it is good to be back with you for this second hour. at this hour, is a former tabloid publisher the star witness in the people versus donald trump? what david pecker revealed about his close friendship with the former president and the catch and kill scheme before the hush money scandal exploded. plus from the courtroom to a meeting with japan. trump prepares to host another international leader as the campaign tries to show they're just doing business as usual. and standing by for a judge's ruling. will trump be held in contempt for violating a gag order? we'll tell you what happened during a heated hearing this morning. and code name, plazic echo.

what a newly unsealed document reveals about the documents case and a witness who warned trump to just give everything back. our nbc news reporters are following the latest developments. we begin outside the courthouse in lower manhattan with vaughn hillyard. vaughn, david pecker was the only witness again today. he was questioned about conversations he had about buying stories. what have we heard? >> reporter: court just ended for the day on this second day of testimony from david pecker, chris, and we are in the middle of him detailing the karen mcdougle story. the former playboy model who alleged in a sexual affair with donald trump for ten months now is part of this story, we are getting new details that have not been publicly discussed before. this is coming from david pecker directly where david pecker says in june of 2016, this is testimony in the last few minutes here, that he received a

phone call from donald trump in june of 2016 when the karen mcdougle story came to light behind the scenes. that she was shopping around the story of her alleged affair with him. at this point in time, michael cohn was engaging with an attorney and that's what led donald trump to pick up the phone, give the enquirer a phone call and discuss the offer and whether the national enquirer may potentially buy her story. donald trump said he heard that "dancing with the stars" was interested in purchasing her story. donald trump told pecker that he didn't want to personally by her story because that always gets out were the words of donald trump according to pecker. but this is a detailed back and forth. ultimately, we expect pecker tomorrow to testify that american media, the parent company of national enquirer, ultimately purchased the rights

to karen mcdougle, but we are not that at that point in time. there's a lot of the back and forth -- >> vaughn, i'm going interrupt you because donald trump has come out of court. >> and i don't even know, a gag order. which to me is totally unconstitutional. i'm not allowed to talk to people. so they can talk about me, say whatever they want. they can lie, but i'm not allowed to say anything. i just have to sit back and look at why the conflicted judge has ordered me to have a gag order. i think anybody's ever seen anything like this. i'd love to talk to you people. say everything that's on my mind, but i'm restricted because of a gag order and i'm not sure that anybody's ever seen anything like this before. and even somebody writes an article, if i read every one of these in complete, i'll look at

headlines and the case is a sham. but i can't read the whole thing. i'd be reading, this is like reading a novel. so i put -- and then some of these names, somewhere deep in the article and i'm in violation of a gag order. i think it's a disgrace. it's totally unconstitutional. i don't believe it's ever not to this extent happened before. i'm not allowed to defend myself yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. very, very unfair. having to do with the closings, that's biden's fault. by the way, this trial is all biden. this is all biden just in case anybody has any question and they're keeping me in a courtroom that's freezing by the way. in a courtroom all day long. >> so donald trump once again making statements. i'll come back to you, vaughn, on this. that are patently untrue. first of all, that this is

biden's trial. it has nothing to do with any of the federal agency he keeps talking about how he doesn't want to be gagged but the fact of the matter is you are not allowed in any place to go after witnesses. you're not allowed to intimidate witnesses. there is something called witness intimidation. he apparently has a pile of articles, things he has wanted to retweet, things that supportive of him and then he says but they mention people. this is part of what was argued in the gag order hearing today, vaughn, right? about whether or not something he retweets, whether they could violate the gag order. just to be clear, we're giving donald trump a chance to say something new, something that is news worthy, but he continues to make the same claims he has made in the past. i interrupted you. would you like to pick up there?

>> reporter: right. there's the hearing over the gag order this morning. the judge has not ruled whether he has violated it, but for reference point, the gentleman on his right was todd blanche. throughout the day, we've referenced todd blanche. he's his lead attorney, doing most of the talking on behalf of the defense team. what is so key, what he did not respond to, the testimony that came from david pecker, his friend of several decades. he did not explicitly refute there any of the testimony that came from david pecker here today and of course, he would have the opportunity to do that. not only in a public setting but also in the courtroom if he chose to testify himself in his defense. donald trump here heard the words of david pecker testify, number one, that donald trump sat in a meeting in august 2015 with him at trump tower and told him he was pleased about this scheme to catch and kill

stories, salacious story, and plant negative stories about rival candidates. we also had david pecker testify in front of donald trump today that trump picked up the phone to call him about the karen mcdougle story. karen mcdougle alleged a ten month affair with him. and what you get from david pecker's testimony in the middle of this karen mcdougle story here is the extent to which pecker was intimately involved with not only trump, but also michael cohen. saying and testifying today that he would have multiple conversations with him a week. sometimes when things were intense like around the mcdougle story, daily. i want to let everybody look at a part of the exchange that our team inside was able to transcribe where david pecker talked about encrypted messages sent back and forth between him and michael cohn which would suggest that perhaps not all the evidence that could be out there will ever make its way into the courtroom because it was encrypted.

david pecker says that michael cohn said we should not speak over land line. we should use signal. quote, i didn't know what it was. david pecker continued it was an encrypted app by michael cohn. there's no way to trace or paper trail and the conversation is destroyed after the call to which pecker says he told cohn i still to this day don't know if that's true or not. this hits at the heart of the prosecution's effort to not only provide corroborating evidence to michael cohen's expected testimony, but also those who were in the room with donald trump or on the other line of the phone with donald trump explicitly about the plan that led to that reimbursement of michael cohn for the stormy daniels payment. that this was a barter scheme and that's today when david pecker's testimony started to do. around the trump tower door man story and the mcdougle story.

we could anticipate the daniels case. >> back on the stand thursday. thank you. let's talk about the big meeting that donald trump has planned tonight. dasha burns is following that story for us. trump is scheduled to meet with the former prime minister of japan. he is still a key member of the ruling party. so what's in it for both sides? >> this is part of a series of meetings with foreign leaders he's been taking over the last couple of weeks. last week, he met with the president of poland. the week before, he met with the british foreign secretary, david cameron. this is an attempt, while he is in court, to show that look, he is still doing this kind of work and foreign leaders are reaching out to him. he's in conversation with them. one thing you'll hear often from the former president on the campaign trial and in interviews is that you know, the world was much more peaceful while he was in office. he's trying to present a contrast when it comes to foreign policy between himself

and president biden. here's what he had to say in a radio interview yesterday. >> every one of these trials, every single one of them, is coming out of the white house. it's to help get biden elected who can't put two sentences together. and this is the guy that's negotiating nuclear weapons with -- and talking about world war iii possibly. you never thought in terms of world war iii when i was your president. people are talking about it all the time now. >> so again, a message we've heard over and over again. when i reached out to the campaign about this meeting with the japanese prime minister, they told me in part meetings and calls from world leaders reflect the recognition of what we know here at home. joe biden is weak and when president trump is sworn in at the 47th president of the united states, the world will be more secure and america will be more prosperous. so again, he is limited from going out there from sending that message on the campaign trail so these meetings sort of highlight the work he's doing. for those other leaders, it's

also not necessarily uncommon for presidents, prime ministers, foreign leaders to be speaking with the front-runner of the other party. that's not in charge. so this isn't out of the ordinary given the former president is you know, in equal standing or ahead in some of the polls between himself and president biden. >> yeah. as hedging their bets is often how it's seemed. thank you. let's go to the question now of whether donald trump did violate his gag order in the hush money trial. rehema ellis is reporting from the courthouse in new york city. do we have any idea when we might get a ruling here? >> reporter: no, we don't. the judge hasn't given any indication as to when he might rule on this. again, it should be mentioned this kind of thing, the discussion of all this went on this morning and this was outside of the earshot of the jurors. none of them were in the courtroom at the time. the judge heard these arguments

and the prosecution basically saying that donald trump has violated his gag order over and over again and his words were this is precisely what the order was designed to prevent. and that is him retweeting and talking about potential jurors, et cetera. he says the defendant doesn't care and it seems like he is angling for the court to do something about it. what the court will do, they have asked for $1,000 per violation of the order. there have been ten violations according to the prosecution so far. that would be $10,000. the court, the prosecution said is not looking to incarcerate donald trump on this. they just want him to stop. the judge has taken this all under advisement. we'll have to see when he makes a ruling on this. chris? >> thank you. and joining us now is msnbc contributor and new york times correspondent, sue craig, who just got out of court. as we're following along with this on the document, there is

fascinating detail about how this whole process of catch and kill worked, but to reiterate what we've been seeing from the beginning, that's not illegal. payoffs, hush money, are not illegal. so to the point of the case, what's your big takeaway today? >> well, there was discussion about the conspiracy and i think that's what they're trying to prove. if they can get to that, then they can, you know, it's going to influence how the jury looks at this in terms of is it a guilty or a not guilty. and the conspiracy was laid out this morning through david pecker. i know vaughn has been on talking about it. i'm sitting in the overflow room just listening to him, watching him on a screen. very credible witness. he's very even and he laid out quite a story. he talked about how he first met donald trump at mar-a-lago years ago. he was brought to the resort. he was a guest of nick rivas who

worked for donald trump. and he just talked about their relationship and he, you know, they had kept in touch during the apprentice. they had this mutually beneficial relationship when donald trump became a star on the apprentice where david pecker would get stories about the apprentice, about contestants. this continued for years then in june 2015, donald trump is running for president and he gets a note from michael cohn asking him if he'd like to come to the announcement donald trump is running for president and michael cohn actually said in his note, no one deserves to be there more than you. david pecker came and he attended. then a few months later, david pecker found himself in that now infamous meeting that everybody's been talking about in august 2015 where interestingly hope hicks had attended, david pecker, michael cohen and donald trump.

david pecker gets a call saying the boss wants you to be there and he comes and that's where they come up with this agreement where david pecker's agreed to help the campaign. he's going to catch and kill stories that are unfavorable to donald trump and run stories about donald trump's opponents that are not favorable. so it was interesting even at one moment, they were talking about, they were anticipating there would be women come forward and david pecker was asked about that by the government's lawyer. he said he didn't have anything specific in mind of a story, but he called donald trump that he was considered in new york to be an eligible bachelor. this despite the fact he was married. that was kind of the famous meeting that we know of from august 2015. >> you know, you mentioned the fact he's very credible and something that we have talked a lot about over the last couple of weeks is that when your star witness has credibility issues, as michael cohen does, he is

someone who the defense can certainly say is someone with an ax to grind. someone who wanted a job in the administration. didn't get it. and has a well-known, let's understate it, estrangement from donald trump. you know about the relationship between donald trump and david pecker. that's the opposite. they have not been estranged. is that right? >> right. i don't know the last time that they spoke. i think it might have been a couple of years, david pecker said, but michael cohen, and what was laid out that was interesting, was this relationship that developed after donald trump announced he was running for president where michael cohen was sort of the go between. where if there was a story that either that the campaign wanted killed or a story they wanted planted, michael cohen would call david pecker and he would have the germ of a story, say it's on ben carson, then it would be handed off to david pecker who would massage it and

get it into the paper. but at one point, david pecker was asked did donald trump know about this. he obviously was at that crucial meeting in august 2015, but did he know about the ongoing relationship. and david pecker said he just didn't remember if he was told by michael cohen if he knew. but it ties michaels cohen, saying the boss is going to love this, that communicated there was an awareness but donald trump. but it's really crucial they connect donald trump to this. >> were you able to see donald trump and his reaction to any of this? >> i was. i was in the overflow room so i had a good view of him. a lot of the morning, he looked very frustrated. sort of a grimace and scowl on his face. he did not look happy but a lot of it, not a lot of facial expressions at times. very steady, but not happy. >> always so interesting to talk to you. thank you so much.

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donald trump today face-to-face for hours of testimony with his former friend

turned first witness for the prosecution in the new york hush money trial, david pecker. the former head of the publisher of the national enquirer, a publication that raised the practice known as catch and kill to an art form, first met trump back in the '80s and testified today that quote, he had a great relationship with mr. trump over the years but it was today and moments ago on the stand where pecker gave details on one of the first catch and killed he ever did for trump over allegations from a former door man at trump tower who was shopping around a false story about a sexual relationship between trump and a maid and a child. pecker recounted this conversation with cohen telling him about the door man, quote, if we have him locked into us, it's only going to cause more problems. he says cohen told him quote, no, release him after the election. pecker obliged. i want to bring in a former ami executive who worked with david

pecker. stew sacom. i want to get that right. he worked at the company between 2006, 2004 and 2006. we were talking in the break, sue described the testimony of david pecker as very credible and as i walked over, you laughed. why? >> it's just amazing how david pecker, of all people, could be deemed credible considering what we're finding out. it is kind of perverse in a way. >> do you think he was good at talking to people, getting people's confidence, being credible? >> he could charm anybody. one of his biggest strengths was being that way. he would do his homework, know everything about you before he would walk in the room and charm you from day one. it was successful in attracting advertisers, which is major in publishing, but in cases like these when you're going after

people who you want to help or hurt. >> for most people, the idea of catch and kill is something that they never knew about until really donald trump. that made headlines everywhere. but talk about the practice generally and sort of this back and forth, you scratch my back, i scratch yours, is in many ways, the bread and butter of publications like the national enquirer. >> also other magazines. there's so much competition to get access to talent that you often cut deals. whether you let them look at a story before it comes out, which they did a lot at ami. not only ami, but a lot of other titles from other publishers do that as well because you want to maintain a friendly relationship with the talent. what would be in it for david pecker with a donald trump? was it that frankly his tv show was a hit? >> well, first of all, as you've mentioned before, they've been friends for a long time and

before pecker worked at ami, he headed up another company and one of the bigger publications they came out with was george magazine with john f. kennedy jr. so i'm sure that got pecker, trump's interest up. why can't i have a magazine about me? it was a mutual beneficial relationship in that as a publisher, pecker give trump free press when he needed it. trump could give pecker access and there's nothing more powerful than having access to influential people. >> access is important, it's changed a little bit now, but back then, you had to have that big story on the cover because you were in grocery store aisles. at the drugstore checkout, right? at airports. you wanted to have that one big headline that would make people grab your publication. >> as david said in his testimony yesterday, it's all about the cover. and at that time, ami owned

newsstand distribution companies so they controlled the rack space. whether it was at the supermarket checkout or at the airport or wherever you might see magazines published and he could put all of his together. so assume that the enquirer takes the lead in some story that is pro trump or anti hillary. the other titles they also owned would echo those stories. so you'd have basically a moving billboard as you went through whatever vehicle you were going through and it resonates no matter what you do about it. >> you describe the two as clones. obviously, your old boss wanted to have that cover people would want to grab. nobody arguably wanted to be on the cover more than donald trump. is that what you meant by clones? >> no, how they operate. they're very similar, whereas we've seen how trump pitted all his people against each other. pecker was renowned for doing that. and it creates a feeling of you know, i'm going to please daddy

with the publisher or who their president was. and also, he would tell you one thing and you'd walk out of his office and he'd tell someone else totally different. it's really just a power play to see if you gossiped about him afterwards because there's nothing that would get him more angry than people talking about him in a negative way, like trump. >> how widely known was it? david pecker was told the former editor in chief of the national enquirer, dylan howard, about his 2015 meeting with trump and cohen, that this agreement had to be highly confidential. howard is a potential witness. he ran a network of sources for ami. but how many people would have known about something like what is alleged with donald trump? >> a very small amount of people. that that has to know. people like me in my role of promoting the magazines and stories they carried definitely

would have had to know about that kind of thing. it's a practice that has been going on for quite a while. not just since trump was president. also something that david's company at the time had 27 magazines. they were health and fitness, shape, men's, journal of women's fitness, i forget which one. i have some dirt for piece of enquirer but if you do a piece with shape, that piece will go away because he needed the newsstand support for those other titles. so that was very much similar to catch and kill and it's been going on for a while. >> it is fascinating and your insights are invaluable. thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. coming up, the potential impact of david pecker's testimony. how their personal and business ties played out in court and what it means for michael cohen's potential testimony. you're watching coverage of the first criminal trial of donald trump right here on chris jansing reports only on msnbc. s jansing reports only on msnbc.

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there is something every aspiring lawyer learns very early on in training. when you have a witness with credibility issues and in the case of donald trump's hush money trial, that means michael cohen, you bolster his testimony with other, more credible witnesses. cohen's name was brought up more than 80 times today while david pecker took the stand to talk about the national enquirer's

catch and kill practices. moments ago, pecker said this about discussing potential catch and kill stories. all my conversations about this were with michael cohen. joining us now, paul butler, former presidential prosecutor, professor at georgetown school of law and msnbc legal analyst. danny is a criminal defense attorney and msnbc legal analyst. so, paul, when talking about the karen mcdougle story specifically, pecker said, quote, i was speaking to him, meaning cohen, prior to this. probably a couple of times a week when this subject came up and this issue came up, i spoke to him much more frequently. almost every day. sometimes a couple of times a day. is that one way to use pecker's testimony to essentially bolster cohen's credibility or at least punctuate the point this is a guy who is running things for trump? >> totally, chris. so michael cohen as we know, has mad credibility issues.

not only did he lie and plead guilty to lying in the hearing where he pled guilty to lying, the judge later accused him of lying in that hearing. and so prosecutors are actually used to witnesses like this. the people who know how the crime went down are often down and dirty with the crime. so what do you do? you corroborate. you corroborate with receipts. so here, the prosecutors have text messages, telephone logs and e-mails and they've got live witnesses like david pecker who says i was talking to michael cohen a whole lot. i could corroborate a lot of what he says and david pecker doesn't have michael cohen's mad issues. >> so pecker admitted he would publish negative stories about trump's opponents and alert michael cohen when he came across information about women. the prosecutor asked quote, how

if at all did mr. trump react to your suggestion that you continued to do that? david pecker responded, he was pleased. michael cohen was pleased by the way i was going to handle these issues. danny, there's another point at which they are talking about this unsubstantiated story from the door man about an affair trump did not have with a housekeeper. he said what did you do with the story about an illegitimate child, the prosecutor asking pecker. i immediately called michael cohen and told him exactly what i was told. why is this important? >> trump is not really on trial for the door man or karen mcdougle story but people are using this to set up the existence of a relationship and that relationship had a very specific purpose. here's how it was executed. i would pick up the phone. call michael cohen. we would talk about it. these are all things that are going to diffuse the defense's

really two pronged defense. i had nothing to do with what was going on. those were other people and the other defense, which was they're all lying, making it up. and he makes a good point. when you have a problem like cohen, that only becomes a real problem if cohen and trump had conversations on a deserted island. they didn't. involved also was david pecker. so even when the smoke clears if the jury concluded michael cohen is this lying liar and he can't be trusted, then the people can point to all this other evidence that bolsters cohen's testimony, that substantiates it and makes it increasingly unlikely that either all of these people got together and they all came up with the same lie together. that becomes increasingly difficult to believe. that's why and i've been saying this for a new days now. david pecker would be and is proven to be probably the people's star witness.

i know i'm saying that prematurely because he's the first witness, but it's been compelling. also, entertaining. the jury has to be listening with a lot of attention because i sure am. this is interesting subject matter. the whole unit world, the seedy world of the catch and kill and the national enquirer and how they got stories in the checkbook journalism. it's really interesting and the people know that when you keep a jury interested, they're listening, retaining information. >> another part that leads us to paul, number one, if you have a witness with credibility problems, you have other witnesses to back him up. but the second part danny mentioned is documentation. i'm looking at our recounting of it. for example, people's exhibit 154 is a source document with ami letterhead which is an agreement. you go down a little further. people's exhibit 164. there's another document. document, document, document.

which can be boring. a lot of paper, right, unless, as danny says, it's backing up something that's a little more compelling. >> and this is super compelling, so prosecutors have explained why they think of this as election interference case rather than a boring false documents case. it's a crime in new york to conspire, to promote or prevent the election of any other person by unlawful means. so the prosecutors are saying that falsifying the business records, that was all about the campaign. according to the prosecutors, it wasn't about protecting trump's wife, melania, from stories about his alleged infidelities. this was all about getting him elected. and again, business records, it sounds a little tired, boring, but the jury heard so many juicy bits today.

so trump and michael cohen asked what he and his magazine can do, they asked pecker what he and his magazine can do to help the campaign. pecker said he would be the campaign's eyes and ears. that's how this catch and kill happened according to pecker. michael cohen said that the boss, that was donald trump, would be very pleased if he killed the story that mr. trump had a child with a woman who was not his wife. that story wasn't true. and pecker also testified that the national enquirer would generate negative stories about trump's campaign rivals. so, chris, i always do not trust the national enquirer, that it was a tabloid that you couldn't believe, but man, this is riveting testimony. >> as someone who was covering one of the campaigns at the time, the candidate who was a target of some of those stories, it was a revelation afterward to find out how this actually works.

one of the things that pecker says, danny, that cohen told him, and they were talking particularly about this door man's story, which by many people and was not only not credible, but in the end, turned out not to be true, but pecker says cohen told him this will be a very big story. i believe it's important it should be removed from the market so we will acquire the story. you have to remember that all of this, but particularly the case of stormy daniels, is about the timing. that is about getting something away from the public consciousness at a time when it's very close to an election. >> you're right. we're in the first witness and already the people have set up the timing well. because we know the defense is going to be at least one of their prongs. this had nothing to do with the campaign. this was just embarrassing. i didn't want my wife to find out. didn't want my family to know about this. they previewed that in their

opening. the defense then. this is a family man. this is designed to make it too coincidental. why did you care only about doing this right up to the election? why was that a concern? and you notice they illicit from pecker the increasing frequency of phone calls to michael cohen. used to be once a quarter, once a month. now it was once a week then several times a day. that's what he's testifying. the frequency increases as you get closer and closer to the election. now, even the people know they're not across the finish line yet. there's a lot of really good testimony about pecker's relationship with cohen and their transactions and communications but the people know that they need to also connect that squarely to donald trump. the problem is donald trump and i'm going to borrow a line from god father ii, uses a lot of buffers and paul will tell you, you rarely have that kind of written or oral smoking gun where somebody says, go rob the bank. you're going to have buffers that are handling things for you

and cohen was a classic buffer. and in that sense, the people know that it won't be the easiest path to connect pecker's path with cohen and trump's approval. they've got some evidence of that, but david pecker has taken the people a long way but the people know they need more evidence to connect the mental element to the main target, which is donald trump. >> is there something, danny, that you think pecker can bring to this that he hasn't yet? because he's going to be back on the stand on thursday. >> absolutely. remember, they were friendly. so it could be that the people have more in store for testimony. maybe david pecker had direct conversations with donald trump later in time that are more direct. more candid about what the arrangement was and what he wanted done. the people may be ready to unveil that tomorrow during direct. so, we don't know yet. we don't know exactly, but he wasn't a stranger to donald trump. he wasn't with him every day the way cohen might have been, but

we can expect he'll have more testimony tomorrow. so far, they're really just setting up the relationship and eliminating the possibility that this was just something that was a personal cover up and had nothing to do with the election. they're also setting up that it was a pretty sophisticated scheme. it wasn't just ad hoc random phone call here and there, isolated incident. >> we've talked a lot about controlling maybe the wrong word, but the lawyers challenge, paul, in making their thoughts known to their client, donald trump. someone who is not used to being told what he should do or certainly how he should behave. but i want to ask you about michael cohen. michael cohen knows he has a credibility problem. michael cohen has spent a lot of time with these prosecutors, right? they've had the conversations but he took a profane swipe at trump on x. wrote among other things you are attacks stink of desperation. we are all hoping you take the stand in your defense.

if you're the prosecutor who's calling cohen to the stand, what are you thinking when you see that? >> i'm thinking michael cohen, please shut up. please just do your testifying in the courtroom, but the prosecutor does not control michael cohen. i'm not sure anyone controls michael cohen. so he's not doing the prosecution that he favors in a way that makes his testimony even more credible. although we know at the same time, that he now des dispiezs trump. with regard to the testimony of cohen, they want to hit it and quit it. >> paul and danny, i don't know what the rest of the trial holds when they reconvene on thursday, but the start of this has been pretty dog gone interesting. thank you both. i'm sure we'll speak again very soon. today, some new york city

teenagers swapped their history books for getting a front row seat to see it. live. taking advantage of a day off from school to watch trump's hush money trial up close. i want to bring in owen and hope. they both were there for the first criminal trial of a former american president. they were inside the courthouse today. thank you both for being with us. owen, i'm sure you had to get up really early. what made you want to do that and be there today? >> this is an historic trial. i figured i'd never have another chance to do something like this so i got up around 6:00 to try and get here on time. >> and hope, what made you want to be there? you guys didn't go together or did you? >> we came together. we've been friends for a long time and we've been talking about coming here for a few weeks when we hung out a few

weeks ago in central park. and i also got -- well, i really want to be a lawyer so this was a really good experience for me. i took a lot of notes about what was going on and different people who were doing what and it was very interesting for me. i'm a big part of model u.n. at my school so to be doing this then to report back to the other kids means a lot to me. >> so what will you report back? if you were going in front of your classroom now and they said what was the most interesting part of what you saw, what you experienced, observed, what would you tell them? >> well, i thought it was really funny when the defense attorney was basically annihilated by the judge in opening ceremonies. it was, it really made my day. it was really funny. no evidence whatsoever.

>> is that what your takeaway was as a fledgling lawyer, that you don't go back into court without evidence? >> yeah, basically. >> and owen, what was your big headline? >> i loved seeing david pecker's testimony. i feel like i started getting really, talk about the catch and kill schemes and i thought that's how they got the first one with the door man and karen mcdougle. >> did you find him to be credible, owen? did you believe him? >> david pecker? >> yeah. >> i felt there were some partings of what he was saying were credible, but he was definitely more inclined to help the former president. >> definitely sounded pro trump throughout his entire thing. >> what was it he said or what

was it about his demeanor, hope, that made you think he wanted to help donald trump? >> throughout his entire interview basically, he was talking a lot about, oh, yes, they were, we were referring to the boss, mr. trump. and lots of pro trump language throughout his entire argument. and social studies class, we learn a lot about bias and bias in the media and bias in all different sorts of stories. so it was very interesting to hear how someone actually in court was showing the same bias that we've seen in the media sometimes. >> testimony, also -- >> go ahead, owen. sorry. >> okay. his testimony also reflected how crucial this whole case michael cohen is and will be when he

takes the stand in a few weeks. >> i have to ask you both very quickly, what was your impression of the former president? could you see him clearly where you were sitting? >> pretty clearly. he seemed very much more contained than he normally is. like, definitely i could see him nodding, he was nodding off at times. >> yeah. at the beginning when we were, when everyone was first setting up, he was swearing a lot then he went through periods where he was still. >> i find your observations to be really smart and interesting and hope, i don't have any doubt you're going to be in law school and you maybe down there in that courtroom one of these days. hope and owen, thank you so much for hanging out and talking to us. you guys are terrific. you have to go back to school tomorrow?

>> we're off tomorrow. >> good for you. you can have a full day to recover. thank you both for being with us. we appreciate it. and still ahead, msnbc's joy reid was inside the courtroom today. she's standing by with what she saw and heard next on chris jansing reports. s jansing reports. good thing metamucil gummies are an easy way to get prebiotic, plant-based fiber. with the same amount of fiber as 2 cups of broccoli. metamucil gummies the easy way to get your daily fiber.

he kind of shuffled past, has a perma scowl on his face. he looked like he was paying attention this time. but definitely the energy between him and his main lawyer, todd blanche, was very kind of frenetic and he didn't seem that pleased with blanche's performance, nor did the judge i

will add. so it was an interesting day. i think they got a lot out of today in terms of david pecker. but i think the low sort of moment for the trump defense had to have been the pre hearing before the jury was actually in the room. when they were talking about whether donald trump violated the gag order. this gag order that was issued on april 1st. that was a rough go for todd blanche and donald trump didn't look pleased. >> i don't know if you saw, we had a couple of teenagers who got in line very early today and they wanted to be inside and the young woman who i think is 14 years old, wants to be a lawyer. that was her big takeaway from the day, that the judge really just did a smackdown on todd blanche. is that how you would view it? >> you know, i described it, i was furiously in a google doc e-mailing my executive producer and the way i described it it

was like the kid that didn't do their homework showing up to the lecture then just getting owned by the professor. judge merchan is calm. he's methodical. he makes decisions quickly. he's decisive but he absolutely had no patience for todd blanche's unpreparedness is the only way i can describe it. he didn't seem to have an argument for why donald trump was violating the order and wasn't prepared. >> did he seem embarrassed? everything we've heard about him is he's a really competent lawyer so it seems out of character or maybe he was doing the best he could without any evidence that he could possibly produce. >> i think the 13-year-old, the 14-year-old, i saw the 13 and 14-year-old when i first got here. they were very early in line. might have been first in line. yes, i think he is making the arguments his client is

demanding and he doesn't have underlying legal arguments. at one point, the judge said you are losing credibility with this court. you never want to hear that as a lawyer but he heard that today from this judge. >> joy, i could listen to you and i will listen to you more talk about this because it is fascinating. thanks for running out and giving us a few minutes. good to see you, my friend. that is going to do it for us this hour. our coverage will continue with katy tur reports right after this short break. h katy tur reports right after this short break that work better together. like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. voya helps you choose the right amounts without over or under investing. across all your benefits and savings options. so you can feel confident in your financial choices. they really know how to put two and two together. voya, well planned, well invested, well protected.

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