Hope Hicks, a former White House communications director, stated on Friday that there was anxiety surrounding former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Hicks claimed that many were afraid of what might happen as a result of the Stormy Daniels and Trump “Access Hollywood” tape.

The former director of White House communications testified before Manhattan prosecutors during the hush money trial, claiming that the leak of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape completely destroyed Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Concern over the possible political fallout from a recording that purportedly showed the former president boasting about having sex with women without their consent dogged Trump’s 2016 campaign.

According to rumors, the former president gave Stormy Daniels $130,000 through Michael Cohen, his attorney, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Hicks said he was taken aback and huddled up with other Trump advisors when the news of the tape’s existence came on October 7, 2016, roughly a month before the election, via a Washington Post reporter.

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Hicks forwarded the reporter’s request to campaign leadership with the recommendation to “deny, deny, deny,” she said.

She testified: “I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days.

“This was a damaging development.

“This was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”

She was called to testify by the prosecution in order to support their claims that Trump conspired to obstruct the publication of embarrassing accounts of his personal life in order to improperly influence the 2016 presidential election.

Alvin Bragg, the district attorney for Manhattan, has worked to demonstrate this connection in an effort to convince the public of the case’s importance as well as to get a conviction in what may be the only one of four Trump prosecutions to get to trial this year.

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Hicks informed the jury that Trump maintained his ignorance of Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels in order to keep her from disclosing her alleged sexual encounter with him.

According to her, Trump eventually arrived at the conclusion that it would be wise to keep Daniel’s tale secret, reasoning that “it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.”

However, Hicks retorted that everything they discussed at the time was seen through the prism of the campaign when asked if Trump was similarly concerned about the story’s effect on the campaign.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign council for the September 21 governorship election, according to Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, would give party candidate Asuerinme Ighodalo eighty percent of the vote.

At the campaign council’s inauguration in Benin, Obaseki stated that the party has the best candidate who would carry on where he left off.

He added that every party organ had been taken over and that the campaign council’s organizational framework was ingrained in each of the state’s 192 wards.

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“Today, we are here to inaugurate the campaign council that will lead PDP to victory in the September 21 governorship election.

“The campaign is going to be based on what we have achieved and the lives we have touched. The campaign will also be based on the future, not the past.

“We see the suffering the people are going through, so the campaign will be based on the hope PDP will give our citizens.

“Those fighting PDP have collected money from the other political parties and I want you all present here to join me in flushing them out. Let them stay out since they have collected money,” Obaseki said.

Governor Siminalayi Fubara, according to former senator Magnus Abe from Rivers State, cannot be the state’s leader.

Speaking on TVC’s Politics Night program, Abe asserted the claim regarding the cold war between Fubara and Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike.

The former senator, who ran for governor in 2023 as a candidate for the Social Democratic Party, or SDP, claimed that leading the state involved much more than just running the government.

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Former Rivers State Senator, Magnus Abe, says Governor Siminalayi Fubara, cannot be called the state’s leader.

Abe made the claim while speaking on the cold war between Fubara and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, on TVC’s programme, Politics Night.

The ex-senator, who was a former governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in the 2023 elections, said being the state leader was a great deal beyond governing the state.

He said, “Being a governor has made him the leader of the government of Rivers State. But when you say political leader, that is something that you have to work to earn.

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“To say Fubara is the political leader of Rivers State is a much broader context of leadership, and it takes time to build that kind of confidence, followership, support, and trust.

“Leadership is all about trust, and sometimes, navigating this difficult water helps bring you out as a leader when you begin to trust yourself and can rely on the direction you provide.”

Abe said it is Fubara’s responsibility to work towards that leadership.

“But he is the governor of Rivers State, and it is his responsibility to work towards that leadership. But to say he is the political leader of Rivers will be putting leadership into a broad context. And it takes time to get there. It takes bringing people together. You earn trust.

“As a governor, you have the opportunity to get there, but I don’t think it is conferred,” he added.

Abe stated that, although Aminu Kano was not a governor at the time, he was Kano’s political leader.

The senator had earlier said that the long-running political dispute between him and Wike was over.

Prior to the 2023 elections, Abe experienced a fall from grace with his principal and previous state governor, Rotimi Amaechi. Amaechi chose Tonye Cole, a businessman and co-owner of Sahara Energy located in Lagos, as the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) candidate for governor of the state.

However, Wike was content to have Fubara, the state’s accountant general and political godson, succeed him.