How Trump's Cozy Relationship With The Tabloids Plays Into His Hush Money Trial

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Now that former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial has started in earnest, it’s thrown a spotlight onto a grimy corner of the media business: pay-to-play tabloid journalism, where editors pluck the juiciest stories from a marketplace of potential scandals.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had the king of the tabloids in his pocket — the National Enquirer, headed at the time by American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker.

In court this week, reporters in the courtroom heard Pecker testify under oath that he actively sought to be Trump’s “eyes and ears.” The National Enquirer and AMI were essential to the schemes to “catch” (buy the rights to) and “kill” (never publish) negative Trump stories, a pact that became the foundation of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case.

Trump is accused of falsifying documents related to a payment he made to Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Trump, in order to “catch and kill” her story ahead of the 2016 election. (Trump has denied having the affair.)

Pecker’s testimony stretched over multiple days. He said he met Trump in the ’80s at Mar-a-Lago, the Spanish revivalist seaside resort Trump acquired in 1985. Their meeting blossomed into a decades-long friendship, or rather a mutually beneficial situationship, in which each used the other for personal gain. Trump helped Pecker sell copies of his magazines in supermarket checkout aisles, and Pecker helped Trump raise his public profile, leading him to eventually launch his hit reality show, “The Apprentice,” in 2004.

Pecker spoke about being invited in 2015 to watch Trump descend down his gilded escalator and