‘Hitting Her On The Arm’: CNN’s Paula Reid Says Trump Got ‘Physical’ With Lawyer in Court As Stormy Daniels Testified
CNN chief legal analyst Paula Reid said ex-President Donald Trump got “physical” with attorney Susan Necheles as Stormy Daniels testified for the prosecution, hitting her on the arm to prompt objections.
Tuesday morning saw a bombshell go off ahead of the former president’s hush money-election interference trial, as news broke that Daniels herself would be taking the witness stand.
When Daniels took the stand, there were plenty of details that journalists found shocking or jarring, especially her traumatic account of her alleged encounter with Trump.
On Tuesday’s edition of CNN’s branded coverage of the trial, Reid reported that inside the courtroom, an agitated Trump acted up, and is likely using the break to give “an earful” to whomever will cross-examine Daniels:
ANDERSON COOPER: During this lunch break, I would pick the prosecution team because I can only imagine. We’ve seen, based on a reporters in the court, how upset Donald Trump seems to be, and urging his attorneys to be interjecting more, to object more. I’ve little doubt he is giving them an earful right now about what he wants to see moving forward.
PAULA REID: Yeah, he’s been really scrutinizing his defense lawyers. I saw it yesterday with Todd Blanche’s cross of an accounting official from the Trump Organization. Trump twisted his entire body and was watching everything Todd said. Today. He’s gotten a little physical with Susan Necheles, one of his lawyers sort of hitting her on the arm, prompting her to object.
He’s had these spirited conversations with all three of them. He clearly has a lot of ideas about exactly how this defense should be carried out. At this point, it’s unclear who will cross Stormy Daniels, but you know, whoever does it, they’re getting an earful from their client right now.
PHIL MATTINGLY: I think the takeaway, the, the picture that our team in the room and you guys been talking about, of the, Susan Necheles the lawyer being basically prompted to object, I think she was reading something at the time. It was basically like —
Stormy Daniels is so different than anybody else we’ve seen up to this point, right? You had David Pecker, who I think they were still very friendly to some degree. You had people that were in the Trump Organization, and even you got Hope Hicks, who was a former adviser. And clearly there’s still, some kindness there or appreciation for one another.
This is a different witness than we’ve seen up to this point. If you want to have any sense of how Trump is going to feel when Michael Cohen eventually gets on stand, you’re getting a little bit of it here.
But we just haven’t seen him confronted by somebody like this, particularly with these personal stories at that level of detail. How he responds after the trial, maybe just as interesting is how he responds during.
Watch above via CNN’s branded coverage of the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial.
