Former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks testified last week at former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, where he faces 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business documents to cover up payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election.
Hicks testified that when the Stormy Daniels story went public in 2018, Trump told her that his lawyer Michael Cohen had paid off Daniels without his direction or knowledge. Hicks said: “That would be out of character for Michael.”
Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, then working in the Obama White House, recalled meeting Hicks at the White House just two days after the 2016 election.
On her MSNBC show, Psaki said: “And of all the things she could’ve asked us about, and granted it was two days after a kind of shocking outcome of an election, she had one major question, ‘how do you get the president to approve every statement that goes out in his name?’” Psaki replied that non-critical communications didn’t require the president’s signoff. Hicks reportedly replied, “Mr. Trump will want to approve everything.”
When Team Trump tried to get me to work for the campaign, Corey Lewandowski told me Hicks was a nice kid but needed supervision (by me) and was in over her head. Just wasn’t senior enough. He complained he was stuck with her because she and her family were close to Trump and… https://t.co/L9aTdt1LBA
— Cheri Jacobus (@CheriJacobus) May 5, 2024
Psaki added: “It made clear to me that when it came to all things PR, her boss was the definition of a micromanager.” Psaki said Hicks’ testimony on Friday “revealed that he [Trump] is obsessed and controlling when it comes to his media coverage.”
Former Republican National Committee (RNC) spokesperson Cheri Jacobus responded: “When Team Trump tried to get me to work for the campaign, Corey Lewandowski told me Hicks was a nice kid but needed supervision (by me) and was in over her head. Just wasn’t senior enough. He complained he was stuck with her because she and her family were close to Trump and that’s how she got the job.”
Omarosa: She said that he broke things or he would create these situations where he broke them and he would have to fix them. And I thought that was really odd, particularly he had to fix things for her. pic.twitter.com/7NoUkNei7a
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 4, 2024
Note: Trump’s former White House aide (and former The Apprentice reality TV star) Omarosa Newman also shared her opinion of Hicks’s testimony. On CNN, Omarosa mentioned Hicks’s alleged relationship with Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski and said: “Cohen had to kill stories about that relationship on her behalf and he did.”