Inside A$AP Rocky’s trial, these are some of the extraordinary moments cameras didn't capture

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The trial of rapper A$AP Rocky is progressing according to standard legal procedure, but there have been no lack of unusual moments, from visits from Rihanna to a tough-but-quirky judge and lawyers nearly coming to blows.

Testimony is expected to last another week before jurors will decide Rocky's fate on two counts of assault with a semi-automatic firearm. A conviction could lead to up to 24 years in prison for the hip-hop star.

Here are some of the out-of-the-ordinary moments from the first two weeks of the trial, most not captured by the cameras in the courtroom.

From the moment it became clear the case was going to trial, nearly everyone involved was asking the same thing: What about Rihanna?

Editors asked it of reporters, who asked it of lawyers. Even Judge Mark Arnold asked it months ago at a hearing: “Will the mother of his children be there?”

Her name came up constantly during jury selection, when prospective panelists were asked whether her attendance would affect their judgment.

Yet when the singing superstar finally did show up, she was easy to miss.

She didn't appear through the first week, but rumors abounded Wednesday that she might appear, on a short court day with important testimony. Yet there was no sign of her outside or in the halls. (Unlike a nearby civil courthouse, where celebrities like Britney Spears and the Kardashians are smuggled in, Rocky and other defendants must use public entrances and many thought she'd accompany him.)

When the media were allowed in the courtroom, many reporters walked past her without noticing she was already sitting inconspicuously between Rocky's mother and sister. She had been brought in through restricted entrances. She could barely be seen from the media section, and the camera capturing the trial is not allowed to shoot the audience.

Her presence caused a quiet stir once the audience realized it, though it's not clear if the jurors had noticed her.

She appeared again the next day, and it soon felt almost unexceptional that she was there. By Friday, she slipped in about 30 minutes into testimony after coming through a public entrance.

Later that day she entered the courtroom together with Rocky for the first time, down a hallway full of jurors from his and other cases that was abuzz.

Court observers knew that when Deputy District Attorney John Lewin joined the prosecution shortly before trial, that he and Rocky's equally bullish and vocal attorney, Joe Tacopina, were sure to butt heads. They weren't wrong.

Lewin, a dogged prosecutor, is best known for his successful murder prosecution of real estate heir Robert Durst. Tacopina is a New York attorney and frequent TV commentator whose clients have included President Donald Trump.

Their shouting matches began quickly. Soon, without judge or jury present, the two had to be separated by a fellow lawyer when they went nose-to-nose in a faceoff that looked like it might become a fistfight.

“Mr. Tacopina started literally screaming at me in the courtroom. He basically appeared to challenge me to a fight,” Lewin told the judge later.

Tacopina responded. “No one screamed. You weren’t there your honor. Mr. Lewin comes up with his little scolding, bullying attitude.”

Arnold, a former sheriff's deputy, forbade the two from talking to each other except on the record.

Moments later, he said a UFC fight might be warranted. “Maybe we should get an octagon.”

Arnold wasn't wrong either. An even more fierce fight broke out between the two men in front of the judge but off camera a few days later as they argued over evidence. Lewin shouted that the defense assertion Rocky was carrying a prop gun was “garbage."

“Oh?! Oh?!” Tacopina yelled. “We'll see what the jury says at the end!"

"The argument grew more out of control and turned to personal insults.

“You don't know me! But you will learn!” Tacopina yelled.

The judge, disgusted, refused to keep playing referee.

“That's it, we're off the record,” he said, and walked out.

The testimony of A$AP Relli, Rocky's accuser, was dark and difficult but brought a couple of oddly light moments.

At one point, Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec asked him how far away Rocky was at a certain moment.

“About three or four skips," Relli said.

“I’ve never heard about anyone estimating with skips,” Przelomiec said.

“Wait, what does a skip mean?” the judge asked.

“You don’t know what I mean?” Relli asked.

They determined for the record that it was about 7 to 8 feet.

Arnold's long-for-a-judge hair and rugged, bushy mustache evoke a biker, or a cowboy. His nameplate on the bench is a carved wooden log. Relli let him know he liked his style.

As he testified, Arnold told him he clearly had to say “yes” or “no” for the court reporter.

Relli said sorry, he was nervous, then looking at the judge said, “I like your bracelet.”

“What?” Arnold said.

Relli pointed at the silver wristband on the judge's right arm. “Your bracelet.”

“Oh,” the judge said. “Thank you.”

Rocky’s mother, Renee Black, and his sister, Erika Mayers, garnered their own share of attention even before Rihanna sat between them.

The first day they appeared, Arnold asked Rocky who the women in his section were.

“That's my mother and my sister,” Rocky said. The judge's marveled at Black's youthful appearance.

“What were you, 7 when you had him?” the judge asked. She said she was 26.

“You are very beautiful,” the judge told her. “That’s on the record.”

Later, Lewin politely approached the women and talked to them during a break. He said of Rocky, “I just hope he's evaluating everything” in a reference to the deal Rocky turned down — a recommendation of 180 days in jail and other relatively minor punishments for a guilty plea on one count.

Tacopina angrily brought it up to the judge later, and Lewin explained himself.

“I walked up very kindly to the defendants mother and sister. I said ‘I am very sorry you have to go through this. I hope that your brother and your son, he’s really evaluated what he’s risking here.’”

During jury selection, when the room was packed with tired and seemingly bored potential jurors being questioned one after another, a woman gave everyone a start when she suddenly shouted, “There’s a woman taking a picture in that corner!”

She pointed to a door with a small window behind the judge, who pounced into action, his robe flying. He and his clerk opened the door and hurried down the hall behind it, but found no one.

The woman swore she saw someone and tried to justify herself, but Arnold cut her off.

“You did the right thing!” Arnold said. “You done good!”

They kept the window covered after that.

Rapper A$AP Rocky arrives at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Defense attorney Joe Tacopina listens to opening remarks from the prosecuting attorney during the trial of his client, Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Singer Rihanna, center, returns to Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Liam McEwan)

Judge Mark S. Arnold speaks to attorneys before opening remarks in the trial of Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

Singer Rihanna leaves Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Liam McEwan)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)