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Pecker said he could also run stories about Hillary enabling Bill Clinton's alleged affairs with other women to make her look bad. He said that Trump and Cohen both really liked that idea a lot and encouraged him to do that. He said the relationship was mutually beneficial to both of them since sales of the National Enquirer went up and Trump's campaign benefitted.
Pecker said that he had never been paid to kill stories before since that is something that is the opposite of his business model - which is to sell as many magazines as possible. He agreed to do it but the agreement was never put in writing. He said he told his Editor Dylan Howard "we are going to try and help the campaign, and to do that I want to keep it as quiet as possible," and that they were the only ones who should know about the arrangement.
Cohen would then send them ideas for negative articles and rumors about Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson, and the Enquirer would "embellish" them and publish the stories to help Trump in the primary. He said these included articles such as, 'Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient's Brain!' and 'Ted Cruz Shamed by Porn Star!' and 'Family Man Marco Rubio's Love Child Stunner!' He would send drafts of the articles to Cohen before they were published.
He was asked what he understood Cohen's relationship to the campaign was since that was his contact. He said Cohen told him that he was not connected to the campaign and worked for Trump personally, but that Cohen was in on just about every meeting the campaign had at Trump Tower.