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we have a lot to get to tonight after another day of major testimony in donald trump's first criminal trial. michael cohen, trump's former lawyer and fixer was back on the stand today, facing crosses emanation from donald trump's current lawyer, blanche. for anyone coming, mr. cohen has been on the stand for more than 14 hours, with more to come on monday. and nearly all day today, todd blanche tried to undermine mr. cohen's credibility as a witness. blanche spent half the morning recalling different episodes when michael cohen lied publicly . lying to congress, lying in court, lying about whether or not he sought a part in. essentially forcing cohen to admit repeatedly that he has been untruthful. blanche also tried to paint cohen as something of a renegade, a man who spent the 2016 election cycle casting out on his own, speaking to the press both publicly and privately without donald trump's consent or his supervision. blanche tried to call into question michael collins memory

, his ability to recall key moments in this case. and that all built to what was probably the biggest moment of today. when the defense managed to cast out on a key part of cohen's story. to understand exactly what happened today, you have to go back to 2016 when donald trump was running unusually lien campaign for president, and one of his unlikely campaign surrogates was his personal attorney, michael cohen. >> these are donald trump's words. he is going to stay true to who he is, and he is going to end up, in all fairness, he's going to end up winning this election. >> he is a mentor, he is a sage, he is like family. >> i have worked for mr. trump for a long time, and i can tell you that mr. trump mindscape memory is fantastic. i have never come across a situation where mr. trump has said something that is not accurate. >> there are -- seriously? >> yeah, seriously.

>> in that same period, michael cullen was allegedly also negotiating the stormy daniels hush money payment on trump mindscape to have. but because michael cohen was publicly associated with the trump campaign, going on cable news to attest to trump's sterling recollection of facts and honesty and so forth, because michael cohen was one of the public faces of the campaign michael cohen was also being harassed by members of the public. specifically, in the weeks before the election michael cohen was getting prank phone calls from someone who claimed to be a 14-year-old kid. on october 24th, 2016 cohen tested trump's body man to report the prank caller to the secret service. trump mindscape body man wrote back call me, which michael cohen did. the two men spoke for about a minute and a half. the problem for michael cullen here is that he previously testified that that minute and

a half phone call was actually a call where keith schiller gave his phone to donald trump and cohen updated trump about the stormy daniels situation. today in court, todd blanche seized on that potential disparity to attack michael cohen. it was one of the few moments in this trial where todd blanche has expressed any emotion. here is blanche. that was a lie! you did not talk to president trump on that night, you talk to keith schiller about the prank phone call. michael cohen, i'm not certain that is accurate. blanche, you are certain it was accurate on tuesday when you are under oath and testifying. cohen, based upon the records that i reviewed and in light of everything going on, i believe i spoke to mr. trump about the stormy daniels matter. blanche, we are not asking for your belief. this tree does not want to believe what you think happened. prosecution, objection. judge merchan, sustained. that was arguably the most credible attack on michael

collins credibility in this argument so far. we will see what impact it has on the jury, if any. other than that, the most meaningful thing the defense did today was to drag this whole thing out. for the entire second half of today's cross-examination, todd blanche really did appear to be playing for time, trying to stretch the cross-examination to the end of the day. now, court is not in session tomorrow, so donald trump can attend his son's high school graduation and then quickly leave him on graduation night to go to a fundraiser in minneapolis that is 1700 miles away. every family celebrates differently. that means the jury will now sit with michael cohen's testimony for three days, which is either a good thing or a bad thing. on the one hand, the jury will be left to spend the entire weekend thinking about the defense's first successful attack on michael cohen. on the other hand, the prosecution will have the entire weekend to think about how to respond when they get their chance to question

michael cohen on monday. at which point we may be nearing the end of this whole thing. judge merchan in the day by telling both sides to be prepared to give the closing arguments as soon as next tuesday. michael cullen will be the last witness for the prosecution. as far as the defense goes, we still do not know which witnesses they will call, if any. the defense still does not know if it is going to call the only expert witness on its list, an excerpt on election law. but there is some that the defense may call a witness that is not on their list. close to rudy giuliani, dispatched in 2018 to try to keep michael cullen in line. so it seems that trump's defense is making decisions on the fly, including the biggest decision of all. today trump's attorneys told the court that they still do not know if donald trump will take the stand. joining me now are my great colleagues, rachel maddow, host of the rachel maddow show. and

lawrence o'donnell, host of the last word with lawrence o'donnell. it's a pleasure to have you both. rachel, i know you followed the saga, as we all do. and i just wonder, the sort of conventional wisdom out there is that todd blanche had a better day than he has. i wonder what your assessment of the events is. >> i think your observation that he seemed to be playing for time is a good assessment. because everybody who i have seen direct reporting, including our own reporters and staff members who have been in the courtroom and overflow room today were all remarking kind of throughout the course of the day, where is this going? where is this going? not only was there no sort of cinematic or dramatic rhythm to it, it just kind of sprawled. that said, as you pointed out, he did seem to catch michael cohen in a bit of a cul-de-sac on this question of whether or not one particular conversation that cohen recounted when he was testifying under direct examination from the prosecution, whether one

particular conversation with trump actually happened the way cohen remembered it. now, i say it was just one conversation with trump, because i think it is important that that particular phone call wasn't the linchpin of michael cohen's testimony, or of the prosecution's case. this one call that cohen described with trump was just one of the communications he described in which he sort of updated trump on the status of the hush money scheme with stormy daniels. it is not a key matter. by trying to shake michael collins memory loose on that point, i trying to make the jury may be question whether or not that call went down exactly the way cohen said it did, they are essentially trying to sort of stick a prybar in that crack and mess him up as a witness, and make it seem like nothing he said can be trusted at all. that is certainly a real legal tactic. that is a thing that happens on cross-examination. it appears to be the only thing

they have accomplished on cross- examination. so i will be really interested to see, when redirect starts, when the prosecution gets cohen back as a witness, and when both sides do their summations, whether this will be, effectively, their whole defense against this whole case for donald trump. >> a prank phone call that led to a call to steve schiller. let's just talk about how it landed in the courtroom. because the transcript reads that michael cohen, he sticks to his line, effectively. he does not capitulate. but because todd blanche showed some emotion and was on attack mode in a way that he had been, it is seen as a win. how did it feel to you? >> first of all, let me try to get control of this emotion thing. we have all heard tv shows, tv, political chat shows where it is louder and angrier than one todd blanche did. it is the loudest todd blanche

has been, and it is the loudest voice i've heard in that courtroom. but this is the most mild- mannered courtroom i have ever been in, including michael cullen and as rachel knows, especially the judge and the other lawyers. there was a certain amount of excitement surging out of that room with the reporters, who finally heard somebody say something that sounded really, you know, dramatic. and it did. and it was extremely effective. one reason why it was extremely effective is that it was a surprise. this was not a piece that the district attorney had prepared us for. the crank caller, we found out about in cross-examination. we did not know about the crank caller on direct examination. so we are all sitting there learning about this crank caller who turns out to be 14 years old, and michael cohen handles it kind of generously for him, once he found out that it is a 14-year-old kid. but he was trying to scare the kid about don't do this. >> the secret service is coming after you. >> what it eventually became

for michael cullen is okay, the call i made to keep schiller at 8:02, and earlier tonight i just reread the way he described that with the district attorney. what happens today is not contradict what he said to the district attorney. it amplifies it. so what michael cohen adjusted to was okay, yeah, i called keith schiller right in the middle of that harassment business, and yes, i said something to keep schiller about the harassment thing, what we do about that? and then he handed the phone to donald trump and i said to him we have to wrap up the stormy daniels thing. and all that happens in a minute and 32 seconds. and if you write that dialogue, it can happen. especially when donald trump's responses in these dialogues in other spots include lines like just do it. >> that's good. >> and the just do it line comes before this phone call happens. so, rachel's point, which is

important, is that this phone call isn't the only testimony about donald trump ordering this payoff to stormy daniels, which, in effect, causes the false business records to be created. which is what, by the way, the trial is about falsifying business records. there are 34 of them. todd blanche hasn't mentioned one of them. so did todd blanche have a good day? yes, as long as you count the day as 10 minutes. but i will say, the rest of his day was effective, because it was messy. the d.a. did this chronologically. he just rambled all over different dates, and that is a smart move. because it makes michael collins lying chaotic, whereas in the d.a.s version of it, you understood okay, his profession was lying for donald trump in- house for donald trump, whether it be to gossip magazines or eventually for a political candidate. then it comes a time where his

line for donald trump gets him indicted, and now you got him in this weird crossfire of his own lies. but when you hear it in that biographical way, how it was told by the prosecution, it makes sense. when you heard it through todd blanche today, it is chaotic. so it was a smart move by blanche tanaka chronologically. >> rachel, to lawrence's point, and your point, the defense has not focused in on why donald trump would be paying michael cullen $35,000 a month in installments if it was for what legal service? they haven't gotten to the essence of the charges here at all. they have really focused on the credibility issue. and i was reminded of something said about michael collins credibility in the civil fraud case. i will just read an excerpt. this fact finder does not believe that pleading guilty to perjury means that you can never tell the truth. michael cohen told the truth.

i mean, it is a very simple concept. but i think it could hold up here. >> so, a, michael cohen could've been lying about other things and not lying about the things he has testified to. that can rationally exist. the other thing, though, and i think this might have been what the prosecution was driving at in their opening statements, when they essentially conceded yeah, michael cohen, controversial guy, you're going to hear a lot about michael cullen here. but everything important you are going to hear from him we have corroborated. we have witness testimony, documents, other ways to prove to you that the important things he is going to say our things that actually happened and that we can bolster from other sources. so, the prosecution has been preparing for months and months for the whole defense mounted against this case on trumped my in behalf to be michael cohen is a liar. if that is what they are trying to do, if that is what they are trickling down on, if that is the only defense they are

coming out with here, ultimately what the jury is being told is donald trump hired a guy who is a real bully and a liar to do his work for him, and had him work for him doing that for about 10 years. and oh, by the way, the underlying scheme that is being charged here as a felony is effectively a lie. when you are paying hush money to someone, you are telling them to lie by omission, to not tell a true story because you don't want it to get out for other purposes. so if what they are proving is donald trump, as a way of doing business, had somebody on his payroll whose job was professionally to lie and intimidate people. and that is, in effect, a description of the underlying conduct that led to these charges. i am not sure the jury ultimately has a great revelation. not light dawns on marblehead about there is a liar in this room. it is effective to the prosecution and defense.

lying liars and the people who lie. lawrence, did you get a sense that the killing time was really another part of their strategy in all this? >> you got to remember, it is not killing time. it is entertaining donald trump. donald trump's definition of torture on a witness stand is just being on a witness stand. which is why he never does it. so he thinks every minute you are on the witness stand under oath, his demand from his lawyers is simply make sure it is hell for those people who get on the witness stand and testify against me, like michael cohen. it is a risky thing, because jurors catch on when you are treading water and they don't like it. but i don't think todd blanche has reached that point with this jury. i think he kept it alive enough today, and the fact that he kept jumping around chronologically i think was helpful to keep everybody alert. and look, he did something that

is rarely ever done in any trial. he surprised everybody. he surprised everyone. this 14-year-old phone call harasser who turned out to be a key element of a certain important phone call was not in this case until he pulled that rabbit out of the hat. so jurors are not going to penalize you for that area that keeps them awake. >> if that 14-year-old now, i believe, 22-year-old is out there, we invite you out of this program. would love to hear what you said to michael cullen. is your refrigerator running? i would like to know. rachel maddow, lawrence o'donnell, please stay with you. we have much more to discuss this evening, in our special coverage of donald trump's hush money trial right after this break. break.

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>> we had a lot of congressmen and senators down today, and they are all up in arms about this. quite a few congressmen, i guess you will be talking to them in a little while. >> day after day now, trumpet surrogates have been setting up shop outside the court and talking to the press. trump himself is barred by his gag order for talking about all sorts of people connected to this trial. he is also barred from directing others to talk about this people, which is what makes all of this so concerning. when trump's latest batch of surrogates spoke today, they again attacked two individuals the judge has specifically identified as off-limits. michael cohen, and the judges own daughter. >> i am honored to be here with my colleagues from the house freedom caucus, where we watched michael cullen get dad

walked through the series of lies he has told. >> perjure in chief, michael cullen. >> mikel cohen repeated admittedly that he lied. >> admitted to lying to members of congress. >> mikel cohen. >> seeing the lack of credibility from michael cohen. >> we would be remiss if we did not mention this corrupt judge, this judge whose own family is making six figures off of democrat politics. >> we have a judge whose daughter -- >> a corrupt judge whose daughter -- >> the judge's daughter. >> that is the judge's daughter. >> all of that clearly breaks the judge's gag order, if trump directed it. the question now is did he? >> this gag order is to ensure that he cannot defend himself early, so we are here to have his back. we are here to defend him. we are his voice, we have his back. he will ultimately be proven innocent.

>> joining me once again are my colleagues, rachel maddow and lawrence o'donnell. rachel, the contention here is these people are here as members of the public. i know you have been to the courtroom. and i hear it's a difficult thing. can you talk a little bit about what that process was like for you, getting seats, and how coveted those seats were? >> it's a big, long line, you have to wait forever, and there is tons of security. it blows out your whole day. lawrence has been doing it every day. it is no easy thing. i think it costs some of those members congress votes today in d.c. i have to say, i am a big believer in people showing up to court. if you know somebody who is on trial and you believe in their innocence, or whether or not you believe in their innocence and you just want to support them, being there for them i think is a good thing. there is a reason that our courtrooms are open to the public. there is a reason that our judicial system is a transparent one, so everyone can see the proceedings and

show up to support somebody they know involved in the system. but if you are a public official, the kind of person who is going to speak to the cameras when you walk out during the morning break, the normal course of events is to say i am here to support my friend or my colleague, my boss or the gaia want to hire me to be the vice president, whatever it is. i am here to support them. i believe in x person innocence. and i believe the jury will see that truth and i wish these charges had never been brought, but i believe that this is going to be born out in the end and everybody will see that my friend, colleague, boss is innocent. that is all good. that is all normal. instead, what you are getting is these members of congress saying we are here to support him and the american legal system is illegitimate and corrupt. and the judge is corrupt, and let me tell you about the judge's family. and that is just a wholly different thing. it is a hard thing to have

people in very high office committing crimes in this country. it was hard with nixon, it was hard with agnew, it is hard with trump. there is a reason that sitting presidents can't get prosecuted. it's all very difficult. but when you have a political party saying the american legal system should be gotten rid of because it is corrupt, and the people involved in it are corrupt and bad and evil and persecuting you and me, that is something totally different. that is corrosive to the legal system, at a minimum, and potentially, fundamentally destructive to it if that is going to become the new platform on which the republican party makes the case to the american people that they should be put back in full power. >> yeah, there are so many levels at which this is appalling. there is the big picture that rachel is outlining. there is the smaller picture of what it is doing to potential witnesses in this trial. there was a whole back and forth about these surrogates during the cross-examination, when michael cullen has to walk by them. going out there and imputing michael cullen, and sitting in

the courtroom as he is testifying, can you talk a little bit about the sort of net effect that this is having as you go to this trial every day? >> in the courtroom, no effect at all. you know the old parliamentary phrase, backbenchers, that is what they became. because there were too many of them today. there is a row in the front behind donald trump for supporters like this, and there is usually not more than two or three of them, whoever show up. but there were so many of them that they were literally sent to the back bench of the courtroom that is against the wall, farthest away from the hero. and most of them were people who i didn't know who they were. i knew they were members of congress because there is a button there, but not like the most prominent members of congress. some of them i knew who they were. but they have absolutely no effect on the proceedings. i will say, with that shot of them outdoors, that is the largest collection of trump supporters who have ever gathered at the publicly available gathering place for

all trump supporters to come. you notice, there is no one behind them. nypd has reserved a spot there for citizens from all over america or new york city, or even lower manhattan. voters, trump supporters, biden supporters, anyone can gather there. no one comes. donald trump one of them to come, they refused to come. thus people came, that is his biggest route ever. here is an opportunity they have. because what they do is they come in for the morning session, they leave out the first recess which is at 11:00 a.m. and they never come back. matt gates is the only one who came back. now they have been in the courtroom for two hours. you watched judge merchan. instead of coming out and talking about his daughter, why don't you talk about his rulings? you just watched him make some rulings. you watched him rule on several objections. and you watched him overrule the prosecutor's objections a number of times. did you agree with that?

you watched him sustain some objections. do you understand why he sustained those objections. because what todd blanche just said was argumentative and not a question? do you understand what that was about exit one of the great tragedies of this trial not being televised is that they get to go out there and lie about how the trial is going. because none of them have ever in their lives seen, and they never will see a more fair judge then judge merchan . and any televised version of this trial would prove that every minute of the trial. >> yeah, chris hayes referred to him as a picture of equanimity. i have to bring this up as we are talking about right-wing attacks on judge merchan as somehow crooked or evidence of a broken justice system. we have new reporting in the new york times that i find absolutely staggering. that for days around january 17th, 2021 neighbors told the new york times that justice samuel alito, one of the nine

justices on the supreme court had an american flag hanging upside down outside of his house. that inverted flag was being used as a symbol of the stop the steel movement. this is a justice who is very engaged, continues to be around issues concerning trump's role in the january 6th insurrection. apparently had the flag flying outside his house. he says in denial, i had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. it was briefly placed in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on our yard signs. this is nothing but a neighborhood snafu, a little battle between neighbors. rachel, do you have thoughts on that news coming against the backdrop of today? >> i mean, it is unsettling. it is gross. i mean, first of all, everybody has different marriage rules, but it's my wife's fault is probably never within the marriage rules when you are

talking to the new york times about something you have done that has brought enough scandal upon you and the institution you represent that it is on the front page of the new york times. it was my life? just don't, even if it was, i don't know. i don't want to give you any advice. but i feel like the upside down flag, it wasn't like he had a trump 2024 flag up there. it was the american flag upside down, which is a traditional symbol of distress. unless misses alito was signaling her distress and calling for help, the explanation makes no sense. that was something that people were doing around that time to indicate that the country was effectively under siege in some way, which is what trump supporters were making the case for when they were describing the election as having been stolen when it wasn't. i mean, justice alito has become increasingly un-embarrassed about displaying himself as

partisan in media and in ruling in ways that is just out loud, disdainful toward a majority of the country in some cases. and this fits with that, but it is also something i've never heard anything like this in the entire history of every controversy i have ever known about with the united states supreme court. i think chief justice roberts has a problem on his hands in the terms of the behavior of some of the more aggressive justices and those who are really flouting ethics concerns and equanimity concerns with their behavior. >> you know, that flag is not donald trump's fault. that flag is george w. bush's fault. that is who appointed samuel alito to the supreme court. so anyone who thought in the 2000 election, al gore doesn't excite me, i'm not going to bother to vote, that is what you got from the decision.

or if you thought george w. bush is a reasonable man and i want to vote for him because i think you'll be more of a connecticut bush than a texas bush, you are wrong. this is what you got. >> the legacy of the court is on the ballot again this year. rachel maddow, lawrence o'donnell, thank you for joining me again tonight, my dear colleagues. i appreciate your time and energy. we have more special coverage of day 18 of the trump criminal trial which will continue right after the break. stay with us. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. that's great. i know, i've bee telling everyone. baby: liberty. oh! baby: liberty. how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪ ( ♪♪ ) my name is jaxon, and i have spastic cerebral palsy. it's a mouthful.

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a sidebar about the ongoing presence of donald trump's republican entourage in the courtroom. here is how that played out. i noticed that some of his guests are already here today with her security detail, but we would just ask that they not be allowed to file in in the middle of mr. blanche my in cross-examination. with their security detail for the jury and the witnesses to see. >> yes, i would advise that not happen. todd blanche. your honor, i have less than zero control on anything that is happening behind me when i am crossing a witness. i don't have any control of that. i mean, they are members of the public. to be clear, the lawmakers are not sitting in public seats. they are sitting in seats reserved for donald trump's defense team. joining me now is adam schiff, member of the house judiciary committee. congressman schiff, thank you for being here. i imagine you have some thoughts about your fellow house colleagues who have been trekking up to new york city to stand outside of the courtroom and weigh in on this trial.

>> i have so many thoughts, and let me start with the speaker. because i have to say, i was flabbergasted that he would go and make that pilgrimage, stand outside the courthouse, and basically lie about what was going on inside the building. it is bad enough that he lacks the self-respect, that he feels he needs to go and kiss the ring in such a public and abasing way, but also for him to denigrate the justice system, for him to make, to knowingly make a false claim that this trial was designed to keep trump off the campaign trail, he knows better than that. but it shows the most powerful, top ranking republican in the congress will do anything for donald trump. and for those others, i mean, these are crazy people and you don't expect much more. but i will say this, too, the fact that some of them are going into the courtroom, this is a way to tamper with the

jury, this is a way to essentially communicate to the jury that we believe this is political, we are here to show support for the president. that is making a statement without having to say a word. and that is distressing for much the same reason. >> congressman, because you singled out the speaker, i do have to ask. you are one of 163, i think, democrats who voted to effectively save speaker johnson from a motion to vacate. do you have any regrets about that, and would you do it again if there was another call to oust him from his position? >> i don't regret it, because of two reasons. one, we need a governing entity in the house. they have a majority, as long as we have the majority we need someone sitting in that speaker's chair. i want to get things done for my constituents. we have major challenges with the housing, with the cost of childcare and other things. i want to get things done. you can't do that without a speaker in the chair.

second, i did not think it was right to essentially vacate him from the chair, because he finally got around to approving ukraine aid. so for both those reasons, i don't have any regrets. but i have to say, it is still difficult to stomach when you see him do what he did, standing in front of the courthouse. and it just shows you that there is no one in that republican conference anymore, not since liz cheney left, that has any real, thorough commitment to the constitution, their oath, our system of justice. it is all about keeping power, gaining power, and no debasement to great before their supreme leader. >> yeah, it is worth noting that the senegal moves did not end at the new york city courthouse. a lot of those same members had to travel back to washington to vote to hold the attorney general, merrick garland, in contempt for refusing to hand

over the tapes of the conversations that president biden had with the special counsel. the 1-2 punch of standing out there. tell me more about that endeavor. >> i was sitting in that judiciary committee, as a member of the committee, as they were bringing up this august evert to hold the attorney general in contempt for not giving audiotapes of something they already had the transcripts for. it has come to that pathetic a motion to hold the attorney general of the united states and contempt so that they could tapes to his campaign team for campaign commercials. but meanwhile, you had republican members missing from the whole debate because they are in new york. you had members like matt gates who missed the boat completely. it shows you where their priority is. they don't think it is important enough to stay in washington to vote on holding the attorney general in contempt, if it has to compete

with being a spectator in the hush money payment to a porn start trial of donald trump. the thing that i find so shocking about all of this is i have to imagine, and i made this point in committee, that if you asked mike johnson 10 or 15 years ago whether he could ever see himself standing in front of the courthouse vouching for the character, effectively, of someone charged with paying hush money payments to a porn start, he would have never imagined doing such a crass thing. but there he is. and it is one small surrender of morality, followed by another slightly bigger surrender, and pretty soon you are standing outside the courthouse vouching for the character of someone paying hush money to a porn star. >> speaking of ethics, i want to get your reaction to the new york times reporting that justice samuel alito was reportedly flying a stop the steal sign in front of his

house. you have a thought on that given the role the supreme court has played and is playing around january 6th and holding those accountable? >> this is why americans have no trust in the supreme court anymore. they see a justice with a flag essentially outside their home, presiding, sitting in cases affecting the investigation into that effort to incite the attack on the capital. you have justice thomas, whose wife was in text messages and email communications about this effort to overturn the election sitting in voting against, as a member of the court, voting against providing documents to congress that might implicate his spouse. not just a perceived conflict, but a real conflict. and this is why people have no confidence in the court. and there, at the moment, is no

recourse for this. they can violate the code of ethics because there is no enforceable code of ethics in the supreme court. but i think, as you were discussing earlier, with respect to alito, he is proud of his disdain for public opinion. he is more than willing to wear his partisan colors on his sleeve, or in this case, on the flagpole. >> congressman adam schiff, thank you for joining me tonight. i really appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> we have more special coverage of trump on trial coming up right after this break. break. payments, and customers in sync across all the places you sell. start your journey with a free trial today. - so this is pickleball? - pickle! ah, these guys are intense. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right?

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today trump defense attorney todd blanchet spent most of the day trying to present michael cohen as a liar. blanche, you lied under oath? cohen, yes sir. blanche, and you lied again when you met with a special counsel? and as we talked about on the 29th 2018, you pled guilty to lying to congress? cohen, i did. you get the gist. so todd blanchet spent a lot of time on michael collins lies, but it should be noted he spent relatively little time challenging cohen about his assertions on donald trump's knowledge and complicity in the hush money scheme. does that matter? joining me now are duncan levin, former attorney for the district of new york, and federal prosecutor and a senior writer at politico magazine. thank you both. duncan, does it matter? the line, the excess of lies that cohen admitted to understand.

>> michael cohen is a lying liar who lies all the time and loves to live. everyone agrees about that. the prosecution, the defense, michael cohen agrees. everyone agrees. i think where the defense was effective today and the cross- examination was not only in establishing for hours of testimony that he has lied in the past, and they did an effective job of that. but they showed, i think, instances where michael cullen lied on this stand, to this jury, during this trial. and i think it resonated a little differently. for example, michael cohen testified on direct examination that he never wanted to be chief of staff at the white house. the defense confronted him today with emails and text messages that show no, he was pining for this job. does it matter? no. but it is a lie that he told this jury. another example. he said he never was disputing the underlying facts of his tax crimes. and the defense did a pretty good job of showing excerpts from his book, called revenge, and from his excerpts of his trial testimony from the civil

fraud trial showing, in fact, that he was disputing the facts of his tax crimes. he said he pleaded guilty in the southern district because he was coerced into that plea. they were threatening to indict his wife, and the defense showed him his plea allocution, which undermined that, too. those don't really bear on the ultimate fact, but our little lies he was telling on tuesday to this very jury. and of course, this phone call that happened on october 24th. >> to keep schiller prank phone call? >> yes, it is explainable because we all know from common sense, when you are texting with somebody and you say this person is bothering me and someone says call me, you have a 92nd phone call, you are probably having a phone call about what you are just texting about. and that makes sense from common sense. but it is possible that they had a conversation about stormy daniels during that 92nd phone call. i partially blame the prosecution for pinning this so specifically on michael cullen,

this date, this time, this particular phone call. they could have it, in direct examination, said did there come a time where you had this conversation? it does not need to be specific as this call on the 24th. now, of course, the wire payment happened two days later and there were two other phone calls two days later between michael cullen and donald trump. is all explainable, but they had a good gotcha moment with that 90 second phone call where michael cohen testified on direct examination that he spoke about -- >> on tuesday. >> to this very jury fitting from this specific witness box to these people. so i think that was a real problem, and they are going to now be able to go to the jury in closing and say not only is he a liar, but he lied to you. he took an oath, he looked at you. you who are rendering this verdict he lied to you and you cannot come back and convict donald trump based on the say- so of a liar. and then allen weisselberg, who is missing. and their defense has got to be because allen weisselberg's

handwriting is all of this case, literally and figuratively. they have to save this is the two of them working together. one of them is a liar, he lied to you, and the other one is missing. >> in addition to painting him as a liar, they are also painting michael cullen as fairly unhinged. this is the sound they played for the jury today. let's take a listen. >> i truly hope that this man ends up in prison. they won't bring back the year that i lost, or the damage done to my family, but revenge is a dish best served cold. and you better believe i want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family. >> is that effective? >> i do think it was effective, actually. and i agree with everything that duncan said. i think it was effective because, look, first of all i think this was probably the defense's stay for the course of this trial so far. it was very possible that todd blanchet succeeded in creating reasonable doubt in at least one juror's mind. but the thing about sort of

playing his unhinged commentary is that is also, if i am the defense, another lie i am going to tie up in the closing. i'm going to save this man's choirboy act, when he was on the stand earlier this week acting all polite and sincere, that was another fraud. that was another different michael cohen. he was lying to you, he is presenting himself as someone he is not, and as the defense is going to argue, he told potentially a series of lies. and let me add one last thing. the line that has been offered so frequently from prosecutors and from folks in the media that michael cohen has fully corroborated is not true, and we learned that today because, you know, the call that he had with keith schiller, in one sense, that testimony is corroborated by the call records because we know that the call occurred. it is not corroborated in the sense that we don't know what happened during that call

unless we take michael cullen's word for it. so, you know, i think this has always been the risk in this case, that this day would come when there would be a very aggressive cross-examination that could actually swing the needle. we will find out in a matter of days, maybe weeks, if that comes true. but this was sort of inevitable on a day like this. >> now we have a couple of days to think about all of this. thank you for your time. we have more special coverage of donald trump's hush money trial right after the break. -cologuard®? -cologuard. cologuard! -screen for colon cancer. -at home, like you want. -you the man! cologuard is for people 45+ at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪ i did it my way ♪

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