATES: Wait, hold on, the jury is now seeing an email exchange with Davidson, Keith Davidson. This is Stormy's attorney, and also Karen McDougal's attorney, on October 12, 2006, where Cohen used the holiday Yom Kippur to continue to try to delay the deal. Go ahead.

HOLMES: And they had been trying to delay this past the election. One of the things also Stormy Daniels had testified to saying she thought that if this ended up getting pushed past the election. She wouldn't have any leverage at that point. So now they're all going through that as well. But to the point about him having his loyalists there, it's interesting, of course, that we're seeing this display as Michael Cohen himself is on the stand.

COATES: It's important to think about how all this is going to get. He's saying because after the election, it wouldn't matter according to who is the prosecutor, Mr. Trump. This goes back to the heart of it, right? There is not going to be one standard that says, OK, if it's 80-20, it's a substantial standard, meaning this had to be for the election, for the campaign. But the jurors will think, well, how about there are mixed reasons here? That's part of the defense. This is more Melania than November.

REID: Yeah, exactly. That's going to be one of their defenses. One of their defenses will be this wasn't done just for the election. This was to protect Trump's family. The problem for the defense is you have multiple witnesses who have testified that he didn't really care about his family at all in this context.

[14:10:09]

Now, you do have some witnesses who have said, generally speaking, he really loved and respected his wife, but that defense has been undercut. Now, here, the prosecutor is showing jurors emails between Cohen and Gary Farrow, who's one of the earlier witnesses we heard, his banker from October 13th, 2016. This is all about his efforts to open that LLC where he funnels money to eventually pay Stormy Daniels this hush money payment. But I do think that, you know, on this question of Michael Cohen's credibility, they have a lot to work with here, but so far, I do think he's come across as credible as we get into the real heart of the case.

COATES: And, you know, it's obvious to say it could be politics, it could be his wife, but an angry wife is a political problem.

HOLMES: Well, that's what everyone says, right? If your wife is angry, you have an issue on your hands, regardless of anything --

(CROSSTALK)

COATES: In my household you would.

HOLMES: I mean, this could impact the campaign. Exactly. Anything could be related to the campaign. If your wife is involved, she has her fingers in everything. But I would just say that, look, we've seen both sides of this. We've seen the Hope Hicks of it saying that it was about both of them, that it was in part about Melania as well, that he didn't want the papers delivered to Melania on that day. We also heard Madeleine Westerhout talk about how he loved his family, he loved his wife. But as Paula said, I mean, most of the arguments we have heard from these various witnesses was that it was about the campaign. The ultimate question being how much of it was about the campaign and how much of it was about his family.

COATES: The other big question, of course, is whether or not this was about Michael Cohen wanting to go rogue and deciding on his own how he anticipated his boss would feel about an issue and how much was him actually being instructed to do so. You've got two sort of tales here. One is that Trump is a micromanager with hands around everything. The other is I could know what he wanted me to do and do that. Paula, Kristen, stay with me. Court resumed just moments ago with Michael Cohen right back on that witness stand. And we're going to follow the testimony very closely. There's more on that after a quick break.

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[14:15:09]

BLITZER: We're back with our breaking news coverage of Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial. Right now, Trump's former lawyer and so called fixer, Michael Cohen has returned to the stand after a brief lunch break. Cohen is the prosecution's star witness by far. And before the break, he described how he's trying to delay the deal with Stormy Daniels until after the presidential election because at that point, the story would no longer matter and Mr. Trump would no longer need to pay. He also just testified that he lied on paperwork in order to open an account that was ultimately used to pay Daniels. Let's bring back our panel of experts right now. So where do you think the prosecution is heading in this next round of questioning--

(CROSSTALK)

HONIG: So right now --

BLITZER: --of Michael Cohen?

HONIG: Right. So right now, they're right in the heart of the way Michael Cohen set up the payment structure to Stormy Daniels. And what they're doing right now is the first part of that, which is Michael Cohen is taking out a loan through his banker, Gary Farrow, who we heard from earlier in the trial, of $130,000. Michael Cohen is going to put that into a shell company, this Essential Consultants LLC, and then that money is going to go over to Stormy Daniels. After this, they're going to get into really the heart of the charge here, which is the reimbursement mechanism, where basically Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg, and Cohen will surely testify Donald Trump, come up with this plan to repay Michael Cohen $420,000 to cover that $130,000, to cover his taxes on it, and to cover a bonus and a couple other smaller transactions. So this is the heart of the matter. They're trying to show documents. They're trying to tie it to other testimony that they heard from Gary Farrow. The other important thing that they're doing here, Wolf, and I just talked about this a moment ago, is they're fronting the bad stuff. And so they asked Michael Cohen straight up, did you lie on these bank documents? Yes, he did. He said, well, I wasn't going to write hush money. I just wrote, you know, vehicle to receive property rights or something like that. So every time that Michael Cohen lied, they need to front that. Prosecutors need to own that so it doesn't hit his heart on cross.

BLITZER: How do you see it?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS: CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think that the one thing I was going to lead off with was the fronting point, which is that, and it's casual, it's subtle how they did it. They simply showed the documents that you knew would have been coming in already. Because of the fact that the testimony of Gary Farrow, the banker who was behind these documents, testified days ago. So we knew that Michael Cohen would eventually testify as of the transactions. Oh, and by the way, did you lie on that document? Yes, I did. And boom, it's on the record. And it's almost in a much softer way than it would have come out had it come out when the defense was questioning Michael Cohen.

BLITZER: Because Cohen had just now testified that when he learned Stormy Daniels was looking to sell her story about the alleged affair with Trump, if released publicly, her story, Cohen said, would be, quote, catastrophic. This is horrible for the campaign.

WILLIAMS: And that's probably the single most important sentence he has said thus far, because that's perhaps the most direct evidence there is of some link to the campaign. Now, there's plenty of ties to the campaign. And in a sense, there's testimony on the first few days about how the National Enquirer was aware of how they were helping the campaign and so on. This is direct evidence from Michael Cohen. Now, of course, it's subject to cross examination and all of the points that we've spent talking about his credibility issues and so on.

[14:20:09]

But you have the man who was there saying he heard it and saying that was his assessment at the time. So it's very valuable testimony.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Michael Cohen is in kind of a pickle because he's been told delay, delay, delay, try and delay the payments. And at the same time, as we see, they're losing control of the story. And he understands that losing control of the story, he believes would be catastrophic. But the boss has said, well, try and slow walk this a little bit, because if I win the election, it's not going to matter. And if I lose the election, it's not going to matter. So let's, let's try and slow walk this.

BLITZER: And Cohen recalled just now in his testimony that at the time, this was obviously incredibly stressful--

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Well --

BLITZER: --incredibly important.

BORGER: So imagine how stressful it was because he's trying to keep the banker at bay. He's trying to talk to the inquirer. And he, wants to get the deal done. Michael wants to get the deal done. But he's got these instructions from the boss to slow walk things. And, you know, how do you do both things at the same time? It's really difficult, if not impossible.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: And he's calling it catastrophic. But this is someone who's assessing this. And I think this will be interesting under a cross examination as well. Michael Cohen is not a political expert at the time. No one inside the orbit of Donald Trump in Trump Tower thought he was going to win. This was just about three weeks before the election. So Michael Cohen was obviously worried. I'm sure it was stressful. There's no doubt about it. But still, I think to your point of trying to delay this, but again, making the point about that this is going to have consequences for the election. That is, I think, the most important testimony we've heard so far this morning from him.

HONIG: It sounds like Michael Cohens mandate--

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: Or so far today.

HONIG: --to Gloria's question is try to string it out, try to delay it--

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Yeah

HONIG: --out until after the election. But if you can't and he's getting to that point, he realized he wasn't going to be able to. Then you've got to get her paid.

ZELENY: He also talked earlier about stiffing other people. HONIG: Yeah.

ZELENY: And one of the things was paying other vendors 20 cents on the dollar. So he perhaps didn't want to pay this bill.

BLITZER: And Gloria, I think was also significant that in another exchange, Cohen testified. I'm quoting him now. He wasn't thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign. That's pretty critical for the prosecution.

BORGER: Yes, it's very critical for the prosecution. Again, it comes from Michael Cohen. But, you know, he is talking to Donald Trump presumably daily about this. And they both understand how disastrous it could be. I think Trump used the word disaster if I'm not mistaken. So, you know, they're thinking about the campaign. And you know, Trump makes a joke. How long do you think I'd be on the market for when Melania is raised? That's, you know, that shows you how heartfelt he thought he was feeling about Melania at that point. So I think that, you know, Michael keeps emphasizing in his testimony that this was really about the campaign. And that's what governed his negotiations with Keith, you know, with Keith Davidson, the attorney, and also with the inquirer.

ZELENY: And they're clearly worried about this slipping away just as we've been talking here--

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Yes, yes --

ZELENY: --via quotes. I mean, they're worried about losing control of this. And that's what Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to do, to take care of this, to fix it. So obviously, they are losing it. But here, he called Trump at 5 p.m. And again, we're talking three weeks before the election. Votes are being cast, and it lasts for eight seconds.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Very quickly, Jeff, you're a political expert.

ZELENY: Yeah --

BLITZER: Republican Senators J.D. Vance and Tommy Tomarulo, they showed up in court today with Trump. What's that about?

ZELENY: Look, they want to be his security blanket. They want him to know that he is not on an island, he has support. I'm told that someone inside the campaign sort of sent an all-call to senators, where are you? Where is my backup here? So Republican members of the Attorney General's Association have been coming up. The Attorney General from Texas, Alabama, Iowa have been there within the last couple of days, and the senators also as well. I'm surprised it's taken this long for his supporters. So we know that he's been upset that his supporters have not been outside the courtroom, but he wants them inside. But the only family member, I believe, who is in there today is Donald Trump Jr., or maybe Eric Trump. (CROSSTALK)

BORGER: Eric, Eric.

ZELENY: So that also is interesting. And we'll see if the jury pays attention to that. I don't know, but he definitely does. He knows who's there with him.

BORGER: So can we just say, I called Mr. Trump in order to advise him of the situation that because I didn't forward the funds, she's now declared the agreement void. And he's panicked.

BLITZER: That was Cohen --

BORGER: And he's panicked. Cohn is panicked because she might be going to the Daily Mail with this while he was trying to balance this and Donald Trump, not wanting to spend the money, is trying to slow walk it. He's got a problem on his hands because he knows if the story is out, who's going to get blamed --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Yeah, Cohn said that--

BORGER: Michael Cohen.

BLITZER: --we were not going to be in a position to delay past the election. The story would be made available to the Daily Mail which would be a huge problem.

[14:25:09]

BORGER: And then Trump would blame Michael Cohen. How did you screw this up?

BLITZER: Right. Interesting. All right. Everybody stand by. Much more coming up. Michael Cohen was once the man Trump relied on to fix his problems. Now the former president may have no bigger problem than Michael Cohen himself. So how is Trump reacting to what we're hearing in the courtroom? We'll get reaction from his campaign. That's next.

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