Expenses claims: Trump's hush-money trial

This episode delves into the details of Donald Trump's hush-money trial related to payments made to Stormy Daniels.

1. Michael Cohen's testimony is pivotal, claiming Trump directed the payment to Daniels and approved the reimbursement strategy.
2. The defense aims to discredit Cohen by highlighting his previous lies and financial gain from books about Trump.
3. Stormy Daniels' testimony was controversial and led to a failed motion for a mistrial by Trump’s lawyers.
4. The episode provides a stark look at the legal strategies of both sides in a high-profile trial.
5. The outcome of this trial could influence Trump’s image as he faces multiple other legal challenges.

1. Introduction

Host Jason Palmer sets the scene for Trump’s ongoing legal battles and the significance of the hush-money trial. Jason Palmer: "For a month, former President Donald Trump has been in and out of a New York courtroom..."

2. Michael Cohen's Testimony

Overview of Michael Cohen's role and his crucial testimony against Trump, discussing the details of the payment made to Stormy Daniels. Kennett Werner: "Everything hinges on whether you believe him, on his credibility."

3. Defense Strategy

Discussion on how Trump's defense is tackling Cohen's credibility and their approach to distancing Trump from the payment plans. Jason Palmer: "Trump’s lawyers need to make Cohen out to look like a liar."

4. Stormy Daniels' Testimony

Insight into Stormy Daniels' testimony and its implications for the trial. Kennett Werner: "She gave some very charged testimony about the sexual encounter that she had with Trump back in 2006."

5. Trial Atmosphere and Public Perception

Details on the courtroom dynamics and public interest in the trial, emphasizing the lack of video recording in New York state courts. Kennett Werner: "He walks in every morning, and he looks really unhappy, as you'd expect."

• Stay Informed: Regularly follow reputable news sources to keep up with ongoing legal proceedings.
• Critical Thinking: Analyze information critically, especially in high-profile cases where media coverage can be polarized.
• Legal Literacy: Educate yourself about legal processes and terms to better understand complex trials.
• Public Discourse: Engage in discussions about the implications of legal cases on governance and public accountability.
• Ethical Considerations: Reflect on the ethical dimensions of leadership and accountability in public office.

Michael Cohen has been testifying in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial. Did the former president’s fixer provide what the prosecution had hoped for? The Middle East has a militia problem. Many of the region’s governments are too weak to keep them down; others simply let them in (10:36). And investigating whether there is more or less sex on the silver screen these days (19:06).

People

Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels

Companies

Trump Organization

Books

"Disloyal," "Revenge" by Michael Cohen

Guest Name(s):

Kennett Werner

Content Warnings:

Mentions of sexual encounters and legal proceedings

Matt
Hi, this is Matt and Sean from two black guys with good credit from. A local business to a global corporation. Partnering with bank of America gives your operation access to exclusive digital tools, award winning insights, and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter. Visit bankofamerica.com banking for business to learn more. What would you like the power to do?

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Jason Palmer
The Economist hello, and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The Middle east has something of a militia problem. More than a quarter of the region's people live in countries whose governments are too weak to rein in armed groups and in many cases, end up in symbiotic relationships with them. And here's one that the makers, critics, and viewers of films have been debating recently. Just how much sex there is on screen these days. Is it saucier than it used to be?

More buttoned up? When you look at the data, the answer is nakedly, obviously.

First up, though.

Donald Trump
All over the world, they're watching this trial, and they're seeing what a disgrace this is, and a big disgrace to New York.

Jason Palmer
For a month, former President Donald Trump has been in and out of a New York courtroom as witnesses testify in the first of his four criminals cases due to go to trial. And we're learning again that he much prefers adoration to scrutiny because this should. Never happen to another candidate or another person. What's happening here? This case concerns $130,000 that were paid to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star, what it was for, and how it entered the books in the run up to Mister Trump's election in 2016.

Donald Trump
Today, we had a very, I think, a very good day in court. You see what's happening and you'll help me report it because they can't talk about it too much. He can't talk about it too much because of a gag order that was upheld yesterday. So here's the upshot. The court has already seen the documents at the center of this case.

Jason Palmer
And with the testimony of a particularly well placed witness earlier this week, and starting again tomorrow, jurors are getting a personal view on what allegedly connects those documents to Mister Trump. I just come from the courtroom in lower Manhattan. Kennett Werner is covering Mister Trump's panoply of trials for the economist. This trial started in mid April, and I've been there pretty much every day. The court's been in session.

Kennett Werner
Donald Trump has been there, too. It's Tuesday evening, and Michael Cohen, who was Trump's lawyer, just wrapped up his second day on the witness stand. He started with a direct examination by prosecutors, and today they finished and then turned it over to Trump's lawyers, who began their cross examination. Michael Cohen is the prosecutor's star witness. Everything hinges on whether you believe him, on his credibility.

So this is the climax of the. Trial, which is what you hinted it would be when we spoke to you on the day that the trial started. But remind us why Mister Cohen's testimony is so climactic here. Michael Cohen was Donald Trump's longtime lawyer. And right before the 2016 election, he paid hush money to Stormy Daniels, who's a porn star, who said she had slept with Donald Trump back in 2006.

And that's where prosecutors case really starts. They say that this hush money was a campaign finance violation and that Donald Trump ordered Michael Cohen to pay it and then falsified business records, basically to hide the fact that, a, Cohen had paid the hush money, and b, that he had paid Cohen back for it. Prosecutors have brought 34 felony counts against Donald Trump. They relate to checks that were sent to Michael Cohen for this alleged reimbursement after the election. They relate to the invoices that Michael Cohen lodged with the Trump Organization, and they relate to entries in the ledger of the Trump organization saying that Michael Cohen had been reimbursed for legal fees.

And of course, Donald Trump denies all wrongdoing in this case. A phrase I expect to hear from you lots in the coming months. Okay, so what did Mister Cohen have to say so far? He said exactly what prosecutors needed him to say. He said that Trump ordered him to pay the hush money and that Trump approved of the reimbursement plan.

Basically, that Trump and Allen Weisselberg, who was the CFO at the Trump Organization, and Cohen all got together after the election and they cooked up this reimbursement plan. Cohen contradicted an argument that Trump's lawyers are likely to make, which is that Cohen and Weisselberg cooked up this scheme on their own and that Trump had no involvement in this. Three people can say what happened in that room. Those three people are obviously Cohen, Weisselberg, who's not testifying. Alan Weisselberg's in prison for perjury, and neither side is calling him as a witness in this case.

And Donald Trump, who also has no requirement to testify. So everything really rides on Cohen's testimony. Yes, but when we spoke last, you said Mister Trump's defense would try to undermine Mister Cohen, to point out that he's lied under oath before to make him seem unreliable as a witness. Yeah. So this case is really, whose word do you believe, Cohen's or Trump's?

And so Trump's lawyers need to make Cohen out to look like a liar. And they did that a few different ways. They said, first, Michael Cohen, you are just seeking revenge against Donald Trump, that you're vindictive. And they quoted some nasty things that Cohen has said on social media about Trump. Cohen has called Trump a dictator, douchebag, and a cheeto dusted cartoon villain.

The other thing they said is that he's only out to monetize his story of payback. Cohen has published two books. One's called disloyal and one is called revenge. And in total, he's made over 3 million from these. So they asked him about that.

Jason Palmer
And insofar that this is all a question, as you say, of believing or not believing, Mister Cohen, what's your take on his performance? Cohen is known for being really feisty and bombastic and boastful. And in his testimony these past two days, we really haven't seen that side of him. He's been very measured, very calm, kind of subdued, even. And he's answered questions very carefully.

Kennett Werner
But we're not done yet with Cohen. He'll be back on the stand on Thursday for cross examination. There will be hours more questioning of him, so we'll have to see how he holds up. And he's a witness who comes with a huge amount of baggage. He's lied under oath in Congress.

He's lied to a judge. The defense is going to hammer him about that on Thursday, but he's held up pretty well. Well, it does seem like a case where lots of the witnesses come with baggage. Right? What about the testimony of Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who received those payments?

Because this is about falsifying business records. Her story of actually having sex with Donald Trump is not so critical, but it was nevertheless important to hear the story that would have come out had she not been paid this hush money. So she gave some very charged testimony about the sexual encounter that she had with Trump back in 2006. And he denies this totally. He denies ever having slept with her.

But she described this kind of harrowing scene. You know, she was 27 and he was 60. And she described going to his hotel room for what she thought was just going to be dinner and kind of a conversation. And that midway through their conversation, she went to the bathroom and she came back and he was in his boxers and t shirt on the bed. And then soon after that, they had sex, and that she was kind of taken aback by this, but she didn't really know how to get out of this situation.

It was really an unflattering portrayal of him. And Trump's lawyers really objected to that, so much so that they asked for a mistrial. They said her testimony was prejudicial, that she was essentially describing a rape scene, and that there's no way that their client could ever come back from that in the jurors minds. But the judge denied their request for mistrial. They said to Trump's lawyers, basically, in your opening statement, you called Stormy Daniels a liar.

And so the prosecutors had every right to put her on the stand and to have her tell her story with details to make her seem credible. Aside from Stormy Daniels, there were two former Trump aides who testified, hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhaud. They're both still loyal to Trump, and they gave these character testimonials to him. They described him as a caring boss and almost of a father figure. Both of them cried on the stand.

Jason Palmer
It's a bunch of drama that not many people get to see because New York state courts don't allow filming and broadcasting. I mean, what's it actually been like inside? There's no recording in the courtroom, but there are about 50 reporters there most days. And we're all sitting behind Trump. He walks in every morning, and he looks really unhappy, as you'd expect.

Kennett Werner
Throughout the proceedings, he's kind of alternated between looking asleep. Some people think he has fallen asleep looking very bored, and then looking interested. You know, when loyalists have testified, he perked up and he was paying attention. But today, for instance, during Michael Cohen's testimony, he had his eyes closed, and he was seeming kind of ostentatiously disinterested. Well, color me ostentatiously interested in this case.

Jason Palmer
Then what comes next? We're really nearing the end. Michael Cohen is prosecutor's last witness. Then the defense can call any witnesses it likes, but it's indicated that it might call only one who's an election law expert. Donald Trump has no obligation to testify.

Kennett Werner
He's probably not gonna testify. Then we'll get a verdict. So I think we'll get a verdict either next week or the week after. If Trump is convicted, I mean, he would be a first time felon. These are low level felonies, so he's probably not gonna go to prison.

All eyes are really focused on the potential of a conviction or not. Because Donald Trump is a defendant in four criminal cases. This is the only one that will probably reach a verdict before the election. If he's convicted, Americans would be voting for a felon for president in November. Kennett, thanks for joining us and no doubt talk to you soon.

Thanks for having me.

Kathryn Johnson, plotting the path for America's first astronauts. Tim Berners Lee and Vint Cerf creating the World Wide Web these moments changed everything. At Aviva, we spark moments of insight for our customers, helping them reimagine processes, rethink energy efficiency and reshaping shape entire industries, all to build a better world. Find out more@sparkyourmoments.com. Dot.

Jason Palmer
Israel's war in Gaza has exposed or inflamed all manner of regional tensions, with missiles flying into Iran and out of Yemen towards the Red Seas shipping lane. But part of what makes the situation the regional so unstable is a structural fact about it that predates the war and will outlast it. The Middle east is a place where non state actors hold a worrying amount of sway. There are about 400 million people in the arab world, and more than a quarter of them live in countries where the government is unable to rein in militias, where armed groups are more powerful than the state. Greg Karlstrom is a Middle east correspondent for the Economist.

Greg Karlstrom
This is a region that has never been a bastion of democracy. But even autocratic governments across the region are now being weakened and undermined by militias, by non state actors. And in some cases, governments sanction these militias. They lend support and credibility to these militias, and the militias then turn around and undermine the power of those governments in very meaningful ways. When you mention militias and governments, what springs to mind is Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is functionally part of the government.

No, it is, and they are the model that many other militia groups across the region are now aspiring to. But you look across the region and the number of militias has swelled in recent years. You have countries like Syria and Iraq that for decades were relatively strong states with central governments that had a monopoly on violence and wouldnt have allowed armed groups to exist outside the state. Both of those countries have been significantly weakened in recent decades, Iraq, of course, by the american led invasion in 2003 and Syria by the popular uprising in 2011 that then morphed into a civil war. And in both cases, that opened up space for militias to proliferate and to amass more and more power.

We've seen it as well in Yemen in the chaos that followed their revolution in 2011. We've seen it in Libya, where there has been a proliferation of armed groups since the Gaddafi regime was overthrown in 2011. And why is this specifically an issue in the Middle east now, do you think, in the sense that non state actors are also prevalent elsewhere in the world, what's going on in the Middle east in particular? They are prevalent elsewhere, of course. But I think what does make the Middle East's militias distinct is a combination of three different factors or three ingredients.

The first one, again, is the weakness of many states in the region, but also the popular perception that those states, the governments, are illegitimate. And so there is a deep well of popular anger that militia groups can use to recruit supporters. You see that in places like Lebanon and Iraq, where the most powerful militias tend to be shia, and they draw from in Lebanon what was for centuries, the poor Shia underclass was in Iraq for decades, a group that was viciously repressed by Saddam Hussein when he was in power. So they have an easy time finding supporters because there is this deep well of grievance, the next thing that tends to happen is some sort of a conflict that gives these militias a reason for being. So if you take Syria as an example, the syrian army in 2011 started shooting at protesters.

That turned a peaceful uprising into a civil war. But the syrian army wasn't able to finish the job. It wasn't able to win the war that it started, and it had to rely on a constellation of armed groups, both homegrown syrian groups and also militias imported from abroad to win the war. So the third ingredient is that the state very often lends them legitimacy. It does something to make these groups more formalized, to give them credibility.

So, again, to take the syrian example, the Assad regime worked with these militias, right? If you think typically of militias or rebel groups, they act against the state. But the ones in the Middle east very often have done something that the state was not able to do. They helped fend off protesters and rebels in Syria. They helped fight islamic state in Iraq.

And that caused the government to give them this veneer of legitimacy that then proves very hard to ultimately take away. So those ingredients, the well of grievance, a conflict, and some level of legitimacy. Again, the question here is whether you end up like Hezbollah, as sort of part of the government or aligned forever against it. This is where militias in the region break into two different categories. On the one hand, you have groups like the Houthis in Yemen who swept out of their stronghold in the north in 2014 and took over large parts of the country, and they sought to become the state.

They have absorbed the bureaucracy. They have installed their loyalists in key positions. They are changing school curricula and trying to impose their religious views on the population. They're trying to become the de facto government of Yemen, and they've been largely successful in doing that. It's different in places like Syria, Iraq and especially in Lebanon, where instead of trying to become the state, militia groups have co opted the state.

If you look at Iraq, the militias there who organized into a group called the Popular Mobilization Forces, they won recognition from the government as an official agency under the command of the prime minister. They got a $2 billion line item in the federal budget. And the best example of that sort of co opting of the government and an example of where other groups in the region would like to go is the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is different. How? It starts with the end of the lebanese civil war in 1989.

The accord that ended the war called on all of the militias in Lebanon, all of its sectarian groups, to put down their weapons. But it made an exception for Hezbollah, which said at the time that it was a resistance group fighting israeli occupation and not just the sectarian militia. And so it's wound up in a situation today where, on the one hand, it is theoretically no different than any other political party in Lebanon. It has members in parliament. It runs a couple of ministries.

It doles out contracts to its supporters and hires them for civil service jobs. But at the same time, because it has this vast arsenal that the state is unable to take away, it has de facto control over Lebanon's land border with Syria, controls a number of key positions in the security services, the intelligence services. And that is a dynamic that isn't repeated with other parties. It's put itself in a position where it is almost entirely outside the authority of the state. And that is something you said the rest of the region sees as a kind of model in terms of militias.

The militias in the region see that as a model. I think governments in the region ought to see that as a cautionary tale. If you look at the case of Iraq, it certainly seems to be heading that way, although instead of having just one powerful militia like Lebanon does, they have dozens of them under this loose umbrella group. It's also happening in Syria, where the groups that saved the Assad regime during the civil war now want to benefit from that. They expect a reward for that.

And so they are gradually expanding an economic empire in Syria. They are reshaping the syrian economy, syrian society, because they are now too powerful to be uprooted. And so what's happened time and time again in the region is that states have seen a short term interest in tolerating militias, working with militias, it serves some useful purpose for them in the short term. But in the longer term, they're creating groups that are completely unaccountable, that will go on to terrorize and murder their countrymen, that will loot billions of dollars from treasuries, and that will be impossible for states to rein in, in no small part because they receive so much support from abroad, specifically from Iran in this region. And they wind up being far more accountable to their paymasters in Iran than to their own countrymen.

Jason Palmer
Thanks very much for your time, Greg. Thank you.

Rachel Lloyd
50 years ago, the Supreme Court dabbled in a bit of film criticism.

Jason Palmer
Rachel Lloyd is the economist's deputy culture editor. A cinema manager in Georgia had been prosecuted for distributing obscene material. That obscene material was cardinal knowledge. Released in 1971, it starred Jack Nicholson and Agar Funkel as two men. And in the film, they talk endlessly about their sexual pathologies.

Do you want to get laid? It was rated r, denoting adult content. But these days, when you watch it, you could never think it was explicit. There's not really any sex in it. In one scene, you can hear moans of pleasure, but all the action, so to speak, is happening off screen.

Rachel Lloyd
Of course, the court ruled that the film was not obscene.

Filmmakers these days don't worry about being prosecuted for obscenity or about censorship. But sex is once again being judged and being talked about. Critics and viewers and filmmakers are all debating how much sex there is on screen. Lots of people worry that Hollywood isn't a very puritanical age. They blame me, too.

And they also blame the need to sell films abroad. Lots of markets internationally are not interested in seeing lots of sex on screen.

On the other hand, there are films with quite explicit sex scenes. If you look at poor things, starring Emma Stone, which had sex in brothels, and Netflix's fair play, which had sex in public toilets. Lock the door everywhere. I promise I'll be quick. This is part of a trend of quite out there sex.

And who is right? I asked Stephen follows, a film data analyst, to take a look at this and see if we could answer it with cold, hard numbers. He had a look at the 250 highest grossing films in America every year since 2000. And he looked at information from film ratings bodies, as well as information from movie databases. And he found that the level of sexual content in films has fallen since 2000 by almost 40%.

In 2000, less than 20% of the highest grossing films had no sexual content whatsoever, whereas today, almost half of films have no sexual content. To my mind, both sides of the argument are right in a way.

There are fewer sex scenes on screen, but the ones that make it are more graphic than ever before. And I think if you look back even 30 years to a film like basic instinct, the flash of genitals in that film sent audiences and critics into a tailspin. There's no smoking in this building, Miss Tramiel. What are you gonna do? Charge me with smoking?

Cut to last year, full frontal female nudity featured in a handful of films, including Joyride and no hard feelings. And that didn't prompt any kind of uproar at all. And then again, if you look at Fairplay and Saltburn, also both released last year, they had characters performing oral sex on their lovers while they were menstruating. It's not the right time of a month audiences. 50 years ago would have been more than a little red face watching that intimacy coordinators play an important role on set.

What they do is they liaise the director and the actors, and they essentially choreograph scenes with sex and sometimes sexual violence. They're a bit like a stunt coordinator, really. They make sure that everyone knows what they're doing. They make sure that they can do repeatable takes. They also want to, like a stunt coordinator, keep actors safe while choreographing the most exciting thing that they can.

So an intimacy coordinator will also ask a filmmaker why the moment is important in the narrative. They want to understand what they should be conveying with this and what the actors should be trying to communicate. Sometimes those conversations will result in changes to the script or even the sex scene being deleted. If it can't justify its place in the narrative, it might go.

Some actors, Jennifer Aniston and Sean Bean, for instance, have said that they don't think intimacy coordinators are necessary. Others have said that they stifle the spontaneity of a sex scene. Intimacy coordinators started working, really, from 2014 onwards, and they've become more common since MeToo. People point to that and say that this is a symptom of a more nervous or censorious age. But lots of actors have praised intimacy coordinators and say that it helps them to focus on the job at hand, so to speak.

Kristen Stewart recently has come out and said that having an intimacy coordinator helped her feel much less self conscious when she was filming. Love, lies bleeding, and others have generally said that it helps them treat those scenes like a stunt.

It's hard to say what the future of sex on screen will be. Hollywood is quite trend driven, so if a particularly erotic film does well. Others might follow suit, but the decline has been sustained for so long that it looks like it will continue. And if you look as well to the next generation, Generation Z is profoundly uninterested in sex. Not only are they having less of it, but they also really don't want to see it on screen that much.

A survey by UCLA asked youngsters to rank 19 topics that they liked watching, and they put romance and sex. 13 was content that doesn't include sex or romance, so it looks like the future will be pg 13.

Jason Palmer
That's all for this episode of the intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

Matt
Hi, this is Matt and Sean from two black guys with good credit. If you own or operate a business, whether it's a local operation or a global corporation, partnering with bank of America could be your smartest move. By teaming with bank of America, you'll enjoy exclusive digital tools, award winning insights, and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter. Position your business to capitalize on opportunity in a moment's notice. Visit bankofamerica.com bankingforbusiness to learn more.

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