All right. So great to have all of you. Let me just start straight off with you, Sue. You were Pecker's communications chief at AMI, right? So you worked with him, you saw him, you know how all of this worked in an intimate detail. So Passegourd testified today, he told Trump he'd be his eyes and ears during the campaign. So as you're seeing the transcript of exactly what he said today, what stood out to you as you heard Pecker describe the way Catch and Kill worked?

Which was pretty amazing. So until now, it's only been speculated how it really worked. But Pecker clearly outlined it under oath today, how it all played out. And the benefit to him, obviously, was incurring goodwill with Trump and having that access to him and vice versa, burying bad stories about Trump, highlighting his good stuff and burying his enemy. So it was like a mutual, in their minds, a win-win. I could help you, you help me. And that's pretty much how Pekker operated all along and why the inquiry has the reputation that it has.

Stacey, to this, I know there was key testimony me for you about how Trump used this agreement, this catch and kill agreement, as Steus talking about, as Pekker testified today, to harm Trump's political opponents as well. So he would catch bad stories about Trump and kill him. And then he would promote bad stories about people running against Trump. So Peker testifies, Michael Cohen would send me information about Ted Cruz or Ben Carson or Marco Rubio. That was the basis of our story. And then we would embellish it from there. And then, just so everyone understands what that meant, the Ted Cruz sex scandal, Five Secret Mistresses, Bungling Surgeon, Ben Carson left sponge in patient's brain. I remember that. Who doesn't remember that? Maybe there was even some fake picture, right? Yes. Right? With the sponge. Okay. Donald Trump, Healthiest Individual Ever Elected. Okay. What is the prosecution showing jurors here?

Okay, this is very strategic on the part of the prosecution. And David Pecker, who is just a background witness in this case, actually dealt a very devastating blow to the Trump defense, especially the part you're mentioning where there was an arrangement that Michael Cohen, according to David Pecker, would call him up after one of the Republican debates. And whoever was doing the best in the debate, he would direct him, David Pecker, to run a devastating story about that person. And what's that setting up the trial for the jury to see is the fact that Trump allegedly seems to have a pattern and history of gaining an unfair advantage during that election. And I think that that point, although subtle today, is going to come back later on in the trial. It's the same theme that Trump is being tried on right now, unlawfully influencing the election and then covering it up through paying off Stormy Daniels and then putting false entries.

So it's making the election interference case. It's putting that into the ETH. Yeah.

So it's the same theme as what he's being tried for right now, allegedly. And I think that was a really subtle and good talking point later on for the DA.

So Elizabeth, as you're watching in your sketches today, you can see Trump looking at David Pecker on the stand, right? This went on for almost three hours. So when Because you're watching him, when was he most interested? When was he... I remember yesterday you were talking about showing his interest by him being at the edge of his seats, literally in the way that you drew the oil pastel. So what did you notice today?

Yeah, today, when he started out, he was doing that closing the eyes thing, which I look at him through the video, at the video screen, my binoculars, because I want to make sure he's really closing his eyes. And he's closing his eyes. And I'm wondering, okay, he gives him a couple of glances. But then when they start talking about a MacDougal. Karen MacDougal, the playmate that he had a year long affair with. The eyes are open, the arms start folding. When he folds his arms, now that I've drawn him a bunch of times, he folded his arms when he was arraigned in Miami, and he folded his arms several times during E. Jean Carroll. And that means something is not right with Donald Trump. And he's now laser-focused on David Pecker. Because prior to that, I look at him quite a bit, and he was somewhat paying attention. But the MacDougal testimony, that seemed to really got to him.

And that, Karen, obviously, while this case is about payments made for the silence to Stormy Daniels, and whether that was a felony count in election law, Karen MacDougal is very relevant to this story because she is a person who has a detailed, extensive affair, she says she had with the former President. And David Pecker in the National Enquiry was obviously involved in getting rid of that one as well.

Yeah. The prosecution is painting this entire scheme as a criminal conspiracy. Conspiracy. This is a conspiracy between David Pecker, Donald Trump, and Michael Cohen, and that they all got together. Conspiracy requires two or more people to get together, have an agreement, and the agreement is to do something unlawful. And what they're saying is what they were doing that was unlawful was they were unlawfully trying to influence the election. So this is all part of the scheme, the criminal scheme.

And they have set up that there was a meeting where this was explicitly discussed. So even though this was a matter of, as you're saying, Steve, this is how things were done. There was a meeting that they said, Look, I'm running for President, and this is what we're going to do. That's what the prosecution says happened. So Pekker is not done yet. He comes back to the stand when trial resumes. So how do you think he will do under cross-examination?

Well, that would be really the interesting test because he comes across, as we've seen, very smooth and savvy. And let me just tell you what the facts are. He's never responded to threats being attacked. So they're challenging his credibility, which he has worked... The defense, prosecution rather, made him look like the nicest guy in the world. You're going to see his true colors come out. He's a fighter. When he's attacked, similar to Trump, he fights act pretty hard, which is why he has this aggressive behavior and reputation throughout publishing, that you don't mess with Pecker.

And this is going to be an awkward situation. The first witness brought by the prosecution, not because he wants to be sitting there. We understand he and Trump don't speak anymore, but it's a long friendship. He made a point of saying hi to his table yesterday. So this cross is going to be very revealing.

Very, very revealing. And I think what the defense, my prediction is what they're going to do to clean up this mess that was made today because Trump looked awful, is they will say to David Pecker, You've been approached by many, many dozens of celebrities through the every year and their attorneys parties trying to clean up bad stories, or they've threatened you not to run stories about their clients or somebody famous because they're going to threaten to sue you. And I think the defense will just say, This is just tabloid journalism. Trump didn't go after the mainstream media and try to get them to do something different. This is not really consequential journalism. I'm sure National Enquiry won't be happy to hear that, but yeah, they'll clean it up as best they can, see if the jury buys it. All right.

So as this is happening, listening today, Karen, you also had the, and we are waiting right now. We could get it right now. The gag order ruling coming down from Judge Mershaw, whether Trump violated the gag order nearly a dozen times in tweets and things he has said about people he's and from saying things about potential witnesses, primarily among them. Today, it did not go well for Trump's lawyer. The judge told Todd Blanch, and this is the quote that I mentioned at the top of the show, You're losing all credibility with the court, and that I've given you what? Eight or nine opportunities to to show me why he posted this in response to something political, as you're alleging, and you have not answered that question once. How badly did this go for Trump?

I think it went fairly badly for Trump. A lawyer has to make arguments, right? And the judge has said he expects and welcomes vigorous arguments on behalf of clients. But you can't step over the line and do things that are not credible. And that's what the judge was signaling to Todd Blanch today, is that, number one, this is a hearing. It was your opportunity to present evidence. You could have presented... Donald Trump could have said what he thought or what he meant or what he was trying to do. But for you to just make an argument without presenting that evidence that Donald Trump was, quote, trying very hard to comply with the court order or saying that... The other thing that he said that I think really made the judge say, You have no credibility with me or you're losing credibility, was when the defense attorney said, Look, the prosecution only asked for a couple of the tweets to be or the couple of the postings to be a violation, so therefore they let other ones go. They must have waived it. The gag order doesn't stand. That is not going to fly in Judge Mershon's courtroom.

Only he can say whether or not the gag order is imposed or whether it stands or whether it doesn't. And so the fact that he would make an argument like that Trump's trying to do it without more. Judge said that's ridiculous, and he's not having it.

Which also just defies belief. I mean, he retweets things and does these things. Elizabeth, there was one sketch I just wanted to show. There was a moment between the judge and Trump's lawyer, a very tense back and forth that you drew here. I mentioned it at the top of the program, we were talking about this gag order. What did you actually see here?

Well, what happens in those situations is You're drawing people who are constantly moving, and then you're seeing that this tension is building up. I mean, Marchand is a pretty cool character. He doesn't get easily riled up. But as Blanch is continuing on this path of this argument, and Marchand is feeling like he's not being heard, you see now Marchand's arm's going up, so I have to now add the arm to the body, and Blanch's arm is moving in his hand. But these are all important gestures because they show actually what happened. These are actually what they were doing. And you got to grab it because it shows that tension. They were going at it. I mean, Mershon was not given up, and neither was Blanche.

Just the personal and the psychology of it all. I think it brings it home to all of us, right? We all rely on the system as we should, but it is so much about emotion and psychology. All right. Thank you all very much.