Donald Trump was so “concerned” about his wife seeing stories of his alleged affair with a former Playboy model that he tried to hide the news from her, according to his former aide.
On Friday Hope Hicks became the first person from Mr Trump’s inner circle to testify in the 11-day-old hush-money trial.
She was glued to his side during his 2016 campaign and followed him to the White House to become the director of communications.
“I’m really nervous,” she said, as her former boss, sitting only feet away, stared at her.
During her testimony, Ms Hicks gave a fascinating insight into how Mr Trump responded in the wake of a string of sleaze scandals.
When a story about a $150,000 hush money payment made to Karen McDougal by the National Enquirer to cover up an alleged affair with Mr Trump was published in the Wall Street Journal, Ms Hicks said the former president was worried about how his wife would react.
“He was concerned about how it would be viewed by his wife, and he wanted me to make sure that the newspapers weren’t delivered to his residence that morning,” she said.
Ms Hicks later said Mr Trump “really values Mrs Trump’s opinion”, adding: “She doesn’t weigh in all the time, but when she does it’s really meaningful to him and, you know, he really, really respects what she has to say.”
He also didn’t want “anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed”, she said.
Separately, text messages read out in court showed how Ms Hicks and Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former “fixer”, sent a string of frantic texts after the story about Ms McDougal broke. “Pray Michael, pray!!!” Ms Hicks wrote to Cohen, in a flurry of texts.
Cohen suggested that Mr Trump put out a statement claiming the WSJ had “turned into a smut paper”.
Avoiding looking at her former employer, Ms Hicks also detailed how Mr Trump had been “upset” after watching a leaked video of him describing grabbing women “by the p—-“.
The communications consultant, 35, described how chaos unfolded in Trump Tower after she was contacted by a Washington Post reporter about a leaked Access Hollywood recording they were going to publish. It captured a now-infamous conversation about women with the television host Billy Bush in 2005 that was caught on a hot mic.
In it, Mr Trump said: “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the p—-. You can do anything.”
Ms Hicks said she was “shocked” and went to discuss the issue with Mr Trump’s top team, who had been with him in the conference room practicing for the second presidential debate.
The former model told the jury she read Mr Trump the transcript of the conversation and he replied by saying the comments “didn’t sound like something he would say” before asking to see the recording.
Asked by prosecution lawyer Matthew Colangelo if Mr Trump was “upset” when he saw the tape, she said: “Yes, yeah he was.”
Dressed in a blue suit and tie, Mr Trump leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes while Ms Hicks described the ensuing fallout from the infamous tape.
“I think there was consensus among us all that the tape was damaging and this was a crisis,” she told the court. She later said Mr Trump “felt like this wasn’t good, but it was also just like two guys talking, locker-room talk”.
Court was momentarily disrupted when Ms Hicks suddenly burst into tears shortly after defense lawyer Emil Bove began his cross-examination.
Mr Bove had been asking the witness about her career at the Trump Organization when a visibly shaken Ms Hicks began to cry.
The glamorous former aide turned to the side, using her blonde hair to conceal her face, before Judge Juan Merchan suggested the court take a short break.
Mr Trump, who had spent most of Friday’s court session with his eyes closed looked at Ms Hicks and spoke to his lawyers following the outburst.
The former White House staffer also recounted how she was surprised when Cohen informed her in 2018 he had made the $130,000 hush money payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels out of the “kindness of his heart”.
“I don’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person,” she told the court.
As she exited the courtroom following less than three hours of testimony, Ms Hicks looked directly at her former boss for a few seconds.
Mr Trump nodded in her direction as she passed the defense table.
He has pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to Ms Daniels, who was threatening to go public with her story of their 2006 sexual encounter.
Mr Trump has denied ever being sexually involved with either Ms McDougal or Ms Daniels.
The trial continues.
