How David Pecker's 'embellished' National Enquirer headlines about love childs, sex scandals and links to JFK's assassination really impacted Trump's rivals  in 2016

One-by-one during the 2016 presidential campaign, headlines in the increasingly political National Enquirer kept eviscerating Donald Trump's opponents.

'TED CRUZ FATHER LINKED TO JFK' said one headline linking Rafael Cruz to Lee Harvey Oswald in the spring of 2016. 'BEN CARSON BUTCHERED MY BRAIN!' went another.

To operatives working for Trump's top Republican rivals, it didn't take long to figure out what was going on with the normally celebrity obsessed supermarket tabloid headed by longtime Trump friend David Pecker. 

'Clearly Pecker was in Trump's pocket. This is what he wanted him to do and he did it,' said Republican consultant Rick Tyler, who ran communications for Trump rival Ted Cruz.

Trump's Stormy Daniels trial has featured bombshell testimony about a secret 'deal' for the National Enquirer to go after his Republican and Democratic political rivals

He recalled the impact of those newspaper covers, and did not dismiss their impact on the electorate. 

'I just remember. I do think the campaign completely underestimated the impact of those stories. People who are shall we say sophisticated will look at those at the checkouts and go that's funny,' Tyler, Co-Founder of Foundry Strategies, told DailyMail.com. 'Apparently there are a lot of people that buy that s*** and think it's true,' he said.

He called the impact hard to measure, even in a publication that sometimes ran outlandish stories written off as farce. 

Tyler called another cover story, about a 'Ted Cruz Sex Scandal' claiming Cruz had multiple affairs, 'hysterically funny.' 'If you knew Cruz at all the idea that he was carrying on affairs with six women was doubled over. Gut-wrenchingly funny,' he said.

But to operatives helming the ultimately hapless efforts to take on the dominant celebrity Trump, the repeated incoming drew notice. 

'Obviously we didn't know that Trump was coordinating directly with the publisher of the Enquirer,' said Republican consultant Alex Conant, who ran communications on Sen. Marco Rubio's campaign. 'But obviously the Enquirer was running a lot of pro-Tump coverage,' the founding partner of Firehouse Strategies told DailyMail.com.

Campaign headlines about Rubio mentioned a 'love child' and 'cocaine connection.' But according to Pecker's testimony, hits came at specific times, and at the direction of Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who was part of a secret 'deal' about campaign coverage. 

'My conversations with Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen would call me and say -- he would say, we would like for you to run a negative article on, let's say, for argument sake, on Ted Cruz. Then he would send me -- he being Michael Cohen -- would send me information about Ted Cruz or about Ben Carson or about Marco Rubio. That was the basis of our story, and then we would embellish it from there,' Pecker said.

'Not interested in revisiting ancient history,' said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, on a day David Pecker delivered bombshell testimony about a 'deal' with Trump to suppress negative stories and go after Trump rivals in the National Enquirer. Headlines linked his dad to the JFK assassination and claimed he had 'five secret mistresses'

The paper ran reports alleging Cruz carried on affairs. He furiously denied the claims at the time

Another story covered a patient's complaint about former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson

Pecker testified that the Enquirer ran negative headlines on Trump rivals when they were gaining in the polls

Prosecutors introduced as evidence images of Pecker visiting Trump at the White House after he won the White House in 2017

He said the stories ran 'after the Republican debates, and based on the success of  some of the other candidates, I would receive a call from Michael Cohen and he would direct me and direct [editor] Dylan Howard on which candidate and which direction we should go. That's how the process happened.'

The stories may have gotten laughs, but they also had impact.

The Cruz JFK story was 'obviously fake,' said Conant. 'But still something that Cruz had to contend with. It was a distraction for Cruz's campaign. 

Cruz himself wasn't interested in revisiting the story that infuriated him during the campaign. 'Not interested in revisiting ancient history,' he told reporters in the Capitol this week.

Pecker was also shown headlines of Enquirer stories about Ben Carson, who was battling Trump for Evengelical support based on his dramatic story of overcoming life obstacles.

'Bungling surgeon Ben Carson left sponge in patient's brain' read one.

GOP consultant Rick Tyler said campaigns could sense an arrangement with Pecker

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo got Pecker to acknowledge that Carson had been 'gaining in popularity in the polls' at the time of the hits.

'Were these headlines run in accordance with your agreement stuck in Trump Tower in 2015?' he followed up. 'Yes,' Pecker responded.

Those attacks came at a time when Carson, who later made peace with Trump and became HUD Secretary, was a threat.

'When Trump gets in the race he is the dominant figure and no one beats him in any national poll,' said Tyler. 'Where he was behind was in iowa and he was behind Carson. And that's when he was going after Carson,' he said. 

Trump found ways to amplify the attacks on his biography that appeared in the Enquirer, dramatically reenacting Carson's awakening story of trying to stab someone as an angry youth only to be blocked by a belt buckle in Iowa. He also called him a 'pathological liar' and compared him to 

'He just dispatched them all pretty much in order,' said Tyler of Trump. Rubio made a 'classic error.'

'Obviously the Enquirer was running a lot of pro-Tump coverage,' said consultant Alex Conant, who worked for Marco Rubio's campaign

'He decided for 5 days he was going to go out and out Trump Trump. And he made a jackass of himself,' he said. 

Cruz opted to fight back after the Enquirer ran a piece accusing him of having five affairs.  

Cruz lashing out at trump over the Heidi thing. You just didn't feel it,' he said.

The most blatant tells that the Enquirer was carrying water for Trump came in its glowing headlines about him. 

'Donald Trump: The Man Behind the Legend,' was one. 'Donald Trump: Healthiest Individual Ever Elected,' ran another – echoing the over-the-top assessment of his longtime personal physician Dr. Harold Bornstein.

Headlines on his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton were merciless. 'Hillary: 6 MONTHS TO LIVE!' said one, with a subhead saying she had brain cancer. 'HILLARY FRAMED TRUMP FAMILY!' said another.

Pecker said Hillary running for president and 'Bill Clinton's womanizing was the biggest, one of the biggest sales I had for the National Enquirer and the other tabloids.'

He called it a 'mutual benefit. It would help his campaign; it would also help me.' He focused on Hillary as an 'enabler' of Bill's womanizing, he said.

Asked how Trump felt about the coverage, Pecker responded: 'He was pleased.' 

On redirect examination by Trump's lawyers Friday, he admitted that the paper had gone after the Clintons even before the secret deal he described with Trump. 

Another former Trump rival, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was nonplussed by the new details of the 2016 machinations that helped Trump take over the Republican Party. 'I don't know anything about it,' he told DailyMail.com when asked about the Pecker bombshells from the trial. 'I've paid zero attention – I think the whole trial's a bunch of bull****,' he added.