Jen Psaki in Texas. Jen Psaki speaks onstage during the 2023 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Austin Convention Center on March 10, 2023 in Austin, Texas. Psaki has discussed a 2016 meeting she had with former Donald Trump aide Hope Hicks on her MSNBC show.
Amy E. Price/Getty Images for SXSW/Getty Images
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki has revealed an “interesting” question put to her by Donald Trump‘s former aide Hope Hicks, which helped explain how the former president ran his election campaign.
Psaki, the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden, discussed a meeting she had with Hicks in the days after the 2016 election, when Psaki was the communications director in the Obama administration, which she suggested proves Trump was the “definition of a micromanager.”
Psaki made the remarks in the wake of testimony from Hicks, who served as Trump’s campaign press secretary, during the former president’s trial in New York. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 falsifying business records charges in relation to hush money he arranged his former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep an alleged affair she had with the Republican a secret ahead of the 2016 election, which prosecutors allege was part of an unlawful attempt to influence the race.
During her testimony, which saw her crying at one point, Hicks discussed how Trump told her to deny he had an affair with Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. She also described how Trump’s team were “concerned” about how the infamous Access Hollywood tape, where Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women “by the p***y,” would damage his election chances.
While describing her November 2016 meeting with Hicks, Psaki said: “She had one major question, how do you get the president to approve every statement that goes out in his name?
“So we told her how we did things and we told her if we need a statement to commemorate, say, National Pancake Day, the President doesn’t have to approve it. Obviously if it’s a more significant one he does, or and he works with us on it,” Psaki said.
“And her response was interesting. She said Mr. Trump will want to approve everything. It made clear to me that when it came to all things PR, her boss was the definition of a micromanager.”
Psaki went on to suggest how Trump’s style of leadership was later proven while Hicks was testifying in the New York courtroom, with the host suggesting it showed the former president was “obsessed and controlling” when it comes to media coverage.
Prosecutors are attempting to argue that Trump and his team took steps to influence the 2016 election by suppressing negative stories about him from coming out, including attempting to hide the $130,000 hush money sum Trump reimbursed Cohen in company records as “legal fees.”
“Trump was intimately involved in the minutiae of his 2016 presidential campaign, all the statements, everything. So if he was aware of the small things, how could you not be aware of the big things?” Psaki said.
Joey Jackson, a former New York state prosecutor and a legal analyst, previously said that Hicks’ testimony showed how Trump’s campaign team was “scrambling to control the impending firestorm they anticipated” from the negative stories about him in late 2016, and how Trump was portrayed as “a very hands-on boss.”
“These takeaways would bolster the prosecution’s argument that Trump’s team would know how imperative it was to cover up another potential scandal, and Trump would be involved in making that happen,” Jackson told Newsweek.
Trump’s office has been contacted for comment via email.
Convincing the Jury
Elsewhere, legal experts have suggested that prosecutors will struggle to convince the New York jury that what Trump and his team did in the run up to the 2016 election amounted to a crime.
During her testimony, Hicks said that Trump was more worried about how his wife, former first lady Melania Trump, would react after details about his alleged affairs with Daniels and McDougal appeared in the Wall Street Journal shortly before 2016 election, rather than how it would damage his White House hopes.
“He was concerned about how it would be viewed by his wife, and he wanted me to make sure the newspapers weren’t delivered to the residence that morning,” Hicks said.
In an opinion piece for The Hill, attorney Jonathan Turley described how those who have testified so far in the trial have “contradicted the basis for the prosecution,” and that Hicks showed she believed Trump “wanted to kill the stories in significant part to protect his family from embarrassment.”
The hush money trial will enter its third week of testimony on Monday.
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This story was originally published May 6, 2024, 5:29 AM.