Hi there. Its 4 00 in new york. Buckle up. Witness number nine in the people of the state of new york versus donald trump was unlike any moment of this trial weve seen so far, unlike any witness in this trial weve seen. This is a trial thats seen twists and turns and drama. On the stand today, hope hicks, the Silent Trump Insider who was by Donald Trumps side for years from before he ascending down the Escalaors At Trump Tower and during the president s time in white house. A visibly and nervous hope hicks who began to cry as crossexamination began. Hope hicks described the Meltdown Inside Trump world over the release of the access Hollywood Tape. She was the first person in the campaign to know about it when she got an email from a reporter with the Washington Post. He was seeking comment from her. Hicks sent the email to other staffers including Kellyanne Conway and steve bannon. One, need to hear the tape to be sure. Two, deny, deny, deny. Hope hicks said there was consensus the tap
but i communicated to people that it was my view that it was important that the president put out a message before the event. what his response? he made the same, you know, recommendation directly to the president. and that he had refused. just so i understand, mr. hishs chman said he recommended to the president convey a message that people should be peaceful on january 6th and the president refused to do that in. yes. with donald trump possibly days away from a federal indictment tied to the january 6th efforts to overturn the 2020 election, we wanted to take a look back at what people close to the former president had to say about it and those who testified they were following
donald trump s responsible. prosecutors are only going to charge what they can convict on. let s play really quick, this is hope hicks, which we hadn t heard before, and former white house lawyer discussing the idea of violence at the capitol. when you wrote, it presumably means that the president said something about being nonviolent. you wrote, i suggested it several times monday and tuesday, and he refused. mr. hirschmann said he had made the same recommendation directly to the president. and that he had refused. so i understand, mr. hirschmann said he had already recommended to the president that the president convey a message that people should be peaceful on january 6th and the president had refused to do that? yes. barbara, what does that say to you? it it seemed clear at minimum, donald trump had no desire to help stop the violence until the
immediately when that started. but we saw the logical expression of that public philosophy when it got to the coup and the insurrection. he literally thought he owned the government and he could control our elections, and he could overthrow the role of the people. there appeared to be tension between the committee and the justice department as both institutions pursued their own investigations into january 6th. why was it important for the committee to wait until you concluded before you shared all of your evidence, all of your transcripts with the justice department? why not just turn everything over as you got it? well, i think the chairman in his wisdom thought that we did need to get through our process before it was turned over to the department of justice, or anybody else precisely to prevent people from coordinating their stories and preventing people from trying to exploit
recommendation directly to the president. and he had refused. just to understand, mr. herschmann says that he has already recommended this to the president and people should be peaceful on january 6th, and the president refused to do that? yes. he said you talk to the president the next day, tell us about that conversation. i don t think it was very long. i just said it was a terrible day, i m working on a long statement. i said it s crazy. what did he say? no, these people are upset, they are very upset. the people he said he loved in his message on the sixth, now he s talking about pardoning if he is elected president again. jake, there s also the question of how the committee s actions are going to be received and what their full report, which by the way is due