I want to go
quickly to Anderson Cooper,
who just got out of court.
Court, of course, is taking a break.
The jury had left the courtroom there
so they could go on there
on the lunch break.
Anderson,
you have been there
all this time today watching.
Tell us about your observations
Well, it's fascinating to see Hope Hicks
coming out.
Obviously, the testimony before that was
a little bit more of more mundane
you know, talking about documents,
talking about emails.
But when Hope Hicks came in,
you could feel sort of
the electricity in the room.
Certainly people were perking up.
She seemed very nervous
when she first came on the stand,
seemed very hesitant.
She did not look
directly at Donald Trump
as she walked by him.
It wasn't clear to me
whether he looked at her.
I don't think he did.
But I couldn't see from my vantage point.
But she did not look at him.
She went right to the stand
There were some
she was a little bit away
from the microphone.
And part of that
may have been nervousness.
But also once
she actually got closer to the microphone
and she could actually hear herself
she sounded she
she commented to the jury
that that now it was easier for her.
And she certainly seemed more confident
after that.
She's certainly been
you know, came off I think is very
respectful, credible.
Certainly reticent.
She's there
under a subpoena,
which was made clear
when she first sat down.
She clearly is not giving
elaborate answers.
She's giving the very basic answers.
And she did seem to kind of downplay
a little bit
or search for how to describe the lady's
point earlier,
how to describe the impact,
the bombshell impact
that the Access Hollywood
tape had on the campaign.
She kept turning to the word no.
She was concerned or very concerned,
but sort of intimating that there was
it was
that was just one word
she was kind of landing on,
but that there was a huge concern,
certainly that she had
and maybe even more than that.
Yeah,
because as she mentioned, Anderson,
it had kicked a big storm, right?
A big storm out of the news.
She said for 36 hours it was
a catastrophic Trump.
Yeah.
And she was
also then questioned
about the actual debate,
which I happened
to be the co-moderator of
And it was interesting to hear her.
The question to from the
the prosecutor was, you know,
what was this brought up in the debate?
Hope Hicks says yes,
at some point it was.
And then the moderator,
then the prosecutor said, you know,
was it brought up?
Do you remember when it was brought up?
And Hope Hicks said
she thought
it was one of the first questions.
It actually was the very first question.
I asked that question.
But it was interesting to hear
the importance
suddenly now of of sort of ends
asking that question
again as another indication of just
how big a deal this was.
Because I can tell you
from the debate preparation
that we were doing Friday,
when that Access Hollywood tape came out,
all the debate preparation
we had done up to that point.
Everything changed after the Access
Hollywood tape came out.
And it was a big question of
are we going to lead off the debate?
I mean, there was really no question
that we knew Friday
as soon as that tape came out, that
that would be the lead
question in the debate.
Yeah,
it is a rare story like that
that has this seismic feel about it.
It did it the time.
I remember going on air myself.
And before we actually had the tape
and we just had the transcript
of what was said.
It was pretty stunning.
And so
I think it really speaks, Anderson,
even though she's talking
about being concerned
and sort of landing on that word,
there's really no escaping
just how big of a moment
this was for Trump.
No doubt about it.
And clearly, you know,
as soon as she received
the question from,
you know,
from the reporter
about the existence of this tape,
from then on,
I mean,
that dominated the campaign for four days
after and probably even longer.
But certainly for that
that Friday
that Saturday Sunday was the debate.
You know,
they were reeling
and trying to figure out
exactly what this meant
and what the impact of it would be.
And in, Anderson,
can you get a sense of how
Trump is reacting to
some of these moments that he's hearing?
We understand from Hope Hicks
they haven't spoken in some time,
but clearly she is trying to speak
very positively of the former president.
What is his reaction
It's very hard
to see from the vantage point
that we're at.
I mean, you can see on our monitor,
but it's been somewhere far.
Some people actually have binoculars
in the audience.
Who are watching from the court press.
And before they excuse me,
the court orders
and also even some of the reporters
covering it, I couldn't see his face.
While Hope Hicks was testifying,
I could see him
whispering to Todd Blanchard
or to Emile Beauvais.
They definitely
there's a lot of communication
between all three of them
there on the stand.
There was a recess
at one point
in which the former president stood up,
kind of surveyed
the crowd to see who was who was there.
But he he doesn't give much reaction
in the actual courtroom
or at least not that I could see today.
What was her demeanor like?
Because we see the transcripts
essentially in the descriptions
of what she's saying.
But I understand that she's sort of had a
you know, she's been laughing
at some moments. What did you see?
Yeah.
I mean, she came in
very sort of hesitantly.
It appears she came in with an attorney.
The attorney sat in in the galley
as she went up to the stand by herself.
She she clearly
she definitely seemed very nervous
and she even said
she was very nervous, too,
that she spoke to the jury, saying
that she was very nervous.
She definitely seemed to kind of
relax into it a little bit more.
But she she was very cautious,
I think, and careful in the words
that that she she used
while on the stand.
There wasn't a lot of.
Yeah, she wasn't extrapolating.
She wasn't sort of elaborating on things.
She she tried to kind of
I think she was being very careful
in what she said.
And I
understand, Anderson, I
saw that Trump greeted
you as he entered court.
What can you say about that?
Honestly, I did not see that.
I somebody told me that I was turning.
I turned away.
I did not know that he'd
come in the room so we we
I saw him
looking at me once during the break,
but I did not communicate with him
directly.
I didn't think it was appropriate.
Very interesting moment, nonetheless.
Anderson,
thank you so much for your observations
as you've been
the eyes and ears there in court
where, of course, we do not have cameras.
Anderson Cooper, thank you.
Our panel is back with us here.
And something very interesting,
Audie,
that you were bringing up in the break,
which is about hope
Hicks's legal representation.
Right, which is that
it's not paid
for by Trump
or necessarily
a superPAC or anything like that.
And I think that that has always been
kind of a little bit of a question for me
with witnesses.
People are also describing
their relationship
as being a lot cooler than it was.
And the notes from our courtroom
team are a lot
about how
they are not looking at each other
the way they were not interacting.
And I think this is remarkable,
given the role she had in his life.
Leading up to this point.
I think she's also important
on the McDougal's story.
I mean, she she called Michael Cohen
testified that she called Michael Cohen
about this.
And it explains, I think, the panic
we saw when David Pecker testified
the panic that Michael Cohen had
when he was trying to deal with
the financing for McDougal.
And when we heard from the banker
about how panicked he was.
So you sort of see this
this chain of events where she calls
Michael Cohen, like, what is this real?
What do we do about this?
And then he
sort of tried to toss it off
like he was not truthful to her
or so she testified.
And then we see it from the other
point of view
through Pecker and the banker that
or Davidson
actually that he becomes the then lawyer
just to be the lawyer to both of that,
he becomes increasingly panicked.
And now we know why
this he knew this
story was going to come out and
and you know,
she was asking him questions about it.
She also said
that she has Donald Trump about it.
I don't know what he said.
The real sense
of what the kind of press war
room is for Trump during that period,
which for reporters,
it was a little bit opaque, right?
Like people are texting you.
Maybe they say it's not a big deal.
They deny it.
Maybe it is. Maybe it's not.
But now you're seeing
how they scurried around
that they really did think
that these stories about
women would be a problem,
especially in the cumulative.
And that they thought
they could reach out
to, say, The Wall Street Journal
to set to buy some time. Right.
They were pulling on
every media relationship that he had.
And it gives you a real glimpse
into sort of
how they approach these things.
Up until this point,
we've got a fairly clear view.
But from outsiders,
it sure look like the campaign was
where ideologically
they would have been wary.
Now we're getting the real inside
and they're beyond worry.
They're panicked.
And just to understand
how this fits into the case,
prosecute, it's
not a crime to be worried.
It's not a crime to be in panic mode.
It's not a crime to pay hush money.
Prosecutors have to prove
the reason
they paid
Stormy Daniels was to benefit
the campaign
that's part of what they have to prove.
They also have to prove
that the documents were false about Hope.
Hicks knows
nothing about that,
nor would she
or should she know anything about that.
So this is an example of,
I think, a powerful,
productive witness for the prosecution,
but also fairly limited in what she does.
She gives them one important
building block.
But it's not as if
this is the smoking gun.
This is the witness case over
prosecutors win
But she's an important piece
of the puzzle.