Insiders in former President Donald Trump's intimate circle are glued to his hush money trial as courtroom testimony is revealing new salacious details that they hadn't already known, a political analyst said Friday.
Trump's New York City trial — in which he stands accused of falsifying business records to bury scandalous stories about himself ahead of the 2016 presidential election — has the rapt attention of the insiders who don't know what to expect, CNN reporter Kristen Holmes said Friday.
"I'm talking to these Trump senior advisers...a lot of them are learning about this in real time," Holmes said. "They have no idea what's going on inside the courtroom."
Trump arrived in the Manhattan criminal court Friday with a small number of aides who are unable to communicate from inside the courtroom, which means his advisers are closely following reports from the media, Holmes said.
"It is exactly as salacious as they thought it was going to be," Holmes said. "There was no mistake. We know what is at the heart of this alleged cover-up for an alleged affair with a porn star."
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CNN host Dana Bash turned the conversation over to legal analysts Elie Honig and Elliot Williams to discuss the importance of drama inside the courtroom.
"The prosecution wants to paint this as Trump and his team working hand-in-hand with Pecker and his team for campaign purposes," Honig explained. "The defense it's trying to muddy that up."
When Honig explained how Trump's attorney Emil Bove might do so — namely by finding points in his testimony that contradict past interviews — Williams explained the opportunity this process provided.
"You have these moments of contradicting a witness on their testimony, it actually makes for good theater in the courtroom," Williams said. "It's typically going to be silent in the courtroom as you're watching this man flip through these pages and find a statement that where he's wrong."
