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the people of new york versus donald j. trump. >> i should be in florida now. i should be in a lot of different places campaigning, and i'm sitting here. >> for the first time in history, prosecutors lay out a criminal case against a former american president to a jury. >> this case is about a conspiracy to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. >> tonight the opening statements from the prosecution and the defense. and the first witness takes the stand. >> we should be expecting a lot more of david >> rachel maddow was inside the

courtroom to see it all. >> we got a real road map today as to how this case is going to go. >> as donald trump goes on trial. >> he seems old and tired and mad. >> tonight rachel maddow, joy reid, chris hayes, lawrence o'donnell, alex wagner, jen sake, stef knew rhule, katie pham, and nbc legal experts are all here. special coverage of trump on trial begins now. >> thank you for joining us tonight for this special primetime recap of the first ever criminal trial of a former u.s. president, the first ever criminal trial of a major party's presumptive nominee as their candidate for president. i'm rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters along with lawrence odom and chris hayes and jen sake and katie pham. we'll be joined by our

colleagues, our legal experts, they're going to be keeping us on the straight and narrow. we've got lisa ruben here tonight and suzanne craig of "the new york times" who were both at the trial today. lisa and suzanne and katie were all in the overflow room at the trial today. i was in the actual courtroom, which makes it sound like i got the better seat, but i'll tell you, there are advantages and disadvantages to both ways of sitting in on the trial, and a lot of them have to do with the five senses. we'll talk about that a little bit tonight. the trial got underway at 9:30 eastern time this morning. it ran for about three hours before breaking early for both the passover holiday and for one juror to get to an emergency dentist appointment. i hope it went okay. but that short day's proceedings nevertheless brought us a whole bunch of really important news about this case. we got first thing a substantive ruling from judge juan merchan about effectively what prosecutors are going to be

allowed to ask trump if he chooses to take the stand in his own defense. now, this is something that's called a sandoval hearing that happened at the end of the week last week. this was judge merchan's ruling on that -- that sandoval hearing. basically, in nonlegalese, what it is, is if trump's going to present himself as a witness, prosecutors will want to call his credibility as a witness into question, and they'll want to do that by telling the jury about bad things trump has done or has said. things that would reflect poorly on his believability as a witness in this proceeding. so prosecutors have to ask in judge about that. prosecutors had asked permission to raise 13 different bad things about former president trump in front of the jury. judge merchan ruled today that they are allowed to raise six of those 13 things but not the rest of them. now, is that good news or bad news for the prosecution, good news or bad news for the

defense, i don't know. we will get advice from our legal experts tonight as to how much of a win or loss that is for either side. but that was right out of the gate a substantive thing about how much these jurors will get to hear about trump if he testifies. and this is done out of fairness to the defense. the defense basically needs to know whether it's worth it to put trump on the stand. they can't compel trump to speak, but if he chooses to take the stand, they now understand the parameters about what he might be asked about. and that will help them fairly make a decision about whether or not it is a good idea for him to actually become a witness in his own case. so that happened today. that was first. it went fast. we also today got opening statements from each side today. and each side completed their opening statements today. and the opening statements, admittedly, i am a dork, but i found them fascinating, and they were so different from one another. you think of opening statements as kind of being a boilerplate thing or something where you can

expect what they're like, well, these were two totally different ways of doing it. the prosecution started. they laid out a dispassionate, straight forward, very linear, very blunt case. it started this way, prosecutor, good morning, your honor, counsel, members of the jury. this case is about a criminal conspiracy and cover a cover-up. the defendant, donald trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election, then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his new york business records over and over and over again. in june 2015 donald trump announced his candidacy for president in the 2016 eelection. a few months later, this conspiracy began. so that's how it started from the prosecution and their opening. we're going to talk in detail about the prosecution's argument, the sort of blunt,

streamlined, linear nature of their case and the way they are making it. in total contrast, this was the opening of the opening statement from the defense. todd blanch, defense counsel for president trump. good morning, your honor, good morning, the judge, good morning, mr. blanch, president trump is innocent. president trump did not commit any crimes. the manhattan district attorney's office should never have brought this case. you've heard this a few times already this morning, and you're going to hear it a lot more during this trial. the people, the government, they have the burden of proof to prove president trump guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. what that means, as judge merchan said a few minutes ago, is that president trump is presumed innocent. he is cloaked in innocence. and that cloak of innocence does not leave president trump today. it doesn't leave him at any day during this trial. and it won't leave him when you all deliberate. you will find that he is not guilty. now, president trump, you've seen him, of course, for years and years and years, you've seen him on television, you've seen

photos of him, you've seen articles written about him. he's in some ways larger than life, but he's also here in this courtroom doing what any of us would do, defending himself. you're going to hear me, as i've done already today and others, even witnesses, refer to him as president trump. this is a title that he has earned because he was our 45th president. we will call him president trump out of respect for the office that he held from 2017 to 2021. and as everybody knows, it's the office he's running for right now. he's the republican nominee. but -- and this is important -- he's not just our former president. he's not just donald trump that you have seen on tv and read about and seen photos of, he's also a man. he's a husband. he's a father. and he's a person, just like you and just like me. what the people just did for about 45 minutes is present to you what appeared to be a very clean, nice story. it is not. it is not simple as the people

just described. so you could see the difference in the approach here, right? you think you know what an opening statement is, well, those are both opening statements but they're from different planets. and, you know, a good defense will always, presumably, try to make it seem like the prosecution's case is less straight forward than it seems. the defense, after all, just has to inject some reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. they don't need to prove him innocent. in this case, though, trump's defense is bluntry proclaiming him innocent. that was literally the first line of their opening statement to the jury. president trump is innocent. to make that case, to bolster that case, his defense lawyers today -- and this surprised me as a lay observer of this matters -- president trump's defense lawyers today found themselves also having to make a number of supporting claims about trump's behavior around this incident and these alleged crimes. and they were claims that, i

think, outside the courtroom and to those of us who are not on the jury observing this case, they are claims that will raise a lot of eyebrows. i do not know what their effect will be on the jury, but these things are hard to sell on a, you know, on a street corner or on tv. ed to blanch, defense counsel, quote, when we became president in 2017, he put up a wall between himself and his company. he put his entire company in a trust. he did this so that he could run the country and he wouldn't have anything to do with his company while he was president. is that true? did donald trump, in fact, put up a wall between himself and his company while he was president? did he have nothing to do with his company when he was president? i don't know what the jury will think of that claim, but i mean, like pick your example. remember when mike pence had a meeting in dublin, ireland, as

vice president but the trump administration had him stay on the other side of the island, the whole other side of the country, hours away from his meeting in dublin, just so he could stay at a trump golf property whole he was there? if vice president kamala harris was going to dublin for a meeting right now, as vice president of the united states, what do you think the odds are that she would be staying 181 miles away from dublin at doonbeg? tell me more about the wall between president trump and his company. anyway. president trump's counsel also claiming to the jury today that trump paid michael cohen purely for legal services and he definitely didn't pay him as a reimbursement for this hush money payment to stormy daniel, the woman they wanted to keep quiet ahead of the election about her claims about a former sexual relationship with former president trump. they are claiming this really was payment to michael cohen for

legal services, even though they also admitted to the jury today that cohen had been trump's lawyer for years and years and year, and it would appear that cohen was never paid like this before in any of the other years that he worked for trump. president trump's defense counsel is also claiming that the allegations that stormy daniels made that she had a sexual encounter with donald trump was a false claim, a false claim is what he said to the jury today. make of that what you will. the jury will be expected to believe these things, because the claim from the defense is that donald trump is innocent. we now know that this is the nature of the defense they're going to mount. they may have trump himself testify, they may not. they're going to make as much as possible over the fact that he's a former president. they're going to call him president over and over again in the courtroom. they're going to create what appears, i think, outside the courtroom to be an earth to narrative in which trump not only didn't have stormy daniel, trump had nothing to do with his

company while he was president. that must have been the wall he built. and even though he apparently never paid michael cohen this way before, coincidentally after michael cohen on his own volition and for his own reasons decided to take out a home equity line of credit in order to pay a porn star that he himself never met and never had sex with coincidentally after micah cohen decide today that out of the goodness of his own heart for his own mysterious reasons that have nothing to do with donald trump, coincidentally after that happened, trump decided to start a new way of paying his longtime lawyer that involved $35,000 checks that he signed in the oval office. and it was all a coincidence and none of it had anything to do with the election. maybe, we'll see. we're going to talk tonight about what prosecutors said about how they came up with the payment plan to cohen. personally i unintentionally, loudly snorted in court when i heard this, which was not at all

polite. it annoyed the person sitting next to me. i will apologize and explain. we will talk about that. we will talk about the first witness whose name is because the news gods like to tease us and test our maturity. he was the ceo of the company that used to run the national enquirer. his testimony only just got started today. he was only on the stand for about half an hour, but even just in that half hour, he already gave prosecutors, it would seem, a bunch of what they wanted. we'll talk about how weird it was that when trump's defense counsel was giving his opening argument today, his opening statement to the jury today, there were multiple objections from the prosecutor, objections to the opening statement, including multiple objections that were sustained by the judge, which led to the judge, multiple times, stopping the opening statement and making all the lawyers in the room come up to the bench to talk to him in private. it was a bizarre thing to see in person. we will get advice tonight on how odd that is both as a matter

of law and of trial procedure in new york. we will also tonight get to the card that prosecutors have in their deck that seems logically unassailable, at least to nonlawyer observers of this case. a card the prosecutors have in their deck that they showed a little bit of today, it goes to the absolute heart of this matter. we heard no defense to it today from the other side, at least not yet. we're going to get to all of that in this primetime recap tonight. that's what we're here for. but i want to start here with my colleagues with overall impressions of how things went today, how things are starting off for the former president, chris? >> i have lots of thoughts, but my one big takeaway, actually, was during the judge's instructions to the jury. >> mm-hmm. >> the reason is that we've been doing this now, you know, donald trump comes down the escalator in 2015, so we've been doing this for like nine year, and there's this question of just how does a democratic society come to its conclusions about things. you think this metaphor of the

court of public opinion, and there's lots of reasons people believe what they believe about donald trump. and what was fascinating in there is part of the reason i think so many people wanted this trial is when he's giving the instructions to the jury, he's giving them a methodology for divining the truth. he's talking to them and saying, like, here are the ground rules. you guys are coming from all different kinds of places, you might have different politics, but here we're going to work on this methodology. you have to actually work off the evidence. just this basic stipulation, there's almost some part of you that like wants there to be some like small democratic version of that in the court of public opinion, but there was something kind of bracing about that moment simply because he has thrived in an environment for so long in defying what, to me, seemed the obvious ways that you should come to conclusions about the world. >> yeah. >> and so here you have this cross section of people -- i thought -- i also thought like the level of language and sort

of intellect and knowledge for the jury was great, perfect. he was not talking down to them. he was like, you're smart, grownup people, this is how we're going to do it. it just felt to me that the reason there's so much on this is partly because of how haywire everything's gone outside of that courtroom that there's some lig miniature version of something happening in there about discourse and reasons and arguments that was very exciting to listen to. >> there's something about the kind of politician that trump is, which is about an appeal to emotion and reason doesn't apply, an appeal to emotion, reason doesn't apply. this is the inverse of that. >> give me very firmly, this is how we're going to do it. i'm not telling you what conclusions you're going to come to, but the method, we're all going to agree. >> and it's the opposite of what we've seen for nine years. >> reassuring in many ways. what struck me, you outlined it so well in the beginning there, is just the difference between the opening statements. and this is why it's so helpful to have people watching in the courtroom, because reading the transcript, as i did, i have a lot of post-it notes here, it

struck me that the defense was like a circus leader kind of. that's like how he had a couple of things clearly on a note card. and then the prosecution's case, you could picture what this guy was like in a study group. i'd want to be in his study group, you know? he has an outline. he writes the notes on it. and even as nerdy, in a good way, as that was, what was also striking to me is, i moon, this is a case about falsifying business record. he use sod much real estate and words in his opening statement to lay out the case for why trump is a guy who paid to cover up information from the american public multiple times. and i thought that was interesting. i mean, the national enquirer aspect of this, which is so important, was so dominant this morning. >> yes, this is a story about the national enquirer, at least thus far. and david being the first witness is both testimony to that and not an accident. and i think that if trump and the national enquirer, trump and ami, were in a criminal

conspiracy, as prosecutors allege, most of what we're going to learn is about ami. >> let me begin with reporting from my beat, which is outside the building. among the people, who i will now call the people and not the protesters, because they weren't protesting. katie says she counted two, i counted three. maybe i'm overcounting. three trump supporters, i'll call them. you couldn't hear a word from them. they kept everything at a very conversational tone. if -- from where chris is you couldn't hear what they were saying to each other. you'd have to go up and talk to them. the only person you could hear was a loud mouth guy who was fairly close to them yelling at them about bill clinton balancing the budget. that was it. that's what the people had to say out there in the street today. from it's new york, he might have been doing that since 1992. that guy -- might be his regular

spot. >> right. >> in the courtroom, it's just the first time we've heard the defense. you know, we've had the indictment, so we knew a lot, we knew an awful lot about what we're going to hear in the prosecution opening statement. this is the defense opening statement, and there is -- there are clearly two things the client is demanding. one, call me mr. president. his lawyer gets up there and, as you said, gets into this speech about not only why he is calling him president trump but by implication why everyone in this room should call him president trump, and you're some kind of punk if you don't. that's what he was trying to suggest. >> mm-hmm. >> yep. >> the other point that seems to be a client-directed instruction -- because there was no need to do this, especially no need to do it today -- to claim that donald trump did not have any sexual contact with stormy daniels. now, that is a claim beyond the needs of the defense. >> mm-hmm, yep. >> they don't need to claim

that. they might decide tactically to claim that at some point later in this trial. i can't think of why. the only way they can actually enter that into evidence, there's only one way they can enter it, and that's by donald trump taking the witness stand. he's not going to take the witness stand for a lot of reason, including everything we saw in sandoval today, but to assert that in that opening statement, that jury's going to be in the room without any proof or even testimony from donald trump about what happened there. it certainly raises the question to the prosecution if they were on the fence about calling stormy daniels, if they weren't sure. because there's a theory of the case where you don't have to call stormy daniels. what did that do to the prosecution's thinking about calling stormy daniels? because if they want to claim what the prosecution thinks is a lie in their opening statement, is that something worth really going after? that very issue of when they

were alone in the hotel room, did -- what did they do? and oh, by the way, jury, what do you think that guy did? what do you think? and here she is. here she is. that real person in the room. it's one of those things where you just have to wonder, you know, what was the defense lawyer thinking, and the answer is likely to be that was an order from the client. >> there was -- and there was that very quotable remark about stormy daniels from mr. trump's defense counsel today in which he said stormy daniels does not matter, her testimony will not matter. well then, why are you talking about her? >> well, it matters now because you just said she's lying. >> he made it an issue. >> you just made stormy daniel's testimony matter much more than yesterday in the theory of this case. >> exactly. katie? >> so for me, so much time was spent before this actual first criminal trial of donald trump launched, poo pooing the

importance of this case. and i felt just the two hours we were in court today that you saw why we should care. and more importantly, why the jurors should care about this case. and that's always the most important job for a prosecutor, because these jurors are just doing civic duty. some of them are laboring against their better kind of intentions of being there, and their concerns about being there, but when you heard matthew get up today, he very clearly and succinctly told the jury, this is why it matters. and that makes a difference because 34 felonies is nothing to sneer at. even one could put donald trump in prison for up to four years. and so when you hear the prosecution lay out a clear road map, and that's what openings are for, they're not for argument, they're for laying out a road map of what the evidence is. who are the players here? why are they so critical to the story? it all starts to make sense. and that is why you set the tone in openings. >> mm-hmm.

>> that is why blanche meandering and wandering and trying to pick something off a tree to decide what he wants to talk about sends a message to the jury in the wrong way, oh, you don't have to be here. but no, you have to be here. and the reason why is what the prosecution told you was going to be the crux of this case. it's not just about the falsification, it's to influence the outcome of a presidential election. it's not the private acts between two people, it's how did it impact the american voters at large. and i thought that was the most important thing that we got out of opening statements. >> just in terms of your assessment, having seen lots of trials and having seen people address the jury for the first time like this, i feel like as a nonlawyer watching those two different styles, i know which one of those styles works better on me in the moment, but i don't want to presume that that's true for juries. >> mm-hmm. >> the looser style that we're seeing, the more emotive, emotional, digressive style that we're seeing from mr. blanche, from trump's attorney, is that

necessarily less effect wif the jury, or is it just a matter of a personal match between the counselor and the audience? >> so it's a great question, because it really is, sometimes, a personal preference. but, you know -- and i respect the concern about not having some type of confirmation bias going into the way you're asesing these opening statements were done, but there's a reason why they're opening statement sxchlts there's a reason why the objections by the prosecution got sustained. >> yeah. >> because when blanche went beyond what he was allowed to do, not only did the objections get sustained -- and you can watch law and order all day long and understand an objection that's sustained means you did something wrong, but did you notice how it interrupted flow? they have to go side bar multiple #250i8s. blanche had to interrupt and interrupt and interrupt. and that sends a message to the jury that blanche is doing something wrong. so whether or not the more emotive, casual style is your thing, the fact that he's

getting chastised by the judge sends a message that the jurors can't ignore. >> very, very good point. all right, we're going to talk about the sustaining of those objections and the interruptions to donald trump's lawyers opening statement today. we're going talk about -- listen, if you were in charge of defending donald trump, what would you most worry about, what would seem most unassailable about the prosecution's case, we're going to talk about that. we've got a lot to get to tonight, stay with us. get t tonight, stay with us.

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indictment, with the announcement of charges that led to today's proceedings. but this is the first time we gt to see the defense go through their paces. for the defense counsel for former president trump, we did get a sense in their opening statements today about how it looks like they're going to try to defend their client. if today's opening statements are any guide, they're going to stress that mr. trump is a former president, and they're going to always call him president trump. they are going to stress beyond that that he right now is the presumptive republican nominee for president again, or, as his defense counsel called him today, the republican nominee, not even presumptive. they're going to claim that every aspect of this was an innocent act by trump, that there wasn't an underlying sexual encounter to cover-up, even though that would seem to be immaterial to the charges. they will seem to be claiming, if today's opening statements are any guide, that michael cohen, trump's lawyer, paid a porn star on his own accord and

for his own reasons, that trump only paid michael cohen for legal services just like he always had, he just changed to a weird, new way of paying him after the porn star thing because, well, they'll think of something. but if you were in this defense team, if you were in charge of coming up with the defense for mr. trump, here's the part of the prosecution's case that would seem to be the most difficult thing to explain logically. if you're really going to try to mount a defense that trump did nothing at all wrong, that there was no conspiracy to corrupt the election, as the prosecution put it at the top of their opening statements today, well, this would seem to be the toughest thing, logically, that you're up against. here it is, this is from the opening statement from the prosecutor matthew. quote, sorry, this is not quoting it. forgive me, this is the introduction. at this point he has explained to the jury that there is what he called a criminal conspiracy

between trump and ami american media to publish positive stories about trump, to publish negative stories about trump's rival, to find negative stories about trump that hadn't been published yet and pay the sources to shut them up. so the prosecution has explained to the jury at this point that ami american media, national enquirer, they first found a doorman, a doorman named dino, dino who said that trump had fathered a secret child with a housekeeper. he was the first one that ami paid to keep kai yet about his story. there was a second one, a woman named karen mcdougal who said she had an affair with trump. they paid her. then the third one, stormy daniels. by this point the enquirer was still willing to make arrangements for her to be paid to be quiet about that story, by that point they were not ready to put up additional money. and so michael cohen put up the

money for that. so the prosecutors explained all this to the jury, and then he says this, quote, cohen made that payment at donald trump's direction and for his benefit. and he did it with a specific goal of influencing the outcome of the election. now, look, no politician wants bad press, but the evidence at trial will show that this was not spin or communication strategy, this was a planned, coordinated, long running conspiracy to influbs the 2016 election, to help trump get elected through illegal expenditures, to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior using doctored corporate records and bank forms to conceal those payments along the way. it was election fraud, pure and simple. we will never know, and it doesn't matter, if this conspiracy was the difference maker in a close election. but you will see evidence in the defendant's own words from his social media post, from the speeches at campaign rallies other events, you will see in his own words making crystal clear that he was certainly

concerned about how all of this could hurt his standing with voters and with female voters in particular. you will see evidence that on election night as news outlets got closer to calling the election for donald trump, the lawyer for both stormy daniels and karen mcdougal texted dylan howard, an editor at the national enquirer, he said, quote, what have we done? and about a month after the election, david, the ceo of american media, then authorized ami to release both dino sajudin, the doorman, and karen mcdougal from their nondisclosure agreements. released them from their nondisclosure treatments once the election was over. quote, so having paid for the stories in order to keep them from the public before election day, peck er and ami told

them after the election they were no longer bound by the agreements. so just think about what that means. this claim, right, from the defense is that none of these payment schemes had anything to do with the election. who know what is michael cohen was doing paying that porn star. donald trump was just paying for legal fees, right? the defense is saying this had nothing to do with the election. the prosecution says they will present evidence that trump and american media paid for all of these people to be silent until the election was over. and then once the election was over, they then released all these people from these agreements to be silent, because once the election happened they didn't care anymore. because at that point, mission accomplished. because the mission was to influence the election. and so once the election was done, there's no more need for these agreements. the mission was the election. the mission was not to protect his brand. the mission wasn't to save his family embarrassment. it was to keep these people

silent, to pay them to be silent specifically and only to win the election, full stop. prosecution calls this a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election, one that was covered up by lying on these business records. logically that whole releasing people from the agreements once the election was over, logically that would seem to be the crux of this case if the prosecution can prove it. legally, though, we'll see, lawrence? >> so, rachel, here we arrive at the different burdens of prosecution and defense. the prosecution is going for logic, and you are following their logic. >> guilty. >> and their logic takes you to the national enquirer and this guy who told the enquirer that trump fathered a child. that turns out not to be true. never the courtroom agrees that that wasn't true. and then it takes you over to karen mcdougal.

and those are the two who are released from their confidentiality agreement after the election. and what the defense is going to say in final argument is that has nothing to do with this case, absolutely nothing. because remember, what the defense needs in final sergeant not logic. they're not trying to take you through a flawlessly logical story. they're just trying to tug at any little doubt they can find anywhere. and they will lean in final argument on that agreement in that courtroom that that guy who said -- who told the enquirer that donald trump illegitimately fathered a child was not telling the truth, wasn't telling the truth, just like stormy daniels wasn't telling the truth about donald trump. and donald trump gets hustled by these people all the time p we have to deal with them in different ways. donald trump has said publicly this happens to every man, every man, includes you, chris hayes,

sitting at this table, every man who's public, every man who's in the public eye is constantly paying off tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of these deals all the time. that's donald trump's claim, right? and he's going to say, this is happening to me all the time. and all of that mcdougal stuff, everything involving peck er, everything involving the enquirer is going to be thrown out the door in the final argument of donald trump's defense lawyers, because none of that is a charge crime. not a single thing in any of that. it's these business records. and the other piece of the defense we heard today about the business records is this is the name of the woman who made up, you know, the checks. this is the name of the bookkeeper, it's entered in the record, who filled out the forms. this is the name of the person who told her to say legal services and donald trump never told any of them to say legal services. that's the defense. donald trump didn't tell them to keep the books this way, and the money, oh by the way, was not

for having anything to do with stormy daniels. that's the entire defense. there's no other piece of the defense. excite has nothing to do with other people's, you know, nondisclosure agreements and all that stuff. and, of course, all of that stuff makes perfect sense when a prosecution is building you this flawless table that has logical -- four logical legs to it, defense is going to come along and say, no, it has no legs. the table has no legs. >> right. >> suspended. >> we released all these people from these agreements after the election because we love late november, and that's a time when we release everyone from their agreements. >> merry christmas. >> the defense will feel no need to explain at all why those nondisclosure agreements were no longer enforceable. they won't have any need to when they're in their final argument. they'll throw something out there in the course of the trial, but they won't feel compelled to explain that. >> what you're talking about, the claim from dino the doorman

being a false claim, what ami, nevertheless, agreed to pay for it and what michael cohen was paid and how they arrived at that amount was the snort your coffee out your nose in the courtroom moment today. we're going to talk about that, including with andrew weissman and katherine christian who are here keeping us on the legal straight and narrow as we proceed with our primetime recap of today's criminal proceedings against former president donald trump. ng against former president donal trump. [tense music] one aleve works all day so i can keep working my magic. just one aleve. 12 hours of uninterrupted pain relief. aleve. who do you take it for? ...and for fast topical pain relief,try alevex. [♪♪] there's a way to cut yourical dishwashing time by 50%. try dawn powerwash dish spray. it removes 99% of grease and grime in half the time.

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shell. powering progress. welcome back to our primetime recap of today's criminal court proceedings against former president donald trump. i was at the courthouse today in manhattan. i was in the courtroom for opening statements for this first criminal trial of the former president. i can report firsthand that the courtroom smells like old soup and stale breath. i can report that the police officers who police the courtroom are working very hard, and they appear to be very stressed. i can report that judge merchan is soft spoken and has what i think would be universally considered to be a pleasant voice. i can report that the prosecutor matthew speaks exactly like seth meyers speaks when seth meyers is not telling jokes.

i can tell you that the first witness, david, accidently gave out his whole phone number today when the prosecutor just asked him to confirm the last four digits. he was trying to remember the last four digits, and in order to get there he said the whole number out loud and, didn't mean to do that. i can report that former president donald trump looks a lot older than he used to and that it seemed to me in my subjective take that he -- he seemed miserable to be there. but you know, i look a lot older than i used to look as well, and i think anybody's got a right to look miserable when they're sitting in a courtroom charged with dozens of felonies as a criminal defendant. the courtroom is bare bones. it is not large. it is inelegant. it has unflattering lighting. like i said, it does not smell good, and everybody is very tense. what i mean to present to you with all of this information is that given the choice, nobody

would want to be there. except, of course, journalists and reporters covering the most historic trial in american political history. to that end, i'd also like to say that i am sorry to the journalists who were sitting immediately next to me because i unintentionally snorted out loud and went oh when this happened today at the trial. and when i read this part of the transcript to you, you will know why i said oh. prosecutor matthew, in january 2017 before the defendant moved down to washington to begin his presidency, michael cohen met with alan weisselberg of the trump organization to talk about how cohen was going to get reimbursed for the payoff to stormy daniels. weisselberg was the trump organization chief financial officer, and one of the defendant's longest serving and most trusted employees. neither trump nor the trump organization could just write a check to michael cohen for $130,000 with a memo line that said reimbursement for porn star payoff, they had to disguise the

nature of the repayment. so they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the repayment was actually income. payments for services rendered instead of a reimbursement. alan weisselberg asked mr. cohen to bring a copy of a bank statement showing the $130,000 payment that cohen had made to keep stormy daniels quiet before the election. weisselberg and cohen agreed to a total repayment amount of $420,000. here's how they got to that number. this is good. they started with $130,000 that trump owed cohen for the store hawaii daniels payoff. then they added $50,000 for a separate reimbursement cohen was claiming which had to do with tech services he paid for during the campaign. that adds up to $180,000. then they agreed to double that amount to $360,000 to account for taxes. now, of course, if trump was just reimbursing cohen, there was no need to gross it up for taxes.

they doubled it because their plan was to call it income instead of a reimbursement. if cohen was getting money they were calling income, he would have to pay taxes on it. cohen was close to a 50% tax bracket, so to make him whole, they had to double the amount to $360,000. then he had added another $60,000 as a year end bonus and all of that. cos out to a total of $420,000. and alan weisselberg wrote all of that down. whereupon i annoyed the people near me because i went, oh. this is the scene where stringer bell turns to the young man and says, are you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy? using a lot of swear words. yes, yes he was taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. prosecutor matthew, alan

weisselberg wrote all of that down. you can't believe this is real. the bank statement they told you about that he asked cohen to bring to their meeting, the bank statement from the essential consultant's account which showed the $130,000 wire that cohen had made to keith davidson to keep stormy daniels quiet. you will see in this trial allen weisselberg's handwriting down the side of that intang statement laying out every one of the steps i just described, showing how they converted the $130,000 payment amount to the 420 grand cohen was going to get paid back as a grossed up way to disguise it not as reimbursement but income. they took nots about it every step of the way, and the prosecution has the notes. and then here's the kicker, matthew, prosecutor, quote, cohen and weisselberg then met with trump, who approved the repayment amound of 420 grand on the $130,000 stormy daniels payment and a few other expenses. now, you will see evidence at trial that trump was a frugal

businessman. he believed in pinching penny, watching every dollar, negotiating every bill. it's all over the books he's written. he ran trump organization with total control. you will hear testimony about his relentless focus on the bottom line. when it came time to pay michael cohen back for the catch and kill deal, you will see he didn't negotiate the price down, he doubled it. and he doubled it so they could disguise it as income. you will hear evidence that the trump organization was not in the practice of paying people twice what they owed for anything. this might be the only time that it happened. and trump's willingness to do so shows how important it was to him to hide the payment to miss daniels and the overall election conspiracy that they had launched in august 2015. prosecutors saying trump is paying a lot for this and he never pays for anything, that's how important and sensitive this was. now, interestingly, moments later the defense used this same set of facts to make the opposite point to the jury.

saying, yeah, trump really is so cheap and so unwilling to pay for anything, so this must have been some other thing he was paying for. not the thing they have handwritten notes from his cfo about. joining us now is an andrew weissmann, also with us catherine christian. catherine and andrew, thank you both for being here. was stringer bell right to ask allen weisselberg are you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy? >> so you must have seen my note, because that is starred, that was the page where i had the same reaction. >> okay. >> so one of the things that you listen for when you listen to openings on both sides is you know that there are witnesses who are going to testify, and you think about what they're going to do, whether they have memory issues, credibility

issues, but what is -- the things that stood out to me was you had a reference to the tape recording that we've heard about. that's where donald trump is overheard saying, hey, let's just pay the $130,000 in cash. that's a terrible tape for donald trump. second, there was references to telephone records at a critical time that the payments were first made by michael cohen to stormy daniels. the two calls the prosecutor referenced between michael cohen and donald trump. and thin the third was this, definitely a fall off your chair moment, where they have it in writing. and what's so interesting is that the defense said the repayment was not -- it was not reimbursement for the payments to stormy daniels. i do not know how they're going to deal with that when you have these notes. and remember, when you make a

promise, when you say something in openings as catherine knows, as katie knows, that comes back to haunt you. if you have overpromised, if you've made a misstatement, both sides are listening for that because they're going to bring it up again in closing. >> catherine, is it important here that we don't expect allen weisselberg himself to be a witness to potentially, you know, walk the jury through what his notes meant and explain this document that is otherwise sort of a fall off your chair moment, like andrew said. >> well, it's a good thing since he's serving time for perjury. neither side wants him as a witness, so it's very good for the prosecution. because they can just have the notes and, obviously, donald trump doesn't want a perjurer testifying on his behalf so. that's a god thing. but i agree with andrew, this is the corroboration. when you talk about michael cohen and his baggage, this is where you have corroboration of his statement. so there's no way the manhattan

d.a.'s statement would have just relied on micah cohen's testimony if they did not have corroborating documents, corroborating witnesses. >> our primetime recap of the only criminal trial in the history of a former american president, not to mention a presumptive presidential nominee, is going to continue right after the break with all our all star panel and our legal experts here. we've got much more to come, stay with us. more to come, stay with us smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb.

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you. welcome back to our prime time recap of the criminal court proceedingsed to against former president donald trump, the historic criminal trial of the former president and the first criminal trial of the major party presidential nominee. from the prosecutor as ceo and president and chairman, did you have the final say over publishing decisions including which stories would get published and which stories would not get published? answer from david former ceo of american media. yes, i had the final say. on the celebrity side of the magazine industry, at least on the tabloid side, we used checkbook journalism, and we pay for stories. so i gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000 to

investigate or produce or publish the story. so anything over $10,000 that they would spend on a story, that would have to be vetted and brought up to me if they were going to spend more for approval. question, prosecutor, in addition to having to approve expenditures, did you also have final kind of editorial say? in other words the ability to determine that a particular story was not going to be run or a story was going to be run. answer, david being in the publishing industry for 40 years, i realized early in my career the only thing that's important is the cover of a magazine. so when the editors produced a story or prepare the cover, we would go over what the cost was going to be. question, prosecutor, and if the story involved, i guess for lack of a bet r way to say it, a big story or a famous person, did you have the final say on whether or not to publish that story? answer, david yes, i did. the first witness in the criminal trial of former president donald trump today

was david peck or, the former ceo of american media inc., ami, the company that used to own the national inquirer. now two points here about that testimony from david he's only on the stand for half an hour today, but we got all this stuff from the prosecution's case. first of all there is what he said about what counts as a normal amount of money for the kind of checkbook journalism that he says his company does. anything over $10,000, that would be unusual and sort of out of bounds. that will have to get personal approval from him as the chairman, president, and ceo of not just one of these publications, but the entire company with dozens of publications. $10,000 was the ceiling. beyond that they would have to go personally through him. but in this case prosecutors say they will present evidence that ami was doing something in a whole other league when it came to what they were doing for trump. for example before even

investigating a trump property doorman's claim about trump supposedly father fathering a secret child with a housekeeper that they would pay that man $30,000. they would pay the man making the claim $30,000 to make him be quiet about it before they even investigated whether it might be true. triple what is their normal limit for having to go to the ceo. also the claim about the affair with trump from former playboy play mate karen mcdougal. they paid her $150,000, which was 15 times their limit for going to the ceo and appears to have been way beyond what they were paying anybody else for anything. prosecutor matthew colangelo, directed howard, his editor in chief of the national enquirer to buy exclusive rights to that story. the evidence will show was not acting as a publisher, he was

acting as a coconspirator. the evidence will show this is a highly unusual deal, even for tabloid journalism. it was a lot more money than they would usually pay to a source. they bought the doorman's story without even fully investigating it. it was the first time david had ever paid anyone for information about donald trump. but directed that the deal take place because of the agreement he had reached or because he promised trump at the trump tower meeting on august 15 that he would use his media empire to help the defendant's campaign, and they knew public disclosure of the doorman's information would hurt that campaign. so what prosecutors laid out today and what the witness helped them prove today is that the practice described here in this alleged criminal conspiracy were not at all normal, not even for tabloid checkbook journalism that pays for stories. even for american media specifically and the national enquirer specifically, this is

not their bag. this is not a part of what they do as a magazine. this is a part of what they do as an alleged criminal conspiracy with donald trump to illegally influence the election. so that's why. the second and final part about this david testimony that is perhaps to the overall case here. the part he says, "the only thing that's important is the cover of a magazine." stepping back from just the legal fight here, if this was a criminal conspiracy to influence the election, how much influence are we talking about here? in terms of how much influence this alleged criminal conspiracy could have had on the election? how influential is the national enquirer, right? they only have about 150,000, 200,000 copies sold nationwide in a week these days. but the covers, the covers are the only thing that matters.

they have their covers in the face of even who shops at a mainstream grocery store anywhere in america in all 50 states. the cover of the national national enquirer, the only thing that matters, the covers of the magazine from the time of the alleged criminal conspiracy with trump. the covers that were in your face at every supermarket in the country week after week and for months on end, looked like this. trump, why i am the only choice for president. the donald trump nobody knows. the babes and bucks. the real reason why he hates obama and the clintons. this one has a special place in my heart. putin picks trump for president. or this one. how trump will win. or following how trump will win the debate. and also hillary's nephew is in the clan. trump takes charge.

also bill clinton is dying. and hillary is dying. and also hillary is corrupt. that one is not clear enough. it just says corrupt, one big word. and also says hillary will never be president. this is their election eve bomb shell edition. hillary, corrupt, racist, criminal. before 2016 the national inquirer never before endorsed a presidential candidate. but this is what they did in 2016. when they did those covers, they were doing something very different with donald trump than they have ever done with any politician before. something that was in the face of every person who ever walked up to the little conveyer belt thing at the supermarket checkout line anywhere in america, any time during the duration of the alleged conspiracy, which was the duration of the 2016 campaign. whether or not you ever picked up the magazine, let alone open

it past the cover, this propaganda, which is the product of this allegedly illegal campaign scheme was in the face of likely, if not, tens of billions of americans, perhaps more than had 100 million americans. how many of us go to a grocery store? was it a first time ever arrangement with trump in their opening state was a criminal scheme to protect the 2016 presidential election. and a criminal scheme hatched just a few weeks after he announced his candidacy for president. a criminal scheme, which ultimately landed him in criminal court today as the first ever u.s. president to be in the cover-up of the alleged criminal conspiracy, which larged as a string of 34 felonies. joy, my friend. there is -- not a lawyer, not a

lawyer? >> no. >> one of many things that we care. >> indeed. >> there's a way to look at what's happening in the courtroom that you need legal help with and you need them to walk us through in terms of how they were likely to react to them. and that there is the real deal look at it in terms of the logic and the case that's being made and to understand. >> and you know, you quoted that we share it live earlier, but you want it to be one way, but it's the other. the checkbook journalism fees. normally if you pay for a salacious piece of news, you publish it. you put it on the cover. if you're the national inquirer acting like they would normally act and you have a doorman who knows about the illicit child, you publish it.

earlier you were talking about the things that stood out to you in the opening arguments. the things that stood out to me that goes along with this is the part they said donald trump may seem larger than life, but he's just a man. he's a father, a husband. chris is already laughing. a father and a husband, and he is just like you. yeah, he's just a guy. you know what's not normally? the babes and bucks guy, talking about with all the babes. what's also not normal is even being accused of having an illicit trial. here is the biggest thing that donald trump will have. this is not about 2020 trump. this is about 2015, 2016 trump who was running for office where they were his brand,

sleeping with the playboy bunny and that it was a part of his brand. and who is pregnant with their fifth child would be so terrified that poor melania would be shot, that he might have been sleeping with playboy bunnies, that he was so fearful that he would be hurt, chris. it would hurt his feelings and that he would have to do a hush money to save her. no one will believe that. no one with any sense will believe that. >> she will no longer feel bad as soon as the election is over. she would get over it like it is over and be like okay. none of it makes sense. but the problem for trump, that lawrence kind of stole my thing that i was going to say that you could tell that his attorney, mr. blanch, that i

feel tremendous pity for at that point was not doing the case that he would do if he had the freedom to do that case that way. and so i had unusual saying my client is totally confident because he's owing that. my client is a tremendous businessman, exciting, handsome. the things he's doing are what trump wanted him to do and something they would normally do. you need to relate to him. donald trump ran to be larger than life. >> yes, yes. it's good to be here. >> do you have a quire quote? >> oh my gosh. >> and cerealized tv shows. like none of this is normal. for all students out there, checkpoint journalism is not a thing. also what's inside the magazine also matters. i was just going to say someone

who has had many stories published, very few has been on the cover. it matters. just putting it out there. the strategy from trump's team will seem to be normalized outlandish things, which is keeping what donald trump has done to the country to the abnormal. not only by the of it all, i'm happy to say it, but at one point, we were like six years old. >> day 25 of that a lot of people do them. this is nothing normal. it happens. this is the thing that gets done. it doesn't mean there is anything suspect about that. catch and kill. it happens all the time.

there is nothing illegal about this scheme. this sort of thing happens all the time. this is from todd blanch's mouth to the jury. there is nothing wrong trying to influence an election. it's called democracy. that is not how the world works, todd blanch, that's maybe the argument they're going to use because time and time again, telling the american public over and over again, there is nothing to see here. he had impeachments one and two. this is just how it works. maybe they could get away with it. and you are held to a different standard. i was flabbergasted that this is the best they could come up with when faced with a lot of material from the prosecution. >> i also think what's happening here too is you're seeing that what is also not

normal is somebody like ami and david becker, having to get immunity. because it's okay to do all of this in journalism. why would you need immunity from prosecution. >> yeah. >> why would he go to prison, right? if donald trump shouldn't be prosecuted. and so that just kind of shows how donald trump has turned normal or abnormal into normal and how he's normalized. >> on the point of the kind of journalism that they do. today when david was on the stand. he's the one who volunteered the phrase, this is what we do. national enquirer has no shame about this, this is what they do. but they do sometimes, they do sometimes, with people other than donald trump, find out

negative information about a person, then decide not to run it. why do they do that? because they want to have that person consent to be on their magazine cover for other reasons. they have done this about cosby, bill cosby with a bunch of bad information about them. they did not run it. they had a bunch of bad conversations about it and doing a bunch of stuff with them and claims that they had not seen before this weekend and that they did the same thing with tiger woods. he sold magazines. so they have done this vague pattern, this big scale pattern with other people. the difference is when they did it with donald trump, they only did it when it came to the election. prosecutors said today in their opening statement they had never before paid anybody for any information related to donald trump. when it came to keeping donald trump on the good side, what

that meant without keeping trump happy, were they were paying them to get away from, but to help donald trump win the election. that's why ami needed to get limited immunity. that's why michael cohen had to go to prison because they weren't just trying to keep him happy, the way they were trying to keep cosby and tiger woods happy. they were trying to keep them happy by making him president. >> there is also a different regulatory structure in the election. >> that's the key thing. >> there is your crime, right? and the reason, i mean it is strange at one level because of the covers you showed. like you could have your best homie running the magazine and he gets you elected. that is actually america. like that is perfectly fine. that's been happening since the founders. it's the fact this was explicitly a campaign

undertaking that was designed that couldn't be disclosed and turned into crime, where the rubber hits the road to the black of the note. if it was that, they could have written the reimbursement check. >> right. >> it would have been like pick me and clean and again, that it would have been a campaign expense or someone, you know, so the point is when they get down to the nitty-gritty of who is paying this for what reason, they will have to lie because they run a foul of it. i will say one thing that i don't get and i read a book on this. he's just that loyal of a dude. he loves donald trump that much. he'll have access to the president of the united states. >> and trump sells papers. >> right. >> and really, this is an extraordinary amount. >> and so the defense council today. one of the stranger things that he said in his opening argument today is watch david testimony

very carefully. david is not his witness. he said david may not say what these prosecutors are telling you he's going to say because he's implying he's going to e testify likely tomorrow, you know, maybe later on in the week. he's likely going to e testify because he wanted to keep donald trump happy. he wanted to keep him happy because he wanted to keep donald trump doing things with their papers because he was sold and he was good for them. the problem is that's okay if the way you're trying to keep him happy is just doing the normal checkbook journalism that you do. then the whole piece is implemented. >> you can't get through any of this without answering the question why did michael cohen go to jail? you spent a lot of time and by the southern district of new york under the trump regime.

and what did he do wrong? you go back and say if he'll be impeached. when did he become a criminal? he never committed crimes before 2015, 2016. he gets a campaign e-mail. he suddenly has a campaign e- mail. he's the personal lawyer. and then he goes into it. he then gets prosecuted and donald trump is an unindicted coconspirator in that. what did he go to jail for that was criminal? he went and took out a loan because he didn't have the money to himself, the rich pal of trump, so he didn't have the money and had he to lie because he didn't qualify for the loan. he then takes out a loan and has to commit mortgage fraud to get the money. gives the money. not even to donald trump, but give it to the third party. he never slept with and doesn't necessarily know. why would he do that? so the problem is everything they want to say about michael cohen is only true about michael cohen because of donald

trump because he doesn't benefit from it and of the thing he was working for that wasn't even his job. he was a fixer who is helping with the election. >> can i ask a legal question that floats around? was there a way to lawyer this properly? like was there a way to say we've got a problem here, okay? we are all in the command room. we've got these women who are making this accusation. we don't want this to get out. how do we lawyer this, so we were not committing a crime. that's not the way they think. and that people love to roll around in dirt. just like they love it. they love to be like it's all dirty, it's like awe, catch and kill, i'm writing a check. like all this none sense. i'm saying what would the lawyer version of this look like and could you lawyer it successfully such that you were not committing a crime? >> there is no super professional version of this. you don't create llcs to be

able to funnel money unless you're funneling money. i mean lawyers just don't do that. and that is actually a risk for donald trump. some people think two lawyers is a liability, but these are corporate lawyers. none of whom are creating llcs in other states to hide ownership to be able to funnel money on behalves of the president. and the other way would have been a straight reimbursement, which we know didn't happen, right? >> push that. >> yes, they happen all the time. i don't disagree with his theories. ndas happen all the time. but they are not doing it for i want to hammer on, and over the campaign will require a limit. if you had a super pack who

bought it. again, things have gotten so screwed up. if you had written the check. why didn't they just have -- when they were going through the math. i had the thought this guy was cheap. don't report his income and maybe no one will notice. >> right, there's ways to do it. there are ways to do it that is less taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. but i think the nut of it, there's a criminal intention here. so you would make a prettier, that's what i'm trying to say and you can't do that when you're running for president. that's the gave away. the recap of the trump's criminal case in new york. stay with us.

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welcome back to the recap of the defense trial today in the middle of the opening

statement today when something unusual happened. michael cohen paid stormy daniels or stephanie clifford $130,000 in exchange for her agreeing to not publicly spread false claims about president trump is not illegal. i'm going to say that again. objection, judge, sustained. it is perfectly legal. the prosecution, ejection, the judge overruled. it happens again right away when they threatened to go public back in 2008 as the people just said it is very close to the election and it was an attempt to extort them. the prosecutor, objection. the judge sustained. then they try to keep going, but a moment later, mr. blanche entering the agreement that you

will hear they were negotiated by lawyers, prosecutors, objections. now at this point, the judge does not even rule on the objection. he doesn't say sustained or overruled. instead he'll call lawyers from both sides up to the bench. please approach. the lawyers and the judge then confer and the judge rules. judge, the objection is sustained. and it is trump's lawyer that will move on to the other topic, but he will make it just three for the transcript when the whole thing starts over again. separately from his obsession and his obsession to get trump on multiple occasions and lied. objection, judge, sustained. blanche, has he walked into the courtroom very near here and raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth and now he'll tell you, i suspect he was lying. prosecutor, objection.

judge, sustained. for the second time they call up the lawyers to the bench. please approach. and a second time he upholds the objection. it's sustained. now i was in the court when the string of objections happened in the opening statements, getting held up that the lawyer having to restart when he was saying to try to find that momentum again and picked back up. to me it seemed dramatic and strange. how rare is it for objections to be made for opening statements and with multiple directions to the lawyers including the one making the opening statement to talk to the judge? what does this tell us about the trial and that they are trying to make? joining us now is lisa ruben in the overflow room. i understand that a part of

your sacrifice today, allowing me to be there that you have your butt in and it is not a sacrifice, and i'm grateful, and i bequeathed back to you. >> thank you, i think. in some ways you will have a better view of it sitting back, watching it sort of down the isle. it's relative to the opening statement. let's start with the fact that the southern district of new york and what he's not is an experienced defense lawyer. i mean we learned today that something that confirmed something i suspected, which is that he has tried exactly one trial as the defense trial in the last decade. on the fairly narrow issue. if you were just in that courtroom, you probably would have expected it as much because his flow was interrupted so many times by the side bars. now that having been said, rachel, i think a number of the

things that he did today were perfectly intentional. while they were objected to, he still planted the seeds of doubt in the juror's minds. in particular, for example, when he said that stormy daniels made donald trump a victim of extortion, that was immediately objected to and sustained because among other things, it's a legal conclusion that there was no prosecution, for example, of stormy daniels for extorting donald trump. >> and he would have known in advance that they would not get away from saying that? >> that's probably right. there were other objections that he knew and that the place where he definitely knew is when he would talk about the diet council defense where he would essentially said that trump believes that these non- disclosure agreements were kosher because he had attorneys, negotiating them for them. that's an issue that has been litigated as a part of their motions, which is the advanced arguments about which evidence can and cannot come in and they knew when he walked into the courtroom this morning that that was not going to be an

argument allowed because he was trying to use them as a sword. but we're not going to tell you what that advice was and just like they did in the sam bankman-fried case, i won't let them do that and yet that is where they still went. >> and i know it will make everyone move around if i could. she's on the other side of the room and i realize that they need to make this happen. you have experience. what lisa is describing about doing this kind of lawyering, this kind of the case is one piece of perspective here. another thing is what's normal in the new york d.a. criminal proceeding like this?

and that these objections, they would happen during the opening statements here from the defense. it's not as the federal court. and that the defense attorneys, some of them would pride themselves on stepping on the line. i hit object when i was a prosecutor because they would step on the line. as they said, oopsie, the jury heard what they said, so it is in their head. i can't say it happens all the time, but it's not shocking and i rarely object it as a prosecutor because i did not want them to think that i was trying to hide something from them. he was clearly saying things that they ruled against, but it's not shocking. at least in the world of new york county. >> let me ask you something they said earlier where she said in the minds of the jury,

he might have knocked down the favors because of the statements that were being objected today and all the interruptions because the jury might have thought even if the seeds were planted in their minds that they were not suppose to say that here that at least they would think that he was doing something wrong. >> and to take them against the defense attorney or the prosecutors. and that they would talk about how they like the defense attorney and that they really fought for their clients. so i don't think that they will think very bad. i think as lisa just said that there is a tactic. he knew they were objectional and that you can't unring that bell, what would come out to the jury as they could not

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so under an order imposed by the court in this criminal case. donald trump is not allowed to make or direct others to make

public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses, concerning their potential participation in the investigation or if this criminal proceeding. he's not allowed to do that. prosecution is now arguing that trump has done that a lot. there will be a hearing tomorrow morning at 9:30 eastern before the jurors will come into the courtroom. prosecutors are going to ask the judge to find that former president trump willfully violated the gag order by attacking stormy daniels and michael cohen. attacking their credibility on up to 10 separate occasions. if the judge finds trump in criminal contempt of court on these matters, trump could be fined up to $1,000 each for each violation and that's what they were asking for. they could possibly be sentenced it a maximum of 30 days in jail where they are certainly not asking for that yet. i mean tonight, trump sent a fundraising e-mail called my

farewell message, making it sound like he's going to jail. i already meant to ask our legal experts about it, but we just cued up new sounds from donald trump today from an interview on a conservative network called real america's voice. here it is donald trump talking about the jury in his trial. >> and that jury was picked so fast at 95% democrats. the areas, mostly all democrats that you would think of it as a purely democrat area. it's a very unfair situation that i could tell you. >> and that jury, 95% democrats. again the last item in the gag order forbids trump from making or directing others to make public statements about any perspective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding. andrew weissmann still with us here tonight. the gag order has been the discussion that i feel like we've had around the edges of this case a lot because it's

the way that trump has tried to shape the environment around it had case. it's going to be in the courtroom front and center tomorrow morning at 9:30. what do you expect the judge will do? what will you be watching for? >> so you have donald trump clearly goating the judge. the fact that he's doing something that appears by all accounts to be a direct violation of the order as late as tonight. in advance of a 9:30 hearing on violations with respect to witnesses and with respect to jurors. both of which a judge is going to care tremendously about. you know, i think obviously they're going to hear from the defense and the betting is he's going to certainly say there was a violation and he could impose the fine that is obvious lineagable, and he could talk about what's next. this is one where i would say

if i were, like if he were sitting right here, leave aside politics. leave aside what he's goating somebody to do. what would you do for any other defendant? and that we have seen the legal system bend over sort of so far to accommodate donald trump. he is not being treated worse. he's been treated so much better. whether you're talking about doj or whether you're talking about all the criminal cases. this is one where he wouldn't have to impose 30 days in jail, but he can really do like a child, give them a time out and be a step back and be kept in the courthouse. but i think this is clearly like a child testing what will happen. and it is at the very outside of the case. if there isn't a firm hand right now and the rule of law is imposed, it really is a terrible message in terms of

how the trial is going to go forward because he's going to continue to do this. if he's going to try to seek a mistrial by his antics, that's something he could try. so the court, who is extremely experienced, is going to have to be really careful about what exact sanction he'll impose tomorrow. >> how will the judge decide or how will the hearing like this goes? it's the way that courts will start tomorrow. is he going to just roll or ask defense council and the prosecutors to make arguments in front of him. is he going to have a witness talk? >> so he could ask both sides to state their position. he could see if there is a dispute of facts. you could actually have a hearing on this. and the facts seem so clear unless they will say somebody else took over my account. roger stone tried that when he

was in violation and took the witness stand and said i didn't do that and okay, i did do it and that is when he posted the judge's picture with cross hairs next to her head. so there can be a hearing, but it may not be necessary. just given the volumes of education here and now up to 11 allegations that will be before the judge. but ultimately it would be the state's burden to go forward. all right, we will be back with more of the criminal trial, former president trump's opening statements started today. again tomorrow's proceedings will start 9:30 in the morning with a hearing on whether or not trump should be held in contempt for violation of the gag order that's suppose to restrict his ability to menace witnesses or jurors in this case. we'll be right back after the break.

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with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. the criminal trial of former president donald trump is happening in a specific place. it's happening downtown manhattan. these were anti-trump protesters today outside the scene of today's courtroom proceedings. i would show you visuals of pro- trump protesters today, but there weren't any. there were enough to fit them into a sedan, a small sedan.

i saw four. one of them i think might have been a reporter. stephanie ruhle joined us. the pro-trump protesters were trying to say because republicans are being prevented from going to that lower part of manhattan. how do you make of this happening in new york? >> that's the story of this for me. the arc of donald trump in new york, right? the boy who drew up in queens who dreamt of being king of nu. think of the 80s in a limousine, right at trump tower in the middle of fifth avenue. an old man slumped over. even the idea that they might not live in tribeca, but there might be two million. such a few number of people in

the court. outside court protesting on his matter of law today. a single member of his family, right? the argument that he was protecting his family. that's white whole thing happened. he's a family man. not a son, not a daughter, a wife, a cousin, not an uncle. no one. the whole thing is stunning. >> our friend, a new york times investigative reporter was at the courthouse today in the overflow room. susan, it's good to see you. i know you've been there all of last week. authorize, what was different today now that opening statements have started? do you feel you have a better sense of where the case is going? >> i definitely do. it was kind of a reporter to the bone and i was really channeled by the references that we got to text messages and e-mails that we had not heard of before and you've got to imagine that there is more coming on the front. that we would have one where

dylan howard, the top editor of the national enquirer, he's texting information about her back and forth with other people. we're going to be able to see some of that. the other thing i'm really wondering, david is going to be up tomorrow. i mean how much more information are we going to get about the meeting that he had with michael cohen and donald trump. what was the arrangement? it is more than just those three payments that we know about. there are so many more covers. just how did that all happen. we will see how they unfold tomorrow. >> i found them soft spoken, made me think he'll be up there for a long time? >> it did. from the overflow room, he seemed kind of approachable in almost sort of like a

grandfatherly-friendly figure. it was interesting, cartwright who we had earlier, was talking about him. he used to work with him as a younger man, he was slower, forgettable. he came across a little differently, and i wonder how he played with the jury, but approachable. i think people got a different view of him depending on what room they were in. but i found -- i'm wondering how he is going to play with the jury and he's going to be up i would imagine for a few days. i think he has a lot to say. >> this is a donald trump criminal trial. there is a lot about the national enquirer in ami that everybody is covering it and a lot will come from him including tomorrow morning. susan craig, thank you. our coverage of trump's very busy legal day, legal week continues in just a moment. stay with us. (♪♪) i'm getting vaccinated with pfizer's pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine.

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