Donald Trump has many enemies – or so he says.
But it seems that David Peckerthe former National Enquirer publisher and key witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s trial against the former president who has an immunity deal with the same prosecutors targeting Trump, is not among them.
“David was very kind,” the former president said Thursday morning, hours before the publisher took the witness stand again for a third day, where he would reveal even more details about the behind-the-scenes deals at the heart of the case. “He’s a nice guy.”
During four days of testimony during Trump’s first-ever criminal trial, Pecker gave a damning account of the tabloid’s role in suppressing negative stories about Trump and bringing bad — often false — press to his political opponents .
His testimony — which Trump called “breathtaking” — largely reinforced the state’s overall theory of the case, that Trump and his allies attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 election with help by Pecker.
Despite his damaging statements, Pecker shared similar feelings about Trump.
“Do you have any bad feelings or ill will toward the accused?” » Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked the editor the last question of his examination-in-chief.
“On the contrary,” Pecker said. “I felt like Donald Trump was my mentor.”
A former Trump White House official suggested that Trump and Pecker’s long-standing relationship, dating back to their time together in New York circles, had likely kept things from becoming combative.
“They have known each other for decades,” the former White House official said. “And it’s not like anyone thinks David Pecker came into this trial with any sort of vendetta against Trump.”
Pecker wasn’t the only longtime Trump ally to elicit a positive reaction on the stand as the former president sat as a witness.
When his longtime executive assistant, Rhona Graff, began her testimony Friday afternoon, the former president smiled and laughed at Graff as she spoke positively of her former boss, calling him “fair and respectful.”
Trump’s relationship with Graf also dates back several decades, when she began working for the Trump Organization in 1987.
Graff was in Trump’s close orbit during his 2016 campaign when the hush money deals were made, and after entering the White House, she reportedly still served as a go-between for Trump’s friends and associates.
Pecker and Trump were first introduced in the late 1980s at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, which Pecker identified as the start of their “great, mutually beneficial relationship.”
Early on, Pecker reached out to the then-business mogul — and later launched — a magazine called “Trump Style,” which focused on Trump’s flashiest properties, like hotels and casinos. A decade later, when Pecker acquired the National Enquirer, Trump was a “celebrity in his own right,” the publisher said.
Trump would introduce Pecker to…
