Former White House communications director Hope Hicks recently took the stand on Friday in Donald Trump‘s New York criminal trial which is a tense reunion for the former president and a woman who was once one of his closest aides via Yahoo.
Hicks shared the email with Trump verbally; they were trying to get a copy of the audio to assess the situation further.
“Everyone was just absorbing the shock of it.”
Hicks has a vague recollection of starting to read the transcript, and then Trump read the rest of it himself…
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) May 3, 2024
“I’m really nervous,” Hicks stated as she took the stand as the ninth witness to be called in the case, and led the jury through a dramatic inside account of Trump’s reaction to the infamous Access Hollywood” tape that nearly derailed his first presidential bid.
Hicks had worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign before joining his administration. Another witness, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, stated that she was in and out of a key meeting he had with Trump and his then-lawyer Michael Cohen in 2015, where Pecker agreed to help them suppress stories that could hurt Trump’s campaign.
Hicks, who also worked for the Trump Organization, said she has not spoken to Trump in almost two years.
She told the jury when she worked on Trump’s campaign as his press secretary beginning in 2015, they would speak multiple times a day. When asked how large their press team was, Hicks said, “It was just me and Mr. Trump” until the later stages of his successful run, and she lauded his communications and branding skills.
“We were all just following his lead,” she said.
She was also asked if she was in and out of a meeting with Pecker, she said she didn’t remember but that it was “possible.” She said she remembered Trump praising articles the Enquirer had done slamming his then-Republican rivals Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz. She recalled that Trump called an article that tried to link Cruz’s father to the Kennedy assassination “great reporting.” Pecker testified that the piece was a concoction.
Hicks said she was “very concerned” by the email — both about the contents “and the lack of time to respond.” She said she forwarded the request on to campaign leadership, including Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon and Jason Miller. She eventually found them altogether preparing for Trump’s debate with Hillary Clinton.
She said Trump asked her what was going on, and she read the email aloud to him. She said she had a vague recollection of starting to read the transcript of his remarks that the Post reporter had sent, and that Trump then he read the rest of it to himself.
“That doesn’t sound like something I would say,” she quoted him as saying.
When they began talking about how to respond, Trump suggested the tape was not a big deal and “not anything to get so upset over,” Hicks said and he called it “pretty standard stuff for two guys” talking.
