Former Trump aide Hope Hicks testifies ‘Access Hollywood’ tape roiled campaign

NEW YORK: Hope Hicks, a former top aide to Donald Trump, testified on Friday that staffers on his 2016 presidential campaign were alarmed when they learned that a tape in which he made lewd comments about women was about to be made public.

Hicks testified there was a clear consensus the tape of Trump’s comments on the “Access Hollywood” TV show was damaging and that its release would be a crisis.

“Everyone was just sort of absorbing the shock of it,” she said. She said Trump was upset, but also played down the comments. “Trump felt like this wasn’t good, but it was also just like two guys talking, locker-room talk,” she testified.

Hicks’ testimony gave jurors an inside view of damage-control efforts in the final days of the 2016 election, when Trump weathered widespread criticism from fellow Republicans as he faced multiple accusations of unflattering sexual behaviour.

Trump sat expressionless at the defendants’ table during her testimony. Hicks is the first person who worked directly for Trump to testify in the 11-day-old trial.