tonight, the opening statements from the prosecution and the defense. the first witness takes the stand. >> we should be expecting more of david >> rachel maddow was in the courtroom to see it all. >> we got a road map to how the case will 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 psaki, stephanie ruhle, and legal experts are all here. special coverage of trump on trial begins now. thank you for joining us for this special prime time 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 is a candidate for president. i am rachel maddow at msnbc headquarters along with lawrence o'donnell and chris hayes and jen psaki. we will be joined by joy reid and alex wagner and stephanie ruhle. are legal experts andrew weissmann and catherine will keep us on the straight and narrow. lisa ruben is here and susanne craig who were at the trial. lisa and suzanne and katie were in the overflow room today. i was in the actual courtroom

which makes it sound like i got the better see. i will tell you, there are advantages and disadvantages to both ways of sitting on the trial and a lot of to do with the five senses. we will talk about that a little bit tonight. the trial got underway at 9:930 eastern time this morning three hours before breaking early for the passover holiday and for one juror to get to an emergency dentist appointment. i hope it went okay. that short day preceding brought us a bunch of really important news about this case. first thing, a substantive ruling from judge merchan about effectively, what prosecutors will be allowed to ask of trump if he chooses to take the stand in his own defense. this is something called the sandoval hearing that happened at the end of the week last week. this was judge merchan's ruling on that sandoval hearing. basically, and non-legalese, it's -- of trump presents

himself as a witness, prosecutors will want to call his credibility as a witness into question. they will 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. executors have to as the judge. prosecutors had asked permission to raise 13 different bad things about former president trump in front of the jury. judge merchan rule they are allowed to raise six of those 13 things but not the rest of them. now, is a good or bad news for the prosecution? good or bad news for the defense? i don't know. we will get advice to how much of a win or loss that is for either side. that was out of the gate, a substantive thing about how much the jurors will get to hear about trump if he testifies. this is done out of fairness to

the defense. the defense basically needs to know if it's worth it to put trump on the stand. they cannot compel trump to speak, but if he chooses to take the stand, they understand the parameters of what he might be asked about and that will help them fairly make a decision about whether or not it's a good idea for him to become a witness in his own case. that happened today. it went fast. we also today got opening statements from each side. each side completed their opening statements today. the opening statements admittedly, i am a dork but i found fascinating. they were so different from one another. you think of opening statements as being a boilerplate thing or you expect with they will be like but these were two totally different ways. the prosecution started. they laid out a dispassionate, straightforward, linear very blunt case. it started this way.

the prosecutor, good morning, your honor, counsel, members of the jury. this case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover up. the defendant, donald trump, orchestrated a criminal scream to corrupt the presidential election and then a covered of the criminal conspiracy by lying in his new york business records over and over and over again. june 2015, donald trump excuse me, he announced his candidacy for president in the 2016 election. a few months later, this conspiracy began. so, that's how it started from the prosecution and their opening. we will talk about the prosecution's argument. the blunt, streamlined, linear nature of the case and the way they are making a. in contrast, this was the opening of the opening statement from the defense. defense counsel for former president trump. good morning, your honor. president trump is innocent.

president trump did not commit any crimes. the manhattan district attorney's office should never brought this case. you have heard this a few times already this morning and you will hear 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 his president trump is presumed innocent. he is cloaked in innocence. that cloak of innocence does not leave president trump today and does not leave him at any day during this trial, and i will not leave him when you all deliberate. you will find that he is not guilty. president trump, you have seen him for years, and you have seen them on television. you've seen photos and you've seen articles written about him. he is in some ways larger than life but he's in this courtroom doing what any of us would do. defending himself. you will hear me and even witnesses refer to him as

resident trump. this is a title he has earned because he was our 45th president. we will call him president trump out of respect for the office he held from 2017 to 2021. as everybody knows, cfs seas running for now. he's a republican nominee. this is important, is not just our former president. he's not just donald trump you've seen on tv are seen photos of, he is a man, a husband, father, and he is a person, just like you and just like me. what the people did for 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 can see the difference in the approach. you think you know what an opening statement is. they are both opening statements but from different planets. you know, good defense will always presumably try to make

it seem like the prosecution case is less straightforward than it seems. the defense, after all, has to inject some reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. they do not need to prove him innocent. in this case, trump's defenses bluntly proclaiming him innocent. that was literally the first line of the statement to the jury. president trump is innocent. to make that case, bolster the case, his defense lawyers today, and this surprised me as a lay observer, president trump's lawyers today found themselves also having to make a number of supporting claims about trump's behavior around this incident and these alleged crimes. they were claims that, i think, outside the courtroom and to those of us not on the jury, there claims that will raise a lot of eyebrows. i do not know what the effect will be on the jury. these things are hard to sell. out on a street corner or a cocktail party on tv.

we will see if the jury buys them. blanche, quote, when he became president in 2017, he put up a wall between himself and his company. he put his company in a trust. eight did this so he could run the country and he would not 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 this company when he was president? i don't know with the jury will think of that claim, but, pick your example. remember when mike pence had a meeting in dublin, ireland,'s vice president of the trump administration had him stay on the other side of the island? the whole other side of the country, hours away from us meeting in dublin so he could say they had a trump property while 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 he would be staying 181 miles away from dublin? tell me more about the wall between president trump and his company? anyway. president trump's counsel claiming to the jury that trump paid michael cohen purely for legal services. he definitely did not pay him is a reimbursement for this hush money payment to stormy daniels, the woman they wanted to keep quiet about her claims of a sexual relationship with former president trump. they are claiming this really was just payment from trump to michael cohen for legal services even though they also admitted to the jury today that cohen had been trump's lawyers for years and years and it would appear that cohen was never paid like this before, and any of the years he worked for trump. president trump's defense counsel is claiming 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. you can make of that what you will. the jury will be expected to believe this because the claim for the defenses donald trump is innocent. we now know that this is the nature of the defense they will mount. they will have trump himself testify or they may not. the will make as much as possible over the fact they will call him president trump. they will create what appears, outside the courtroom, to be an earth 2 narrative in which trump did not have sex was stormy daniels but nothing to do with this company well president, that must've been the wall he built. even though he apparently never paid michael cohen this way before, coincidentally, after michael cohen on his own volition and his own reasons, decided to take out a home equity line of credit to pay a

pornography star that he himself never met and never had sex with. coincidentally after michael cohen did that out of the goodness of his 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 us on temblor that involved 35,000 other checks he signed in the oval office. it was all a coincidence and none of it had anything to do with the election. maybe. we will see. we will talk tonight about what prosecutors said about how they came up with a payment plan to cohen , personally, i unintentionally loudly snorted in court when i heard this, which was not polite and annoyed the person sitting next to me. i will apologize and explain. we will talk about the first witness whose name is david they like to test our maturity as broadcasters. he was the ceo of the company

that used to run the national enquirer. 's testimony only got started today. it was only on the stand for half an hour. even just in the half an hour, get prosecutors a bunch of what they wanted. we will talk about how weird it was that one trump's defense counsel was giving his opening argument, his opening statement to the jury today, there were multiple objections from the prosecutors. objections to the opening statement including multiple objections that were sustained by the judge would let to the judge, multiple times, stopping the opening statement and making all the lawyers come up to the bench to talk to him in private. it was bizarre to see in person. we will get advice on how out that is as a matter of law and of trial procedure in new york. we will tonight get to the card that prosecutors have in their deck that seems logically unassailable, at least 10 nonlawyer observers of this case.

a card the prosecutors have in their deck that they showed a little today and he goes to the heart of this matter. we heard no defense to it today from the other side. at least, not yet. we will get all of that in this prime time recap. that's what we are here for. i want to start with my colleagues with overall impressions of how things went today. how things are starting off for the former president. >> i have lots of thoughts but my big take away was during the judge's instructions to the jury. the reason is we have been doing this, donald trump comes down the escalator so we've been doing this nine years. there is this question of, how does a democratic society come to conclusions about things? the court of public opinion? there's lots of reasons people believe what they believe about donald trump. what was fascinating is part of the reason so many wanted this trial is when given instructions to the jury, he's giving a methodology for

divining the truth. he is talking to them and say here are the ground rules. you're coming from different places and you might have different politics, but here we will work on this methodology. you can assess credibility. have to work up the evidence. basic stipulation. there is, some part of you that wants this democratic version of that in the court of public opinion. there was something bracing about that moment simply because he has thrived in an environment for so long in defining what, to me, seemed the obvious ways you should come to conclusions. here you have this cross- section of people. i thought the level of language and intellect and knowledge he was assuming was great. he was not talking down to them. you are smart people and this is how we will do it. it felt to me the reason for so much on this is partly because how haywire is gone outside the courtroom.

there's a miniature version of something happening in there about discourse and reasons and arguments that was exciting to listen to. >> the kind of politician which trump is which is appeal to emotion. reason does not apply. >> firmly, this is how we will do would. i'm not telling you conclusions but the method we will agree on. >> and it's the opposite -- >> reassuring. what struck me as you outlined it well in the beginning is the difference between the opening statements. that's what's helpful for people watching it in the courtroom because reading the transcripts, i have a lot of post-it notes here, it struck me that defense was like a circus leader. he had a couple of things on a note card. the prosecution's case, you could picture what this guy was like in a study group, i would want to be in his study group.

he has an outline of writes notes on it. even as nerdy and a good way that was, this is a case about falsifying business records. he used real estate and words in opening statement to lay out the case why trump is a guy who pay to cover up information from the american public, multiple times. i thought that was interesting. the national enquirer aspect which is important was so dominant this morning. >> it's a story about the national enquirer, at least thus far. david the first witness, testimony to that, not an accident. if trump and the national enquirer, trump and emi were in a criminal conspiracy is prosecutors allege, all we need to know about trump, most of what we will learn is about ami. >> that made begin with reporting from my beat which is outside the building. [ laughter ] among the people, who i will now call the people and not the protesters, because they were not protesting.

i counted two. three trump supporters i will call them. you could not hear a word from them. they kept everything at a conversational tone. from where chris is, you could not hear what they were saying to each other. the only person you could hear was a loudmouth guy who was fairly close to them yelling at them about bill clinton balancing the budget. [ laughter ] that was it. that's what the people had to say out there in the street. >> it's new york, and he might've been doing that since 1992. >> in the courtroom, it's the first time we have heard the defense. we had the indictments so we knew an awful lot about what we were going to hear. this is the defense opening statement. there are 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 the room should call him president trump. you are some kind of punk if you don't. that's what he was trying to suggest. the other point seems to be a client-directed instruction. there was no need to do this, especially no need today. to claim that donald trump did not have any sexual contact with stormy daniels. that's a claim beyond the needs of the defense. they do not need to claim that. they might decide tactically to claim that some point later in the truck, i cannot think of why. the only way they can actually enter that in the evidence, there's only one way, and is by donald trump taking the witness stand. he won't take the witness stand

for a lot of reasons. to assert that in that opening statement, that jury will be in the room without any proof or even testimony from donald trump about what happened. it raises a question to the prosecution, if they were on the fence of calling stormy daniels. there is a theory where you don't have to call stormy daniels. what did that do to the prosecution's thinking about calling stormy daniels? if they want to claim at 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, what did they do? by the way, jury, what do you think? here she is. that real person in the room. it's one of those things where you have to wonder, what was

the defense lawyer thinking? the answer is likely to be an order from the client. >> there was a quotable remark about stormy daniels from trump in defense counsel which he said stormy daniels does not matter. her testimony will not matter. then why are you talking about a? >> it matters now because you just said she is lying. you just made stormy daniels testimony matter more than it did yesterday. >> exactly. >> for me, so much time was spent before this actual first criminal trial of donald trump launched pooh-poohing the importance of this case. i felt the two hours we were in court that you saw why we should care. more importantly by the jurors should care about this case. that's always the most important job for a prosecutor. the jurors are doing civic duty.

summer laboring against their better intentions of being there and concerns about being there. when you heard matthew get up today, he clearly and succinctly told the jury, this is why it matters. that makes a difference because 34 felonies is nothing to sneer at. anyone could put donald trump into person for four years. when you hear the prosecution lay out a clear road map, and that's what openings are for, not for argument. they are for laying out a road map and what the evidence is. who are the players? why are they so critical to the story? it starts to make sense. that's why you set the tone in opening statement. that's why blanche trying to pick something off a tree to talk about sends a message to the jury, in the wrong way, you don't have to be here but you

have to be here. the reason wise with the prosecution told you was going to be the crux of the case. it's not just about falsification. it's to influence the outcome of the presidential election. it's not the private acts between two people. it's how it impacted american voters at large. that was a most important thing we got out of opening statements. >> in terms of your assessment, having seen address and address the jury for the first time like this, i feel is a nonlawyer watching these two different styles, i know which one works better on me in the moment. i don't want to presume that's true for juries. the looser style, the more emotional to aggressive style we are seeing from trump's attorney, is it less effective with the jury? is it a matter of a personal match between the counselor and the audience? >> it's a great question because it's sometimes personal preference. i respect the concern about not having confirmation bias going

into how the openings were done. there's a reason why they are opening statements. there's a reason why the objections by the prosecution got sustained. when blanche went beyond what he was allowed to do, not only did the objections get sustained, and you can watch law and order and understand it's sustained and you did something wrong. notice how it interrupted flow? he gets up and does his thing and sits down. they had to go sidebar multiple times so blanche had to interrupt and interrupt, and it sends a message to the jury that blanche is doing something wrong. whether the emotive style is sure thing, the fact he's getting chastised the judge sent a message that jurors can't overlook. >> good point. we will talk about the sustaining of those objections and the interruptions to donald trump's lawyers opening statement. we will talk about -- if you were in charge of defending

donald trump, what would you most worry about? what would seem unassailable about the prosecution's case? will do that after the break. we have a lot to get to. if you spit blood when you brush, it could be the start of a domino effect. new parodontax active gum repair breath freshener. clinically proven to help reverse the four signs of early gum disease. a new toothpaste from parodontax, the gum experts.

welcome back to our prime time recap of today's proceedings in the criminal trial of former president trump. as lawrence o'donnell just mentioned, today was the first time that we have heard from the defense. we have heard from the prosecution in effect with the indictment, with the announcement of charges that led to today's proceedings. it's the first time we got to see that defense go through their paces. for defense counsel for former president trump, we did get a sense in their opening statements about how it looks

like they will try to defend the client. if the opening statements are a guide, they will stress that mr. trump is a former president and they will always call him president trump. they will stress be on that that he right now is a presumptive republican nominee or as defense counsel called him, the republican nominee. not even presumptive. they will claim every aspect of this was an innocent act by trump. there was not and underlying sexual encoder to cover up come even though that would seem immaterial to the charges. they seem to be claiming that michael cohen, trump's lawyer, payday pornography store on his own accord and for his own reasons that trump only paid michael cohen for legal services, just like he always had but changed to a new weird way of paying him after the pornography star thing because they will think of something.

if you were on this defense team, if in charge of coming up with a defense for mr. trump, here's a part of the prosecution case that would seem to be the most difficult thing to explain logically. if you are really going to mount a defense of trump did nothing wrong, there was no conspiracy to corrupt the election as the prosecution but it at the top of their opening statements today, this would seem the toughest thing logically that you are up against. this is from the opening statement from prosecutor colangelo. , quote, sorry, it's not quoting it. at this point, colangelo explained there is what he called a criminal conspiracy between trump and ami to pull the desktop published positive story negative stories about his rivals. define negative stories they had not been's -- yet and to pay to make them shut up and not tell anybody about the

stories before the election. the prosecution has explained to the jury that ami, that they first found a doorman, a doorman named dino who said that trump had fathered a secret child with a housekeeper. the first one that ami pay to keep quiet about his story. a second one, a woman named karen mcdougal who said she had an affair with john. they paid her to not tell about the story. there was the third one, stormy daniels. by this point, the inquirer was willing to make arrangements for her to be paid, to be quiet about that story. at that point they were not willing to put up additional money. michael cohen put up the money for that. the prosecutors explain this to the jury and then he says, prosecutor colangelo,, quote, cohen made the payment donald trump's direction benefit. he did it with the goal of influencing the outcome of the election.

look, no politician wants bad press. the evidence at trial show it was not spinner communication strategy. it was a planned coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the election, to help donald trump get elected through illegal expenditures. to silence people put 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 if this conspiracy was the difference maker in a close election. you will see evidence and the defendant's on words from a social media posts, from the his speeches at campaign rallies, and other events. you will see crystal clear that he was concerned about how this could hurt his standing with voters and female voters in particular. you will see evidence that on election night, as news outbox get closer to calling the election for donald trump, the lawyer for stormy daniels and karen mcdougal texted dylan

howard, editor at the national enquirer and he said, quote,, what have we done? about one month after the election, the ceo of american media authorized release both dino's the doorman, and karen mcdougal from their nondisclosure agreements. say that again, about one month after the election, david authorized release the first two recipients of catch and kill money , release them from their nondisclosure agreements once the election was over. so having paid for the stories in order to keep them from the public before election day, david and ami said a month after the election they were no longer be, the nondisclosure agreements. think about what that means? this claim from the defense is that, none of these payments had anything to do with the election.

who knows what michael cohen was done paying that pornography star. donald trump was paying legal fees. the prosecution says they will present evidence that trump and american media paid for all these people to be silent until the election was over. then, once the election was over, they released these people from these agreements to be silent. once the election happened, they did not care. at that point, mission accomplished. the mission was to influence the election. once the election was done, there is no need for these agreements. the mission was the election. the mission was not to protect his brand. not to save his family embarrassment. it was to keep these people silent, to pay them to be silent specifically, and only, in order to win the election full stop. prosecution calls this a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election, covered up by lying in these

business --. logically, releasing people from the agreements once the election was over, that would seem to be the crux of the case if the prosecution can prove it . legally, we will see. >> here we arrive at the different burdens of the prosecution and defense. the prosecution is going for logic. you are following their logic, and their logic takes you over to the national enquirer. it takes you to this guy who told the inquirer, trump fathered a child. it turns out not to be true. everyone agrees that was not true. then it takes you to karen mcdougal and those of the two who are released from their confidentiality agreement after the election. what the defense will say and final argument is it has nothing to do with this case. absolutely nothing. remember, what the defense needs and final argument is not logic.

they are not trying to take you through a flawlessly logical story. they are trying to tug at any doubt they can find anywhere. they will lean in final argument on that agreement in that courtroom, that that guy who told the inquirer that donald trump illegitimately fathered a child was not telling the truth. just like stormy daniels was not telling the truth about donald trump. trump gets hustled by these people all the time. we have to deal with them in different ways. donald trump said publicly, it happens to every man, every man including you chris, sitting at this table, every man who is public, 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. he will say it's happening to me all the time. hello that karen mcdougal stuff,

everything involving the inquirer will be thrown out the door in the final argument of donald trump's defense lawyers because none of that is a charge crime. it is these business records. the other piece of the defense we heard today about the business records is this is the name of the woman who made out the checks. this is the name of the bookkeeper 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 is the defense. donald trump did not tell them to keep the books this way. oh by the way, the money was not having anything to do with stormy daniels. that's the entire defense. it has nothing to do with other people nondisclosure agreements and all that stuff. of course, all of that stuff makes perfect sense when a prosecution is building this

flawless table that has a logical legs to it. defense will say, no, it has no legs. the table has no legs. >> we release these people after the election because we love late november. that is it. we release everyone. >> merry christmas. >> the defense will feel no need to explain at all why those nondisclosure agreements were no longer enforceable. they will have no need to. they will throw something out there but will not feel compelled to explain. >> you talk about the claim from dino the doorman a false claim, but ami agreed to pay for it, and what michael cohen was paid and how they arrived at that amount was the snort your coffee out the nose in the courtroom today.

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welcome back to our prime time recap of the criminal court proceedings against former president trump. i was at the courthouse today in manhattan, in the courtroom for opening statements for this purse criminal trial of the former president. i can report the courtroom smells like old soup and stale breath. i can report the police officers who police the courtroom are working 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 matthew colangelo speaks like seth meyers speaks when he is not telling jokes. i can tell you the first witness, david accident like gave out his whole phone number when the prosecutor asked him to confirm the last four digits. he was trying to remember them and he said the whole number out loud and did not mean to do

that. i can report that former president trump looks older than he used to. and it seems to me in my subjective take that he seemed miserable to be there. i look golder can i used to look as well. anybody has a right to look miserable when they're sitting in a courtroom charge with dozens of felonies. the courtroom is bare-bones. it's not large. it's inelegant. it has unflattering lighting. like i said, it does not smell good. everybody is very tense. what they mean to present to you with this information is given the choice, nobody would want to be there except journalists and reporters covering the most historic trial in american political history. to that end, i would like to say i am sorry to the journalists who are sitting next to me because i unintentionally snorted out

loud when this happened today at the trial. when i read this, you will know why i did that. colangelo in january 2017 before the defendant moved to washington to begin his presidency, michael cohen met with allen weisselberg at the trump organization to talk out cohen would get reimbursed for the payoff to stormy daniels. weisel berg was a trump organization chief financial officer and one of the defendants longest-serving and most trusted employees. neither trump nor the trump organization could write a check to michael cohen for $130,000 with a memo line is said reinforcement for pornography star payoff. they had to disguise the repayment so they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the repayment was income. payments for services rendered instead of a reimbursement. allen weisselberg asked cohen to bring a copy of a bank statement showing the $130,000

payment that cohen made to keep stormy daniels quiet before the election. allen weisselberg and cohen agreed to $420,000. here is how they got to that number. this is good. they started with $130,000 that trump owed cohen for the stormy daniels payoff. then, they added $50,000 for separate reimbursement cohen was claiming they had to do with tech services he paid for during the campaign. that adds up to 180. then they agreed to double that to $360,000 to account for taxes. if trump was reimbursing cohen, there was no need to close it up for taxes. they doubled it because the plan was to call it income instead of reimbursement. if cohen was getting money they were calling income, he would have to pay taxes. cohen was close to 50% expressing -- tax bracket, to make him hold the defendant owed him, they do double the

amount to 360. then he added another $60,000 is a year end bonus. that comes out to a total of $420,000. allen weisselberg wrote all of that down. whereupon, i annoy the people near me because i snorted out loud. he wrote it all down? if you are a fan of the wire, it's the scene where stringer turns to the young man and said are you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy using a lot of swearwords? yes, he was taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. executor colangelo, allen weisselberg wrote all of that down. [ laughter ] i can't believe this is real. the big statement that i told you about that he asked cohen to bring to the meeting, the consultants accomplish of the 130,000 where that cohen made to keith davidson to keep stormy daniels quiet, you will see in this trial allen

weisselberg's handwriting down the side of a bank statement laying out every one of the steps i just described, showing how they converted the $130,000 payoff amount to the 420 grand cohen would get paid back as a grossed out way to describe it and not as reimbursement but income. they took notes about it every step of the way and the prosecution has the notes. then, here's the kicker. prosecutor colangelo, cohen and allen weisselberg then met with trump who approved the payment on the stormy daniels payment and a few other expenses. you will see evidence at trial that trump was a frugal businessman. he believed in pinching pennies. he believed in watching every dollar. he believed in negotiating every bill. it's over all the books he has written any run the 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 to the catch and kill deal, he did not negotiate the price down but

the doubled it and said they could disguise it as a cup. you will hear if it is a trump organization is not in the practice of paying people twice what they owed for anything. it might be the only time that ever happened. trump's willingness to do so shows how important it was to him to hide the true nature of the illegal payment to ms. daniels in the election conspiracy that they had launched in august 2015. prosecutor is saying trump is paying a lot for this and he never pays for anything. that's how important and sensitive this was. interestingly, moments later the defense used the same set of facts to make the opposite point saying, trump really is so cheap. so unwilling to pay for anything. this must have been some other thing he was paying for. not the thing they have handwritten notes from his cfo about. joining us is former general counsel andrew weissmann inform

us district attorney in the manhattan district cacophonous catherine christian. thank you for being here. let me ask, was stringer right to ask allen weisselberg, are you taking notes in a criminal conspiracy? is this potentially important? >> you must have seen my notes. that was the page where i had the same reaction. one of the things you listen for when you listen to openings on both sides is, you know the witnesses will testify. you think of whether they have memory issues or credibility issues, but then you look for what's the prosecution going to say with respect to hard evidence. the things that stood out to me is you had reference to the tape recording we have heard about where donald trump is overheard saying, let's pay the 130,000 in cash. that's a terrible tape for donald trump.

second, references to telephone records at a critical time that the payments were first made by michael cohen to stormy daniels. two calls for the prosecutor referenced between michael cohen and donald trump. the third was this which was saved fall off your chair moment where they have it in writing. what's interesting is the defense said the repayment was not reimbursement for the payments to stormy daniels. i do not know how they will deal with that when you have these notes. remember, when you say something in openings as catherine and katie knows, that comes back to haunt you. if you have overpromise, made in a statement that both sides are listening for that because they will bring it up again in

closing. >> is it important we do not expect allen weisselberg to be a witness, to walk the jury through what is notes meant and explain this document that is otherwise a fall off your chair moment. >> it's a good thing since he is serving time for perjury. neither side wants him as a witness. it's very good for the prosecution because they have the notes and donald trump does not want a perjury or testifying on his behalf. that's a good thing. i agree with andrew. this is the cooperation, when you talk of michael cohen and his baggage, this is where you have cooperation of a statement. there's no way the da office would've relied on michael cohen's testimony if they did not have corroborating documents and witnesses. >> our recap of the only criminal trial in the history of a former american president, not to mention a presumptive presidential nominee, will

continue after the break with our all-star panel and legal experts. we have much more to come. stay with us. s.

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and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. o welcome back to our prime

time recap of the criminal court proceedings of former president trump, the first ever criminal tile trial of a former president, the first ever criminal trial of a major presidential nominee. question from the prosecutor. so 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 pecker, ceo of american media. yes, i had the final say. on the celeb pruty side at least on the tabloid side we used checkbook journalism, so i gave a number to the editors so they could not spend more than $10,000 to investigate or produce or publish a 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 uh-uh prove expenditures did you also have final kind of editorial

say, in other words, the ability to determine a particular story was not going to be run or was going to be run? answer, david pecker. being in the publishing industry for 40 years, i realized early in my career the only thing that was important was a cover of a magazine. so when the editors would prepare a cover we would have a meeting and they would present me what the concept was and cost was going be. question, prosecutor. and if the story involves for lack of a better way to say it a big story or a famous person. now, two salient points here about that testimony from david pecker.

he's only on the stand for about two hours today. first, what he says counts as the normal amount of money for the checkbook journalism he says his company does. anything over $10,000, that would be unusual. that would be out of bounds. that would have to get personal approval from him as chairman, ceo from not just one of these publications but the entire company with dozens of publications. $10,000 was the ceiling. beyond that, it had to go personally through him. in this case prosecutors say they'll present evidence that ami was doing something in a whole other league. for example, before even investigating a trump property doorman's claim about trump supposedly fathering a secret child with a housekeeper, they paid that man $30,000. they paid 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 playmate 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, quote, after consulting with cohen pecker directed his editor-in-chief at the national enquirer to negotiate an agreement with the doorman to buy exclusive rights to that story. the evidence will show pecker was not acting as a publisher, he was acting as a coconspiratorter. the evidence will show this was 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 pecker had ever paid anyone for

information about donald trump, but pecker directed that the deal take place because of the agreement he had reached and because he'd promised trumpats the trump tower meeting august 15th he would use his media empire to help during the campaign and they knew public disclosure of the information would hurt that campaign. 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. and even for american media specifically and the national enquirer specifically, this is not their bag, this is not part of what they do as a magazine. this is 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 pecker testimony that is perhaps salient to the

overall case here is the part where he says that the, quote, only thing that's important is the cover of the 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? well, how influential is the national enquirer? right? the national enquirer reportedly only has about 150,000 to 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 everyone who shops in a mainstream grocery store anywhere in america in all 50 states. the cover of the national enquirer per david pecker, the only thing that matters, the covers of that magazine from the time of this alleged criminal conspiracy with trump, the

covers that were in your face in every super market in the country week after week looks like this, trump, why i am the only choice for president. the donald trump nobody knows, the babes and bucks. the real reason 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." also hillary's nephew is in the klan." "trump takes charge" and also bill clinton is dying and hillary is dying. and also corrupt. it's one big word. and this was their election-eve bombshell edition.

just make sure you hit all the bases here. hillary corrupt racist criminal. before 2016 the national enquirer never before endorsed a presidential candidate, right, but this is what they did in 2016. when they did those covers they were doing something very different with donald trump than they had 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 a supermarket checkout line anywhere in america anytime during the duration of the alleged conspiracy which was the duration of 2016 campaign. whether or not you pecked up that magazine let alone opened the cover, this propaganda, which was the product of this allegedly illegal campaign scheme was in the face of likely, if not tens of millions of americans, perhaps more than 100 million americans.

how many of us go to a grocery store? this was a strange out of the character first time arrangement they made with one candidate, donald trump, that prosecutors said in an opening statement was a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election, a criminal scheme hatched to make the trump tower meeting 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 u.s. president to ever be a defendant in the criminal trial. and the cover-up of that alleged criminal conspiracy, which charged as a string of 34 felonies. joy reed joins us now. joy, my friend, there is not a lawyer -- not a lawyer, one of many things that we wear, i feel there's a way for things happening in the courtroom you need to walk through and the way these things land, but i also feel there's a real deal look at in terms of the logic and a case

being made about what sways people. >> you quoted we also share a love of the wire clearly. you want it to be one way, but it's the other way. because the thing that you just pointed out there, the checkbook journalism piece, normally if you pay for a salacious piece of news, you publish it, you put it on the cover. so if you're the national enquirer acting as they normally would act, and you've got a doorman that says he knows about an illicit child of one of the most famous men who's running in america you publish it. if you know the babes and the bucks guy had a nine-month affair with a playboy bunny you publish, not not publish it. so they're acting in a way they don't normally act. earlier you talked about things that stood out to you in the opening arguments. the thing that stood out to me that goes along with this is the part where they say donald trump may seem larger than life but

he's just a man, he's a father and a husband -- chris is already laughing. he's a father and a husband and just like you. he's just a guy. you know what's not regular and normal? the babe and bucks guy being on the national enquirer talking about he's got all the babes and the bucks. what's also not normal is even being accused of having an illicit child and that kind of thing and here's the problem i think trump is going to have. this is not about 2024 donald trump. this is about 2016 where the babes and bucks was his brand, sleeping with a ploy boy bunny was his brand. the idea he'd be a porn actress is part of his brand. it's part of what made people like him. the idea someone with babes and bucks on the cover of the enquirer was so afraid that

nulainia, his third wife pregnant with his fifth child from three baby mamas would be so terrified would be shocked and appalled that might me have been sleeping with ploy boy bunnies and actresses, it would hurt her feelings, and that he had to do a hush money to save her. nobody is going to believe that. >> but then she would no longer feel bad as soon as the election was over. >> none of it makes sense. the problem for donald trump -- i have to say lawrence stole my thing i was going to say. you can tell his attorney mr. blafrp was not doing the sas he would do if he had the freedom to do his case his way, because he comes in doing things that the lawyers i had on my show were saying was totally unusual.

my client is tremendous businessman and handsome and exciting. this piece sounded like something he would normally do for a normal client. he's just a guy like you, you need to relate to him. donald trump ran for office not to be relatable but to be larger than life. >> it's good to be here. >> do you have a quote? >> can i just say none of this is normal? like no aspect of what we're witnessing is normal. number one, for all journalism students out there checkbook journalism not a thing. also what is inside the magazine also matters. as someone who's had many stories published, very few of which have been on the cover, i think it matters. just putting it out there. the strategy from trump's team at least as i understood it today seems to be normalized outlandish things, which is to normalize the abhorrent and

abnormal, right? i was really struck not only by this sort of -- the pecker of it all. i'm sorry to keep saying the word pecker, but, you know, at one point -- >> sorry. >> we're like 6 years old. >> day 25 of pecker. the argument that ndas are just a common practice that lots of wealthy people do them, and this is not abnormal, everyone has ndas, and you might not have heard of them before is normal. just because trump had a bunch of people signing ndas, catch and kill, there's nothing illegal about this scheme. this happens all the time. and then my favorite, there is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election, it's called democracy. that is not how the way the

world works, tom blanch. but maybe that's the argument they're going to use because time and time again telling the american public there's nothing to see here, look, he had impeachments one and two, he didn't get convicted. and i think they believe if you just keep telling people this is just how it works, maybe they can get away with it. the difference between then and now is this a criminal trial, and you are held to a different standard. but i was glabber gasted that this was 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's also not normal is somebody like ami and david pecker having to get immunity. if it's okay to do all of this, why would you need immunity from prosecution? why would michael cohen go to prison? right? if all of this is normal and

totally kosher, then there shouldn't be anything wrong with this, and he shouldn't be -- donald trump shouldn't be prosecuted. so that just kind of shows how donald trump has turned normal or abnormal into normal. >> so on the point of the kind of journalism ami does, today when david pecker was on the stand, he's the one who volunteered the phrase checkbook journalism. he's describing this of his own accord, this is what we do, we pay for sources. national enquirer has no shame about this, ami has no shame about this. this is what they do. they do sometimes with people other than donald trump find out negative information about a person and then decide not to run it. and why do they do that? because they want to have that person consent to be on their magazine covers for other reasons. they've done this about bill cosby.

they had a bunch of information about him. they did not run it in exchange for cosby doing exclusives about him. they had a bunch of information on shwarzenegger, did not run it for shwarzenegger doing something with them. they wanted tiger woods to do things, he sold magazines so they held information on him. they did this big scale pattern with other people. the deference 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'd never before paid anyone for information related to trump. when it came to keeping trump on the good side, what that meant, keeping trump happy, what were they paying to make all these stories go away for? it wasn't to help get exclusives, it was to help donald trump win election. that is what ami had to get immunity, why michael cohen had

to go to prison. they were trying to keep him happy by making him president. >> right. and there's also a different regulatory structure that guides american elections. that's the key thing. once you move over into that lane -- and the reason -- i mean it is strange, right, at one level because the covers you showed, that is to the point about influencing elections called democracy, like you can have your best homey running a magazine and he just puts you on the cover every day to get you elected. that is actually america. that is perfectly fine, and 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 along the lines as campaigns are regulated but it's turned into a crime. where the rubber hits the road to go back to the weisselberg notes the way it was written they could have just written the reimbursement check. it would have been clean, but

then again 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's paying what for what reason, they have to lie in a legal way about it because they have run afoul of it. i will say one thing i still don't quite get is, like, what was pecker -- i just don't -- he's just that loyal a dude? he loves donald trump that much? he's going to have access to the president of the united states? >> trump sells papers. >> an extraordinary amount of -- >> so the defense council today one of the stranger things he said in his opening argument today was watch david pecker's testimony very carefully. david pecker is not his witness. he said david pecker may not say what these prosecutors are telling you he's going to say because david pecker he's implying is going to testify likely tomorrow or later in the week, david pecker is going to testify the reason he was

motivated to do this is he wanted to keep donald trump happy. he wanted to keep donald trump happy because he wanted to keep donald trump doing things with their papers and publics because he sold for them. the problem is that's okay if the way you're trying to keep donald trump happy is just doing the normal checkbook journalism you do. if they way you're trying to keep him happy is by doing things to affect the campaign, then that whole regulatory structure you talked about is implicated. >> you can't get through any of this without answering the question why did michael cohen go to jail? they're trying to spend a lot of time impeaching him, right? but he was prosecuted by the trump era justice department in the southern district of new york during when trump was president. so what did he do wrong? you go back and say he's going to be impeached because he's a criminal. when he 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, his personal lawyer. why does he have a trump campaign e-mail.

then he goes into the -- he then gets prosecuted and donald trump is an unindicted coconspiratorter in that. he went and took out a loan because he didn't have the money to himself and just give $130,000 to a woman he hadn't slept with. he didn't have the money so he had to get a loan. he lied to the mortgage company to get the loan because he didn't qualify for the loan. he then takes out the loan and has to commit mortgage fraud to get the money, gives the money not even to donald trump but a third party he hadn't slept with and doesn't necessarily know, why would he do that? so the problem is everything they want to say about michael cohen and only true about michael cohen because of donald trump because he doesn't benefit and the thing he was working for that wasn't even his job. he's a fixer. >> can i ask one quick question, a legal one? was there a way to lawyer this properly? was there a way to say we've got

a problem here? okay, we're all assembled, you know, we're in the command room. we've got these women who make these accusations, we don't want this to get out. how do we lawyer this so we're not committing a crime? obviously they weren't thinking that way because that's not the way they think. they've got all this sketchiness and people love to roll around in dirt. they just love it. they love to be like it's all dirty and catch and kill, i'm writing you a check, all this nonsense. i'm saying what would the super professionally lawyered version of this look like? and could you lawyer as such you're not committing a crime? >> there is no super professional version. you don't create llcs to be able to funnel money unless you're funneling money. lawyers just don't do that. and that is actually a risk for donald trump because you have two lawyers on this jury. which i know some people think is a liability for the prosecution. these are corporate lawyers, none of who whom are creating ll krz in other states to create a

lawyership. the only way would be a straight reimbursement, which we know didn't happen. ndas happen all the time. but you're not doing it for that purpose, though, right? you're not doing it for the explicit purpose of a campaign? >> right. and the reason, again -- i want to hammer on this because the reason these things come up against each other is because the regulatory edifice over a campaign requires a level of disclosure that then lets the cat out of the bag. again, if you had a super pac who bought it, again things have gotten so screwed up in that world, but the point being if you'd written the check -- i guess what i was watching today is why didn't they just -- when they were going through the math this guy is cheap and don't

report his income and maybe no one will notice. >> i think there's ways to do it that are less getting yelled at, i think there's ways to do it less taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. but i think the nut of it is there's a criminal intention here. >> that's what i'm getting at. >> so make it prettier and less sordid and less dirty. >> but you're still committing a crime. because you can't do that when you're running for president. >> and the fact they didn't do this for trump when he was running for president is the give away. our prime time recap of the trump criminal trial today in new york. we'll be right back. stay with us. we'll be right back. stay with us an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement.

welcome back to our prime time recap of the criminal court proceedings against former president donald trump today. trump's lawyer, defense council tod blanch, was in the middle of his opening statements today when something unusual happened. top blanche, trump defense council, michael cohen paid stormy daniels or stepany clifford $130 thounz in exchange for her agreeing to not publicly spread false claims about president trump is not illegal. i'm going to say that again. entering into a nondisclosure agreement. prosecutor, objection.

judge, sustained. mr. blanche, entering into a nondisclosure agreement is perfectly legal. prosecution, objection. the judge, overruled. mr. blanche then continues on for a moment but then it pretty much happens right away. when it was as the people just said very close to the election and almost an attempt by ms. clifford and ms. daniels to extort president trump, prosecutor, objection. judge, sustained. blanche then tries to keep going, but then a moment later. mr. blanche, again, entering into an agreement with another individual you'll hear this agreement was negotiated by lawyers. prosecutor, objection. and now at this point judge merchan does not even rule on the objection. he doesn't say sustained, doesn't say overruled. he instead calls lawyers from both sides up to the bench. please approach. the lawyers and the judge then

confer and then the judge rules. judge, the objection is sustained. then mr. blanche, trump's lawyer, movesen to another topic. he makes it 3 pages further into the transcript and the whole thing is mentioned over again. separateply from his obsession to president trump and his obsession to get president trump on multiple occasions michael cohen has testified under oath and lied. prosecutor, objection. judge, sustained. blanche, he's walked into a courtroom very near here, raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth, and now he will tell you i expect that he was lying. prosecutor, objection. judge, sustained. and then for a second time the judge calls up the lawyers for both sides to the bench. counsel, please approach. and the second time he upholds the objection. judge merchan, the objection is sustained. now, i was in the court when this string of objections happened in the middle of trump

team's opening statements. both sides getting repeatedly hauled up before the judge. the lawyer having to restart what he was saying, trying to find his momentum again, pick back up. to me as a lay person it seemed dramatic and strange. but i want to ask our lawyers here. how rare is it for objections to be made during opening starmts? how rare is it for the judge to interrupt opening statements with multiple directions to the lawyers including the one making the opening statement including i've got to come up and talk to the judge? was does this tell us about the trial? luckily joining us is lisa rubin at the trial. i understand part of your sacrifice was allowing me to be in the courtroom in a seat you would have otherwise had your butt in. i bequeath to you back to you

your seat. >> thank you i think. so it was was weird not because of one objection but how many there were relative to the brevity of tom blanche's opening statement. let's start with the fact tom blanche was an experienced prosecutor in the southern district of new york. what he's not is an experienced defense lawyer. we learned today from the magazine it confirmed something i suspected. tom blanche has tried one trial as a defense counsel in the last decade. if you were in that courtroom you probably would have expected as much because his flow was interrupted so many times by these sidebars. i think a number of things he did today were perfectly intentional. because while they were objected to and sustained he still planted the seeds of doubt in jurors mind. in particular, for example, he said stormy daniels made donald trump a victim of extortion that

was immediately objected and sustained because that among other things was a legal conclusion. there was no prosecution of stormy daniels for extorting donald trump. and he would have known in advance the judge was not going to allow him to get away with saying that. >> i think that's probably right. i think the place he definitely knew is when he talked about what i'll call the diet of counsel defense where he essentially said trump believed that these nondisclosure agreements were totally kosher because he had attorneys negotiating them for him. the advanced arguments about which evidence can and come in. tom blanche knew when he walked in the courtroom that was not going to be an argument allowed because he was trying to use the attorney-client privilege as a sword and shield essentially saying my client relied on that advice but we're not going to tell you what that advice was.

i'm not going to let your client do that, there is no advice of counsel light. >> i'm going to give an instruction now nobody knows is something, but i'd like to talk to catherine christian if i could. she's on the other side of the room and lots of cameravise to move in order to make this possible. hi, catherine, thank you. you have experience in the new york district attorney's office. what lisa is describing here about mr. blanche's relative inexperience doing this kind of lawyering in this kind of case is one piece of perspective here. another piece of perspective here is what's normal in a new york d.a. criminal proceeding like this when these interruptions, these objections happened during the opening statements here from the defense. how did that strike you? >> it's not unusual. andrew and i would probably have different experience. new york state court is not as dainty as federal court, so it's not shocking. and defense attorneys some of them pride themselves on

stepping on the line. so, you know, i hit object when i was a prosecutor because they stepped on the line. and as lisa said, oopsy, the jury heard what he said so it's in their head. so i can't say it happens all i'm, but it's not shocking. i rarely objected as a prosecutor because i didn't want the jury to think i was trying to hide something from them. here i would have object because he was clearly saying things he shouldn't have and the judge already ruled against. but it's not shocking at least not in the world in new york county. >> catherine, let me ask you about something katie said earlier. she said that in the minds of the jury mr. blanche might have not done himself favors with all those statements being objected to today and those all interruptions because even if those seeds were planted in his mind, they at least would think he was doing something wrong by being essentially sort of

mini-sanctioned by the judge in that way and interrupted in this flow. >> no, and the judge has struck the jury about objections and not to take them to the defense attorney or prosecutor. i have heard acquitting injuries talk about how they liked how that defense attorney really fought for their client. so i don't think you can read into, oh, it's sustained and the jury is going to think very bad. i think as lisa just said it was a tactic. he knew these were objectionable things he was saying but you can't unring the bell what i usually say came out for the jury. and prosecutors cannot appeal an acquittal. >> much more of our special prime time recap of our opening statements in the new york trial of donald trump when we come back. stay with us. when we come back stay with us

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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 recently foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding. he's not allowed to do that. prosecution is now arguing that trump has done that a lot. there'll be a hearing tomorrow

morning at 9:30 eastern before the jurors come into the courtroom. prosecutors are going to ask the judge to find that former president trump willfully violated the gag order by attacking well-known potential witnesses including stormy daniels and michael cohen, attacking their credibility on up to ten separate occasions. if the judge find trump in criminal contempt of court on these matters, trump could be fined up to $1,000 each for each violation. that's what prosecutors are asking for. he could possibly be sentenced to a maximum of 30 days in jail, although prosecutors are certainly not asking for that yet. i mean tonight trump sent around a fund-raising e-mail called my farewell message making it sound like he's definitely going to jail. i already meant to ask our legal experts about it, but we just queued up some new sound from donald trump today. this is from an interview on a conservative network called real america's voice. here it is donald trump talking about the jury in his trial.

>> that jury was picked so fast. 95% democrats. the area's mostly all democrats. you think about it just a purely democrat area. it's very unfair situation, that i can tell you. >> 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 prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding. andrew weissmann, still with us here tonight. the gag order has been a discussion that i feel like we've had around the edges of this case a lot because it's the way trump has tried to shape the environment around this case. it's going to be in the courtroom front and center tomorrow morning at 9:30. what do you expect judge merchan is going to do? what are you going to be watching for? >> so you have donald trump clearly goading the judge.

he picks up he's doing something that appears to be all accounts a direct violation of the order, his latest tonight in advance of a 9:30 hearing on violations with respect to witnesses and violation with respect to jurors, both of which are things the judge is going to care tremendously about. you know, i think the -- obviously he's going to hear from the defense, and the betting is that he's going to certainly say that there was a violation, and he could impose the fine that is obviously negligible and he can saber rattle about what's next. this is one where i would say if he were sitting right here, i would say leave aside politics, leave aside what he's goading somebody to do. what would you do for any other defendant? you know, we have seen the legal

system bend over sort of so far to accommodate donald trump. he is not being treated worse. he's being treated so much better, whether you're talking about doj, whether you're talking about all of the criminal cases. and this is one where he wouldn't have to impose 30 days in jail, but he can really do like a child, give him a timeout. he can step back and be kept in the pens in the courthouse. but this is so clearly like a child testing what will happen. and it's at the very outset of the case if there isn't a firm hand right now and the rule of law isn't imposed, it really is a terrible message in terms of how the trial is going to go forward because he's going to continue doing this. and if there are juror heez doesn't like, he can attack them. 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, i think, is going to have to be really careful about what exactly is the

sanction he's going to impose tomorrow. >> how will the judge decide or how will the hearing on this go? again, this is going to be the way the court starts tomorrow. is he going to rule, or is he going to ask defense counsel and 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, but there may not be a dispute of facts. the facts seem so clear. unless donald trump is going to say somebody else took over my account. you know, roger stone tried that when he was in violation. he actually took the witness stand and said i didn't do that, and then he later recanted and sort of said, okay, i did do it. and that was when he posted the judge's picture with cross hairs next to her head. and so there can be a hearing, but it may not be necessary just

given the volume of allegations here. there's now i think up to 11 allegations that are going to be before the judge, but ultimately it would be this state's burden to go forward. >> we will be back with more on the criminal trial of former president trump. 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 violations of the gag order that's supposed to restrict his ability essentially to menace witnesses or jurors in this case. we'll be right back after the break. case we'll be right back after the break.

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they're trying to say because republicans are being prevented from going to that part of lower manhattan. >> that's the story for me. the ark of donald trump in new york, right? and the boy who grew up in queens of who dreamt of being king of new york. think about the 1930s and every tabloid with donald trump in a limousine, right trump tower right in the middle of fifth avenue. now here he is a criminal defendant, an old man sitting there slumped over, and even this idea he's got these scores of fans. there must be 2 million in the tri-state area in staten island and new jersey and long island. such a few number of people in the court. outside court protesting on biz behalf today. >> almost no one. >> and who wasn't inside the courtroom with him? a single member of his family. the argument he was protecting his family, not a son, not a daughter, not a wife, not a

cousin, not an uncle, no one. the whole thing is stunning. >> our investigative reporter was at the courthouse today in the overflow room. it's good to see you. i know you've been there all of last week. you were there today. what was different about today now that opening statements have started? do you feel like you have a better sense of where the case is going? >> we definitely do. and i thought today for me it was really exciting. i'm kind of a reporter to the bone, and i was really tantalized by just these references we got today to text messages and e-mails we haven't heard of before, and you've got to imagine there's more coming on that front. we had one where dylan howard who was the top editor of the national enquirer goes to california to meet karen mcdougal and he's texting information about her back and forth with other people. we're going to be able to see some of that. and the other thing i'm really wondering david pecker is going to be up tomorrow. are we going to get -- i know we

will? but how much more information are we going to get about the meeting that david pecker had with michael cohen and donald trump? what was the arrangement? i mean it was more than just those three payments that we know about. there were so many more covers. just how did that all happen? i think that's going to be really interesting to see how david pecker's testimony unfolds tomorrow. >> how did you make of pecker's affect as a witness? it made me think he was going to be up there for a long time. >> in the overflow room he seemed like an approachable grandfather, family friendly figure. it was interesting. a guest we had on deadline white house was talking about him and just saw him as a much younger man and said he was slower, forgettable. he came across a little bit differently and i found himself to actually be and i wonder how

he played with the jury, approachable. so i think people got a different view of him depending on what room they were in. i wonder how he is going to ply 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 a donald trump criminal trial, but there's a lot about the national enquirer and ami that everyone is going to cover and a lot of of it is going to come tomorrow morning. our coverage of trump's very busy legal day, legal week continues in just a moment. stay with us. continues in just a moment stay with us

all right, that's going to do it for us for right now. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. as you know cohen is a lawyer, represe