‘Driving Him Crazy!’ CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Notes Trump’s Tiny Crowd At Courthouse — Says Trump Mad They Can’t Get Closer

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pointedly noted the small size of former President Donald Trump’s crowd of supporters and said a source told her “it’s driving him crazy” they can’t gather closer to the courthouse.

Last week was the official start of the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and presided over by Judge Juan Merchan. But despite Trump’s constant ranting about the trial, relatively few Trump fans have shown up to support him.

Collins was on hand Monday morning for CNN’s live Trump Hush Money Trial brand coverage live outside the courthouse, during which she told CNN chief legal correspondent Paula Reid and anchor Anderson Cooper that it’s driving Trupm crazy that his fans have to keep their distance:

PAULA REID: Did help to suppress two other stories. Another alleged affair with Karen McDougal, and then a story by a doorman that turned out to be false, alleging that Trump had a child out of wedlock. But these were two stories the pecker was willing to catch and kill. So by the right, that’s what.

ANDERSON COOPER: That’s the term that was used internally. Catch and kill. Catch the story and then kill it. Yeah, pay the person. Pay Karen McDougal for the rights to her story, but never actually published that story.

PAULA REID: Exactly. And he is such a perfect witness to kick off this trial. He’s such a colorful New York character. Like you said, he’s known Trump for decades, and he was so loyal to him, he wanted to help him in the election. And of course, Amy, has has admitted to a campaign finance violation for the Karen McDougal payment. And David Pecker had a non-prosecution agreement, but he did help when Michael Cohen also pleaded guilty. So he’s a central character in all of this, even though he didn’t pay Stormy Daniels and facilitate that payment, he tipped Cohen to the fact that she was shopping her story to help them.

ANDERSON COOPER: And Karen McDougal is not, that’s not part of the charges here. The catch and kill of Karen McDougal story. But it is going to be introduced to try to show a pattern of of killing, unfavorable stories.

KAITLAN COLLINS: Well, that’s going to be the challenge for the prosecutors here. I mean, that is really the heart of all of this, is they have to find a way to more directly link Trump to this payment, to these agreements, to this entire process.

And that’s why they’re going to to use those other stories to try to say that it was a pattern and notice how it came, you know, right before the election and in this effort. And that’s why David Pecker could be key.

But but I think big picture, you know, when you look at what Trump has been saying as he, his mindset going into this, he he’s complaining about the gag order incessantly.

I’m told privately, the idea that he can’t directly attack the judge’s family, the prosecutors in this case, he can go after Alvin Bragg, but not other members of the team. That has been something that we’ll talk about more tomorrow, but it has been a big thing of his.

The other thing, Anderson, there’s a lot of security outside the courthouse. Understandably. We saw what happened last week. It is a former president who is going on trial.

Trump has been complaining that his supporters, when there’s only a few dozen, it’s not a huge group. Because we’ve been live outside the courthouse for several weeks now. That they can’t come closer to the courthouse.

Because he is viewing this all through the lens of the campaign trail, and what that means going into it, and the fact that they are kept cordoned off a bit of a distance so people can get in and out of the courthouse, has been driving him crazy!

Watch above via CNN’s live Trump Hush Money Trial brand coverage.