'Not a lot happens' without Trump knowing about it: Defense says he had nothing to do with payment

When news first broke of an alleged hush

payment

made to Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump denied

knowing

anything about it, his lawyers continue to mount that

defense

today in their opening statements saying that Trump put up a wall between him and his company and that it is an accounting. The issue is not a criminal matter. Prosecutors accuse him of rewriting history to win an election. He joins us now. New York Times investigative reporter David Farenthold and White House political reporter and co-author of the West Wing playbook Eli stal, so David, the

defense

is repeatedly pointing out that This is not a case of secret money, in fact, Donald Trump had a long-standing system with Cohen to solve public problems such as Stormmy Daniels could have been.

Will this case come down to proving what Trump knew or

says

he didn't know? If I. I mean that's what unites, that's why we are Donald Trump on trial and not Michael Cohen and that's why Michael Cohen's witness and Trump's accused are going to have to prove that the prosecution is going to have to prove if Trump knew about these

payment

s and not only did he know about the payments to Stormy Daniels, but he also knew about the cover-up, he knew that this was being entered into his own books in a fraudulent manner, described as a legal advance to Michael Cohen instead of a payment of money to maintain silence, a payment to a porn company. star, so yeah, I think that's the point of witnesses like David Pecker, who started today and Michael Cohen, who's coming later, is to connect this activity, this cover-up to Trump himself at the top and David, I mean, BL, uh, Trump's lawyer Blanch said that Trump put up a wall between him and his company when he became president, we may see prosecutors try to prove that claim, what do the reports from the time tell us?

It is a complex picture, so, in theory, Trump gave control of his businesses to his sons, Don Jr and Eric, when he entered the White House, he did not renounce ownership of his business and the wall, so He didn't run the Trump organization as actively as he had while in the White House, but he still talked to his children. about the business, he still appears to have been consulted about decisions about the business and in this case he was allegedly intimately involved in a specific transaction. You already know how to pay Michael Cohen, pay sty Daniels through Michael Cohen and then cover it up.

I don't think your argument that there was an iron wall between Trump and his businesses during the presidency certainly wasn't true in a legal sense and in a practical sense it doesn't seem like there really was at the time information about the bus to him and Eli, how does the report square with what we've heard from Trump, what we've learned from Cohen, for example, and the story the prosecution presented today? Well, if you're talking about how this relates to the election, what we know, and we knew at the time, is that this happened in the context of a very close race with about a month until Election Day and Paul starting. to show that the race was moving away from Trump after the first debate with Hillary Clinton and to really see in the way that the campaign reacted that you know this was something that they were concerned about, people very close to Trump thought that the race was I thought he was going to have to drop out or, more or less, I politely urged him to drop out.

Ryan prous, the chairman of the republican national committee said, basically, look, you're going to lose by a landslide or you could quit, uh,

trump

was forced to record. and admitting that it was him on the Access Hollywood tape, uh, it was because of that, that's not something he does easily, but you know he brushed it off, locker room talk, uh, but basically he had to deal with this and they were very worried. that this was a big responsibility in the future in the elections and you saw many things that happened during the following weeks, his reaction was uneven, there were more women who came forward with similar accusations of sexual harassment to whom he attacked from the stage of his but he also tried with all their might muddy the waters.

He brought into the room women who had accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault at the second presidential debate in St. Louis, surprising everyone, but you could see this very intense effort. by the campaign, uh, to try to mitigate what they saw as a deep viability in the last few weeks of the election, yeah, I mean, and these were literally the last few weeks of the election, some of these conversations took place at end of October. uh, Eli Trump is clearly involved in his own defense while his lawyers are trying to portray him as a frugal businessman, a family man, how does that contradict the narrative of those who perhaps know the former president best? ?

I just think that anyone who spent time covering the White House that when Donald Trump was president or his organization, you know, everyone can tell you and people who have been inside the Trump Corporation or the Trump White House, the Trump campaign , they can tell you that. Not much

happens

without Donald Trump

knowing

about it and approving it first. The term one's audience isn't just about people going on television to talk to President Trump knowing that he would be watching, it's really a general premise. throughout his presidency and public life that everyone who works for him was acting for him or acting on his behalf doing what he ordered them to do or what they thought he would want them to do, so you know if the juries will have all that context, obviously we'll watch the trial and find out, but people who have covered Trump extensively, much more extensively than I, even they know that it's very difficult to prove that Donald Trump would have done it.

Have you been isolated from something like this because it goes against everything we know about how he ran his company and how he ran the White House and David? Just your thoughts on the importance of David Pecker, I mean, based on your reports. How much will Pecker be able to contribute to the inner workings of the Trump campaign? Certainly Trump's mindset in those final weeks before the election. I think two things that Pecker certainly establishes for the jurors as they were. to do with Stormy Daniels wasn't something they just made up, so this catch-and-kill idea that a tabloid would pay for a salacious story and then not publish it to help the guy whose secrets it was keeping was something that had been happening for a long time. something established.

I think he'll say they did it for Trump before. It was certainly a big part of his business model in the national consultations. He will establish it and expose it. for people what um Mo was and what the intention was and that gives them an idea of ​​the cover-up that was going on. The other thing that's important is that he's not Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen will be able to involve jurors in these discussions about Trump. organization, but he has his own credibility problems, he went to jail for lying, so I think in this case having someone else corroborate him, other than Michael Cohen, increases Cohen's credibility and helps prosecutors point the finger at him.

Finger to Trump for not trusting this. a witness, yeah, I think it's so important that I think not many people really recognize or know how prevalent these trap and kill things are. Oh, you lost your ifb there, David, but then Eli, just the whole thing, for example, of trapping and killing. Which is not illegal, but it certainly has prevailed in many cases, and I think it's of particular interest in the Trump case because it was something that he was so involved in and that the tabloids did in his name so frequently and I think it really contributed to this feeling, this feeling that he had that he could get away with almost anything because for a long time he had this notion that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and still be okay.

I know that came from years of going around New York doing what he wanted to do and then making sure that the stories just went away, the lawsuits, you know, they just went away through settlements or other things and I think you know how to win. the presidency finally um after this experience after these last few heartbreaking weeks for the Trump campaign where they felt like you know this was over for him to win despite this that sent him to the White House um with this belief uh maybe even more more ingrained than before that he was somehow immune to the consequences that he could do what he talked about doing in the Hollywood tape of the axis and other things uh and ultimately uh get out free from scotf David Fen fold and Eli stoal thank you very much and David I'm so happy you're back.

I know losing this is really a problem, so I appreciate you doing it as quickly and effectively as you do. I thank you both for being with us. Hello everyone, MSNBC has a new and improved app. Get real-time alerts and analysis Live blogs In-depth es

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