Brad Parscale helped Trump win in 2016 using Facebook ads. Now he’s back, and an AI evangelist

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By GARANCE BURKE and ALAN SUDERMAN (Associated Press)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump’s former campaign manager looked squarely into the camera and promised his viewers they were about to witness a bold new era in politics.

“You’re going to see some of the most amazing new technology in artificial intelligence that’s going to replace polling in the future across the country,” said Brad Parscale in a dimly lit promotional video accentuated by hypnotic beats.

Parscale, the digital campaign operative who helped engineer Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, vows that his new, AI-powered platform will dramatically overhaul not just polling but also campaigning. His AI-powered tools, he has boasted, will outperform big tech companies and usher in a wave of conservative victories worldwide.

It’s not the first time Parscale has proclaimed that new technologies will boost right-wing campaigns. He was the digital guru who teamed up with scandal-plagued Cambridge Analytica and helped propel Trump to the White House eight years ago. In 2020, he had a public blowup then a private falling out with his old boss after the Capitol riot. Now he’s back, playing an under-the-radar role to help Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, in his race against Democratic President Joe Biden.

Parscale says his company, Campaign Nucleus can use AI to help generate customized emails, parse oceans of data to gauge voter sentiment and find persuadable voters, then amplify the social media posts of “anti-woke” influencers, according to an Associated Press review of Parscale’s public statements, his company websites, slide decks, marketing materials and other documents not previously made public.

Since last year, Campaign Nucleus and other Parscale-linked companies have been paid more than $2.2 million by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their related political action and fundraising committees, campaign finance records show.

While his firms have received only a small piece of Trump’s total digital spending, Parscale remains close to top Republicans, as well as senior officials at the campaign and at the RNC, according to a GOP operative familiar with Parscale’s role who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.

Lara Trump, the RNC’s new co-chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law, once worked as a consultant to a company co-owned by Parscale. And U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign recently hired Campaign Nucleus, campaign finance records show.

Parscale, however, is not involved in day-to-day Trump campaign operations, the GOP operative said.

Parscale’s ability to use AI to micro target supporters and tap them for campaign cash could prove critical for Trump’s campaign and other fundraising organizations. They have seen a falloff in contributions from smaller donors and a surge in spending — at least $77 million so far — on attorneys defending the former president in a slew of criminal and civil cases.

Beyond Trump, Parscale has said he’s harnessed AI to supercharge conservative candidates and causes across the globe, including in Israel, the Balkans and Brazil.

NEW AI-POWERED CAMPAIGN TOOLS

Parscale is hardly alone in using machine learning to try to give candidates an edge by predicting, pinpointing and motivating likely supporters to vote and donate money. Politicians at all levels are experimenting with chatbots and other generative AI tools to write speeches, ad copy and fundraising appeals.

Some Democrats have voiced concern over being outmaneuvered by Republicans on AI, much like they were on social media advertising eight years ago. So far, the Biden campaign and other Democrats said they are using AI to help them find and motivate voters and to better identify and defeat disinformation.

Election experts say they are concerned about AI’s potential to upend elections around the world through convincing deepfakes and other content that could mislead voters. Free and low-cost generative AI services have grown in sophistication, and officials worry they can be used to smear a candidate or steer voters to avoid the polls, eroding the public’s trust in what they see and hear.

Parscale has the financial backing to experiment to see what works in ways that other AI evangelists may not. That is thanks, in part, to his association with a Texas billionaire who is among the state’s most influential political donors.

Parscale did not respond to multiple messages from AP seeking comment. The RNC declined comment as well.

AI IS ‘SO SCARY’

Trump has called artificial intelligence “ so scary ” and “dangerous.” His campaign, which has shied away from highlighting Parscale’s role, said in an emailed statement that it did not “engage or utilize” tools supplied by any AI company.

“The campaign uses a set of proprietary algorithmic tools, like many other campaigns across the country, to help deliver emails more efficiently and prevent sign-up lists from being populated by false information,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.

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While political consultants often hype their tactics to land new contracts, they can also be intensely secretive about the details of that work to avoid assisting rivals. That makes it difficult to precisely track how Parscale is deploying AI for the Trump campaign, or more broadly.

Parscale has said Campaign Nucleus can send voters customized emails and use data analytics to predict voters’ feelings. The platform can also amplify “anti-woke” influencers who have large followings on social media, according to his company’s documents and videos.

Parscale said his company also can use artificial intelligence to create “stunning web pages in seconds” that produce content that looks like a media outlet, according to a presentation he gave last month at a political conference, where he was not advertised in advance as a speaker.

“Empower your team to create their own news,” said another slide, according to the presentation viewed by AP.

Soon, Parscale says, his company will deploy an app that harnesses AI to assist campaigns in collecting absentee ballots in the same way DoorDash or Grubhub drivers pick up dinners from restaurants and deliver them to customers.

Chris Wilson, a Republican strategist who recently worked for a SuperPAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential bid, said he has seen Campaign Nucleus’ platform and was “envious” of its capabilities and simplicity.

“Somebody could download Nucleus, start working with it and really begin to use it,” said Wilson.

Other political consultants, however, called Parscale’s AI-infused sales pitch largely a rehash of what campaigns already have mastered through data scraping, ad testing and modeling to predict voter behavior.

“Some of this stuff is just simply not new, it’s been around for a long time. The only thing new is that we’re just calling it AI,” said Amanda Elliott, a GOP digital strategist.

FROM UNKNOWN TO TRUMP CONFIDANT

Parscale, a relatively unknown web designer in San Antonio, got his start working for Trump when he was hired to build a web presence for the business mogul’s family business.

That led to a job on the future president’s 2016 campaign. He was one of its first hires and spearheaded an ambitious and unorthodox digital initiative that relied on an extensive database of social media accounts and content to target voters with Facebook ads.

“I pretty much used Facebook to get Trump elected in 2016,” Parscale said in a 2022 podcast interview.

To better target Facebook users, in particular, the campaign teamed up with Cambridge Analytica, a British datamining firm bankrolled by Robert Mercer, a wealthy and influential GOP donor. After the election, Cambridge Analytica dissolved, facing investigations over its role in a breach of 87 million Facebook accounts.

Following Trump’s surprise win, Parscale’s influence grew. He was promoted to manage Trump’s reelection bid and enjoyed celebrity status. A towering figure at 6 feet, 8 inches with a Viking-style beard, Parscale was frequently spotted at campaign rallies taking selfies with Trump supporters and signing autographs.

Parscale was replaced as campaign manager not long after a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, drew an unexpectedly small crowd, enraging Trump.

His personal life unraveled, culminating in a standoff with police at his Florida home after his wife reported he had multiple firearms and was threatening to hurt himself. One of the responding officers reported he saw bruising on the arms of Parscale’s wife. Parscale complied with a court order to turn in his firearms and was not charged in connection with the incident.

Parscale briefly decided to quit politics and privately expressed regret for associating with Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In a text to a former campaign colleague, he wrote he felt “guilty for helping him win” in 2016, according to the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack.

His disgust didn’t last long. Campaign Nucleus set up Trump’s website after Silicon Valley tech companies throttled his access to their platforms.

By the summer of 2022, Parscale had resumed complimenting his old boss on a podcast popular among GOP politicos.

“With President Trump, he really was the guy driving the message. He was the chief strategist of his own political uprising and management,” Parscale said. “I think what the family recognized was: I had done everything that really the campaign needs to do.”

PARSCALE’S PLATFORM

Trump’s 2024 campaign website now links directly to Parscale’s company and displays that it’s “Powered by Nucleus,” as Parscale often refers to his new firm. The campaign and its related political action and campaign committees have paid Campaign Nucleus more than $800,000 since early 2023, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Two other companies — Dyspatchit Email and Text Services and BCVM Services — are listed on campaign finance records as being located at the same Florida address used by Campaign Nucleus. The firms, which are registered in Delaware and whose ownership is unclear, have received $1.4 million from the Trump campaign and related entities, FEC records show.

When an AP reporter last month visited Campaign Nucleus’ small, unmarked office in a tony section of Fort Lauderdale, an employee said she did not know anything about Dyspatchit or BCVM.

“We don’t talk to reporters,” the employee said.

The three companies have been paid to host websites, send emails, provide fundraising software and provide digital consulting, FEC records show.

Parscale markets Campaign Nucleus as a one-stop shop for conservative candidates who want to automate tasks usually done by campaign workers or volunteers.

The company says it has helped its clients raise $119 million and has sent nearly 14 billion emails on their behalf, according to a promotional video.

At his recent appearance at the political conference, Parscale presented a slide that said Campaign Nucleus had raised three times as much as tech giant Salesforce in head-to-head tests for email fundraising.

Campaign Nucleus specializes in mining information from a politician’s supporters, according to a recent presentation slide.

For example, when someone signs up to attend an event, Nucleus uses AI to analyze reams of personal data to assign that person a numerical score. Attendees who have been to past events receive a high score, for example, ranking them as most likely to show up, according to a company video posted online.

Campaign Nucleus also can track where people who sign up live and can send them customized emails asking for donations or solicit their help on the campaign, the video shows.

Parscale said two years ago in a podcast that he had received more than 10,000 requests about Campaign Nucleus from nearly every country with a conservative party. More recently, he said his team has been active in multiple countries, including in India and Israel, where he’s been “helping over there a lot with the war with Hamas.”

The company says it has offices in Texas, Florida and North Carolina and has been on a recruiting tear. Recent job listings have included U.S. and Latin America-based intelligence analysts to use AI for framing messages and generating content, as well as a marketer to “coordinate influencer campaigns.”

Campaign Nucleus has also entered into partnerships with other companies with an AI focus. In 2022, the firm announced it was teaming up with Phunware, a Texas-based company that built a cellphone app for Trump’s 2020 bid that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters and mobilize their social networks.

Since then, Phunware obtained a patent for what a company official described as “experiential AI” that can locate people’s cellphones geographically, predict their travel patterns and influence their consumer behavior.

Phunware did not answer specific questions about the partnership with Nucleus, saying the company’s client engagements were confidential.

“However, it is well-known that we developed the 2020 Trump campaign app in collaboration with Campaign Nucleus. We have had discussions with Trump campaign leadership about potentially developing their app for the 2024 election,” said spokeswoman Christina Lockwood.

PARSCALE’S VISION

Last year, Parscale bought property in Midland, Texas, in the heart of the nation’s highest-producing oil and gas fields. It is also the hometown of Tim Dunn, a billionaire born-again evangelical who is among the state’s most influential political donors.

Over the years, the organizations and campaigns Dunn has funded have pushed Texas politics further to the right and driven successful challenges to unseat incumbent Republican officials deemed too centrist.

In April 2023, Dunn invested $5 million in a company called AiAdvertising that once bought one of Parscale’s firms under a previous corporate name. The San Antonio-based ad firm also announced that Parscale was joining as a strategic adviser, to be paid $120,000 in stock and a monthly salary of $10,000.

“Boom!” Parscale tweeted. “(AiAdvertising) finally automated the full stack of technologies used in the 2016 election that changed the world.”

In June, AiAdvertising added two key national figures to its board: Texas investor Thomas Hicks Jr. – former co-chair of the RNC and longtime hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr. — and former GOP congressman Jim Renacci. In December, Dunn also gave $5 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC and Campaign Nucleus client. And in January, SEC filings show Dunn provided AiAdvertising an additional $2.5 million via his investment company. A company press release said the cash infusion would help it “generate more engaging, higher-impact campaigns.”

Dunn declined to comment, although in an October episode of his podcast he elaborated on how his political work is driven by his faith.

“Jesus won’t be on the ballot, OK? Now, eventually, he’s going to take over the government and we can look forward to that,” Dunn told listeners. “In the meanwhile, we’re going to have to settle.”

In business filings, AiAdvertising said it has developed AI-created “personas” to determine what messages will resonate emotionally with its customers’ target audience. Parscale said last year in a promotional video that Campaign Nucleus was using AI models in a similar way.

“We actually understand what the American people want to hear,” Parscale said.

AiAdvertising did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Parscale occasionally offers glimpses of the AI future he envisions. Casting himself as an outsider to the Republican establishment, he has said he sees AI as a way to undercut elite Washington consultants, whom he described as political parasites.

In January, Parscale told a crowd assembled at a grassroots Christian event at a church in Pasadena, California, that their movement needed “to have our own AI, from creative large language models and creative imagery, we need to reach our own audiences with our own distribution, our own email systems, our own texting systems, our own ability to place TV ads, and lastly we need to have our own influencers.”

To make his point plain, he turned to a metaphor that relied on a decidedly 19th-century technology.

“We must not rely on any of their rails,” he said, referring to mainstream media and companies. “This is building our own train tracks.”

___

Burke reported from San Francisco. AP National Political Writer Steve Peoples and Courtney Subramanian in Washington and Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

This story is part of an Associated Press series, “The AI Campaign,” that explores the influence of artificial intelligence in the 2024 election cycle.

The Associated Press receives financial assistance from the Omidyar Network to support coverage of artificial intelligence and its impact on society. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Israel says it reopened a key Gaza crossing after a rocket attack but the UN says no aid has entered

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By JOSEPH KRAUSS, SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LIDMAN (Associated Press)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Wednesday that it has reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza after days of closure, but the U.N. said no humanitarian aid has yet entered and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side after workers fled during Israel’s military incursion in the area.

The Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and Israel was closed over the weekend after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers nearby, and on Tuesday, an Israeli tank brigade seized the nearby Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, forcing its closure. The two facilities are the main terminals for entry of food, medicine and other supplies essential for the survival of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians.

The Israeli foray did not appear to be the start of the full-scale invasion of the city of Rafah that Israel has repeatedly promised. But aid officials warn that the prolonged closure of the two crossings could cause the collapse of aid operations, worsening the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the U.N. says a “full-blown famine” is already underway in the north.

The United States paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on Rafah, in a further widening of divisions between the two close allies.

The U.S. says it is concerned over the fate of around 1.3 million Palestinians crammed into Rafah, most of whom fled fighting elsewhere. Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last stronghold and that a wider offensive there is needed to dismantle the group’s military and governing capabilities. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The U.S., Egypt and Qatar are meanwhile ramping up efforts to close the gaps in a possible agreement for at least a temporary cease-fire and the release of some of the scores of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. Israel has linked the threatened Rafah operation to the fate of those negotiations. CIA chief William Burns, who has been shuttling around the region for talks on the cease-fire deal, met Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door negotiations.

With the seizure of Rafah, Israel now controls all of Gaza’s crossings for the first time since it withdrew troops and settlers from the territory nearly two decades ago, though it has maintained a blockade with Egypt’s cooperation for most of that time. The Rafah crossing has been a vital conduit for humanitarian aid since the start of the war and is the only place where people can enter and exit. Kerem Shalom is Gaza’s main cargo terminal.

U.N. World Food Program deputy executive director Carl Skau told The Associated Press that the U.N, agency has lost access to its Gaza food warehouse in Rafah, which he said was “communicated as a no-go zone.”

“We understand that it’s still there, but we are extremely worried of looting,” Skau said during a visit to neighboring Lebanon, adding that a U.N. logistics warehouse in Rafah had already been looted. He said the WFP was able to secure a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, but has not stocked it with food yet.

Associated Press journalists heard sporadic explosions and gunfire in the area of the Rafah crossing overnight, including two large blasts early Wednesday. The Israeli military reported six launches from Rafah toward the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday.

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COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, said the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened early Wednesday and released video of what it said were aid trucks entering the 1-kilometer-long (half-mile) area of the crossing. The video then showed their cargo being unloaded. Typically, Palestinian drivers from the other side of the crossing must pick up the aid after it is unloaded and drive it to distribution destinations within Gaza. The video did not show the aid being picked up.

Juliette Touma, the director of communications for UNRWA, said no aid had entered as of late afternoon Wednesday and that the U.N. agency had been forced to ration fuel, which is imported through Rafah.

Gaza’s Health Ministry meanwhile said at least 46 patients and wounded people who had been scheduled to leave Tuesday for medical treatment have been left stranded.

U.N. agencies and aid groups have ramped up humanitarian assistance in recent weeks as Israel has lifted some restrictions and opened an additional crossing in the north under pressure from the United States, its closest ally.

But aid workers say the closure of Rafah, which is the only gateway for the entry of fuel for trucks and generators, could have severe repercussions, and the U.N. says northern Gaza is already in a state of “full-blown famine.”

Skau of the WFP said some food has been delivered to the north in recent weeks.

“When we got up there, people were coming out of the rubble extremely weak, not even able to carry the box of food,” he said, adding that an increase in infectious diseases among children could worsen the crisis in the north.

“It’s that combination of widespread disease and acute malnutrition that is that deadly cocktail,” he said.

COGAT said 60 aid trucks entered through the northern crossing on Tuesday. Some 500 trucks entered Gaza every day before the war.

The war began when Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s defenses on Oct. 7 and swept through nearby army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Hamas is still believed to be holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others after most of the rest were released during a November cease-fire.

The war has killed over 34,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and has driven some 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes. Israel’s military campaign has been one of the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, reducing large parts of Gaza to rubble.

Biden has repeatedly warned Netanyahu against launching an invasion of Rafah. But Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he calls off an offensive or makes too many concessions in the cease-fire talks.

The U.S. has historically provided Israel enormous amounts of military aid, which has only accelerated since the start of the war.

The paused shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 smaller ones, with the U.S. concern focused on how the larger bombs could be used in a dense urban setting, a U.S. official said Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. The official said no final decision had been made yet on proceeding with the shipment.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Lidman from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press journalists Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller in Washington, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Julia Frankel in Beirut contributed.

Inside the courtroom where Trump was forced to listen to Stormy Daniels

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By JENNIFER PELTZ, MICHAEL R. SISAK and JAKE OFFENHARTZ (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump squirmed and scowled, shook his head and muttered as Stormy Daniels described the unexpected sex she says they had nearly two decades ago, saying she remembered “trying to think of anything other than what was happening.”

It was a story Daniels has told before. This time, Trump had no choice but to sit and listen.

Years in the making, the in-person showdown between the former president and the porn actor who has become one of his nemeses happened Tuesday in a New York courtroom that has become the plainspoken stage for the historic spectacle of Trump’s hush money trial, where the gravitas of the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. commander-in-chief butts up against a crass and splashy tale of sex, tabloids and payoffs.

It’s often said that actual trials are not like the TV drama versions, and in that way, this one is no exception — a methodical and sometimes static proceeding of questions, answers and rules. But if Tuesday’s testimony wasn’t an electric scene of outbursts and tears, it was no less stunning for its sheer improbability.

Daniels’ testimony had been speculated about for as long as Trump has been under indictment. But when it would happen was still a mystery until Tuesday morning, when her lawyer Clark Brewster confirmed in an email to an Associated Press reporter that it was “likely today.”

But even after the trial resumed, Daniels still had to wait.

The first witness of the day was a publishing executive who read passages from some of Trump’s business books.

Then, when the judge asked for the prosecution’s next witness, Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger matter-of-factly declared, “The people call Stormy Daniels.”

Daniels strode briskly to the stand, not looking at Trump, her shoes clunking on the floor. The former president stared straight ahead until the moment she had passed his spot at the defense table, then tilted his head slightly in her direction.

As is standard in court proceedings, Daniels was asked if she saw Trump in the courtroom and to identify him. Before answering, Daniels, wearing eyeglasses, shuffled in her seat for a beat, looking around the courtroom. She then pointed toward him, describing his navy suit coat and gold tie, and said he was sitting at the defense table. Trump looked straight forward, lips pursed.

Dozens of reporters and a handful of public observers packed the courtroom gallery.

In one row alone: CNN anchor Erin Burnett, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell and Andrew Giuliani, the son of Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who wore a media credential from WABC Radio, where he and his dad host shows. Trump’s son Eric sat elsewhere in the courtroom.

As she testified, Daniels spoke confidently and at a rapid clip, the sound of reporters typing reaching a frenetic tempo.

She spoke so quickly, at least six times during her testimony she was asked to slow down so a court stenographer could keep pace.

Jurors seemed as attentive as they’ve been all trial as Daniels recounted her path from aspiring veterinary student to porn actor.

One juror smiled when Daniels mentioned one of the ways into the industry was by winning a contest, like “Ms. Nude North America.” Another juror’s eyes widened as he read along on the monitor displaying a Truth Social post in which Trump said he “did NOTHING wrong” and used an insulting nickname to disparage Daniels’ looks.

Trump denies her claims and has pleaded not guilty in the case, in which he’s charged with falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep quiet.

Many of the jurors jotted notes throughout her testimony, peering up from notepads and alternating their gaze from Daniels in the witness box to the lawyers questioning her from a lectern.

Guided by prosecutors, Daniels drew a detailed scene of her alleged evening with Trump at a hotel suite in Lake Tahoe in 2006, delving frankly into details that Judge Juan M. Merchan would later concede “should probably have been left unsaid.”

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She recalled entering the sprawling suite to find Trump in a pair of silk pajamas. She sheepishly admitted to snooping through his bathroom toiletries in the bathroom, finding a pair of golden tweezers. Daniels even acted out part of her interaction with Trump, reclining back in the witness box to demonstrate how she said he was positioned on the bed of his hotel suite when she emerged from the restroom.

Her willingness to provide extra details prompted an usual moment: Trump’s lawyers consented to allowing a prosecutor to meet with Daniels in a side room, during a break in testimony, to give her some instructions to — as Judge Merchan put it — “make sure the witness stays focused on the question, gives the answer and does not give any unnecessary narrative.”

Out of the earshot of the jury, or the reporters in the room, Merchan also asked Trump’s lawyers to stop him from cursing as Daniels spoke.

“I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” the judge said. “I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Merchan added.

“I will talk to him,” said one of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche.

Peppy and loquacious when she was being questioned by prosecutors, Daniels was feistier on cross-examination, digging in when defense lawyer Susan Necheles questioned her credibility and motives.

Daniels forcefully denied Necheles’ suggestion that she had tried to extort Trump, answering the lawyer’s contention: “False.”

Daniels left the witness stand just before 4:30 p.m. She didn’t look at Trump as she trod past. He didn’t look at her, either, instead leaning over to whisper to Necheles.

Moments later, Merchan adjourned court until Thursday — with Wednesday the trial’s usual off day. Trump left the courtroom with his entourage of lawyers and aides.

“This was a very revealing day in court. Any honest reporter would say that,” Trump said to journalists in the hallway outside the courtroom. He is limited by court order from saying much more about Daniels to the media.

Inside the courtroom, the witnesses to history reconciled their thoughts, gathered their belongings and waited for Trump to leave the building, so they could, too.

9 of 10 wrongful death suits over Astroworld concert crowd surge have been settled, lawyer says

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By JUAN A. LOZANO (Associated Press)

HOUSTON (AP) — Nine of the 10 wrongful death lawsuits filed after a deadly crowd surge at the 2021 Astroworld music festival have been settled, including one that was set to go to trial this week, an attorney said Wednesday.

Jury selection had been set to begin Tuesday in the wrongful death suit filed the family of Madison Dubiski, a 23-year-old Houston resident who was one of 10 people killed during the crowd crush at the Nov. 5, 2021, concert by rap superstar Travis Scott.

But Neal Manne, an attorney for Live Nation, the festival’s promoter and one of those being sued along with Scott, said during a court hearing Wednesday that only one wrongful death lawsuit remained pending and the other nine have been settled, including the one filed by Dubiski’s family.

Noah Wexler, an attorney for Dubiski’s family, confirmed during the court hearing that their case “is resolved in its entirety.”

Terms of the settlements were confidential and attorneys declined to comment after the court hearing because of a gag order in the case.

The one wrongful death lawsuit that remains pending was filed by the family of 9-year-old Ezra Blount, the youngest person killed during the concert. Attorneys in the litigation were set to meet next week to discuss when the lawsuit filed by Blount’s family could be set for trial.

“This case is ready for trial,” Scott West, an attorney for Blount’s family, said in court.

But Manne said he and the lawyers for other defendants being sued were not ready.

State District Judge Kristen Hawkins said she planned to discuss the Blount case at next week’s hearing along with potential trials related to the injury cases filed after the deadly concert.

Hawkins said that if the Blount family’s lawsuit is not settled, she is inclined to schedule that as the next trial instead of an injury case.

More than 4,000 plaintiffs filed hundreds of lawsuits after the concert. Manne said about 2,400 injury cases remain pending.

The announcement that nearly all of the wrongful death lawsuits have been settled came after the trial in Dubiski’s case was put on hold last week. Apple Inc., which livestreamed Scott’s concert and was one of the more than 20 defendants being sued by Dubiski’s family, had appealed a court ruling that denied its request to be dismissed from the case. An appeals court granted Apple a stay in the case.

In the days after the trial stay, attorneys for Dubiski’s family settled their lawsuit with all the defendants in the case, including Apple, Scott and Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company.

At least four wrongful death lawsuits had previously been settled and announced in court records. But Wednesday was the first time that lawyers in the litigation had given an update that nine of the 10 wrongful death lawsuits had been resolved.

Lawyers for Dubiski’s family as well as attorneys representing the various other plaintiffs have alleged in court filings that the deaths and hundreds of injuries at the concert were caused by negligent planning and a lack of concern over capacity and safety at the event.

Those killed, who ranged in age from 9 to 27, died from compression asphyxia, which an expert likened to being crushed by a car.

Scott, Live Nation and the others who’ve been sued have denied these claims, saying safety was their No. 1 concern. They said what happened could not have been foreseen.

After a police investigation, a grand jury last year declined to indict Scott, along with five others connected to the festival.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70