Donald Trump trial live updates: Hope Hicks describes campaign ‘crisis’ over Access Hollywood tape

Testimony from Hicks has so far focused on allegations against Donald Trump from women and how his campaign responded.

Before the court broke for lunch, she briefly detailed when she first heard of Stormy Daniels.

As Trump’s press secretary in 2016, she was in his inner circle when the ‘hush money’ deal at the center of the trial was hashed out.

Text messages with Michael Cohen have already been shared with the court.

Hope Hicks revealed she forwarded an emailed inquiry from the Wall Street Journal about Trump’s alleged affair with ex-Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to Jared Kushner, her son in law.

Hicks said that Kushner knew Murdoch, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, and that he might be able to ‘buy a little time’ before the story was published.

The story detailing the agreement with Pecker and AMI and McDougal was published by the Journal Nov 4, 2016, right before the presidential election.

Hicks told the court she heard about Stormy Daniels only once before the Wall Street Journal article about Karen McDougal’s deal in November 2016.

Trump’s ‘security guys’, she says, mentioned that she was at golf tournament in Nevada where the former president played.

That 2006 event in Nevada is where Trump and Daniels had their alleged encounter.

Hicks told the jury that she first heard the name Karen McDougal on November 4th 2016, when a Wall Street Journal reporter emailed her asking for comment.

The story they were planning to run was that the National Enquirer had bought McDougal’s story but not run it.

The Wall St Journal wanted a comment from Trump, including if he had indeed had a relationship with McDougal.

Hope Hicks recalls during her testimony that on October 8, 2016, the day the Access Hollywood tape came out, she called Michael Cohen to ‘chase down a rumor’ that there was another tape.

‘There was no such tape regardless, but he chased that down for me,’ she says.

The court heard that two days after the Access Hollywood tape came out, Trump took part in the second Presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.

In a bizarre twist, the jury is hearing about Anderson Cooper being one of the moderators of the debate while he is sitting and the audience listening to testimony in court.

Hicks recalls the tape being one of the first questions of the debate. She remembers Trump reiterating during the debate that it was locker room talk, words but not actions.

Hope Hicks remembers the media response to the tape being intense.

It dominated the coverage for the 36 hours leading up to the debate.

She recalled those 36 hours being ‘all Trump all the time.’

From Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court

Hope Hicks is asked about the response to the Access Hollywood tape from Republicans and mentions the usual suspects of then-Speaker Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee.

She describes them as people who always felt they needed to ‘weigh in.’

Trump smirks at that point, and wobbles his head one way and then the other.

Prosecutors questioned Hope Hicks about the details behind the campaign response to the Washington Post story about the behind-the-scenes Access Hollywood tape.

Hicks was shown a copy of an email from reporter David Fahrenthold on October 7, 2016 featuring the inquiry from the Post giving the campaign a chance to respond.

Hicks said she was ‘concerned’ when she saw the details inquiry and forwarded the email to senior campaign officials Jason Miller, David Bossie, Kellyanne Conway, and Steve Bannon.

She said Trump was preparing for an upcoming presidential debate when the inquiry came but that the campaign soon realized they were facing a crisis.

The Post provided the campaign with a transcript of the audio featuring Trump speaking with NBC host Billy Bush on a bus about his attempts to move on women and have sex with them.

Hicks said that Trump said it did not appear to be something he would say.

She added she was ‘a little stunned’ by the inquiry.

‘It’s hard to describe but it was definitely concerning I had a good sense this was going to be a massive story,’ Hicks said.

The video was played again for the jury and Hicks was asked to read the campaign statment from Trump.

This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.

During her testimony, Hope Hicks lavished praise on her hold boss as a savvy political operator.

She said he was responsible for the overall messaging strategy during the 2016 election campaign.

‘He knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. We were all just following his lead’, she told the court.

Prosecutors questioned Trump’s closest aide Hope Hicks about her understanding of the characters in the trial and their relationship with Donald Trump.

Hicks said she was ‘not specifically’ familiar with what Michael Cohen did, but said he was involved with license deals with hotel projects and entertainment projects.

Hicks described AMI publisher David Pecker and Trump as ‘friends’ and that they spoke about the presidential campaign from time to time. She said she was not present for a personal meeting with Pecker at Trump tower in August 2015.

She also said that ex-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg handled personal financial disclosures about Trump and the campaign and was a ‘trusted person’ in Trump’s orbit.

Hope Hicks tells the trial the fake National Enquirer story about Ben Carson’s ‘medical malpractice’ was worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.

The communications aide was describing calls between Donald Trump and the magazine’s publisher David Pecker.

Hicks said Trump congratulated Pecker on the ‘great reporting’.

She also heard the former president praise Pecker for the story linking Ted Cruz’s father to Lee Harvey Oswald, the gunman who assassinated JFK.

She’s Donald Trump‘s glamorous former aide turned communications executive but DailyMail.com can reveal that Hope Hicks is soon to acquire a new title: that of Mrs.

The lucky man is none other than Goldman Sachs boss Jim Donovan, 57, whose secret romance with 35-year-old Hicks was revealed  by DailyMail.com in 2020.

On Friday morning, Trump watched intently as his former confidant Hicks was sworn in and took a seat, telling the courtroom, ‘I’m really nervous.’

Proceedings in the case, which is over payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, are expected to continue for at least another month.

Hope Hicks shares that she became Trump’s campaign press secretary because there wasn’t any communications team at that point.

She says she thought Trump was joking when he said she’d be his campaign press secretary because she had no experience. But she was spending so much time on the campaign it eventually just became her job.

‘It was kind of a constant flow of incoming questions,’ Hicks recalls. ‘So I managed all those and tried to respond to everybody in a timely manner.’

Hicks said it was just her and Trump at the time who she decribed as ‘better than anybody a communications and branding.’

Hicks also recalls when she first began working on the campaign, saying Trump just told her one day that they were going to Iowa.

‘I didn’t really know why,’ Hicks says.

That was sometime in January 2015, she recalls.

Text messages swapped by two key Trump insiders reveal their panic as a newspaper closed in on a story about a Playboy model and her affair allegation just four days before the 2016 election.

Donald Trump‘s personal lawyer Michael Cohen repeatedly messaged Hope Hicks, press secretary to Donald Trump’s campaign, asking if there were any developments.

Eventually she responds with a link to the published story, headlined: ‘National Enquirer Shielded Donald Trump From Playboy Model’s Affair Allegation.’

Almost eight years later the fallout from that story reverberates around a Manhattan criminal court, where the former president is on trial accused of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to another woman.

But back then, the messages show Hicks and Cohen hoping that the story about 1998 Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal will just disappear. They know that buried deep in the piece is another thread for journalists to investigate: The name ‘Stormy Daniels.’

Hicks told the court she is working as a communications consultant and has had little interaction with her former boss since she left the White House.

She explained how she got a job at Hiltzik Strategies after completing her English degree.

Then she met Ivanka Trump and started to help with public relations surrounding her personal brand.

‘I began to work with the Trump family…I was enjoying it so much I was offered a position at the Trump Organization and jumped at the opportunity to join the company full-time,’ Hicks says.

Hicks describes the Trump Organization despite being a large company being run like a ‘small family business’ in some ways.

She says that by 2015, she spoke with Trump every day including on the phone if they were not able to speak in person.

Hicks has avoided looking at Trump while speaking in court.

Donald Trump is leaning back in chair and looking toward Hope Hicks as she begins to testify.

From Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court

Hope Hicks glides into the witness box wearing a black trouser suit and blue blouse.

Trump watches intently as she is sworn in and takes her seat.

She gives a fragile smile and asks if she is near enough to the microphone.

‘I’m really nervous,’ she says.

Former Trump right-hand aide Hope Hicks to take the witness stand.

A gasp went around the public gallery as she was called up.

Hicks was a top aide of Trump during the 2016 campaign and then in the Trump White House including as communications director.

She also previously worked for the Trump Organization since 2014.

From Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court

Longstreet is being cross examined by defense attorney Todd Blanche, and she is being quizzed on Michael Cohen’s podcasts, which the former Trump aide uses as a vehicle to attack his former boss.

Blanche asks: ‘Have you listened to all the Mea Culpa podcasts?’

‘Absolutely not,’ she replies emphatically, again drawing laughter from the public gallery.

From Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court

The jury is being shown a video made by Trump and posted on Twitter in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape.

In it, he admits he is not a perfect man who has done things he regrets now. ‘I said it. I was wrong. I apologized,’ he says.

He goes on to describe how he has traveled the country as part of his campaign.

‘I pledge to be a better man tomorrow and will never ever let you down,’ he says.

Georgia Longstreet is testifying that it is one of the posts she dug out and saved.

We are getting a tour of Trump’s old Twitter posts.

Now it is one in response to allegations of affairs. ‘Nothing ever happened with any of these women.

‘Totally made up nonsense to steal the election.

Longstreet reads it aloud.

The last line triggers laughter in the public gallery.

Lead defense lawyer Tood Blanche was talking to Trump about a Washington Post article referring to the Access Hollywood tape, which prosecutors want to bring into evidence.

The former president was gesturing animatedly to a print out of the article.

Trump then spoke to another member of his legal team.

Rather than slouching in his chair Trump is standing up and swinging his body side to side.

Court is taking a short break.

The jury has been excussed.

From Rob Crilly, Senior Political Reporter inside court

The next witness is Georgia Longstreet.

Officially her post is paralegal with the New York City District Attorney’s office.

Unofficially she may have the worst job in the world.

It was her job to review and save news articles and social media posts that might be relevant to the case.

Think old Twitter posts and newer Truth Social posts written by Trump or his team, bad jokes, invective and bile.

She says she has reviewed anything up to 10,000 posts, saving 1,500 of them that might be needed in the case.

Margo Martin is back in court with Former President Donald Trump for the eleventh day of his hush money trial.

The communications aide has been a key part of his support group since jury selection began three weeks ago.

Last week she was off, but since Monday she has appeared every day.

Trump attorney Emil Bove is asking the forensic expert Douglas Daus about two cell phones used by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen.

Daus revealed that Cohen used two messaging apps Signal and Telegram that were used to encrypt or delete messages. He also used to the messaging app Dust, which had similar features.

He confirmed that Cohen had a ‘self destruct timer’ in the Telegram messaging app to delete messages after seven seconds.

Bove successfully raises awareness that Cohen was covering his tracks digitally after Trump was elected president and that some of the messages would be difficult if not impossible to recover.

Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche objected to evidence prosecutors were seeking to bring in during the day’s testimony.

The evidence included two posts online by Trump, a Tweet by the Washington Post and a news article by the same newspaper.

Blanche said there were ‘hearsay problems’ with the evidence and cautioned Judge Merchan about introducing it ‘in light of the Weinstein decision.’

The judge checked if this was a reference to the New York appeal court’s decision last month to overturn former film producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction.

The suggestion appeared to imply that the evidence at issue could be problematic. Weinstein’s conviction was overturned because three additional ‘prior bad acts’ witnesses were allowed into the case.

‘I don’t see it as having any impact on my ruling,’ Judge Merchan responded.

Blanche protested that the material was ‘extremely unfair and prejudicial,’ but Judge Merchan said that the Weinstein decision ‘doesn’t really factor into this’

Blanche also objected to prosecutors using a post online from Trump in August 2022 in which he wrote: ‘If you go after me I’m coming after you.’

According to Blanche, this had ‘nothing to do’ with this case and was about an effort by the Republican party to stop him becoming its Presidential nominee.

Judge Merchan said he would decide later.

The judge also refused to allow into evidence a video still of Trump from the Access Hollywood tape. He previously barred the video from being used.

President Donald Trump kicked off Day 11 of his New York trial by berating Judge Juan Merchan on social media as ‘corrupt.’

This Corrupt and HIGHLY Conflicted New York Judge, Juan Merchan, is doing everything in his power to make this trial as salacious as possible, even though these things have NOTHING to do with this FAKE case. He gives us nothing, gives the everything to the Crooked D.A., Alvin Bragg. ELECTION INTERFERENCE – BIDEN WITCH HUNT TRIAL!!!

Trump’s post about the trial took place after the judge warned him Thursday about violating the court ordered gag order with posts on social media.

‘If in doubt, steer clear,’ Merchan said. ‘There is no ambiguity, I believe, in the order.’

Trump’s statement on social media about the judge goes right up to the line of the gag order, but does not cross it.

The gag order prevents Trump from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and employees connected to the case, but does not apply to the judge or Manhattan District Alvin Bragg.

Donald Trump’s day in criminal court began with Judge Juan Merchan addressing the ex-president directly where he said he wants to clear up any ‘misunderstanding’ regarding the gag order.

Judge Merchan said Trump had an ‘absolute right’ to testify at trial and an ‘absolute right’ not to.

The gag order bars the ex-president from commenting on the jury, witnesses and court staff. It does not apply to Trump testifying or commenting on the judge.

Judge Merchan told Trump that testifying was his ‘constitutional right’ and one that ‘you haven’t been denied in any way.’

The gag order does not stop Trump ‘testifying in any way’, the court heard.

Judge Merchan said the gag order ‘does not prohibit you from taking the stand and does not minimize what you can say from the witness stand.’

The order only applies to extrajudicial statements Trump makes, meaning those outside the court, the judge said.

Judge Merchan told Trump that if he had any ‘lingering doubts’ he should speak to his lawyers.

Trump nodded his head in apparent agreement.

Trump walked into court wearing a navy blue suit and a light blue tie.

He quietly said ‘hello’ to Anderson Cooper, who was sitting by the aisle on the right side of the court.

Donald Trump addressed the U.S. adding 175,000 jobs last month, a slowdown in hiring.

‘These people are destroying our country,’ Trump claimed.

‘They’re really, really low, really bad, our economy’s bad,’ Trump stated of the jobs numbers.

He claimed it would only get worse.

Despite Trump’s statement, economists have been expecting this slowdown for months even as hiring in February and March were hotter than expected.

The jobs number according to economists is not the sign of a bad economy as layoffs remain low.

The ex-president also complained that there are 10 states he would rather be in right now instead of criminal court.

He claimed he was supposed to be in Georgia today, Ohio tomorrow and then in Florida ‘doing – campaigning, essentially campaigning.’

In response to a question about what he would do to address jobs, Trump said ‘drill baby drill.’

Trump also was asked about testifying after claiming he was not allowed just yesterday.

‘No, it won’t stop me from testifying. The gag order is not for testifying,’ Trump said. The ex-president said the gag order prevents him from talking about people who say things about him, and he’s not allowed to respond.

The former president is in his motorcade in Manhattan and heading downtown.

He gave his trademark wave to the waiting crowds as he crossed the sidewalk in his midtown residence.

There has been a parade of media personalities – including top network anchors – during the trial.

Friday’s is veteran CNN host Anderson Cooper.

They’ve ticked off Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and seen Hamilton on Broadway.

Now the visitors from Australia are headed for the public gallery of the Donald Trump trial at Manhattan Criminal Court.

‘We woke up this morning and said we have to be in “the room where it happens,’ said Marney, breaking into the hit song from Hamilton, quickly followed by a fit of giggles.

Across the street is the Manhattan court where Donald Trump is on trial.

He has denied 34 counts of falsifying business records.

But a seemingly mundane case about ledgers and checks has become the hottest ticket in town, enlivened already by the testimony of America’s tabloid king and a celebrity lawyer who has won payouts from Charlie Sheen.

Donald Trump on Thursday addressed reports that he may have been sleeping during his trial as reporters noted he closed his eyes for long periods of time.

During the lunch break he posted:

Contrary to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I don’t fall asleep during the Crooked D.A.’s Witch Hunt, especially not today. I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!

Trump’s posts on his Truth Social profile became a subject of discussion in court today, when his lawyer questioned the judge whether he could post information from news articles about the case.

Judge Merchan dismissed the request.

‘I’m not going to give advance rulings,’ he said, adding that there was ‘no ambiguity’ in the order.

‘If in doubt, steer clear,’ he advised.

Donald Trump celebrated the end of Day 10 of the hush money trial by handing out pizzas to members of the FDNY.

The former president drove to the firehouse in Midtown Manhattan to greet the cheering firefighters and hand them slices of pie.

The presumptive Republican nominee for president has made similar stops during breaks from court to keep his campaign going.

Last week he visited a construction site to meet union workers.

Earlier in the trial he went to a bodega in Harlem which was the scene of a shooting that rocked Manhattan.

On an extraordinary 10th day of Donald Trump’s blockbuster hush money trial there were revelations galore.

Trump sat stoically at the defendant’s table as witness Keith Davidson was quizzed by prosecutors and the former president’s attorneys.

Davidson is a lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims to have had an affair with Trump and received a $130,000 payment to buy her silence.

His testimony revealed a barrage of information. Here are the key takeaways: