Maggie Haberman Says Trump Was ‘Unhappy’ And ‘Tense’ In Court As Pecker ‘Who Knows A Lot of Secrets’ Spilled On Stand

CNN commentator and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said former President Donald Trump looked “unhappy” and “tense” in court as former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified.

Monday saw the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and presided over by Judge Juan Merchan kick into gear with opening arguments and testimony from Pecker.

Haberman was in the courtroom reporting live, and was a guest on Monday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, during which she described Trump’s appearance as the prosecution began its case.

The discomfort Haberman described, she suggested, was due to all the “secrets” Pecker knows — and may reveal:

COOPER: So what do you make of the former president’s demeanor today? What was it like?

MAGGIE HABERMAN: There were a couple of things that were striking. He looked very unhappy. He looked very unhappy on the monitors where you can see his face. He looked – in court, we’re well behind him, so we can’t see his face when we’re in there. We have a better view when we’re in the overflow room.

COOPER: So there’s an overflow room that has monitors?

HABERMAN: Correct. And there’s monitors in the courtroom, too, but it’s much easier to see the monitors in the overflow room. They’re right up at your face. It’s just different. He looked unhappy when he left for break. He looked unhappy when he left – when court ended for the day.

It was tense in the room when David Pecker was on the stand. It was tense in the room when Colangelo, the prosecutor, was going through the narrative of the case and talking about Stormy Daniels and Access Hollywood and Karen McDougal. And all of these things that Trump does not want to hear about.

COOPER: I said this on air earlier today when we were covering this, but I just kept imagining what is going through Trump’s mind when he’s sitting there at the defense table watching David Pecker, his former friend-ish, who knows a lot of secrets about him, going back a long time on this stand.

HABERMAN: It’s just – it’s fundamentally different than what we have seen with Trump over many years now, which is a lot of former aides or allies or advisors going on television, or writing books. This is a courtroom, and this is under oath. And this is David Pecker opening his testimony and we only heard a little bit of testimony. He’s coming back tomorrow.

But him opening saying, we practiced, and I’m paraphrasing, “But we practiced checkbook journalism,” that is a quote, at the National Enquirer. We paid for tips about celebrities and so forth. And Trump knows what that means and he knows what kind of information that meant that David Pecker had.

And David Pecker was very poised. And I think that he’s going to tell a story that the jury is going to find pretty compelling.

COOPER: David Pecker essentially made a deal. I mean, he has a non- prosecution agreement …

HABERMAN: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

COOPER: … and so that’s why – I mean, he’s testifying.

HABERMAN: Yes, he’s testifying under subpoena. I mean, he is not doing this because he wants to.

COOPER: The prosecutors say he’s a co-conspirator.

HABERMAN: Correct. He is not there because he wants to be there. But the prosecutors are going to try to suggest that his testimony, the same way they’re going to try to say this with Michael Cohen, is credible for X, Y, Z reasons. And that these are things Trump just didn’t want to have come out.

Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.