And Robert Costa is with us now,
along with CBS News legal analyst Ricky Kleeman.
Welcome. It's good to have you both.
I mean, yesterday's testimony was so cringy and so tawdry
and salacious to me,
I I actually kept thinking about Melania Trump Baron,
the younger children who now have to listen to all
of this because infidelity isn't illegal.
Unfortunately, hush money payments are not illegal.
So what impact does this salacious testimony have on this
case?
Because it's not really a sex case per SE.
Well, for a case that's supposed to be about business
records and pieces of paper,
there's an awful lot about sex in this case from
day one.
Going back to David Pecker.
Is it effective, Ricky? It depends.
It's legally irrelevant. It shouldn't have been in there.
The prosecution knew they had a witness that they could
not control.
She was determined to put in these details and then
the defense was not forceful enough
persistently to keep it out.
So although it went in and the defense has been
trying to fight it and even move for a mistrial,
you can't Unsee it. You can't unhear it.
That's and unhear it. I mean,
the picture is there for you.
That's exactly what the prosecution wanted.
And in terms of judges and lawyers who ought to
be thinking about if there is a conviction and the
possibility of reversible error,
you may have just seen it yesterday.
Bob, how's the Trump team reacting to the Stormy Daniels
testimony?
Inside the highest ranks, to the Republican Party and the
Trump campaign,
there's mostly a shrug. There's a belief that all of
this is baked in when it comes to character questions
about former President Donald Trump.
There is a lot of anxiety,
though, about the time being wasted for Trump while sitting
in court.
So there's a lot of activity behind the scenes right
now to try to schedule fundraisers for Trump,
schedule more rallies to not make him pay a political
cost for being here in New York.
So much. Bob, let's turn now to the classified documents
case.
That case yesterday, the judge,
Eileen Cannon, indefinitely postponed the trial in the alleged mishandling,
excuse me, of these classified documents.
So what happens now with that is and and what's
the impact of that?
What's so intriguing is that Trump allies are watching this
New York case and as I said,
they're shrugging at this case in New York.
But at the classified documents case,
they've been on the edge of their seat for a
long time that he could face a federal trial about
his handling the classified materials.
Now, Florida federal judge Eileen Cannon has decided to indefinitely
postpone
that trial. That means, not guaranteed,
that Trump may not face a trial on classified records
before the election or ever.
Yeah, Ricky, same question. How do you feel about that?
Well, she's also in a terrible position.
I know she gets a bad rap publicly,
but a indefinite postponement does not mean indefinite.
What it means is we have lots of motions here.
We have to decide, and we've got to decide how
to deal with classified documents,
which is a whole procedure.
And hearing in and of itself,
it just means the trial date is postponed.
But Bob is absolutely right.
Is it postponed to a point where you cannot do
it before the election and then you have the other
two cases and the chances of their being done before
the election are getting less and less.
Tough moment for Jack Smith,
the special Counsel. Where does he go on both classified
records and January 6th And uncertain road ahead,
Bob Costa, Ricky Kleeman, thank you so much.
Appreciate it.