Trump hush money trial continues as prosecution calls Michael Cohen's banker | The Excerpt

On today's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Former President Donald Trump's hush money trial continued Friday in New York with more witness testimony. President Joe Biden says he's willing to debate Donald Trump. USA TODAY Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield looks at how the Republican National Committee is getting involved with lawsuits around the country. The top official overseeing federal college financial aid will leave his role this summer. USA TODAY Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook explains how the U.S. is upping its defenses against drones.

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Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, April 27th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, the latest from former president Donald Trump's hush money trial, plus, President Joe Biden says he's willing to debate Trump, and we look at how the U.S. military is boosting its defense against drones.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

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Former President Donald Trump's New York hush money trial continued yesterday that gave Trump's legal team their chance to attack the story prosecutors have so far told of him colluding with a tabloid executive to boost his 2016 presidential campaign. Former National Enquirer publisher, David Pecker, testified this week about an alleged scheme to catch and kill stories that could have hurt Trump's 2016 presidential election chances. Yesterday, Trump's defense attorney elicited testimony from Pecker that the tabloid had other motives for its actions besides helping Trump's campaign.

After Pecker's testimony concluded, the prosecution called former Donald Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff to the stand. Graff said she believed she created contact information entries for Trump for alleged hush money recipients Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. She was cross-examined by a Trump attorney. The prosecution then began examining its third witness, Gary Farro, the banker for former Trump attorney Michael Cohen before the trial concluded for the day. Cohen allegedly orchestrated the payments to McDougal and Daniels.

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Meanwhile, President Joe Biden said yesterday that he's willing to debate former President Trump. The move marks a shift from his earlier reluctance to commit. Biden told radio talk show host Howard Stern in an interview when asked whether he's going to debate Trump, "I am somewhere. I don't know when, but I am happy to debate him." The Biden campaign had not said whether Biden would take part in any debates. For weeks, Trump has said he will debate Biden, and taunted him for refusing to commit. The commission has scheduled three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate in September and October. The first presidential debate is scheduled for September 16th in Texas.

Earlier this month, the Trump campaign called for the Commission on Presidential Debates to add more debates, and move up its full schedule as soon as possible, noting that more than a million Americans probably will have already voted before the first debate.

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The Republican Party is suing over absentee ballots and voter rolls in battleground states across the country. I spoke with USA TODAY democracy reporter, Erin Mansfield, to learn more. Erin, thanks for making the time today.

Erin Mansfield:

Thank you for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Erin, how is the RNC working to get involved in dozens of lawsuits around the country, and what suits are we really talking about here?

Erin Mansfield:

So the RNC, the Republican National Committee and certain affiliates like state committees and some committee members are going pretty much state to state. They're in state and federal court, and they just keep suing or trying to get involved in other people's lawsuits. It's part of what they call an election integrity initiative to "protect the vote." That's the term they're using. There are a lot of different themes that come by in these lawsuits, but some of the big ones I saw are trying to get people kicked off voter rolls, and then trying to basically change rules for absentee ballots, reduce how many days states might have to count them, or change the way they do something called signature verification, which is a screening process that determines whether or not a ballot is counted.

Taylor Wilson:

So Erin, what's the broader Republican strategy behind these moves?

Erin Mansfield:

It almost seems like just keep trying, keep going, a full court press on the courts in any court they can to try to represent their interests. A lot of this seems to hearken back to some of the theories that came out of 2020. We remember in 2020, there was a lot which Joe Biden won, and Trump lost. A lot of people blamed absentee ballots. Now, why were absentee ballots claimed? There are a lot of theories behind it, but one is that it was in the middle of COVID, and Republican and democratic officials alike were like, "Hey, let's make it easier for people to vote from home, because they're doing everything else from home." One of the big targets became absentee ballots, a lot of misinformation about how they're processed about mass voter fraud.

As we've said before, there's no evidence of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election or frankly any other election, but it seems to be they're going after absentee ballots, which is really a 2020 echo, 2020 on repeat. Then in terms of what opponents call voter purges or what they call cleaning the voter rolls, my understanding is that's a perennial effort. Different advocacy groups do seem to be going fairly often. By often, you mean every election cycle to try to say, "Hey, there are too many people on these voting rolls." They typically target dead people. They typically look at, "Well, if the Census says this is how many people live there, how many should be on the voter rolls?"

What's notable about this is that the RNC is basically suing and suing, applying to intervene, filing all this paperwork. Sometimes they're successful, but they're really not super successful in Michigan and Nevada to swing states. Now, the secretaries of state are both democrats, but they basically say that your lawsuit is based on bad math. In Nevada, they were like, "Our state's growing, so you're using old population data, and current voter registration data. So, of course, it's going to look like there's too many people."

Taylor Wilson:

Erin, the RNC has been overhauled with a lot of loyalists to Donald Trump. I'm curious, is that playing a role in this lawsuit strategy?

Erin Mansfield:

Well, what we can definitely say is that the RNC's strategy and some of the arguments they're making are very similar to 2020, and very similar to the interest that Donald Trump has espoused. It is pretty obvious they're in lockstep with the same interests of the campaign. Not necessarily a problem. I mean, it's not like the DNC and the Biden campaign are on opposite sides, but you're definitely seeing this emphasis on things like election integrity on what they call protecting the vote. That really points to the close relationship between the RNC and Donald Trump's campaign.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Erin Mansfield covers democracy for USA TODAY. Thank you, Erin.

Erin Mansfield:

Thank you for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

The top Biden administration official overseeing federal college financial aid will depart his role this summer. The education department said yesterday, "Richard Cordray, the chief operating officer for Federal Student Aid, will step down at the end of June," officials said. The former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, "He's faced growing criticism from congressional Republicans to leave his post amid delays in the college financial aid process." Cordray's departure comes as scores of high school seniors across the country await aid offers they typically would've received by now. Repeated glitches and errors in the rollout of the new free application for federal student aid or FAFSA shortened the decision-making timelines for hundreds of thousands of students.

College officials have scrambled to get aid offers out the door, sometimes using inaccurate information to make crucial calculations about how much families should expect to pay for college in the fall.

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The proliferation of drones has put pressure on the U.S. military to boost its defense against the devices. I spoke with USA TODAY Pentagon correspondent Tom Vanden Brook for more. Tom, thanks for making the time.

Tom Vanden Brook:

Taylor, good to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

So Tom, let's just start with this. How big of an issue have drone attacks become for U.S. troops deployed abroad?

Tom Vanden Brook:

Well, the folks that I'm talking to, particularly at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, say they're the number one threat to U.S. troops deployed abroad. So obviously, it's a huge issue, and the Pentagon is putting its money where its mouth is, or our taxpayer money there. They received half a billion dollars in the supplemental that was just signed this week by President Biden for counter-drone technology.

Taylor Wilson:

I want to hear more about that in a second, Tom, but first, I'm just curious, why has the threat of drones surged in this way?

Tom Vanden Brook:

Well, Taylor, the technology has proliferated since many of our listeners and readers will remember the United States with the preeminent power with drones, reapers, and predators. This technology is just proliferated. Anybody can buy a drone pretty much anywhere right now, get them online, and go to stores and buy them, and lots of people have figured out how to weaponize them. This technology's got a lot more sophisticated. These one-way attack drones can be programmed to take off and hit a target without having to be controlled. So, that becomes a huge threat, and that's what killed three soldiers in Jordan earlier this year. People may remember that in January.

Taylor Wilson:

Congress has approved the Pentagon request to address the drone threat. President Joe Biden signed it into law. What exactly was in this request, and what does this money now do to functionally tackle this problem?

Tom Vanden Brook:

There's a little more than half a billion dollars in it, and a lot of it will go toward the types of devices that will be able to destroy drones. They'll try to do this in a layered approach. So, they'll use radio waves at longer distances from bases to confuse drones. Closer in, they'll use microwaves, and they're even using lasers right now. There are lasers in the Middle East that are able to shoot drones out of the sky, burn them up. The microwave radiation essentially fries the electronic innards of a drone, and then closer to the base, they use missiles and even guns. They call it steel on steel. They just shoot them out of the sky.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, interesting stuff. Tom Vanden Brook covers the Pentagon for USA TODAY. Thank you, Tom.

Tom Vanden Brook:

Thanks, Taylor.

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Taylor Wilson:

Be sure to tune into The Excerpt tomorrow for a conversation between Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, and my colleague Dana Taylor. You can find the episode right here tomorrow beginning at 5:00 A.M. Eastern Time. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.