martyrizing convictedry 6th defendants as political prisoners or even incy hostages. that is all preposterous but the court fears tt such destructive misguided rhetoric could precede future danger to our country. he didn't refer to any republican politicians by name but it's obvious who he is referring to the quotes that he used including elise stefanik who you can hear here calling the individuals hostages. >> unfortunately, we did not have time to play that sound, ryan, i'm sorry. she did say i have concerns about the january 6th hostages. with treatment of prisoners, she said this on "meet the press." that's going to do it for me. "deadline: white house" starts right now. hey, everyone, it is 4:00 in washington, d.c.

i'm in for nicolle wallace. the final day of e. jean carroll versus donald trump with closing arguments focused on a high-stakes question. what is the price to pay for using one of the world's most powerful megaphones to defame someone. first up her attorney addressed the factor looming over the trial, that is, trump's continued attacks on e. jean carroll. she pointed out trump spent the entire trial continuing to engage in defamation, trump dramatically stormed out of the courtroom. the judge noted the incident and kaplan continued. cnn repts that she said, quote, the case is also about punishing donald trump for what he has done and what he continues to do. shd trump tries to, quote, normalize conduct that could hardly be more abnormal. she went on to say, quote, typically when someone is found liable for defamaon, they stop making those statemeven if they don't like t jury's verdict, even if you d't like

the jury's decision you follow it. those are the this trial is also about something much more profound. the rules that apply to everyone else, to you, to me, to ms. carroll, whether they also apply to donald trump. the ex-president was back in the courtroom for his attorney's osing arguments. habba's closing got off to a rough start with the judge - kaplan objecting twice. she claimed the reason trump continued to deny the assault after being found liable is because it was, quote, the truth. the second came when she said carroll's account had more holes than swiss cheese which prompted his warning. habba did not stop there and continues to imply carroll was lying, once again from nbc news, the judge replied that the fact that mr. trump sexually assaulted ms. carroll is established. habba pushed back. the judge represent prix mabdzed her saying you will not quarrel with me. she downplayed the torrent of

threats she received pointing to the six threats shown to the jury during the trial. habba said, that's me on a good day and president trump. that earned her an immediate rebuke from the judge. they had the last word. shawn crowley taking a shot at team trump saying i will follow the rules of this courtroom which mr. trump and his lawyer don't seem to know how to do. from cnn, ms. carroll did not ask to be called a liar. she did not ask to be called ugly or death threats or to be accused of lying. crowley said carroll came forward because she thought it was finally time to speak publicly when what he, extending her arm pointing to trump, did to her. the law protects her from being defamed for telling the truth. he's still breaking the law literal to this day. that's where we start with legal analyst lisa ruben inside the

courtroom. top prosecutor at the justice department and one of my favorites, prosecuting donald trump, andrew weissmann and legal analyst katie phang is back. lisa, an incredibly dramatic day in the courtroom. talk to us about what it is that happened. >> you know, alisha, in addition to the presentations about the facts of this case, folks also got a presentation about the meaning of the jury itself. alina habba trying to diminish the importance of judge kaplan instructing the jury already, they must take to be true that donald trump sexually assaulted e. jean carroll in the spring of 1996 and that he defamed her already by virtue of statements virtually identical to the ones

that are at issue in this case. that's when alina habba said it was a verdict of the jury and kaplan quickly shot back, it was a verdict of this court, it's established, ms. habba. contrast that with how kaplan referred to the jury and the instructions to this jury. at the very close of all of his instructions he invoked the constitution, reading from the preamble, we the people and reminding them that the jury is embodied in the constitution, not once, but twice, that what they are doing here is so foundational to our democracy that it is enshrined in the constitution and that they have a responsibility and a duty to take those responsibilities as seriously as they possibly can to deliver justice fairly and impartially and if everyone in the -- sorry, if anyone in the courtroom was really struck by the seriousness and weightiness of his words particularly when

contrasted to how habba tried to dismiss the prior jury verdict with respect to e. jean carroll. >> to that point, i want your take on what happened because for me as a nonlawyer watching this all play out, carroll's legal team, trump's legal team, it's a study in contrast but today it was brought into stark relief. >> yeah, obviously it was punctuated when donald trump gets up in the middle of robbie kaplan's closing arguments and storms out of the courtroom. the reason it was so impactful is that no one does that, especially in federal court, except donald trump thinks that's something he's allowed to do and that played perfectly into the theme of the closing arguments for e. jean carroll's lawyers. donald trump thinks he's above the law, thinks that has nothing to do with him and look at this. he's getting up and walking out of the courtroom in the middle of closing arguments, the jurors

have to be there. they're there not by choice, they've been summoned to appear doing their solemn duty as lisa refers to and taking their job seriously but, you know, robbie kaplan summed it up appropriately when she said, the first trial donald trump didn't even bother to show up but this one is about damages and this one is about his money and that's the reason why he's here. but the irreverence that donald trump, his lawyers have shown consistently throughout the judicial proceedings just underscores the fact that he thinks, he being donald trump, that he is above the law, but you know the jurors have the last laugh, don't they? and if they deliver a verdict to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, then donald trump will certainly be sulking and skulking away. >> andrew, that irreverence that katie just referenced, it sits not well with any of us given how solemn this moment is, during closing arguments you had attorney shawn crowley pointing directly at trump accusing him of breaking the law which i think we have to take a step

back and say that's an incredibly bowl and brave thing to single out a former president of the united states, the current republican front-runner and to put him on the spot. talk to us about that moment. >> well, i think what the plaintiff's counsel was trying to do was to in many ways embody what lisa talked about, which was this seriousness of this, also, to sort of not give reverence to and to put donald trump on some kind of pedestal but to say, look, this is somebody who's defamed. this is somebody who sexually assaulted the victim here. she actually said there is a victim here. it is not donald trump, and i think one way to think about this, which i think both katie and lisa are getting at, this is a microcosm of what occurred, of what we are facing as a country. you have donald trump trying to say the rule of law doesn't matter.

it was a plain appeal to jury nullification, the reason alina habba was slapped down twice by the judge in her closing, because it was a blatant appeal to jury nullification, meaning do not follow the instructions that the judge gives you. that is improper as a lawyer, but that is what donald trump has done during january 6th. that is the reason for those charges is if he wanted election nullification he still does and is promulgating that so this is very much what we are seeing as a country. we're seeing it if you look at what's happening in texas in terms of the conduct of the governor there. if you look at the sort of embracing of that by people in congress, leaders of the republican party in congress, that sense of the rule of law trying to be upheld in the courtroom by the judge, by the plaintiff's counsel here and the effort by donald trump and his

counsel and many others to sort of really denigrate that when it's inconvenient for them. so i really think this is a microcosm of what we're facing as a country. >> i agree and i think the frustration that you are sensing from judge kaplan is a frustration that is held by many of us. there was another exchange that happened before closing arguments even started. from nbc's reporting, in a tense exchange over entering some social media posts into evidence, kaplan told habba she was on the verge of spending some time in the lockup and told her to sit down. judge kaplan has no patience for team trump's antics which we have seen a lot of, day in, day out. i get, andrew, that they are approaching this as though it's a political argument and not a legal argument and yet the decision here is going to be made by a jury. i can't imagine that any of this, legally speaking, helps trump at all. >> if the jury does its duty, i

completely agree with you, and their job is to figure out damages. they have to figure out whether there is compensatory damages in the amount and the punitive damages. there are factual issues there that you want them to go through. you don't want them reacting just emotionally, but it is very hard to see how the antics of donald trump himself today aren't going to lead to consequences in terms of the jury verdict, because they're allowed to take that into consideration because as e. jean carroll's lawyer said, what is the amount of money to get him to stop? and if you just looked at his behavior in the courtroom, that is something that they're allowed to take into account, but as i mentioned, i don't think that he is playing for that audience of nine jurors.

he is playing to a very different audience to denigrate the whole idea of the rule of law in this country and just remember, as a former president of the united states. >> lisa, let's talk about those nine jurors. help us understand what is happening now, how that jury is talking through calculating damages. >> that jury went into their room at 1:40. that first 45 minutes of the deliberations, they were supposed to be eating lunch while they deliberated and we're told if they sent back a note nobody would be there to respond to it. they have since been deliberating since that 1:40 time as far as i know right now at 4:10. we haven't seen a note from them. i should note that judge kaplan told them earlier this morning that at 4:30 the courtroom is usually closed. if they wanted to continue deliberating tonight they would need to send a note to the courtroom and to him indicating that they wanted to stay a little bit later but they weren't going to stay late into the night. in terms of the substance of

their deliberations, i know nbc news obtained the jury verdict form. if you have that it's worth discussing, because first it goes through what amount the jury would award compensatory damages, that is, to compensate carroll for her injuries and takes the impact of the two defamatory statements from june 21st, 2019, june 22nd, 2019 and asks them, how much money is e. jean carroll owed to compensate her for her injuries other than the damage to her reputation and that's really the emotional damage, the pain and suffering, the mental anguish. how should she be compensated for that. the second question they have to answer is, how much money do you think e. jean carroll deserves with respect to the damage to her reputation and to answer those questions, her lead lawyer told the jury the reputational

repair would cost $12 million. they believe that the emotional pain and suffering damages should be at least that, if not more so you're talking about a request to the jury to award at least $24 million to e. jean carroll and that's before we get to, did donald trump make those two statements with malice or ill will, spite or hate or just reckless disregard of the consequences? if the answer to either of those questions with respect to either of those statements is yes, then the jury should consider what punitive damages are appropriate. and that involves the represent henceability of his conduct but also his financial wherewithal to make a payment and what impact that would have on him and that's where you get into the deposition testimony from the new york attorney general's trial where donald trump was boasting and i know katie made a great tiktok video about it about having the hottest brand in the world. his brand is worth $10 billion, at least. he also bragged in that he has $400 million of cash on hand. those are all factors that e.

jean carroll's lawyer said that the jury should consider in trying to make an award of punitive damages that makes donald trump pay dearly for the defamation that continues through this very day and, in fact, even happened this morning while we were in court, i got back out of court. i picked up my email and i saw our own vaughn hillyard told us just this morning, donald trump's truth social account was at it again saying he never met e. jean carroll, that she was a liar, this never happened. that's what makes the statements defamatory in the first place. >> i mean, katie, that's exactly it. he continues to attack her even as we're trying to have this conversation about him not attacking her in the future. there was an exchange between judge kaplan and habba. this is nbc news' reporting after kaplan interrupted one of habba's statements to the jury she told them in our country you have the right to speak. the judge replied you have a constitutional right to some kind of speech and not others. i think is critical not through the legalese but also because this is the political argument

that donald trump is trying to make, right, to his supporters. he's trying to say that all of this is a limitation on his first amendment rights. >> so that is your proof positive, right, that donald trump has basically interwoven the politics with the law and has made them so inextricably intertwined you can't see one began and the other ends. that's why it was important for the judge to main tay decorum and order and make sure the law was protected in his own courtroom so when habba went off track, he made sure he got her back where she needed to be. most importantly, though, what happens here is there's a dynamic that we as trial lawyers know happens between a judge and a jury. and what's happening in that deliberation room is, how important was jury selection? how it was run by judge kaplan. how those jurors were selected by the lawyers for donald trump and e. jean carroll because within that jury room they have selected a foreperson amongst those jurors. they are now going through the

process of walking through that verdict form that lisa referenced but deliberating amongst each other and that includes ideas about the credibility of the witnesses that testified including the expert witness on behalf of e. jean carroll but the other important thing here, you have to look at the makeup of this jury. there are more men than women on a jury and a lot of times when you're picking a jury especially when it comes to a case like this you may say to yourself maybe we should have had more women on a jury and yet it's interesting, because the tact that was taken by donald trump through alina habba was to basically victim shame and blame e. jean carroll, literally the theme in closing arguments was she asked for it. my gosh, haven't we heard that before especially in criminal cases of sexual assault when some people say she must have asked for it because of the way she dressed. she must have asked for it because she was in that place at the wrong time. that's what they're saying so now you have a group of jurors that are now going to decide, one, how much upon to award her, and, two, is it enough to shut

up donald trump, because in realtime when all these closing arguments were going on he's depapering her on social media but these jurors are not having access to the social media. they don't know what's happening necessarily. they can only listen to the facts and evidence presented through the course of this trial and that is exactly what judge kaplan instructed them. they're supposed to listen to the facts, listen to the evidence and apply it to the law that he read to them and that is why those courtroom doors were locked. when those jurors were getting their jury strucks charged by judge kaplan, it is the most solemn event to serve as a juror, to take that duty respectfully and responsibly and that's why judge kaplan made sure there was no in and no out and no opportunity for donald trump to storm off when he was charging that jury. >> andrew, we are waiting. it is why lisa rubin is standing outside of the courtroom. we've talked about, is there a number big enough for donald trump to stop doing this but does carroll have other options to stop trump?

could she sue him again? what is at her disposal after all of this? >> great question. so the answer is, yes, obviously if you're defamed multiple times you can continue suing. one option that we can see that is one that ruby freeman and shaye moss have undertaken, but, remember, they sued successfully rudy giuliani for his defamation of them in the d.c. federal court before beryl howell and they made a motion because there was this continuing denigration. judge kaplan said you only have a certain right to free speech. you can't say everything at any

time. there's the famous example of you can't shout fire in a crowded movie theater. so, you have limited -- you have rights and they're strong but they're limited. i just want to note something katie was referencing, which is, you know, today we're seeing the second defamation trial of e. jean carroll where she has said in closing, yes, this is a defamation case. it is about a sexual assaulter who has defamed her. don't forget what is the root of this and happens to be on the same day that the department of justice issued a report fairly devastating report with respect to the andrew cuomo administration, so, one, obviously this kind of behavior, one is sexual harassment, but democrats and republicans, but it is a sign of, you know, brave women speaking out, whether it's

e. jean carroll, whether it's -- i think it's now 13 people who are referenced in the department of justice report with respect to andrew cuomo, and so there is this sense of -- as much as we're talking about the politics, there's also this sense of a real change or at least steps in the right direction where i think very much brought on by the me too movement to hold people account, whether it's the department of justice or women like e. jean carroll having enough gumption to take the slings and arrows even from somebody like donald trump to see that justice is done, and it's worth remembering that context but also how brave somebody like e. jean carroll has to be given what has happened to her and continues to happen to her to this day. >> and justice and accountability is what we're waiting for. lisa, thank you so much. we'll have you come back if there is an update in the jury.

andrew, katie, you are sticking with me. when we come back another consequential decision we are waiting on, this from a d.c. court that could tell us just when the ex-president's federal election interference trial may start. we'll try to unpack what is taking so long. plus, governor greg abbott's open defiance of the supreme court, wink, wink, nod,ed to, to suggesting this country should consider civil war from none other than donald trump. he and the republican party telling us they do not believe the rule of law applies to them. later in the show the continued efforts by the gop to downplay the events of january 6th. there are some strong words today from those trying not to let that happen. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after this. "deadline: white house" continues after this neralized ms who are anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody positive. it is lasting control over your gmg symptoms. and, ultomiris is the only long-acting gmg treatment

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we are awaiting a decision any day, any moment from the appeals court weighing the ex-president's claim that he should be immune from criminal charges in his federal election interference trial. despite skepticism from the judges and his lawyer's arguments and expedited time line agreed to by the court it has been more than two weeks without a decision. enough time for trump to publicly declare he actually deserves dictator-like immunity. it could be that all three judges unanimously conclude he is not immune but for different reasons although much more unlikely they did not. both would require more time for written responses and explanations. regardless as jordan rubin writes, these judges know that this opinion needs to be airtight. whatever they decide will

inevitably be appealed which means not onl their colleagues on the full d.c. circuit but potentialally supreme court justices reviewing their work. we are back with andrew and katie. katie, what do you think? >> your guess is as good as mine. jordan wrote such a great piece and andrew and i would tell you, whoever thought that federal appellate machinations and how the sausage is made would be something all are intrigued when. what's going on? because this is probably the most important decision that we're going to reach for american democracy in the immediate. but as per jordan's piece, there's so much going on, these are not just one unified thinking brain, it's three independent brilliant jurists trying to create a ream response and as we know it could be all three signing off on one, it could be each one wanting to

write their own, there could be a dissent there. we don't know. it's almost -- we know more than what we don't know so i think what's important is we know this was done on an expedited basis and know the arguments were hurried and know the judges have to make a decision because it not only impacts this january 6th election interference case with judge chutkan but will have impacts on several other prosecutions of donald trump so i think at this point we just have to wait and see, although that's probably not a satisfactory answer. >> it is not. andrew weissmann, i do not want to sit and wait. in the meantime, i'll ask you to engage in a little speculation which is your sense that the chances that any of these judges, right, don't agree on the immunity question. >> well, a couple things to add to katie's excellent points, one is i know we're all sitting going, i can't believe it's taken over two weeks.

you know, very often you're waiting nine, ten months for a decision, even longer, so, yes, this is going to be expedited. yes, because the briefing and the argument were expedited and everyone understands the need for speed. but two weeks is in legal terms at the appellate level a nanosecond so it feels when you're living, waiting for it and we're covering it, it feels very long and the consequences are potentially devastating. it's better to have a decision rather than just not almost no matter what it is because one side or the other will appeal it. the other thing i want to just point out is that judge henderson is the senior judge of the three-judge panel and that means she has the prerogative to decide she is going to write the opinion. the senior judge can do that,

and so she may be part of the reason that this is taking a while is that, you know, she is probably of the group the most conservative so it is possible that there are disputes and disagreements. they're probably trying to see if they can agree on something unanimously, but if they have to write separate opinions, that would take longer, but it really is anyone's guess. it also just could be a question that they are all in agreement but they want to make sure that what they come out with is bulletproof. the next steps are to look very carefully at how much time they give donald trump to take some sort of appeal. i find it almost inconceivable that donald trump will prevail in the d.c. circuit on his argument based on the substance of the claim and as the oral

argument went, which was horrific for donald trump. so i think everyone should be focusing on when we get a decision on how much time do they give him, meaning how much more can he delay this before judge chutkan can actually set a new trial date. >> joke as i might about the ways in which journalists and attorneys understand imminently and expeditiously and very different ways, it is good that this is being worked on so meticulously because as jordan pointed out, whatever the decision is, it will inevitably be appealed. walk us through that process. >> yeah, and, you know, we say a lot of the stuff tongue in cheek and say unprecedented has been overused. >> i'm so sorry. need to break in. we have a verdict. >> we have a verdict. >> let's go to lisa rubin. >> hi, alicia, there is a verdict. i have not heard yet what it is, but i have the verdict form in front of me so as soon as we

have exactly what the jury's verdict is on these three questions, i'll be prepared to read it to you. the verdict form, i hope you guys have it in front of you as well, it's worth familiarizing our viewers. >> walk us through it. >> absolutely. first question is did ms. carroll prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she suffered more than nominal damage, meaning more than $1 worth of damages as a result of trump's two defamatory statements on june 21st, 2019 and june 22nd, 2019. if yes, they are supposed to put in the amount of damages they would award her in terms of her pain and suffering, emotional anguish. they are also supposed to separately insert an amount for compensatory damages again for her injuries to her reputation alone. what would it cost to mount the reputation restoration campaign that her expert talked about. the verdict will be read, we're hearing at 4:35 so i'll continue

to read for our viewers what else the jury needs to decide. the second question for the jurors is, in making that first statement on june 21st, 2019, did trump act maliciously out of hatred, ill will or spite, vindictively or in wanton reckless or willful disregard of carroll's rights. that is important because without that finding of malice, there can be no punitive damages, and so question two is, did he act with malice on june 21st, 2019 when he made his first denial of e. jean carroll's allegations and then added to them that he had never known her, that he didn't know who she was, et cetera. the second question there is question number three on the verdict form. in making his statement on june 22nd, 2019, when he stood on the white house lawn while waiting for marine one, did he similarly act with malice, ill will or spite and if they answered yes to either of those questions

that he acted maliciously on either june 21st, 2019 or june 22nd, 2019, how much should mr. trump pay to e. jean carroll in punitive damages? that's really the number we're looking for here, because as e. jean carroll's lawyers have repeatedly told the jury, the question for them is, how much will it take to make him stop, particularly when he thinks the rules do not apply. they have instructed the jury as clearly as they can that this should feel essential like a punch in the gut to a person who is a self-professed billionaire who has $400 million of cash on hand according to a deposition he gave last year and the attorney general's civil fraud case. he has boasted in that same deposition that doral, the golf course he owns is worth $2.5 billion. that his mar-a-lago estate is worth $1.5 billion and so today in going through that, robbie

kaplan told the jury, hey, look, he's told you his brand is worth 10 billion. doral is worth 2.5 and mar-a-lago is worth 1.5. that's $14 billion right there. you are entitled to consider his financial worth and how a punitive damages award will punish him and deter him from doing this in considering what it will take to punish him and shut him up. >> lisa, we have about 15 seconds until we are awaiting to have that verdict read. tell me what it tells you, the length of time this jury spent deliberating. >> you know, it's really hard to say, these are fewer questions than the jury had to decide at the first trial that i watched in may of last year and that trial there were 12 something questions that the jury had to answer. here it's a little more simple in terms of what is being asked of them on the verdict form. on the other hand they have to come up with a punitive damages award and that requires a lot of thought so i'm very interested in the fact that there is some

unanimity among these jurors. i'm particularly interested given that earlier today one of the jurors had some body language that i didn't think boded well for e. jean carroll. his body was sort of facing away from roberta kaplan as she was delivering her closing argument. i and others noticed he was a wild card. as andrew and katie know, trying to read jury body language is an exercise in futility. the person you think is against you might be your best advocate in a jury, so i'm really fascinated with the rapidity with which they received the verdict and tells me more than anything they want a weekend. >> i want to free you up so you can get your eyes on that verdict as it comes in. bring it to us as soon as you have it. katie, we are waiting for this to come down. we are moments away. what is it you're going to be looking for, katie? >> i just want to know what the number is, right? at this point, so what happens

here too when the judge actually gets the verdict form, he's going to look it over first to make sure there's no discrepancies, maybe some oddness that's going on. he will turn it over, make sure -- >> i'm sorry. we've got it. >> even better. okay, judge kaplan is now on the bench. he has told everybody assembled there should be no outbursts during these proceedings, they have to maintain the decorum. the jury is coming in and alicia, let's continue a conversation about what katie is expecting while i wait for the answer to question number one from this jury. >> katie? >> yes, so he's going to look at the verdict form front and back, make sure there's no discrepancies and after he's done doing that he will hand it back to the clerk of the courts who will read it out loud every word on the form on the first page as well as the back. we're going to be obviously listening to see what the numbers are and that's what we're waiting to hear and that's pretty much where we are right now. this is a momentous occasion for everybody to be all this hard work that's gone in, we're

waiting to see what happens. >> we're waiting to see what happens, lisa is tracking it for us. katie, you were saying the what it is you are looking for is what that number is. >> yeah, i'm looking for that number right now. i want to know exactly whether or not the punitive damages amount because she got $5 million and keep in mind that during the litigation leading up to this trial, there was an attempt by donald trump to basically make the argument legally that e. jean carroll was capped by the $5 million she got from that first jury verdict, judge kaplan said absolutely not. that is not to be part of the consideration here, but the jurors in this case may be aware of the fact she got 5 million so it's the punitive damages number is the one that's -- >> let's go to lisa. >> i'm sorry. one more time. let's go to lisa. >> okay, the judge has opened the envelope, alicia. he is now reading the verdict, question one as i just reviewed with you is, did ms. carroll

prove by a preponderance of the evidence that e. jean carroll suffered more than nominal damages as a result of trump's publication of the misstatements or the defamation on june 21st and june 22nd, 2019. the foreperson is a woman. i should note there are only two women on this jury, and we still don't have an answer. i'm waiting to hear what's going on in the courtroom. but, katie, i'm sorry, alicia have and katie, remember, this jury is anonymous and kaplan has urged them to be anonymous with us but each other and not use their real names so when the foreperson signs this verdict, she will not do that -- i'm sorry, we do have a verdict. e. jean carroll did suffer more than nominal damages as a result of mr. trump's publication of these two june 2019 statements.

the first amount for compensatory damages for her emotional pain and anguish is 7.3 million. the amount for the compensatory damages for the reputation repair program is $11 million. we're now moving on to the questions about whether trump acted with malice. remember, the questions have to be answered in the afirm tiff to get to a question of punitive damages. we are still waiting for that answer. mr. trump acted with malice in making the first of those statements. that's the june 21st, 2019 statement at 5:17 p.m. in which he denied it for the first time and similarly we are waiting to hear whether in making that -- yes, and june 22nd, 2019 he did also act maliciously or out of hatred or ill will in defaming her on that day and here comes the punitive damages award of $65 million, alicia. so $65 million in punitives, $11

million in the reputation repair program and $7.3 million in reputation -- i'm sorry, the emotional harm for a total of $83.3 million. that's a high eight-figure award. i had predicted we'll be high eight figure, certainly less money i think that e. jean carroll's lawyers had hoped but $83.3 million is nothing to sneeze at. i also want to point out to our viewers the new york attorney general in the civil fraud case across the street is asking for $370 million. if they award him -- if they award the attorney general $370 million over there and he also has to pay $83.3 million to e. jean carroll, that will wipe out the $400 million in cash that trump has proclaimed he has and many people doubt he has that much liquidity. what trump is really dreading is a judgment in this case and the

a.g.'s case that would wipe out his cash, that would force him to liquidate assets to be able to pay both of those judgments. that would really put the lie to his proclamations of endless wealth, alicia. >> that total, let's talk about it, katie. $83.3 million. what does that sum say to you? >> it's the punitive damages that speaks the most, so we know that ms. carroll's expert professor humphries who not only testified in her first trial but also testified in the rudy giuliani defamation trial that was brought by ruby freeman and shaye moss, this expert testified that in order to repair and basically compensate e. jean carroll, the amount would go anywhere from 7.3 to $12 million. that's why we heard robbie kaplan get up in closing arguments on behalf of e. jean carroll and say 12 million for both which would have been the 24. that in and of itself means the jury listened to the expert and a footnote, alicia, if i may, donald trump tried to have his own expert witness testify as to the damages models in this case.

he was denied by judge kaplan for a myriad of reasons including the fact that he was too late to the dance to be able to put on an expert which just goes to show how important good lawyering is. especially when you have a high-stakes defamation case like this. the punitive damages award in the amount of $65 million means that this jury listened to the totality of the evidence and said, you know what, we think that that's an amount of money that is going to basically punish donald trump, punitive damages, we want to punish him, we want to deter others from repeating that conduct. the biggest open-ended question alicia none of us can answer except for the former president of the united states is, is $65 million in punitive damages enough for him to stop defaming e. jean carroll? >> right, that has been the big question all along and, andrew, it brings me back to an argument that carroll's attorneys made during closing arguments which was this, this trial is also about something much more

profound, whether the rues that apply to everyone else, to you, to me, to miss carroll, whether they also apply to donald trump and it feels when i hear that total, $83.3 million in damages that that was the jury's answer in some ways to that macro question. >> absolutely. the way i look at this is the fact that you have nine jurors unanimously making this conclusion in short order is a vindication of the rule of law. it means that judge kaplan was successful in keeping those antics at bay of having the jurors do their duty and when you think about this, compare this to the prior verdict. the prior verdict which was for sexual assault and defamation was a total of 5 million. this is a total of 83 million. the message is, if you continue

to defame somebody, that 5 million judgment, if this was entirely donald trump's fault and doing, it is his continued actions that led to this. i think e. jean carroll has to be really pleased. it was tenacious to bring the first suit. it was tenacious to continue. remember, people thought after the first verdict should she just stop at that point? but she was continuing to be defamed by him, and so they went forward, and i think this is a huge vindication for her, for her counsel and for i think the me too movement and for the rule of law in terms of the jury here and in spite of what we're going to hear from donald trump, remember, this is a jury that made this decision and made the prior decision.

unanimously making this finding and clearly deciding that $5 million not enough. these are continued defamation that has to be thwarted and so this is an incredibly meaningful amount of money. it's a -- really astronomical, and as lisa points out there may very well be more to come, and you can be sure that judge kaplan is going to be overseeing the ways in which this judgment is enforced against donald trump, so that it doesn't just become something that's on the books and paper but there's actually enforcement and the money is actually paid to e. jean carroll and her counsel. >> lisa. >> you know, one of the things that strikes me is donald trump will surely attack this verdict as he did the last one as coming from a new york city jury,

meaning this is meaningless, these are people who are biased against me. no better than the district of columbia where i can't get a fair trial and that's just not fair to what we know about the jury and their demographics. we were prohibited by knowing these jurors' names. we do know other information about them an i want to share it with you and our viewers so they understand this was a jury that in many respects should have been more favorable to donald trump and yet totally repudiated the story that his counsel, alina habba told and he told from the stand as well made up of seven men, two women, the jury was predominantly white. there was one black man on the jury. the jury had multiple people on it that did not have college delegates, i'm thinking about a 26-year-old jury who said he had an associate's degree in business and works in property management. there was also a juror who was originally from another country who also went to jubilee college and was not currently working but had worked as an assistant in a school.

also a gentleman who retired as a track supervisor with new york city transit. there were a number of people on this jury who were not what you would call biden voters but rather you might expect demographically to be more in line with trump or what we used to understand as conventional republican politics so to the extent that donald trump is going to say, of course, these people hated me, they're new york city residents, they came from four counties, came from new york, westchester, rockland and putnam. they are and the bronx and they are not necessarily the people that donald trump will tell his supporters that they were. we have now seen a total of 18 jurors, nine in the first trial, six men, three women, nine here, seven men, two women majority white majority men deciding that donald trump was guilty first of defamation and sexual assault and then again of continued defamation so much so that they

were willing to award $65 million in punitive damages against him. >> lisa, you set the stage for the political conversation we'll be having on the weekend this weekend as we dig through what you can extrapolate about this politically but i am curious legally speaking, donald trump, he left, he left before this verdict came down. if you were his attorneys, if you were his legal team, what is the conversation you're having with him tonight? >> i would sit him down and hopefully this conversation has already occurred by and between donald trump and his lawyers, which is me telling him as a client, you have to stop. you have to stop defaming people because it's only hitting your pocketbook and i think what ends up happening is, he needs to understand that there are literal financial consequences to not behaving and not listening to the law, because in that first verdict that we've seen, he had to post a bond to be able to appeal that verdict.

he's going to have to post a bond in this case. he's going to have to pay up to be able to post a bond and in light of that this is not, like, you can just say i'm taking an appeal. i don't ever have to shell out money before i do so. the process exists that requires him to post a bond and so he will be actually taking a hit. the biggest question is, from what pocketbook, right? because we do know a lot of the fund-raising that happens is to be able to pay his legal fees, et cetera, and so the big question, where is the money going to come from to pay this particular verdict the payment and the judgment collections that happens on this and the fact that the judge is going to make sure this is done expediently in terms of the payment and bond and appeal. the payment won't be made to e. jean carroll for a while. the appeal on the first defamation trial is still winding its way through the appellate system. quickly, as well, is at the very beginning of this trial during jury selection, and we've talked about how important it is, the judge told the jurors to remain

anonymous, to not use their real names amongst each other. i think that had a huge impact on what happened today. these jurors saw firsthand from a life in e. jean carroll what happens when you say something and you stand up to donald trump, and right now the judge actually told the jurors if you wish to speak after the verdict, i order you not to disclose the names of any other juror, and i advise you not to disclose your own name. even now after they've done their duty, the jurors have served and done their duty, they're being told by judge kaplan not to disclose their own name. that is the essence of this trial. the idea that e. jean carroll spoke up. she was defamed and threatened, and she had to suffer because of it. even these jurors understood that there is something that happens when you stand up to donald trump. and so that is, i think, a big part why you saw the huge punitive damages.

>> let's bring in correspondent vaughn hillyard. vaughn? >> reporter: one note was in november, it struck me when the attorney not only for donald trump in this case but also in the civil fraud case, she walked out of the lower manhattan courtroom the day that donald trump testified, and i asked her the question, you'll recall, over the course of those hours that morning in which he testified, and the judge who condemned him and said he had no choice but to make negative inferences from his testimony because he was going off on non-tangential routes during his testimony, and i asked her during the lunch break that day of whether she was instructing her client, donald trump, to stay on message and simply respond to the questions that the new york ag's office, prosecutors, were addressing to him. and she explicitly told me on those courthouse steps, no, that she wouldn't take on a client only to censor them and tell her client what they can or cannot say. in the case of donald trump, she said it was up to him to defend himself in the public or in the

courtroom how he sees fit. fast forward to donald trump here over the course of the last week. and it's notable that donald trump not only in the courtroom yesterday during the three minutes of testimony in which he called them false accusations and the judge ordered that testimony to be stricken, but also last night he posted a video in the middle of the morning in which he continued to defame e. jean carroll and saying that her story was fabricated, that he had never met her before. even when donald trump was inside the courtroom today from his social media account, there were 14 different posts from his account, including ones that said that e. jean carroll only was doing this for fame, was doing this for money, and that donald trump had never met her. up until the jury was to determine what donald trumped pay, he was doing the very things that led to this more than $80 million in punitive damages. >> i'm thinking, andrew, about this -- carroll's lawyer said

today this isn't a campaign rally, it's not a press event. this is a court of law. and it seems as though the jury took that message to heart. when you talk about this being handled expediently, to loop us back to where you, katie, and i started, what does that look like in a case like this? >> once there is a bond in place, basically e. jean carroll will be protected. so in a civil case, there is a right of appeal, of course, as there is in a case. and he can claim the judge made legal errors. he won't be able to challenge the factual errors. that is something that's left to the jury. they made the determination. won't really be a factual claim here that's in any way plausible. but he may challenge legal rulings. it's worth remembering judge

kaplan is extremely well respected. but during that time, during the appeal process, a bond is posted precisely so that the plaintiff is protected so that if the decision is affirmed she has -- she has that pool of money to go against so that those funds can't be dissipated. i should note one thing about the punitive award in this case and in the prior e. jean carroll case is it's within the general rules of what the courts look to. in other words, sometimes you have what's called the runaway jury where the punitive damages are 10, 20, 3 -- 30 times the compensatory damages. that's where the court sometimes cut it down. here the punitive damages are well within --

>> how do you feel, ms. carroll? >> e. jean carroll has just departed court. she is in the car. andrew, pick up where you left off. >> sure. so that was e. jean carroll with her principal counsel, roberta kaplan, who gave one of the summations today and was -- a lawyer in the case. the two of them have to feel very vindicated. it's always presumed in a trial like this. but what i was saying is that the punitive damages is something that usually if you're a defendant you try to attack by saying that the jury awarded an amount that's really not related to the compensatory damages.

the general rule of thumb is if it's ten times more than the compensatory damages, courts tend to look at -- that's not what we have here. the punitive damage award is very tied to and is within sort of rule of reason. so it's hard to see that there will be much of an appeal here worth merit. and as katie pointed out, that bond that will be required is going to protect her so that donald trump isn't able to avoid -- >> i'm not sure if we -- sorry. i'm not sure if we still have you with us or if you are now in that scrum that we are watching. you know, we're watching to see if when e. jean carroll, when kaplan came out, if there was a statement of some kind. i got to say, though, the smiles on those faces said it all. >> reporter: yeah. they didn't have a statement as far as i know, and that was true

of their exit from court last may, as well. you'll remember right after the verdict, they actually came onto our network as well as one other and talked about how they felt about the verdict. and then they made no further statements beyond that. tried to keep their statements few and far between despite the fact that elena hava used appearances to suggest as someone noted earlier that e. jean carroll was just hungry for fame, that she was basically pitching her star -- hitching her star to donald trump's wagon. that's an argument that the jury by their verdict thoroughly rejected. they took side with sean crowley who said you can't equate the conduct of the two people here, and you can't equate what has happened to their brand. one person had a brand as a reputable journalist and truth-teller, and to the extent that the other side is telling you that brand was enhanced because of donald trump, what is it that she likes about her new brand, that she loves the brand

of i'm a whack job who made up a lie to sell books? we don't think so. and then sean crowley, one of e. jean carroll's lawyers, contrasted that with what's happened to donald trump. she said donald trump told you he has the hottest brand in the world. what could be more on brand for donald trump than malice? so when andrew was talking earlier about the convergence of this trial with larger, political themes in our culture, it wasn't just about reminding people about the importance of the rules applying equally to everyone and the centrality of the rule of law, it was also reminding people that donald trump as a participant in our political process, as a president, is a person that has constantly used malice and spite as an instrument almost of governance. that he has weaponized government as a way to execute that malice in the public sphere. and we saw the jury essentially agree today with that verdict of

$83.3 million. >> i just want to take a big step back here because there is, of course, what this means for e. jean carroll. there is what this means for survivors, and what this means for the larger conversation about accountability and those who want to see donald trump held to account for a variety of behaviors. and so i wonder as you watch it through that lens, what this moment says for that bigger moment? >> reporter: it means that this idea of the teflon don is coming to an end. we talk a lot about accountability, and it means different things to different people. i think the judicial system has always been perhaps the final forum to be able to achieve accountability if you are an aggrieved party in some way, whether it is civil or criminal. i think that is the reason why you do see the number of cases both civil and criminal that donald trump is currently confronted with across the

united states in many different courtrooms. i also see what happens when you have verdicts like this is a return to the rule of law. a big part thematically of what was argued by e. jean carroll's lawyers throughout first trial and this trial is the idea that no one is above the law. we hear that also with other conversations and other things and filings from the department of justice through special counsel jack smith and others. that's what's happening. the idea that somebody who wants to hold himself up as being almost a king, second only maybe to a higher being, that there's actual accountability. and that is found in our judicial system. and when you see verdicts like this, i don't care how wealthy you like to claim that you are, it hits you oftentimes where it hurts the most. for some it's the morality compass that perhaps you were found liable for something or guilty of something in the criminal context, and maybe that bothers you enough to make you stop. but in this instance, we all know that a big part of donald

trump is appearances. and right now he has been bested on two separate independent occasions with two separate jurors. he has been -- juries. he has been bested by e. jean carroll, an older woman who has stood up to him and said not on my watch, not on my -- on my life. he's also been bested by a female lawyer in roberta kaplan and in others. so i think that's a really important thing, too. it's a combination of the missage me to. it's a -- mysogeny. and you heard a resounding slap from the jury to donald trump. a smackdown, if you will, of that kind of petulant, intolerant, kind of defiance that we see from donald trump. we also see it in the legal proceedings, and of all the places this is the last place to do it. yesterday donald trump was on the stand for a whopping three minutes. it was the worst idea that could have happened. we'll never know honestly whether or not it was his idea

or his lawyers', but either way it backfired as predicted. we saw the consequence of it today with this verdict. >> it is now just past 5:00 in the east. i'm in for nicolle wallace. continuing our coverage of the breaking news where $83 million in damages was awarded to e. jean carroll who sued the former president for defaming her. carroll departed the courtroom moments ago. this was the second trial brought by carroll against donald trump. she already won $5 million in may in a case where the jury found that the ex-president liable for sexually abusing her. in the trial like last year, the jury took about three hours. it came following a contentious day in the courtroom. trump stormed out at one point but returned for his attorney's closing arguments. we are back with nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. i'm told that you have a reaction from the former president? >> reporter: trump posted on his social media account as he board

a plane. he's going to be campaigning in las vegas, nevada, tomorrow. just in the last few minutes posting, quote, absolutely ridiculous. i fully disagree with both verdicts and will be appealing this whole witch hunt focused on me and the republican party. of course, there is no evidence that joe biden or the democratic party has anything to do with the lawsuit brought against donald trump. but what a jury here found today is more than $80 million in damages that awarded to e. jean carroll by donald trump. i think if we can take a step back here, eight years ago when i was covering the trump campaign and the republican primary and the general election, there were conversations around the more than dozen allegations of sexual abuse and harassment against donald trump. they were allegations and accusation at the time that we saw republicans who ultimately allied with donald trump repeatedly, refute, come to donald trump's defense saying they were merely allegations.

the jury had not been convened and found donald trump liable or guilty of any charges. this go around, though, time is different. what we now have in a likely republican nominee in 2024 is somebody who has been found to have sexually abused a woman but also who after defaming her repeatedly is now having to pay up more than $80 million to her. i think that this is a moment when the republican party is already seeing, if we can make this political for a moment, a drop-off in support, particularly around women around the country here. and for donald trump here, he has continued up into hours just before this jury made this decision here this evening, continued to make the very statements that led to the defamation case against him in the first place. even posted overnight a video in which he continued to see that the story was fabricated. that he had never met her. of course donald trump also a year ago chose to not testify in his own defense. he didn't show up when the first jury was hearing the testimony of e. jean carroll. and instead, he has tried to

cast this aside as nothing more than another extension of a witch hunt. this was decided by a jury now twice. and for donald trump this is different. and frankly, not sure how the republican party or the elected officials who have endorsed him as recently as just in the last week will be able to defend donald trump. but there's little reason to believe that they will not continue to stand by him despite what we now know here from a jury. >> i'm thinking to your point about them carrying his water -- elise stefanik as recently as the new hampshire primary defending donald trump for what happened with e. jean carroll. i want to bring into our coverage former deputy assistant attorney general and former u.s. attorney harry litman. $83.3 million. what does that number say to you? >> it's an emphatic victory, but it's not a stratospheric one. we were talking about even bigger numbers. and i think that is better for e. jean carroll. andrew mentioned the sort of

analysis that a court of appeals will reach, and that's the sore of thing when you have such a winning case as this, kaplan -- being careful to only stress certain factors. and i think the jury was overall somewhat prudent, but it's -- on the other hand, to the point of accountability. i think here besides that it really does i think hurt and his liquidity, can he even post that bond? but i'd like to say that the mvp here next to carroll herself i think is judge kaplan. he showed that trump can, in fact, be constrained, can be kept from his antics, and what accountability means for trump is not being able to proclaim victory. you notice even in that nasty-gram that he sent from the plane, he talked about biden, he talked about others, he didn't mention e. jean carroll. my best bet is he's done with that, and that will be a sign

that he has -- he has lost, been held accountable, and in the most important way his tail is between his legs where it deserves to be. so in that sense, it's a very significant jury verdict and a very important performance by judge kaplan, for other judges to emulate going forward. >> adding to our heavyweight panel let's bring in former lead investigator for the january 6th committee tim hayfee. we don't normally talk about e. jean carroll, defamation is not the team that you and return to. yet, there is a broader theme here, and that is the theme of accountability. people who want to see donald trump, his allies held accountable for their behavior. where does what happened today fit into that broader narrative? >> i think fits precisely into that narrative. what may work at a political rally, what may work on the courthouse steps does not always work in court where there are rules, where there are standards, where people are

instructed to follow the law. and here the jury's verdict demonstrates -- i think katie made this point earlier -- that the rule of law matters. and that's going to emphatically be the case in the criminal process. all of the opportunities that the former has to challenge the evidence about his intent to disrupt an official proceeding will get its day in court. he will vigorously challenge that evidence. he'll have a chance to present contrary evidence. the government has a high burden of proof to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended that outcome. and a jury will decide. and that's a very different forum that operates under very different rules than politics or press. so it is a foreboding warning that the rule of law in this country still matters, and there are many, many more forums in which the rule of law will control going forward. >> joining our conversation, the president of the national academies network and host of "politics nation" here on msnbc, reverend al sharpton.

it was very clear, reverend sharpton, that team trump wanted to make a political argument, not a legal argument. that unsurprisingly did not stand up in the court of law. they also now have to reckon with the political implications of the decision that was rendered today. >> well, the political ramifications or implications i think are many fold. one, you have independent voters, moderate voters, that may have been undecided. every time you have a guilty verdict with an allegation like this, they move further and further away from him. and you must remember, seven of the nine jurors were men. and they were from around the new york area. donald trump is saying what he's in new york so is donald trump. and so these are people that are his peers in terms of where he comes in, where he was raised,

that have found this in two court cases. the other thing that i think was very interesting to me is that as a new yorker myself, donald trump's brand which got him from where he got to in terms of being a tv star and all, was he was this mega businessman, he was this great developer. all of that is at risk now of him losing because he may have to liquidate those properties he has left. and ordered to even meet the bond, less known if it's ruled against him that he has to pay these verdicts out. so donald trump, whether he will be president or not, he has to be thinking about whether he's going to be donald trump, the brand may be gone, the bond may bust him. i think that that's important. another part of being a new yorker is i can't remember other than this trial where you hid the names of the jury even from

each other other than mob trials. i mean, this guy, the former president of the united states, and they're afraid for anyone to know their names? even to each other? and lastly, i think donald trump will most likely now, since you asked the question about political, he most likely will choose a woman running mate because he's about optics, and he has to answer the charges of a woman. so all of that genuflecting that vivek and tim scott did, i think he probably would choose a woman as his running mates. >> i want to head back to lisa ruben still outside of the courthouse. we also talk about how the political and the legal intertwine. today you saw them on a straight-on collision course. >> reporter: you absolutely did. and for anybody who's been watching trump's investigations and legal cases, i feel like we sort of reached phase three here in terms of that convergence between legal and political.

it used to be that they operated on parallel planes, that you might hear themes echoed in the legal sphere that trump had first articulated in the political sphere. but now in the e. jean carroll trial, the rules are somewhat reversed. we are seeing trump trot out on truth social and in his public statements themes that are first articulated in court. and sort of the feedback loop. it's not clear which goes first, the chicken or the egg, the law or the politics. i'll give you an example. when his team was blocked from certain things in closing arguments, trump had thrown up his hands, walked out of the courtroom. he was so frustrated with how judge kaplan treated him when he wanted to testify. he said, this is not america, this is not america, in is not america. look at the truth social post that he just posted as vaughn brought to our attention. what is the last line in all caps? this is not america. it's like a full circle between the courtroom and the law. and i want to make one other

point that's really hitting home for me. you know, we see all sorts of funny memes on the internet about special counsel jack smith. help me, special counsel jack smith, you're my only hope as though he's a figure in a "star wars" like universe. in actuality, who is the first person to get legal accountability from former president trump? it's an 80-year-old woman who was a survivor of his sexual assault. that is the person that achieved accountability here, not any elected district attorney in either new york or georgia. not special counsel smith, not the department of the justice, e. jean carroll. >> i asked you earlier the conversations you thoughts would be happening between donald trump and his legal team. you see in front of the mics there. the response from the former president that said that he is still the one who is steering the ship. >> yeah.

we know that, right, because sweechb a parade of -- we've seen a parade of trump lawyers that are basically legal mega phones or legal speaker phones for what donald trump is trying to convey through the legal filings that he does, et cetera. but -- and i've written extensively and spoken a lot about this, how i find it such a denigration of the legal system. if you're a lawyer and you're taking on a client like donald trump, it's all about that attorney/client relationship, and what are you doing as a lawyer to be able to serve the ultimate purpose for your client. and listen, again, we're not privy to those conversations, and maybe they're exceptional conversations in terms of tracking the roles of professional conduct and completely above board. but at the end of the day, you're stuck as a lawyer being tagged as trump's lawyer, and you're stuck with the losses. he sustained a lot of them. and i remind our viewers, it is january 25th or 26th -- january 31st is when we expect to get a ruling from just arthur angoron

and the new york attorney general's civil fraud case against donald trump, his adult sons, and others. leticia james is seeking upward of $370 million in improperly gained profits by donald trump and the other defendants. if donald trump thought he had a bad day today, he's going to have an even worse one on the 391st in -- 31st in the event that the justice agrees with james' damages model and says the $370 million model is against him. it's going to add up. the bond that donald trump has to post, it has to cover the entirety of the verdict to make sure that e. jean carroll is protected. there's a reason why donald trump had to post a $5.6 million bond from the first trial that he had against e. jean carroll. and so it all starts adding up, and i don't care how much money donald trump wants to say that he has, are his supporters going to want to continue to fund this litigation?

are his supporters going to want to continue to pave toward a legal fund to be able to support this litigation? there's a reason why he has a reputation as being one of the most litigious people in our country. and i think there ends up being a moment where people have to say gut check wise i'm not going to keep funding this because it's a losing proposition. that's where the legal and political collide for donald trump. he doesn't want to lose. he hates losing, but he's a loser. he has lost consistently politically, and now he's losing consistently legally. and eventually that ends up catching up to somebody like donald trump. >> lisa, we know that eleana hava is before the microphones, i am told by our producers, complaining about the judge. no real surprise there. i feel as though there are a lot of lessons for students, for other attorneys to watch what happened unfold in court today. >> reporter: well, i think one of the lessons that lawyers should learn is that trial

advocacy and evidence are two of the most important classes you can take if you are an aspiring litigator. elena hava is an accomplished political commentator. she almost has savant-like qualities as a political communicator, not unlike former president trump and the person who served in a similar role before her, michael cone. what she is not -- cohen. what she is not is a experienced trial lawyer. she repeatedly took umbrage at being shut down for doing things that simply weren't allowed by the rules of evidence. she tried to show demonstratives which are basically big poster boards of compilations of evidence, ways of summarizing things that are already in evidence. in her closing argument she tried to show one that had a number of tweets in it that hadn't been admitted into evidence yet. and she was flummoxed and angry that judge kaplan didn't let her show it. what she failed to appreciate is just because the other side agreed there were tweets didn't mean she was entitled to show

the jury those tweets or say how many there were. so her confusion about evidence has definitely been a liability for her and her clients in this case. i also want to note, you know, the bloom is off the rose. and you and i and katie and tim and others, we have watched this constant rotation of trump lawyer musical chairs. and eventually he grows disillusioned with his shiniest new toy at some point. we've seen it happen with -- joe tacopina who tried the last of these cases resigned from the team because, as he told ref, he had to follow his moral compass and there was a reason he and drufl fell out. now -- donald trump fell out. now i wonder, elinea hava was in the civil trial, we'll an opinion, judges has promised one by january 31st. and now she has for the first time lost a trial in the post-presidential era that has

resultsed in a verdict against donald trump. in the excess of $80 million, is elena hava done as a lawyer for trump? even if she's not done as a mouthpiece? i don't know how much longer she's going to be trotted out in front of microphones if he keeps racking up losses like this. >> if you were an attorney and one of the many other donald trump cases and you watched the behavior that was on full display this week in court, his taking the stand for three minutes, on the courtroom today. what do you take away from all of that? >> i take away myself. he's the worst client in history. he can't be controlled. at a certain point it looks terrible for the lawyer. i want to say about haba, she's been lampooned for elementary

errors. that's all true, but it was worse than that. i think her judgment -- first she wanted to just kind of attack, attack, attack, like do you have a license for the gun and judge kaplan said, come on. but also all her blunders meant she never got any kind of rhythm going. and in general she had really very poor judgment for -- she was trumpian, and that's exactly how you don't want to be with the kind of victim that e. jean carroll was. you know, he's had -- as swede, maybe, what, 15 lawyers now, and a couple have been halfway decent. but it's unclear what he really wants out of a lawyer because he has this sort of dual agenda. but certainly she was a spectacular liability for this case and this courtroom, and not simply because she apparently never took evidence and -- and advocacy. >> tim, we constantly come back to this question of guardrails

and whether or not the legal system can be applied as an appropriates and useful guardrail when it comes to donald trump. i think parts of what we watched out of the courtroom was judge kaplan exemplify what it looks like to set those guardrails. as i asked harry, if you're an attorney in one of these other cases, what are you thinking after watching what transpired this week. i also wonder if you are a judge in one of these other cases, if you are going to have donald trump in your courtroom, if you are going to need to contain him, if you're going to need to contend with his attorneys who are often working at his direction and behest, what you can learn from modeling what we saw from judge kaplan these last few days. >> you know, when i -- my first job after college was as a high school teacher and an experienced teacher told me to find a way early in the semester to do something that demonstrates that you won't be taken advantage of, right. to sort of impose discipline

when a student acts up. and you have seen that. judge chutkin issued a gag order, she's issued stern warnings directly to the defendant and in writing about what is and isn't acceptable. judge kaplan in this trial, this civil trial in new york, similarly repeatedly chastised the defendant, former president. so i think as judges pay attention to judge kaplan's efforts to control the process, he can control the process, may not control everything that comes out of the defendant's mouth. he controlled the process. did a good job of that. the judge and others paid close attention. my guess is look for ways to assert that control early in these trials. >> vaughn, i am told that you were listening to elena hava, i will come back to you, but i want to hear what he heard and how it fits into the broader

narrative from the trump team. >> elena haba is the attorney that donald trump wants. his performance outside on the courthouse steps that you saw her moments ago, she called to this jury specifically, quote, ridiculous. she said that they are intending to have these lawsuits play out in states like new york where the jury will go against donald trump. he took the stand, she said about donald trump, and faced this judge, she's proud of him. donald j. trump does not live in fear, she declared. it's worth noting the number of lawyers that have been fired, thrown off the cliff, say what you will because they have not been publicly defensive enough of donald trump. there's a reason also that he goes inside of the courtrooms in new york and for the civil fraud trial and in this trial. he's able to watch his attorneys come to his defers in real time. you saw elena hava in a trumpian performance come to his defense. think like chris kites, another one of the attorneys that was representing him in the civil

fraud trial. and i'll recall the day that donald trump testified in that suit. chris kites comes out and smiled, he was the florida solicitor general, rather respected across -- among legal experts. and chris kites said he was the best witness he'd put on the hands? 30 years, refer -- on the stand in 30 years, referring to donald trump. it's about defending him to the extent that they are able. to and when elena haba, it's more than just legal. folks, she was on the campaign stage with him in new hampshire on tuesday night after his win. i was on the plane with donald trump one year ago when going to a campaign rally in waco, texas, she was on the plane with him there. for him, it is much about the campaign as it is about the legal at this front. and what elena haba is able to do is tell folks donald trump's own defense. while a jury may have found one thing, they're at least able to go to their churches, their homes, their kids' school events, and articulate to their neighbors as to why this jury

was wrong. that donald trump actually had a jury that was working against him, that the fabricated story -- we shouldn't expect anything different from elena haba or donald trump including when he's on the campaign stage tomorrow afternoon. >> before i go back to harry who was trying to shout to me from across the distance -- i promise i'm coming back to you. i want you to weigh in on the fact that donald trump's liquidity becomes a central question here. he is largely fundraising on the trail for his legal defense fund. if there's any sense of fatigue, there's a question of fatigue as it relates to do you want four more years of this guy, are you ready for this man to be president again -- there also i wonder when you're talking to voters if there is any sense of fatigue of raising a ton of money to pay his legal bills, and two, have they had enough of his legal woes being front and center? >> the difficult part here is

that the primary's all but over here. i think your answer is absolutely yes. i've had conversations with folks that wish that donald trump was not the nominee of the party. but frankly, the republican electorate at large has been willing to stand up and defend him to the court. i can't tell you the number of folks that told me that this could amount to a civil war in this country. there are folks that are willing to fight and defend him. donald trump is not a -- doesn't -- doesn't campaign to the visceral motion of a sympathetic, solemn sympathetic figure. he draws on people's angers and frustration. i think for donald trump, if i made this week, this is the moment where the walls begin to close in on him. i don't believe i'm editorializing in my reporting on this. donald trump has all but effectively taken over the republican party again. he's had his major wins. he's gotten rid of mike pence. ron desantis is out the door, tim scott -- folks are endorsing him. this moment, we understand a day the decision from the civil

fraud trial in which he could pay hundreds of millions of dollars, lose his business license, and put potentially the trump organization in jeopardy. criminal trials about to begin. the democrats and joe biden and the biden/harris campaign are about to start investing tens of millions of dollars into taking on who they say is the presumptive nominee of the republican party today. donald trump's best days may have been over here at this point. and yet among his most loyal supporters, they are ready to defend him. as for independents, voters who have left him now three election cycles in a row, those of course are going to be the conversations that are ongoing, and perhaps it's not why i think we should be surprised why donald trump will continue to do everything he can to at least outside of the courtroom make the case that these are unfair prosecutions against him because, honestly, that may be the only opportunity that he has to not only save the trump organization, but also save his own political future. >> harry litman, i promised i would come back to you. what did i miss?

>> thank you. what kaplan did that engeron failed to do was set the ground rules in advance so that when they began to violate the ground rules he could right away say -- or carroll could say objection sustained. and he hadn't set the rules. trump just sort of stumbled in, and he couldn't stop him. that's the real lesson here. that separate conference, these are the lines, this is how it's going to be. and if you have a peep in the other way, i'm going to shut down immediately so it's clear. >> we are going to continue to follow this breaking news. a jury in new york ordering donald trump to pay $83.3 million in damages to writer e. jean carroll. our all-star panel, they are all sticking with us. our coverage is going to continue after a very quick break.

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we are back with our all-star panel of analysts and reporters. lisa, before the break, vaughn mentioned judge engoron. i want you to connect the dots between that case, connect the dots and add up the numbers. >> reporter: you would think that those two cases are totally unrelated. one has to do with a years's long pattern of fraud and financial statements having to do with the trump organization, that largely occurred even before he was president. this case is about defamatory statements that donald trump made about e. jean carroll while he was president. however, in that case, donald trump talked about his net worth, he talked about his brand value. he gave a deposition there, clips of which were played here, to help the jury understand what financial wherewithal does this guy have, and how do you make a

punitive judgment -- punitive damages award that will hurt? his words about his $400 million of cash on hand, his $14 billion estimated value of just his brand and two individual properties, those were things that the jury considered here in awarding that $65 million in punitive damages. but more importantly, we have been told by judge engoron that he plans to deliver an opinion in the civil fraud case by january 31st, next week. the new york attorney general has asked for at least $370 million to disgorge ill gotten gains or profits that the trump organization and the individual defendants including and especially former president trump took that rightfully didn't belong to them. remember, if he said he's got $400 million in cash and we take him at his word at that, he can't satisfy a judgment of $370 million in that new york state court and $83.3 million in this

court and not have to liquidate some of his marquee real estate assets that he is so proud of. the other thing that i want to point out is what else happens on january 31st. that's when save america, which is trump's leadership pac, has to file its expenditures for the second half of 2023. and those expenditures, as you know, have included his legal fees, two firms like habba madeia that tried this case, chris kites' firm and the case in the new york attorney generals case, his criminal defense lawyers. to the extent that there are small dollar trump donors who are now beginning to see wait a second, where are my dollars going, we're going to learn a lot more about how much donald trump spent from his leadership pac on defending himself in various litigations including this one right behind me next

week. >> rev, here's the thing about the judge and civil fraud case. it does seem to be the one that gets the most under donald trump's skin, the one that he perceives to most impact his brand. he believes to be the hottest brand in town. so i have to wonder about the conversations he is now having not only with his legal team but with his political team, with his inner circle in the wake of what this jury has just handed down. >> he has to be wondering that if in fact on the 31st this judge gives the amount that attorney general james, new york state attorney general james, has asked for, anywhere near it, and he has to start liquidating properties in order to post the bond there and in the carroll case, what that does to his brand. he literally would be removing the trump name that has already

been taken from some properties because he didn't own them like the west side of manhattan, and this whole image that he's built of being like the new and live great gatsby is gone. and he becomes a failure as a businessman and as a brand which means everything to him. donald trump lived for his brand. and it also wounds what he's said politically because he's selling the public on i know how to handle business. if you can't come up with this kind of money for the bond when you've been telling everybody you're a billionaire, then how are we going to believe you about the budget and about other things that you're going to campaign on? he is going to go from being perceived as new york's tycoon, a real-life great gatsby to the wizard of oz. we're looking behind the veil, and the wizard is not a wizard at all. >> andrew weisman, i was going

to ask a question but will use the verbiage my mother texted me, bottom line, when does she get the cash? >> look, that has to await the appeal. and that's because that's part of our process where you're entitled to appeal and be heard, and it doesn't matter whether you're donald trump or anyone else. that is part of the rule of law that we're seeing being upheld here. just to focus -- i will take a step back but not on that quite issue. but to talk about this is really a bad sign for donald trump because when you think about what he's -- what he really has to do and his whole goal is to denigrate the rule of law, to denigrate the judicial system, the court system because that is where he is facing accountability. he obviously has done that with respect to prosecutors, to joe

biden, to journalists. he's done all that. but he has to worry about it, what is happening in these cases. well, he made an explicit appeal today to jury nullification. what is jury nullification, that is asking the jury not to follow the law. that is why alina habba was sort of slapped down by the judge saying do not make those arguments. that is why donald trump, as harry said, tried to inject his own views, whether it was on the stand or in sort of loud statements from within the courtroom when he was not on the stand. was just tell the jury just disregard what the judge is doing, disregard the law. that did not happen. it did not happen hire. it didn't happen in the prior case. he is found to be somebody who has not only defamed but sexually assaulted and if you listened to judge kaplan today, it was in extremely and

appropriately graphic terms in terms of what the jury found that he had done to e. jean carroll against her will, without consent. another jury has found beyond a reasonable doubt that the trump organization is criminally liable for a multiyear tax scheme. and the judge engoran decision is going to be a damage amount. but remember, he's already found, again, in a court of law after donald trump had his day in court, has already found that he engaged in fraud. that he personally has as has his organization. so you're seeing in so many ways the courts really standing up and something liz cheney pointed out in her book and when she was speaking about it, that if you look at the different institutions and you think about what institution is actually held by and large, it is really the judicial system. and i think what we saw today

with the judge and the jurors here all unanimous jurors is you're seeing people really embodying what is the best in america which is that the rule of law has to triumph and that people were going to reject this idea of we're going to have a cult where we just don't hold you to the same standard any of the rest of us are held to. >> right. tim, this question that andrew raises of the trump team trying to engage in jury nullification and the jury standing strong, offering a very strong rebuttal to the argument from trump's team. i want to extrapolate what that means as we move into this general election. i want to extrapolate what that means given the timeline that these legal cases and our political calendar find themselves on. we're always looking for silver linings. we are always looking for indications that the -- there

will be safeguards in place against a second donald trump term. it would seem today that inasmuch as this was good news for e. jean carroll, as much as this was good news for survivors, it was also very good news for those of us who have watching with bated breath and asking the question will our institutions, will our guardrails hold. >> yeah, exactly right. i think that the preface of your question is true. what andrew said is exactly right. that there are times when the noise doesn't matter, and rhetoric and bluster doesn't matter. and regular people, right, citizens of new york and this jury and citizens of washington, d.c., and the upcoming criminal case, with strict guidance from a federal judge will evaluate these same facts. bear in mind there's nothing new that we're learning about the core conduct going back to what happened with e. jean carroll or

what happened at the capitol. it's the same core stuff that has been repeatedly developed by reporters which -- the select committee went into great deal to tell. when it happens in a courtroom, when it happens in the crucible of the criminal justice system or in this case the civil justice system, adversaries testing it and regular people having to decide what to believe, that's fundamentally different. and that's what -- one of the things that makes democracy in this country work. regular people get to make those decisions, just like regular people choose their leaders. regular people are in charge of the liberty of other citizens when it comes to their service as jurors. so ironically in the criminal process, you have a charge of the attempt to subvert democracy that will be adjudicated in a forum that may very well have the potential to reaffirm that democracy with respect to real people making real decisions actually still works. >> katie, you want to ask andrew weissmann about when e. jean

carroll would be able to collect these damages, he reminded me of course of the appeals process, we accept that as part of the process. we heard from vaughn hillyard when he was reading the former president's statement once the verdict was handed down, he does, in fact, intend to appeal. can you give us a sense of timeline there, how long this could take? >> i mean, e. jean carroll's original defamation trial, the first one, it's still winding its way through the appellate court system. there's a reason why the bond statute exists in a way where not only does donald trump have to post the entirety of the verdict, but it also has to tack on interest because there's this idea that somebody like the plaintiff, e. jean carroll, does not get her money until after the appeals process has concluded. it's really reading tea leaves, some that we don't have. although let's be honest, donald trump is no stranger to the appellate court system in this federal process. and so it's not like this case hasn't already gone up on appeal in different ways and in different -- different means.

remember, this is the case that was brought originally by e. jean carroll. a lot of people may think that this is the second defamation trial which it is, but it's based on the first lawsuit she brought when donald trump defamed her back in 2020 -- he defamed her in 2019, and she brought this lawsuit toward the end of 2019. so the idea is think about that now, it's, what, 2024, and we're finally actually having justice for e. jean carroll that many years later. i will say this, too, i want to emphasize because we've talked about justice engoran, these are civil cases. donald trump has yet to be tested in a criminal court. he has yet to be tested in a criminal justice system per se. he may be looking at multiple indictments, but an actual judicial kind of proceeding in terms of going to trial has yet to happen for him. but as you read what your mom texted you, it remind me of something my mom always tell me, you attract more flies with

honey than with vinegar. in this instance, donald trump has not successfully in the legal system thus far attracted those flies. the only ones he has is in the political arena when he bemoans the fact that he's a victim and says he's been victimized by the judicial system. in the instance of justice engoron, that's a bench trial, no jury there. the antics that we heard about and that we read about and that were reported on extensively, there was no jury, there was no impact on a jury. but this was a jury trial. and this was the second of jury trials for donald trump when it comes to defamation. i think that's an important distinction with a difference because the control that a judge has over a litigant when it's a bench trial, it's all on the judge. the histrionics have no impact on the judge it does not attract the honey, doesn't attract the flies. in this instance when judge kaplan lays down the law and literally keeps both trump and habba and her law partner on a

short leash, he does it because there are members of the public there in terms of jurors. and he does it to make sure that this case does not go off the rails as it happens when somebody like donald trump is involved. so i think it's important that justice engoran has done the best and the most that he can do and the most he's required to do as a bench trial judge. but judge kaplan had a bigger role because he had a jury trial in front of him. that's the reason why you saw so many guardrails that were in place. final footnote, good lawyers, they make a hell of a difference, don't they? donald trump went into that new york ag's case already having summary judgment partially granted against him. and so he went in having to defend already against a finding of fraud that had been perpetrated by him, his sons, and his business entities. same thing happened here. donald trump went in already with collateral estoppel. this idea that he couldn't argue against liability when it came to defamation and sexual assault. that was determined for his first trial. when you have good lawyers and thoughtful lawyers, you get good

results. but also you may have a good lawyer but a really bad client in donald trump and really terrible facts. and it that's the case, not even the best lawyers can pull out a win. >> a reminder that the facts matter. lisa, vaughn, andrew, tim, we know you all have to go. thank you so much for being with us during this breaking coverage. we're going to sneak in a quick break. our coverage of the new york jury ordering donald trump to pay e. jean carroll more than $83 million continues after this. this

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we continue to dover the breaking news from new york form a jury ordering donald trump to pay $83.8 million for defamation. joining us for our coverage, eddie glaude. i think it bearing reminding ourselves, donald trump could have stopped all of this, right? we are here because donald trump made a choice to not stop defaming e. jean carroll. he could have chosen to learn his lesson the first time. instead he chose to continue with this behavior. >> yeah. it's a -- not really a revelation, but more the nature of his character. he's a spoiled, rich brat never held to account. he couldn't control himself.

obviously it's a good day for the rule of law. two, the courage of the folks holding donald trump accountable, they suggest that donald trump is not inevitable, right? that the fight back is necessary. if we fight back, we can hold him back form the third point that i think is something we need to keep in mind, as we prod $83.3 million, $300-plus million coming and the criminal case coming, a desperate donald trump is a dangerous donald trump, an emore dangerous. if he's desperate, he will question the legitimacy of the courts, of the election, and amplify and deepen the fears of millions of americans who will in some way back him up in his

desperate state. >> what do you say to that warrant that a desperate donald trump is a dangerous donald trump? >> i say we need to be prepared to see him. >> i think we should not take it lightly. one of the things that was definite starretting to donald trump, having dealt with him through the jeer, you must remember, a jury -- not just the judges in the state attorney general's case, a jury not only found him guilty here, but they set this doctor $83.3 million. donald trump, who thinking he can sway with his charisma any group of people to have this group of people turn around and do this to him, some of the magic is gone now, in his own

mind, his own megalomania, his own narcissism, makes him mott desperate. there's no telling what he'll say going tomorrow. he's not only being financially stripped, but stripped of this delusion that he is one that can ways in crowned. the jury, not the judge, decided the amount he got hit with today. that's something that's a serious blow to him. >> i keep returning, harry, to something that one of carroll's attorneys says, this is some profound, whether the rules also apply to donald trump. that's the core of what we are watching here. that is the nexus of all of these cases.

>> that is at the core of 2024 you asked me what a good lawyer would do now. the truth is, a lawyer would sit down and say, maybe it's time, we've given or best shot in a couple places, we need to sue for peace, as it were. i don't think trump can do that, because the cases come from many different jurisdictions, and he's been so confrontational about it. we as a system have gone so far -- there's nowhere for him to go to and cut a grand deal for that reason, i think he's stuck. if this is as bad for him as many are spec lating, he's got to post it soon. i think nevertheless he's stuck. he's made his big bet on the political process, if that means that legally he's starting today

or depending on when you really being bled dry, i think he, and the country, is sort of stuck. what a lawyer would tell him, now, donald, it's time to try to have some kind of resolution, but i don't think it can be done. >> i want to return to the possibility of a more dangerous donald trump. i have to say institutions holding the line, a jury of peers holding the line. that's about the strongest rejoinder i can imagine. >> but, remember, the people who follow trump are questionings the legitimacy of those institutions. we could turn the channel and get a whole different stories.

there's a concentration of the legitimization process, so we need to be clear, right? he's going to be more dangerous. what this process reveals is the fight back is necessary. e. jean carroll becomes an example. if we push back and punch the bully in the mouth, we might just win. >> i have about two minutes left, katie phang, i don't president to talk about donald trump, but i want to talk about e. jean carroll. i said to end talking about survivors and people across this country who wondered, will i be believed? will i be heard? will the system work for me 12th as they watch a jury of their peers hand down today's ruling. >> we're always looking for allies, right? people to support us and lift us, but we're also looking for

heroes. when you consider what was at stake to fight this battle and what was at stake for something like her to have to do it against the president of the united states -- remember, this happened when he was president of the united states. i mentioned the bully pulpit and the literal ways that he deployed his office to go after one lone woman. the moral of the story is you can do it, but the reality is you are not alone. you're supported and lifted by allies. most importantly, when you traffic in facts it always will win the day. >> rev, i want to give you the final word. >> i think, again, we need to be prepared for an unhinged donald

trump, but we ought to be glad that these people stood up. you asked what his lawyers should be saying today. i would advise him, give me my retainer, because he may not have a lot of money in the next day or two. >> katie phang, eddy glaude, and more, thank you. we'll have more on this tomorrow morning on "the weekend." house democratic leader hakeem jeffries will be our guest. rare here on msnbc. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. we are continuing this reporting of the breaking news. a just just hid donald trump with a record-breaking penalty for lying about a