'Most Dramatic Testimony of the Day': Donald Trump and Michael Cohen's Bombshell Secret Tape Revealed in Court

As former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial chugs along, more information is coming out of the courtroom involving the New York businessman's interactions with his former "fixer" Michael Cohen.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman called a secret recording between Trump and Cohen “the most dramatic testimony of the day” at the Manhattan courthouse.

Haberman appeared on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 on Thursday, May 2, where she discussed the recording the jury heard, calling it "a doozy" for the defense.

"It’s surreal every day, but I would say that the strangest moment came toward the end of the day ... Keith Davidson, the former lawyer for Stormy Daniels, testified for a long time, and Trump’s lawyers actually did get some dings into him on cross-examination," Haberman told Cooper. "It got very tense. He got very flustered. He ended up sounding pretty weaselly as he was giving answers."

"But prosecutors played exchanges that Cohen secretly taped," she continued. "One was with Keith Davidson and then the other was Michael Cohen and Trump, which you just played. And that tape is basically what jurors were left with as the most dramatic testimony for the day."

The NYT reporter said there were some other "not particularly interesting" testimony at the very end of the day from a custodian of records.

"He had checked out Cohen’s phone and that it was all forensically true that this material came from it," Haberman explained. "But we still don’t really know what the jury thinks, and I think that’s something really important to bear in mind."

"It’s been six years almost today that we know about this tape, and so it’s obviously not new to us. But I think when you were hearing it, A, as a juror and, B, in the context of that courtroom, it just sounded very different, particularly at a time when Trump’s lawyers were arguing that this was essentially all just Keith Davidson and Michael Cohen," Haberman told Cooper.

"They didn’t make this argument explicitly, but they were leaning into the idea that these two were just freelancing and that Davidson was essentially extorting Trump. And so that didn’t get dispelled from that tape, but the idea that Trump didn’t know would have."

Never miss a story — sign up for the OK! newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what OK! has to offer. It’s gossip too good to wait for!

Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying records of invoices paid to Cohen. In court documents, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said the former president paid Cohen monthly for supposed legal services, but in reality, the payments were reimbursements for the alleged hush money given to Daniels.

The former president has denied all criminal wrongdoing and has called the trial a political witch hunt orchestrated by Joe Biden and the Democrats.