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00:00The opening statements in Donald Trump's historic Hush Money trial will be taking place in New York
00:05today that you can see outside Trump Tower in the city where the US president is expected to exit
00:12soon. Now it comes after the jury was sworn in last Friday. The trial, which will last
00:17weeks, is expected to include salacious testimony about the former president
00:21and his personal life. For more on this story, we can bring in our international affairs
00:26editor, Angela Diffley. Angela, good to see you. What will these opening statements entail?
00:31So as you say, we have the 12 jurors selected. Only one needs to be persuaded that Trump should
00:36not be convicted and then he's off the hook. The opening statements involve each side setting out
00:45what they see this trial to be about. So it's how they see the trial. They will also set out to the
00:50jury what needs to be proved according to them and what evidence they might expect. So on the
00:57prosecution side, they have a considerable pile of paper trail evidence, which they will be pointing
01:04to, and they have several key witnesses. So they will make much of that. The opening statement is
01:10also a moment to inject some colour and to get the jury interested right from the start in what they
01:16will be examining. On the defence side, they are likely to cast doubt on the credibility of some of
01:25those witnesses. Notably, one of the key witnesses is Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.
01:33He has admitted he served jail time in another case related to Trump affairs, and he has admitted
01:41that he lied before Congress on oath. So he will be cast as a witness that cannot be trusted.
01:48And the defence will also say that this is not about whether hush money was paid.
01:55Everybody agrees with that. It is about whether it was paid to cover up a crime in connection with
02:02election interference. And the defence will say we cannot know the motives of Trump and his team
02:10in this hush money case. There could be a first key witness today, a guy called David Pecker,
02:18who owned the National Enquirer, big tabloid in the US. And he operated a policy of buy and bury
02:24stories that could be damaging to Trump. He was on Trump's side. He bought stories, then didn't
02:28publish them. And he's had several conversations with Trump, according to the prosecution,
02:33which might be related to this. How are things going for the former
02:38president who wants a second shot at the White House? Because he's got weeks of this trial left.
02:43Yeah, it's expected to go on for about six weeks. A lot of people talk about Trump's strategy of
02:48delay, deny, deflect. The delay thing hasn't worked as well as he wanted. The jury selection
02:54was expected to take much longer. It's over already. This case starts today. As for the
03:01denying and deflecting, at every occasion, he has said this is a witch hunt. And he is using it for
03:08his political campaigning, as we know. That said, there are no TV cameras. So that's his only chance.
03:14And he can't really campaign outside the courtroom except on Wednesdays and at the weekend. So it is
03:20giving his campaign something of a hit. He's also spending millions on legal fees. A lot of that,
03:26it's thought, is being paid. And this is probably allowed by political action committees who support
03:32Trump. They will be probably paying a lot of the legal fees, it seems. But it's costing a lot of
03:37money. It's taking a lot of time out of his campaigning. I talked to quite a lot of contacts
03:44and friends in the US as to how it's going. And they have said that this is starting to – people
03:50have got a bit bored with all these legal wranglings. But this one, it's starting, the jury
03:56being selected, is starting to gain a little bit of momentum. That said, I think most people seem
04:02to feel that all of this is baked in, as we say. You like Trump, you don't like Trump, you'll vote
04:08for him or you won't vote for him. Very few people will change their minds over this case. It's
04:12thought – Biden's got a one-point lead in a poll. One point. One point, but, you know.