The Journal. - Donald Trump’s First Criminal Trial Is Underway

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Former President Donald Trump is expected to spend the next six weeks in a Manhattan courtroom, defending himself against accusations he covered up a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. WSJ’s Corinne Ramey was in the courtroom for opening statements and WSJ’s Molly Ball unpacks what this trial could mean for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.  Further Reading: -Trump’s Hush-Money Trial: What to Know as the Case Begins  -Donald Trump Played Central Role in Hush Payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal  Further Listening: -Donald Trump Is Charged on 34 Felony Counts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Corinne Ramey. I cover courts for The Wall Street Journal. And I am downtown, sort of about a block away from the criminal courthouse in New York City. And here for the first criminal trial of Donald Trump. Former President Donald Trump is facing four criminal cases, and the first got underway today. So right now, I see a ton of news trucks, a lot of security. There's long lines, but other than that, it's quiet. This morning, Corinne was in the courtroom

listening to opening statements. Trials are often about stories and sort of about competing narratives. And we don't really know the story that both sides are going to hear from both the prosecutors and the defense attorneys about the details of the case. The case has to do with Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Prosecutors allege that Trump covered up a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to keep her quiet about their alleged affair. He was charged with creating false business records related to the payment. Trump has pleaded not guilty. You know, I've seen Trump in New York courthouses a fair amount in the past several months.

Saw him at the E. Jean Carroll trial, at the civil fraud trial. But there's something sort of striking about seeing him in a criminal courtroom in this building that's sort of drab and dingy. And it's just not the kind of place you expect to see a former president. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Monday, April 22nd. Coming up on the show, Trump's first criminal trial begins. Attention all soccer fans.

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Hey, Ryan, I'm good. I just got out of court a little while ago. So thanks for taking the time to chat on your busy day at the courthouse. No problem. It ended early thanks to a juror's dentist appointment. It's kind of an amazing thing, honestly, to be like, I know you're the former president of the United States and this is a trial that everyone around the country is watching, but I have to go get my teeth cleaned. Well, okay. So to the credit of the juror, she had some sort of toothache and this was the only time she could get the appointment. I see. I see. This morning, there was opening arguments in the case, which you said earlier that trials are about competing narratives. So from watching the opening statements, what were you able to learn today about the narrative

that each side is trying to lay out? What we heard from prosecutors was this really sweeping story about a criminal conspiracy where Trump and Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, and David Pecker, who's a former tabloid publisher, met at Trump Tower in 2015 and sort of hatched this plot together about how they were going to buy up the stories of people who had bad things to say about Trump so that it wouldn't come out before the election. And I guess what was striking about Prosecutor's narrative is that it wasn't just about Stormy Daniels and it wasn't just about falsified business records.

It was about this sort of larger motivation, this larger scheme and provided an explanation for Trump's alleged behavior. And they were trying to say at one point, the prosecutor said in the openings, this is election fraud, plain and simple. That, you know, the crime that he is charged with is falsified business records. It's in some ways sort of a narrow crime. But they were trying to tell a story that was not narrow at all. Prosecutors allege that Michael Cohen used his own money to pay off Stormy Daniels. Then Trump directed a scheme to cover up reimbursements to Cohen by recording them as legal fees,

and that Trump did it to help himself in the 2016 election. I think prosecutors were giving jurors a reason to believe that Trump had motivation to silence Stormy Daniels and then also to cover up this silencing attempt so that nobody ever knew about it. Okay, so what was the story that the defense was trying to tell? So the defense was trying to say, most simply, that Trump didn't commit a crime. Most simply, that Trump didn't commit a crime. And I think one of the sort of most striking things was when Todd Blanch, Trump's lawyer,

said there's nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It's called democracy. And it sort of struck at the prosecutor's narrative in a way that I wasn't expecting. Like, I expected them to say Trump didn't commit a crime, that Trump's innocent. Maybe that Trump was trying to protect his family and his wife and his brand. But I didn't expect them to talk about this idea of trying to interfere with an election. So it sort of sounds like the defense is sort of saying, well, yeah, of course they didn't want these stories out. But what's the big deal? Yeah, I mean, they were saying that's not illegal. Like, candidates try to sway voters all the time. What else did the defense say?

The defense did something that we've seen them do before, which is go after two folks who are expected to be witnesses at trial. One was, pretty predictably, Michael Cohen. One was pretty predictably Michael Cohen. They talked about how Cohen pleaded guilty to lying under oath. They said he couldn't be trusted. And they noted that his financial livelihood depends on attacking Trump right now, that he has books, he has podcasts, and suggested to jurors that they shouldn't trust Cohen when he takes a stand. They also attacked Stormy Daniels, who's another possible witness, sort of saying the same thing about her, that she also has made money off this whole matter. Were you able to get a sense at all of how the jury was reacting to these opening statements? They were totally paying attention and listening, really actively listening, looking at the lawyers. After opening statements, the judge asked, would any of you like sort of note taking materials, paper and pencil to take notes during the trial?

And most hands went up. So I had the sense that the jurors were they're paying attention and they were taking their job seriously. What was Donald Trump's vibe like in the room today? And how did he react to what was playing out? I mean, Donald Trump never looks like he wants to be in the courtroom. He does not look like he's having a good time sitting there at the defense table. But he appeared to be paying attention when his lawyer was giving the opening statement. He quite noticeably turned his head and was really engaged in that in a way that he hadn't been with the prosecutors. After court let out, Trump went into the hallway and talked to

the press in the hallway for about nine minutes, which is fairly lengthy for this particular proceeding. It's very unfair what's going on. And I should be allowed to campaign. And whoever heard of this, he got indicted for that? People in the court just said to me, I can't believe it. This is the case. Do you think that Trump will testify? A defendant testifying is such a wild card and it's hard to predict in advance.

Trump has said multiple times that he plans to testify. And I think there's likely significant political pressure on him to do so. that from his campaign's perspective, voters don't want to see him sort of remaining silent in the courtroom and not defending himself against these allegations. That said, taking a stand in your own self-defense is, it's such a Hail Mary and it is such a risky move. So what will you be watching for next as this trial plays out? I'm really interested to hear from the witnesses, particularly David Pecker, the tabloid publisher. He has not told his story publicly, and I'm interested to hear his perspective on his interactions with Trump, his meeting with Trump at Trump Tower,

and his experience throughout this whole matter. Well, thanks, Corinne. Really appreciate it. Great. Great. Bye. Coming up, what the trial means for Trump's 2024 campaign. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws. Like price drop. Hear that? Loblaws lowers prices every four weeks on a selection of items. So you can save more. Whether it's pantry staples or seasonal favorites,

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This whole concert, it's a trap. Trap, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Only in theaters August 2nd. For Donald Trump, the trial is almost like a full-time job. He has to be in court four days a week. And each day he's in court is a day he can't be on the campaign trail. I spoke about what that means for his campaign with our colleague Molly Ball, who covers politics. And he's complained about this.

He has said in his appearances before he goes into the courtroom that, you know, he'd rather be in a swing state. He'd rather be out there on the trail. In practice, we haven't seen him out on the trail five, six, seven days a week. He has been holding rallies pretty sparingly, and he hasn't been in the battleground states all that much. So it's not clear that this is really impeding him. And he does still have the weekends, and he does still have Wednesdays. The court has not been meeting on Wednesdays so that the judge can handle other business and the jurors get a break on those days. So he does still have a fair amount of time for campaigning. And even on the days that

he is in court, we have seen him undertake some campaign activity. He tends to make a statement to the media on his way in, sometimes on his way out. And on Tuesday, the second day of jury selection, he actually left court and then went up to Harlem to a bodega to hold a campaign event, making a statement about crime, about law and order, appearing with some supporters and some New York police. They want law and order. They have a lot of crime, tremendous crime where their stores are being robbed. And as you know, we're going to give New York

a very good shot for the presidency. I would say also that conceptually, he has woven the trial into his campaign so that they're sort of one in the same. He obviously can't speak and isn't even on camera while he's in court, but he has made the trial part of the conceptual pitch for his campaign, this idea that he is the victim of a conspiracy of the establishment of the deep state, that part of the reason he should be reelected is because his enemies are persecuting him and victimizing him,

and that voters should rally to his defense, in part to send a message to his perceived enemies. Most Trump supporters have seemed pretty unfazed by his indictments. But Mollie says that support could start to falter as the case plays out in court and the details are brought back into the spotlight. And so that may make an impression on people, right? Trump supporters who may, in the abstract,

have wanted to believe his case that this was all ginned up and none of it is real, once confronted with the evidence, whether they're on the jury or out there in the electorate, which is the ultimate sort of jury of Trump's peers politically, people may change their minds once the evidence is in front of them. That's certainly what Trump's opponents are hoping. Is there a possibility that this might go the other way for Trump?

That there are people who might be like on the fence about Trump or undecided that might be brought in to support him after seeing this case play out? Absolutely. Trump supporters have made the case not only that this whole prosecution is political, but that the nature of the case is flimsy, that it's legally questionable. And so they certainly hope that voters and jurors will look at this case and say, hey, this isn't fair. And then there's the possibility, you know, once all the evidence is presented, Trump could be acquitted. And that would allow him to claim that he's been exonerated. And we have certainly seen that in the past when Trump has beaten the rap, whether it's on impeachments, the Mueller report, other things

that they've thrown at him over the course of his political career, he has grown stronger from his ability to bounce back from these kinds of things. Has this trial affected his ability to raise money at all for his campaign? It appears that it has hurt his fundraising ability, in part because he has been using his campaign account as a slush fund for his legal fees. We've seen tens of millions of dollars already diverted from Trump's campaign funds to pay his lawyers. And that appears to have sort of put a damper on his fundraising, whether you're talking about the big money funders who may not want to pay for his legal defense to those small-dollar donors who have always been a great source of fundraising strength for Trump.

But in this campaign, he's fallen badly behind Biden and the Democrats in fundraising, and part of that appears to be donor fatigue, in particular because donors are being asked to pay Trump's legal fees. So obviously we're supposed to get a ruling in this case in about a month or so, give or take. What do you think it'll mean for Trump's campaign if he's convicted? Well, we have seen in various polls, including our Wall Street Journal polling, that a small but significant chunk of Trump supporters say they would be less likely to vote for him if he were convicted, whether that's convicted of a felony or simply convicted of any crime. We'll see if that ends up being the case. I think we've seen many times in the past where it looked like something could damage Trump's support with his base, but he ended up bouncing back, whether because he's able to

successfully make an argument to those people or just because they want to support Trump at the end of the day. But we do see that the polling does seem to show that he would be damaged by this. And I think, you know, that makes sense. Sort of normal rules of political gravity. You'd rather not have your candidate be a convicted felon or be convicted of any crime. But as we've seen, Trump often totally defies the laws of political gravity. So maybe a conviction will give him a boost. Well, we certainly saw in the Republican primary that the indictments helped Trump. Now, of course, a partisan primary is very different than a general election. So it's certainly possible, you know, he's been selling T-shirts with his mugshot on them and they've

been a hot seller for his campaign. It's certainly possible that he's able to persuade a broad swath of the American public that this victimization narrative is correct. But I do think it's a harder sell in a general election than it was in a Republican primary. Thank you. you get your podcasts throughout every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.