President Donald Trump has made a grim trip to a Florida community reeling from a deadly school shooting, meeting privately with victims and cheering the heroics of first responders.
President Donald Trump pauses as he arrives to speak about the mass shooting at a South Florida High School from the White House, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
But he extended few public words of consolation to those in deep mourning, nor did Trump address the debate over gun violence that has raged since a 19-year-old gunman killed 17 and injured 14 others.
Two days after the shooting, Trump visited Broward Health North Hospital Friday, where he saw two victims and praised the doctors and nurses for their "incredible" job. With his wife Melania, he also paid his respects to law enforcement officials in Fort Lauderdale, telling officers he hoped they were "getting the credit" they deserved.
"I was at the hospital with a lot of parents and they are really thankful for the job you've done," Trump said at the Broward County Sheriff's Office, where he was joined by Gov. Rick Scott, Sen. Marco Rubio and other Florida officials. He added that the young victims were in "really great shape" considering what they have been through.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Room at the White House, in Washington, Thursday, Feb 15, 2018, about the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Fla. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
In a tweet Saturday, he said that he and the first lady "met such incredible people last night in Broward County, Florida. Will never forget them, or the evening!" The president later placed calls of condolence and support to Parkland's mayor, a Broward County commissioner and the school's principal.
Trump did allude to gun laws in a different tweet Saturday, accusing congressional Democrats of not favoring new gun laws: "Just like they don't want to solve the DACA problem, why didn't the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn't want to, and now they just talk!"
Never a natural at consolation, the president seemed more at ease extending hearty thanks to first responders, marveling at the speed with which they rushed the wounded to the hospital and quipping that they deserved a raise. He had less to say to the grief and sorrow gripping a shocked community and nation after the deadliest school shooting since a gunman attacked an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Asked if he'd talked with victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Trump added: "I did indeed, and it's very sad something like that could happen."
Trump spoke privately with two victims, a boy and a girl, at the hospital. At the Sheriff's Office, he also met Detective Richard Olson and his son, Will Olson, who was shot during the attack. Trump spoke about the girl he met with, saying she had been shot four times, and that first responders had helped save her life by getting her quickly to the hospital.
President Donald Trump, center, accompanied by and first lady Melania Trump, right, and Dr. Igor Nichiporenko, left, speak to reporters while visiting with medical staff at Broward Health North in Pompano Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, following Wednesday's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Late Friday, he tweeted about the school shooting: "Our entire Nation, w/one heavy heart, continues to pray for the victims & their families in Parkland, FL. To teachers, law enforcement, first responders & medical professionals who responded so bravely in the face of danger: We THANK YOU for your courage!" He included pictures of the injured young girl and her family that he and the first lady visited.
Speaking directly to the raw emotions was Rubio, who told Trump, "This is a community and a state that's in deep pain and they want action to make sure this never happens again."
Trump replied: "You can count on it."
Still, the president made no policy statements. An avid supporter of the National Rifle Association, he did not mention the renewed debate over gun violence, ignoring a shouted question about gun laws. Trump tweeted earlier Friday that he was "working with Congress on many fronts," though he offered no details.
President Donald Trump, accompanied by Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, left, speaks while meeting with law enforcement officers at Broward County Sheriff's Office in Pompano Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, following Wednesday's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Trump said he originally planned to visit the Parkland area on Sunday or Monday, but decided he didn't want to wait. But as Trump arrived in Florida, some of the parents, survivors and others affected by the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School said they were more interested in firm action to prevent future assaults than a presidential visit.
"I don't want Trump to come, but we want more gun safety," said 18-year-old Kevin Trejos, a senior at the school. "It's a dream. It hasn't hit me yet. When I see empty desks, I'll feel it. I'm numb now."
More than 1,000 people had attended a candlelight vigil Thursday night near the school, and at one point some began chanting, "No more guns! No more guns!"
NEW YORK (AP) — Defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s hush money trial dug Friday into assertions of the former publisher of the National Enquirer and his efforts to protect Trump from negative stories during the 2016 election.
David Pecker returned to the witness stand for the fourth day as defense attorneys tried to poke holes in his testimony, which has described helping bury embarrassing stories Trump feared could hurt his campaign.
Pecker has painted a tawdry portrait of “catch and kill” tabloid schemes — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
The cross-examination, which began Thursday, will cap a consequential week in the criminal cases the former president is facing as he vies to reclaim the White House in November.
The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. He paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the encounter ever happened.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of those payments and falsely recorded them as legal expenses. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The case is the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury.
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Here's the latest:
Rhona Graff, Donald Trump's longtime executive assistant, was called to the stand Friday in the former president's hush money trial in Manhattan.
Graff started working for Trump in 1987 and left the Trump Organization in April 2021. She has been described as his gatekeeper and right hand. She was among several people involved in keeping his records.
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, the first prosecution witness called, testified Thursday that Graff was often the conduit for his communications with Trump, routing his calls and summoning him to a Trump Tower meeting on Jan. 6, 2017. At the meeting, the ex-publisher said, he and Trump discussed some of the hush money arrangements at issue in the case.
Graff testified that porn actor Stormy Daniels was once at Trump’s offices in Trump Tower.
“I have a vague recollection of seeing her in the reception area” one time, Graff said.
The date of the visit wasn’t immediately clear.
Graff said she assumed Daniels was there to discuss potentially being a contestant on one of Trump’s “Apprentice”-brand shows.
“You had heard President Trump say that he thought that she would be an interesting addition” to the cast, Trump lawyer Susan Necheles asked.
“It was part of the office chatter,” Graff said.
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker concluded his testimony Friday afternoon in Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan.
Before he left the witness stand, however, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass elicited testimony pushing back on a defense suggestion that Pecker had changed his story about Trump thanking him at a Jan. 6, 2017 Trump Tower meeting for his help burying negative stories.
During cross-examination, Trump lawyer Emil Bove had shown Pecker notes from the first of two FBI interviews he gave in 2018. According to the notes, Pecker told investigators that Trump hadn’t shown gratitude at their meeting.
Pecker maintained that the FBI’s notes of the interview may have been wrong. And, as Steinglass noted, he told investigators in an interview a week later that Trump had thanked him “for handling” Karen McDougal’s affair claims and a Trump Tower doorman’s false rumor about him.
Pecker confirmed he later told a federal grand jury that Trump was “very grateful and these stories could have been very, very damaging.”
Asked by Steinglass if he had any confusion over whether that happened, Pecker replied: “No.”
While on a lunch break from his hush money trial in Manhattan, Donald Trump reacted on social media to Biden’s comment Friday that he’s willing to debate this fall.
Trump said on Truth Social that he thinks Biden “doesn’t really mean it.” He said if Biden is serious, they should debate next week or even Friday at the Manhattan courthouse on national television, saying “I’ll wait around.”
Trump on the way into court on Friday complained he was in court instead of in Florida with his wife for her birthday and said he planned to fly to Florida after the trial wrapped for the day.
Before breaking for lunch Friday, prosecutors in Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan clawed back at the defense’s contention that an arrangement with the National Enquirer wasn’t unique to Trump, eliciting testimony from former publisher David Pecker that underscored the unusual nature of their deal.
“Is it standard operating procedure for AMI to be consulting with a presidential candidate’s fixer about amendments to a source agreement?” Steinglass asked, using initials for the tabloid’s parent company. “No,” Pecker responded.
Several similar questions followed suit, with Pecker acknowledging that he had not previously sought out stories and worked the company’s sources on behalf of a presidential candidate, nor allowed political fixers close access to internal decision-making.
“It’s the only one,” Pecker said.
As court broke for lunch, Donald Trump stopped to confer with aide Jason Miller just outside the courtroom doors at his hush money trial Friday in Manhattan. He left without making any remarks to reporters waiting nearby.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass had begun conducting what the legal world calls “redirect” examination — a follow-up round of questioning in response to what defense lawyers asked former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. The defense's cross-examination of that key witness ended earlier Friday.
And the defense can then conduct a “recross.” The sides can go back and forth, but they generally can’t just re-ask questions or delve into new topics that weren’t raised in prior questioning.
The defense's cross-examination of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker in Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York ended around midday Friday, his fourth day on the witness stand.
As Trump lawyer Emil Bove wrapped up his cross-examination, Pecker said, “I’ve been truthful, to the best of my recollection.”
Bove earlier argued that Pecker’s testimony has been inconsistent with statements to federal prosecutors in 2018.
Pecker testified that Trump thanked him for his help handling potential news stories involving former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a Trump Tower doorman, during a White House visit in 2017.
But Bove said Pecker previously told federal authorities Trump did not express any gratitude at the meeting. Pecker stuck Friday to the story he has given in court.
In the most confrontational moment so far Friday in Donald Trump's hush money trial, defense lawyer Emil Bove said former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker's testimony has been inconsistent with statements to federal prosecutors in 2018.
Pecker testified that Trump thanked him for his help handling potential stories involving former Playboy model Karen McDougal and Dino Sajudin, a Trump Tower doorman, during a White House visit on Jan. 6, 2017.
But according to notes cited by Bove in court, Pecker had previously told federal authorities that Trump did not express any gratitude to him or American Media during the meeting.
Pecker stuck Friday to the story he has given in court.
“I know what the truth is,” he said.
A lawyer for Donald Trump in his hush money trial turned Friday to the 2016 deal the National Enquirer’s parent reached with former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
The $150,000 agreement gave American Media exclusive rights to McDougal’s account of any relationship with “any then-married man.” McDougal claims she and Trump had an affair. Trump denies it.
The contract also called for McDougal to do work for various American Media titles. Former Enquirer publisher David Pecker earlier testified the provision was really about keeping McDougal’s story from becoming public and influencing Trump’s chances at the presidency.
But under questioning Friday from Trump lawyer Emil Bove, Pecker added that American Media had pitched itself as a venue to help McDougal restart her career.
When American Media signed its agreement with her, “you believed it had a legitimate business purpose, correct?” Bove asked.
“I did,” Pecker said.
The company ended up running more than 65 stories in her name, he said.
McDougal’s story, and American Media’s deal with her, ultimately became public anyway, in a Wall Street Journal article four days before the 2016 election, after early and absentee voting had started.
The insistence of Donald Trump's defense in his hush money trial to refer to him as “President Trump,” even when describing events that took place before his election, is rankling prosecutors.
Trump’s lawyers said at the outset of the trial that they’d refer to their client as “president” out of respect for the office he held from 2017 to 2021.
But Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass suggested Friday that using the title is anachronistic and confusing when tacked onto questions and testimony that involve things that happened while he was campaigning in 2015 and 2016.
“Objection. He wasn’t President Trump in June of 2016,” Steinglass noted after one such mention. The judge sustained the objection.
A lawyer for Donald Trump in the former president's hush money trial Friday got to a salacious story at the center of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s earlier testimony.
Emil Bove brought out that the Enquirer’s parent company — not Trump or his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen — paid a former Trump Tower doorman $30,000 in 2015 for the rights to an unsubstantiated claim that Trump had fathered a child with an employee there.
Pecker testified earlier that the Enquirer thought the tale would make for a huge tabloid story if it were accurate but eventually concluded the story was “1,000% untrue” and never ran it. Trump and the woman involved both have denied the claims.
Bove asked Pecker whether he would run the story if it were true. Pecker replied: “Yes.”
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker has testified in Donald Trump's hush money trial that he hatched a plan with Trump and former Trump henchman Michael Cohen in August 2015 for the tabloid to help Trump’s presidential campaign.
But under questioning by Trump’s lawyer, Pecker acknowledged Friday there was no mention at that meeting of the term “catch-and-kill,” which describes the practice of tabloids purchasing the rights to story so they never see the light of day.
Nor was there discussion at the meeting of any “financial dimension,” such as the Enquirer paying people on Trump’s behalf for the rights to their stories, Pecker said.
Pecker also acknowledged that the National Enquirer had been running negative stories about Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, long before the August 2015 meeting. Pecker previously testified that stories about the Clintons boosted sales of the supermarket tabloid.
Donald Trump's lawyer Emil Bove is getting under the hood of the National Enquirer’s editorial process, seeking to show the tabloid had its own incentives unrelated to any deal with Trump, in the fourth day of testimony in the former president's hush money trial.
To underscore his point, Bove pulled up five unflattering headlines that ran in 2015 about Ben Carson, who ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primary. Bove noted the information was pulled from publicly available information published in other outlets, including The Guardian.
In his testimony, former Enquirer publisher David Pecker, on the stand for a fourth day, acknowledged that it was standard practice at the publication to recycle stories from other outlets with a new slant.
“Because it’s good, quick and cost efficient, and you would’ve done it without President Trump?” Bove asked.
“Um, yes,” Pecker replied.
Even by National Enquirer standards, testimony by its former publisher David Pecker at Donald Trump’s hush money trial this week has revealed an astonishing level of corruption at America’s best-known tabloid and may one day be seen as the moment it effectively died.
“It just has zero credibility,” said Lachlan Cartwright, executive editor of the Enquirer from 2014 to 2017. “Whatever sort of credibility it had was totally damaged by what happened in court this week.”
On Thursday, Pecker was back on the witness stand to tell more about the arrangement he made to boost Trump’s presidential candidacy in 2016, tear down his rivals and silence any revelations that may have damaged him.
A change in the court schedule means Donald Trump won’t be forced off the campaign trail next week to attend a hearing in his hush money criminal trial in New York.
Judge Juan M. Merchan moved a hearing on the former president’s alleged gag order violations to next Thursday, avoiding a conflict with his scheduled campaign events next Wednesday.
Merchan had initially set the hearing for next Wednesday, the trial’s regular off day. Trump is scheduled to hold campaign events that day in Michigan and Wisconsin. His lawyers have urged the judge not to hold any proceedings on Wednesdays so he can campaign.
The hearing — now set for 9:30 a.m. next Thursday, May 2 — pertains to a prosecution request that Trump be penalized for violating his gag order this week on four separate occasions.
The order bars Trump from making comments about witnesses and others connected to the case. Merchan is already mulling holding Trump in contempt of court and fining him up to $10,000 for other alleged gag order violations.
Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Friday, April 26, 2024. (Jeenah Moon/Pool Photo via AP)
Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court before his trial in New York, Friday, April 26, 2024. (Jeenah Moon/Pool Photo via AP)
Former president Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Friday, April 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Former president Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Friday, April 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
