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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Coming up today, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz with his new book The Road to Freedom. Its premise is a reconsideration of how we use the word freedom when we talk about the economy and our personal finances. I'm so glad he's done this, because the word freedom, which can mean so many things to so many people, has largely been captured by the free market these days in the economic context, and Stiglitz wants to wrestle it back toward a fuller meaning. Joseph Stiglitz and The Road to Freedom coming up.

Also our lead, Eric Adams reporter, Liz Kim, as usual, on Wednesdays with clips and analysis and to take your calls on the mayor's Tuesday news conference. With this being a week off from school in most places, we'll have an open-ended call-in for teachers at the end of the show. What's the headline from your classroom so far this academic year from pre-K through 12th grade? Teachers, think about it. You'll be invited to call in around 11:40, quarter to 12:00 or so, but here's where we start.

This is a day off in the Trump hush money trial. We'll break down the evidence so far with Politico reporter Erica Orden, who's been in the courtroom for the opening arguments and the start of the first witness, David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, who had this deal with Trump to make up fake news stories about his opponents in 2016 and to catch and kill, as they call it, stories from women alleging sexual encounters with Trump.

The court has also released data about the jurors, about their media diets, without naming names, of course, but it's where these jurors say they get their news. It's really interesting and surprising in some ways. One spoiler, one of the jurors cited WNYC as one of their sources of news but it's interesting what else that juror takes in. We'll get to that. Again, Erica Orden, reporter for Politico, is our guest. Erica, always good to have you on. Thanks for taking some of this day off from the courtroom to be with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Erica Orden: Of course. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: How much of the proceedings have you been there for in person so far?

Erica Orden: All of them. During jury selection, the setup was that most of the reporters, except for a very, very small rotating group, were in an overflow room watching a closed-circuit video feed. I was part of the small group that rotated into the main corporate room at that point during jury selection. Once jury selection finished, there's a much larger group of reporters who, including myself, who have been sitting in the main courtroom.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. About these jurors and their media diets. Let's do this piece first. Before I go into the details, why is this public about the survey of their news media habits?

Erica Orden: Well, a lot of the information about jurors is public. Their names are not, certainly. At some point in the process, the judge urged them to not be so specific about the names or other identifying information about their employers. Other than that, the information about them is public. It's a public court, the jury selection process, and the voir dire happens in public. There are certain steps that the judge could have taken before this process started to make some of that information private, but he chose not to.

Brian Lehrer: We'll see. Hopefully, they won't be subject to any harassment or doxxing of any kind with the steps the judge has taken to protect their privacy, but on the media diets, the big winner here was The New York Times. Hands down, of the 12 jurors plus 6 alternates, and we are talking about 18 people, not 12, 12 jurors plus 6 alternates is what they pick. Of those 18, 13 of them said they get news from The New York Times. Nothing else remotely came close.

Next is Google, which, as you may know, Erica, is not really a news organization with five jurors mentioning it. That was the second most cited. Then The Wall Street Journal with four, and nothing else with more than two. Only one person cited Fox News, and that person also reads The Times and The Daily Mail. Only one cited Truth Social, two cited TikTok as their main source of news. Good luck with that. There was one who listed WNYC. That person also reads The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times and The New York Post.

Really, folks, that's where we want to be. A station for people who seek to broadly inform themselves of news and multiple points of view. Politico is not one of the choices the court gave the jurors, so you don't have to be embarrassed about it not showing up. Do you make anything of this list in terms of understanding the jury pool and how the lawyers on either side did at seating people to their advantage?

Erica Orden: Well, one thing that that information doesn't capture was that a lot of people who were selected said that they don't really pay that much attention to news generally, but then ended up naming, tossing out some publications that they end up reading when they want to find out about something specific or something like that. Although what you just detailed is accurate, it doesn't incorporate that aspect of the proceedings.

It does seem that there's a pretty broad range, wide range of news sources that you just described. It seems like they ended up with people who get their news from all sorts of places. There are people who said they follow Michael Cohen on X and Donald Trump on Truth Social, things like that, but it didn't sound from the way they described their news consumption that they're sitting there watching these people update their feeds every three seconds, but that they're passive consumers of these things.

Brian Lehrer: The one Fox News viewer also watches MSNBC, I noticed, and consumes some other stuff. What's your larger impression of the jury in terms of what they actually landed on for who they would seat? There has to be a certain amount of agreement between both sides. If you have an impression of other characteristics of the jury, we've been talking about their media diet so far because I think it's interesting. Are there other characteristics of the jury that you think are relevant to the potential outcome of the case or to the defense and prosecution strategy, to name?

Erica Orden: Well, one thing is that many of them seem relatively well educated and have successful careers or careers that required them to have higher education, things like that.

Brian Lehrer: Demographically, not usually good for Trump, right?

Erica Orden: I would say typically not usually. There were, as you might expect, people on either extreme of people who appeared to be on either extreme of the political spectrum that got cut. We don't have a lot of those on this jury. There are a couple of people who were not born in the United States who made the jury. I don't know whether that'll have an impact or not, but just something to note.

Beyond that, it was interesting to see the process because the Trump lawyers did, as you might have seen if you were following this, a lot of deep dives on the prospective jurors' social media accounts and ended up confronting a lot of them with old posts that they had made or pictures that they had taken, and they got a fair number of people kicked off that way.

Brian Lehrer: That actually goes to a text that we just got from a listener who writes, "The information on jurors' news sources is all self-reported, right?" The listener writes, "There's no way to know how much of it is true." Sure enough, didn't they dismiss at least one juror who was going to be seated after doing a little further investigation into their truthfulness?

Erica Orden: Yes. That wasn't with regard, I don't believe, to their media consumption, but yes, they did. There were a couple of instances, actually, where they confronted a prospective juror after they had answered the questionnaire. There was one who comes to mind who said-- I believe it was someone who said that he hadn't attended any anti-- I think it was characterized as anti-Trump rallies. The Trump lawyers found pictures he had taken that appeared to be from a rally, I think it was shortly after the 2016 election.

His response was that the rally was-- it happened to be happening right where he lived and so he went down and his interest was just photographing it and being part of the, I think, he described it as a New York experience, but nevertheless, he was let go.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe that one juror made up that they listened to WNYC because they just wanted to be associated with thoughtfulness and being a generally good person. I'm kidding. All right.

Erica Orden: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: To the content, how would you sum up the opening arguments?

Erica Orden: Well, in my opinion, they were relatively brief. As someone, I mainly cover federal court and usually public corruption trials and those opening statements tend to be quite long. These were only about 40-- I think they were about 40 minutes on the prosecution side and maybe 20 to 30 minutes on the defense side. The prosecutors certainly went out of their way to describe this as an election fraud trial that the main thrust of their opening statement was that all of these steps that they described that Donald Trump took were in service of improperly influencing the 2016 election. They made it very clear that they don't consider this a "hush money" trial.

On the defense side, Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, really sought to normalize a lot of the conduct that prosecutors described as illegal or improper, including, as you mentioned, the catch-and-kill schemes, the hush money payments, the reimbursement payments to Michael Cohen, Blanche really over and over told the jury that these were normal and routine things to do if you are running for president

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we welcome any comments or questions about the early going in the Trump, well, election-- what did you call it that the prosecution framed it as if not "hush money"?

Erica Orden: Election fraud.

Brian Lehrer: Trump election fraud case colloquially known as the "hush money" trial. Questions for Erica Orden covering it for Politico. She's been there since minute one. 212433-WNYC, or you can give us your takes based on other reporting that you've heard or saw or read about the trial so far. 212433 WNYC, call or text 212433-9692. Remind us of what the prosecution has to prove here, Erica, to win a felony conviction.

Erica Orden: Well, they have to prove that Donald Trump orchestrated this-- that he orchestrated and/or ordered the false business records to be recorded by the Trump organization regarding what they describe as his reimbursement of the "hush money" to Michael Cohen.

Brian Lehrer: Is it one of the potentially weakest parts of the prosecution's case? Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that this falsifying of business records in and of itself would be a misdemeanor unless it's done in the process of covering up or aiding the defendant in another crime. The underlying crime that makes this falsifying business records potentially a felony, that crime he's allegedly trying to cover up was never charged. It too is a misdemeanor?

Erica Orden: Well, first of all, prosecutors don't have to specify what they believe the underlying crime is. However, during the course of the trial, they've made it clear that the most likely suspect, if you will, is this conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. [crosstalk] New York election law.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. if they're characterizing it as an election fraud case, then they have to show, I guess, or the intent to show that falsifying the business records about the "hush money" payments was to cover up an election fraud. Am I missing something?

Erica Orden: No, that's right, but the judge is going to instruct the jury on all of this, and I don't think the jury, unless they're researching this on their own, which they shouldn't be, [laughs] they're not going to be told that they need to concern themselves with whether this underlying election fraud was charged or not. There are some lawyers on the jury. Those people may--

Brian Lehrer: There are lawyers on the jury?

Erica Orden: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: I'm shocked that either side would take lawyers on the jury.

Erica Orden: Yes. Those people may know a little something about this, but they all pledged during the jury selection to essentially set their legal knowledge aside and follow the judge's instructions, and base their decisions only on the evidence that is put before them.

Brian Lehrer: I assume there are no journalists on the jury, correct?

Erica Orden: There are not, no.

Brian Lehrer: Too curious, too skeptical.

Erica Orden: [laughs] Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Now, am I right that a basis of Trump's defense is going to be that, yes, he was trying to hide the "hush money" payments to Stormy Daniels, but not for the sake of his election campaign, rather just to keep it from Melania.

Erica Orden: That's right. His lawyer made that argument during opening statements. He essentially said, "Yes, he wanted to keep this allegation." Well, first he described the allegation as false, and he said, yes, he wanted to keep this allegation out of the public because he wanted to protect his family, he wanted to protect his business, he wanted to protect his reputation. That is absolutely one of their lines of defense.

Brian Lehrer: The prosecution has to show, because the burden is on the prosecution in a criminal trial to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in this case, as in any other case, they have to demonstrate that Trump was doing this in pursuit of enhancing his chances of getting elected, not just protecting his marriage or embarrassment from people in his personal life, and to that end, they started with their first witness, David Pecker from the National Enquirer. Why David Pecker?

Erica Orden: Well, David Pecker is absolutely central to this entire alleged scheme because as prosecutors describe it, it started with this 2015 meeting in Trump Tower between David Pecker, Donald Trump, and Michael Cohen. At that meeting, according to prosecutors, and according to David Pecker, the three of them agreed that they would enter into, as David Pecker described it, this mutually beneficial relationship where Pecker would have his publication, The National Enquirer, run flattering stories about Donald Trump. As he said, his audience absolutely loved stories about Donald Trump. That worked out great for him.

That he would also run negative stories about Donald Trump's opponents, and prosecutors presented a couple of a National Enquirer headlines to that effect yesterday. The third component of this agreement was that David Pecker would when he heard about potential unflattering stories about Donald Trump, that he would bring them to Michael Cohen's attention, and the two would decide what to do about it. What they did about it was buy the stories and bury them.

Brian Lehrer: This is to establish a pattern because he didn't do this with Stormy Daniels, or he did.

Erica Orden: Well, the Stormy Daniels arrangement, what ended up being a bit different because, so far on the stand, David Pecker has only been asked about two other catch-and-kill arrangements. One involving a former Trump Tower doorman and the other involving a former Playboy model named Karen McDougal. In both of those cases AMI, American Media Inc., which was the company that David Pecker ran that published the National Enquirer, the company actually paid the hush money in those cases, signed the NDAs with these people, and paid the hush money.

In the Stormy Daniels situation, Pecker did bring the Stormy Daniels story to Donald Trump and to Michael Cohen, but ultimately, as a lot of people now know, Cohen is the one who paid Stormy Daniels, not AMI.

Brian Lehrer: All right. In a minute I'm going to ask you why Trump's friend, Pecker, because they claim to be friends, turned on him if that's the way to look at his testimony for the prosecution. I have to take this call about a former juror's experience, which looks like it might be very interesting and relevant. Jane in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. Hi, Jane.

Jane: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I was on a jury in Manhattan about 25 years ago. This was the late '90s, and the defendant was Donald Trump. In the voir dire process, the jury pool was asked what we thought of Donald Trump. There was almost no one in that jury pool who had a favorable opinion of him. After all, we were New Yorkers and Trump has never been particularly popular here. We were then asked if nevertheless we could judge the case fairly based on the facts presented at trial and the law, and those of us who were chosen said yes, so very similar to what we're hearing about the jury selection process in the present case.

The other thing, however, which I find interesting about my experience, this was a case that involves a dispute about contract law and specifically a licensing agreement. Of the people who were chosen for that jury, there were two of us who actually had copyright and licensing experience. Now, normally you would say you want to keep people with relevant experience off the jury which is a similar argument that we've heard with regard to the lawyers who are on the current jury.

I think that in that case, both sides felt that we, the jury, needed to understand the subtle legal nuances of contract law on which the case would ultimately hinge. I suspect that the attorneys on both sides in the current trial are making a similar calculation.

Brian Lehrer: That's a really interesting piece of speculation. I presume this was a civil case because I believe this is the first time-

Jane: This was a civil case, yes.

Brian Lehrer: -first time he's ever been criminally charged. Who won?

Jane: We found for Trump.

Erica Orden: Interesting.

Jane: We actually felt that the guy who was suing him was doing so very opportunistically. Quite simply, it did come down to the contract law that was being applied. We felt that Trump did not have a binding contract with the plaintiff, and therefore we acquitted him.

Brian Lehrer: Well, objective changed from-- oh, Erica, go ahead.

Erica Orden: Oh, I was just going to say, I will say in the current trial, there were some instances similar to what you described at the start of your comments where there were people who said they didn't like Trump, but they felt that they could put their opinions of him aside and decide the trial fairly on the evidence. One of those people who said, she said outright that she didn't like him, that she thought he was selfish. I believe the line was selfish and self-serving. She made it onto the jury. She's one of the jurors.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. Jane, thank you so much for your really insightful addition to this conversation. Please call us again. That really was fascinating, Erica. When she talked about the outcome that they found that the person was being-- what was the word? Opportunistic in filing this lawsuit, isn't that part of what they intend to use against Stormy Daniels? Not that she's suing Trump in this case, but I know there are Trump supporters who say, "Hey, stormy Daniels herself should be charged with a crime here, extortion for extracting a six-figure payment from Donald Trump knowing that he was running for president or to keep it from his wife in order to keep quiet."

Erica Orden: There are people who say that certainly. I believe it was yesterday, or no, it must have been during opening statements. So sorry, forgive me. Todd Blanche attempted to go down that road and he was stopped. The prosecution objected to him trying to mention to the jury that Stormy Daniels' behavior was attempted extortion, and the judge sustained that objection.

Brian Lehrer: I said I was going to ask you the question about why Pecker is a witness for the prosecution. Is it right to say that Pecker turned on him to become a prosecution witness? Is there an immunity deal or something here?

Erica Orden: He said he was there pursuant to a subpoena. He did testify to that. David Pecker is one of the most interesting witnesses, not just because he's at the center of this, but because he really hasn't spoken about this publicly at all. This is the first time really anyone is hearing him describe his involvement in this. He was, as I said, very, very close to this. Certainly, on the stand, he doesn't sound vindictive or anything like that. He doesn't sound like he is there to bury Donald Trump, but his testimony is going to be critical to the prosecution if they want a conviction.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. Alan in Western North Carolina, you're on WNYC with Erica Orden covering the Trump 'Hush Money' trial or election fraud trial for Politico. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Good morning. Good morning. We keep hearing about Trump falsifying records and the reasons that he's done so whether it's to hide it from his wife, regardless, but I never hear anything. If he paid Cohen $130,000 as reimbursement for that money that was given to the pornstar, and he took that as a deduction on the tax return, I never hear anything about Internal Revenue Service getting involved for tax evasion.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Erica, any thought on that?

Erica Orden: First of all, he actually paid Cohen, I believe it was $420,000 as reimbursement for this $130,000 payment. Just a small point, but that was due to various other money he owed him, and then they also grossed it up for tax purposes. We were talking about the underlying crime issue that bumps this up to a felony and one of the possible underlying crimes that the prosecutors mentioned in court filings was a tax violation. Now, again, none of those underlying crimes are charged, but in terms of your curiosity about that issue, that's as far as it's gone.

Brian Lehrer: I know you got to go in a minute. If the Michael Cohen testimony is going to be the main event, when do you expect it?

Erica Orden: That's a good question. We don't know. [laughs] Prosecutors have been very reluctant to say when the order of witnesses or give any information about witnesses at all. They have said that they're very concerned that Donald Trump will make this information public, that he'll put it on his social posts, things like that, so they have not said when that's going to be. If I had to guess, I would say it'd be soon maybe right after David Becker, but I don't know.

Brian Lehrer: Erica Orden covering the Trump criminal trial, the first of its kind, not the last in Manhattan for Politico. Thank you very much for joining us and breaking it down.

Erica Orden: Thank you so much for having me.

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