What Hope Hicks said on the stand in Trump’s hush money trial

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• William Brangham:

  One of former President Trump's most senior aides took the stand today during his hush money trial in New York. Hope Hicks served as Mr. Trump's press secretary during the 2016 campaign and was his White House communications director.

  On the stand, she detailed how Trump and his inner circle handled the revelations about alleged extramarital affairs and the payments made to bury those stories.

  Andrea Bernstein is covering the former president's legal battles for NPR and was in the courthouse today, and she joins us now.

  Andrea, so nice to see you again.

  During the prosecution's questioning today, they delved into what happened in the campaign when that infamous "Access Hollywood" tape dropped. What did we learn from Hope Hicks about that today?

• Andrea Bernstein, NPR Contributor:

  Right.

  So she was the person to first hear about that from The Washington Post, which asked her for a comment on the story they were about to run. And she — there was an e-mail shown that she had sent to campaign leadership where she had suggested, deny, deny, deny.

  And as she read that on the stand, she sort of laughed, because she realized that they weren't going to be able to do that. And she talked about how she went upstairs and there was a sort of a campaign brain trust preparing Trump for the debate.

  She saw all of them, asked them what they were talking about, and when he learned about the tape, he said, "Well, that doesn't sound like something that I would say."

  But, obviously, it was.

• William Brangham:

  And that story is being told to jurors because it helps set the template for how the campaign then had to go into panic mode, and then Stormy Daniels' story becomes even more fraught for them.

  What did we learn from her about that revelation?

• Andrea Bernstein:

  Right.

  So the campaign settles on saying that it was locker room talk. And Trump actually apologized. And there was a video played in the courtroom of him apologizing. It was actually played twice today.

  But over the next two weeks, the end of the campaign, all of these allegations come up, and then it's the Friday before the election. And The Wall Street Journal sends Hope Hicks an e-mail about a story it's planning to run about this agreement we have been hearing so much with Karen McDougal and "The National Enquirer," the former Playboy model, to keep her story quiet.

  And they also talk about Stormy Daniels. And what is so interesting is that Hicks goes to three people involved, David Pecker, the former publisher of "The National Enquirer." Trump, the candidate, and Michael Cohen, and they all essentially tell her there is nothing to the story.

  And so she goes to The Wall Street Journal and she says to them, it is absolutely untrue, which, of course, is not the case, as jurors heard last week from David Pecker himself.

• William Brangham:

  And what did she detail about Cohen's then subsequent negotiations with Stormy Daniels?

• Andrea Bernstein:

  Well, she didn't know a lot about it, but there was very interesting testimony about how, when this story actually breaks, Trump is in the White House, and Michael Cohen — The Wall Street Journal, the same reporters do another story.

  It's now over a year later. They detail everything regarding Stormy Daniels. And Trump tells her that Michael Cohen did this on his own out of the goodness of his heart. The prosecution asked, does that sound like the Michael Cohen you know? And she basically said no. She did not know him to be a charitable person.

  And she sort of sniffed out the story, but she left the White House not long after, went to FOX News, before actually coming back to work in the White House for Trump in 2020.

• William Brangham:

  And what did the — what do Trump's legal team do? How do they handle a witness like her?

  Because this is someone who's very, very close to the former president.

• Andrea Bernstein:

  Right.

  Her testimony was clear. She seemed to have very good recall about all kinds of events. It was at the very beginning of her cross-examination, which was brief, in which the defense was trying to suggest that, well, it was her job to try to influence the media coverage. That's what campaigns do, that Trump at the time was concerned about Melania.

  She talked about Trump telling her to block newspaper delivery at the residence. But at the very beginning of her testimony, when she was talking about her early work for the Trump Organization, she became overwhelmed. She started to cry. She had to take a break.

  It just seemed a lot for this former aide, extremely loyal, to be testifying at the criminal trial of her former boss.

• William Brangham:

  Andrea Bernstein of NPR, thank you so much, as always.

• Andrea Bernstein:

  Thank you.