There will be decades of business—and maybe even friendship—hanging in the air between Donald Trump and David Pecker if, as expected, they sit across from each other on the witness stand in the courtroom.
Trump and the publishing entrepreneur, who was also the CEO of American Media, Inc., have known one other since the mid-1990s. The executive proposed Trump the idea of starting Trump Style magazine, which documented the “glamour and fun” of Trump’s real estate sites and casinos for five years. While traveling by plane between their respective residences in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York, they became closer. During his 2005 wedding to Melania, Trump extended an invitation to Pecker as well.
Those who knew Pecker and Trump claim that Trump captivated Pecker over the years.
“He thought of himself like Trump — in the way he ran his businesses, in the way he saw himself, and the way Donald ran his businesses — everything he did, he tried to emulate what Trump was doing,” noted Marc Liu, a former lieutenant of Pecker’s and the current VP of marketing at AMI.
Despite the passage of time, Pecker is still being coerced into testifying against the man who saw him as a “little puppy” and a “king,” according to one of his former coworkers.
Prosecutors claim that Pecker and Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen conspired in August 2015 at Trump Tower to “act as the ‘eyes and ears’ for the campaign by looking out for negative stories” about Trump, and that this is the less admirable side of their connection that would likely be prosecuted. The “catch and kill” plot allegedly began in June 2016 when Pecker ordered AMI to pay $150,000 to ex-Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal in order to bury her claims of having an affair with Trump. According to prosecutors, in October of that year, Pecker once again stepped in to bury a story involving porn star Stormy Daniels, but this time he did it for $130,000. Cohen’s testimony could be strengthened by Pecker’s.
Pecker and Trump’s mutually beneficial relationship stands out among the other witnesses expected to testify in Trump’s hush-money trial. This shows how Trump is very conscious of his media coverage and the transactional relationships he has maintained with people over the years.
“That’s why he was so valuable to someone like Trump, because Trump is a media addict and cared deeply about how a publication like the Enquirer portrayed him and the people around him,” said Tim O’Brien, a biography and critic of Trump.
No comment from Pecker was forthcoming in response to inquiries for comment on this story, and he has not given an interview to a journalist on record since at least 2017. Even in the most comprehensive histories of Trump, he is treated as nothing more than a footnote. A representative for Trump did not return a request for comment from HEADLINESFOREVER.
According to Bo Dietl, a former NYPD detective and longtime friend of Aaron Pecker, “He’s probably hiding under his bed because of all this bullshit.” Dietl and Pecker occasionally had dinner at Rao’s, a legendary red sauce joint in East Harlem, where Pecker hosted a standing table every third Thursday.
According to Jeffrey Toobin, a seasoned court reporter who covered Pecker’s publishing for The New Yorker in 2017, “Once all the investigations started, I think he pretty much went to ground.”
Pecker, who is 73 years old, and Trump could have been born into different families. Both Pecker and Trump came from working-class backgrounds; Trump from Queens and Pecker from the Bronx. Each of them firmly grasped their own fiefdoms. The pain of the establishment’s sideways looks has been felt by both of them.
And they both appear to know their bases like the back of their hand. According to Pecker, the blue-collar readers of the Enquirer are “these people that live their life failing, so they want to read negative things about people who have gone up and then come down.” And so it goes.
When Pecker’s father passed away when he was sixteen years old, he turned to accounting as a means to support his family. “I came up on the financial side, and all my counterparts were in advertising and sales,” he reportedly told a reporter. I was rejected. I attended another university. I wasn’t born into a wealthy, well-educated family. My origins are in the Bronx.
Custom Brioni shirts costing $350 are worn by Pecker nowadays. Plus, he’s always had a bodyguard, and when he gets in his car, he expects them to check the trunk for explosives. Pecker was a tightwad who had his hired muscle man move his automobile chair back so that his over 6-foot frame wouldn’t be noticed.
“On one occasion, David fired him without warning because he failed to return the seat,” Liu recalled.
“Out of respect for the prosecution,” Cohen said when asked about Pecker, he would not do an interview. Dylan Howard, who is Pecker’s deputy at AMI, did not return calls seeking comment.
Pecker amassed the glitzy media clout that Trump desires. George, a monthly political lifestyle magazine edited by John F. Kennedy Jr., was created in 1995 by him. He was president and chief executive officer of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines in the 1990s. Per Keith Kelly, a veteran media critic in New York, Pecker “definitely knew that he was latching on to something bigger than himself.”
He would end up supporting Trump because of that same desire.
With the debut of the inaugural issue in February 1997, Pecker bolstered Trump’s ego with the magazine he established to capture his properties. Guests of Trump’s gambling hotels could get their hands on it, and 130,000 copies were printed by The New York Times Custom Publishing. He assumed the roles of chairman, president, and chief executive officer of American Media, Inc. (AMI) two years into the magazine’s run.
An senior at Accelerate 360, the parent company of Chatham Asset Management, revealed Pecker’s departure from American Media in August 2021.
Meeting with Pecker in January of last year, prosecutors from Manhattan began to construct their case against Trump.
The possibility that Pecker’s tale with Trump could conclude with his own testimony against him must pain him, according to Liu, Pecker’s former lieutenant.
“Unless he was forced to,” he stated.