It's our top story this hour.
While the former president still hasn't addressed the jury well,
they're still getting plenty from him.
It's day seven of Donald Trump's hush money trial,
and the prosecution is presenting his sassy social media posts,
all centered around that Access Hollywood tape,
along with the secret recordings made by his former fixer,
Michael Cohen, the judge still telling Trump,
though you can take the stand whenever you want.
The focus today on that infamous Access Hollywood tape and
Trump bragging about sexual assault.
The trial revisiting the firestorm that threatened to sink the
campaign just before the 2016 election.
At this hour, though, Trump facing former close aide hip
hoax who has remained quiet about her time at the
White House until now.
Let's bring in our senior investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky.
He's outside court along with senior reporter Catherine Folders and,
of course, attorney and director at the Fordham Law School's
Voting Rights and Democracy Project,
Jerry Goldfedder. Aaron, let's start with you,
Hope Hicks. That's the one interview that we were never
able to get.
She moved away. She never returned a
reporter's call for an interview.
So a lot of people want to know what she
has to say up on that stand.
She hasn't spoken to Donald Trump.
She said since 20/22 she has been elusive and until
now she has never spoken about what she called a
crisis in the Trump campaign.
It was a month before the election in 2016.
October 7th, 1:30 in the afternoon,
an e-mail pops into her inbox from a reporter at
the Washington Post asking her for comment about the Access
Hollywood tape.
Her first reaction, she says,
was to deny, deny, deny,
not realizing that contained in that e-mail was the full
transcript of what Trump is overheard saying on the video.
And she testified she realized it was going to be
a lot harder to deny.
She interrupted debate prep underway at Trump Tower.
She immediately recognized, she told the jury this was a
crisis.
Wow. Well, Catherine, you know,
she was the closest aide to remain quiet when things
turned ugly for Trump.
So what are prosecutors hoping to get out of her
testimony?
Right. They're trying to get her to describe it and
and she is doing this intimate details of what was
going on in Trump Tower during the time that she
worked for him and even after the fact at the
White House.
But but specifically and at the beginning of her testimony,
as she mentioned how Trump was his own messenger.
How decisions related about how the campaign was communicating went
through Trump.
And while she did draft statements and worked with them
on the messaging that ultimately they were all following him,
she describes that his intimate knowledge of of of all
of this his messaging.
She said it was even though this was a big
company,
it was essentially the Trump Organization run like a small
family run business
also. And I think what's interesting from our team inside
the courtroom watching Trump while Hope Hicks testifies it is,
is our team is essentially saying that he is,
he being Trump is largely motionless.
He seems completely detached and and what our team is
describing is this pretty amazing split screen that you have
Trump not observing
her testimony. Maybe at times he will react,
but just barely, not watching it.
And this was one of his closest aides,
Kira, as you know, somebody who would talk to him
every single day,
who worked for him for years,
who was by his side constantly.
So it is quite a striking split screen to observe
her on the witness stand,
testifying, being called by prosecutors as Trump just largely sits
there emotionless,
absorbing what she's saying but barely reacting.
Got it. Well, Jerry, let me turn over to the
former president.
What do you think all this back and forth gag
order
going against the gag order.
Trump says he'll testify, not testify,
maybe testify. Should he testify?
Well, first of all the gag order was really extremely
important event this week. What the What the judge did
was a
was a blockbuster moment holding Trump in contempt
for his comments relating to the jurors,
to the witnesses and so on that.
And the judges made clear that this is not going
to continue and that if it does continue,
jail time might be necessary.
The judge was also pretty strong this morning when Trump
went out yesterday and said,
oh, because of the gag order,
he can't testify. And the judge said in court today,
it's not the gag order that is preventing you from
testifying.
Nothing is preventing you from testifying.
You can if you want to,
that you are right. But you know what Aaron said
just a moment ago regarding the way Trump is,
as Hope Hicks is testifying?
It's pretty interesting. He's like a he's like a little
child who puts their fingers in their ears or an
ostrich who puts their head in the ground,
doesn't really want to hear this.
He knows that he was at the center of this
catch and kill scheme.
He knows Hope Hicks was in the room where it
happened and he's heard the testimony of what she said.
He knows what she's going to say.
He's heard David Pecker testify.
He's heard Keith Davidson. He knows what Cohen is going
to testify.
This is very devastating for him.
The prosecution is putting on a narrative that is going
to be very hard to tear apart by the defense.
So Aaron, let's just talk about how Trump reacted when
jurors saw the Access Hollywood tape.
And we're just reminded of what he said bragging about
sexual assault.
And I'm seeing now Hope Hicks reaction was pretty stunning.
How she reacted and what she said.
I'm sort of reading through what just went down.
But just kind of give us a a little color
here,
not only Trump, the jurors,
but also Hope Hicks. I mean,
you can't think that anyone was feeling pretty comfortable when
that tape was played.
No, in fact, she she was reliving what she had
called a a crisis.
And at first, she said her first reaction was just
to be concerned because she knew it was going to
be,
in her words, a massive story in the news cycle
and perhaps devastating to Trump's campaign.
And that's key for prosecutors because they believe the Access
Hollywood video
was the motivating factor for the Stormy Daniels payoff that
Trump allegedly later
falsified to make it look like legal expenses when the
prosecutors have said it was more like a campaign expense
since it was meant to be concealed from from voters.
But Hope Hicks did not look comfortable as she relived
any of this.
All right. We'll continue to track
every moment of the trial,
of course. Aaron, Catherine, Jerry,
thank you all so much.
We'll talk again.