mcdougal. the llc, is that important? >> yes. it speaks to the overall plan action of how they're going to record these payments that's going to be integral. we're talking about the $420,000 that's an issue. why it's called what it is in the ledger. the why is really the important part. so now we know from this testimony they want to keep it separate from the trump organization. it defeats the purpose of paying the money if it's attached. that in itself might not be illegal, but the question is the why. why do you want to keep it separate? why are you calling it something different? the threshold issue is are these falsified business records. you have to prove that first. then was this in furtherance of another crime. this is going to be the challenging part for prosecutors because he's going to have to say we thought we might be breaking the law. we intended to falsify these records because we believed it could be violating campaign finance law. >> it's really important just to

point out we still need prosecutors to connect donald trump to the actual actions that are taking place here. donald trump did not say set up this llc. it's important to remember that michael cohen's testimony has to be supported at some point to where did donald trump instruct you to do this specifically. >> it's time for us to hand it over. thank you all for being with us. we appreciate all of you. that's going to do it for us this hour. >> andrea mitchell and katy tur will pick things up after a quick break. i'll see you back at 1:00 eastern time. keep it here. lots going on. good day, everyone.

the star witness takes the stand. >> now the critical figure in the hush money case. michael cohen, once donald trump's loyal attack dog, is now face-to-face with his former boss for the first time in months. cohen is the lynch pin of the prosecution's case. they argue cohen acted at trump's direction in an attempt to illegally influence the 2016 election. the defense's counter, once a liar, always a liar. painting cohen as a man obsessed with the former president who now profits by tearing trump down. >> in the next four hours, we will bring you live updates of how this is playing out inside that manhattan courtroom. we kick it off, kicking off our coverage with vaughn hillyard outside the courthouse. here with us in studio, criminal defense attorney, danny and

catherine christian. vaughn, outside the courtroom, talk about michael cohen, the star witness. a difficult witness, a challenging witness for the prosecution. the defense is waiting to get at him in cross-examination. he's been on the stand now for more than two hours. vaughn? >> reporter: right, andrea. for the last hour, the prosecution has focused their questioning on the extent to which michael cohen was so consistent in what he says was apprising donald trump directly of the payments. not only to the door man, but mcdougal as well as stormy daniels. when it pertains to mcdougal in 2016, cohen is testifying he had ten or 12 conversations with weisselberg saying no money passed through the trump organization or donald trump without the knowledge or sign off of allen weisselberg. he said he was repeatedly engaged with weisselberg about the need to pay back that

$150,000 to american media incorporated for the karen mcdougal payment. what cohen has been saying is he was keeping donald trump apprised of this, not only from its inception of the mcdougal story, but when michael cohen knew david pecker was frustrated. that's where michael cohen has just testified in the last few minutes that he went and did that audio recording secretly inside of donald trump's office at trump tower on september 6th, 2016. in which he brought up he says the $150,000 payment and the fact they need today get that payment made. that was through the llc. one day later is when that communication between michael cohen and american media began to take place. about how to send mcdougal's

rights, the story, to that llc. it's kind of a play-by-play as michael cohen says every step of the way, he wanted to show he was actively engaged with donald trump and not just doing this on its own accord. as i speak to you right now, you see behind me j.d. vance and tommy tuberville of alabama. they just addressed reporters. vance said he was inside of the courtroom this morning. he was making the case on behalf of the likely republican nominee here in 2024, that michael cohen, this key witness, is not to be believed. of course, there's the gag order on donald trump from talking about witnesses, so you have seen allies coming to this courthouse in lower manhattan to go and make the case publicly on his own behalf. >> don't sleep on tuberville or vance or the trump kids going into this courthouse every day or some version of that pairing and live tweeting what's happening at the courthouse. what you're getting is a bunch

of reporters sending google docs back. these are talking directly to donald trump supporters giving an alternative narrative. one that is partisan, but don't sleep on the resonance that might have on the broader public. in terms of the courthouse, what's happening in this case, they're going through the llc, catherine, that michael cohen set up, helped set up for mcdougal's payment. this is the step by step illustration of the relationship, obviously, but one step before the heart of this case, which is the llc for daniels that michael cohen, $130,000 payment out of his own pocket then the repayment. walk us through what the prosecution is trying to do to lead us up to daniels. >> she's going to get there. hoffinger. information about the door man

and mcdougal, they're interwoven with the actual crime because it shows, gives background information because they were paying off people who had damaging information that would hurt his campaign. not melania. not the kids. the campaign. so that's the prosecution's argument. so eventually, probably this afternoon, they're going to get to the documents, the 34 counts that relate to, or maybe tomorrow, that relate to daniels. >> i want to ask danny as a defense lawyer, why is karen mcdougal and that whole contract being permitted in? she's not a witness. that was considered peripheral. why is that central to the case about the contract with stormy daniels? >> spoken like a defense attorney. because we're talking about that gray area of what's called prior bad acts. traditionally, or the rule is that you can't just introduce every bad thing a defendant has done in the past to prove they committed this particular crime.

but there are so many exceptions so that rule that it could hardly be said to be a rule. one of those is if it's part of the course of conduct. that's really what's going on here. this wasn't a mistake. this wasn't an aberration. this is how they did business when anyone threatened trump. they would go out, buy the story and kill it. you're right. for the whole morning, we have not heard one piece of evidence that goes to the elements the prosecution has to prove in this case. they have to prove false entries of business records and the records may have been falsified but none with the business records that trump is charged with in this trial. so presumably, obviously, we're going to get to the actual transaction that trump is charged with but this sets the stage. it lays the foundation, but yes, as a defense attorney, there's a complaint to be made that oftentimes prosecutors use these

kinds of prior bad acts too liberally, but here in this case, it is likely part of the entire prior course of conduct that really leads to this practice of catching and killing stories but the mcdougal story was a payment not by, it was not the same kind of anz action. that was caught and killed by david pecker and ami. yeah. so it is a separate transaction and look for the defense to really exploit that. not only in cross-examination of cohen, but in their closing. they will probably say all that stuff you heard about karen mcdougal has nothing to do with this case. >> we're going to get to daniels in a moment. >> if he's convicted on an appeal. >> if they try to keep it on. judge merchan said no, it's coming in. >> back to the courtroom. this is a phone call between donald trump and michael cohen. there is an exhibit that the jury has seen, the phone logs. this one is from september 29th, 2016. they're asking michael cohen

what he discussed with donald trump during this call. here's how michael cohen describes the call. he says it was about the karen mcdougal matter. in order to let him, donald trump, know that it was being taken care of. that the matter was going to be resolved. cohen says the purpose was to reflect $125,000 for the assignment. this is an invoice he's now talking about. he recapped the call and now they're showing an invoice from investor advisory services inc and the document cohen is saying to reflect the $125,000 agreed upon flat fee for quote advisory services. hoffinger says was that a truthful description. michael cohen says no, it was in order to mask the transaction. cohen says david pecker contacted me and said it was no longer necessary for trump to pay the 125 k. i asked why. the reason was because mcdougal

front cover. the front cover she was on the magazine had sold more copies than they had anticipated and they made a lot of money on that so they didn't need to bury the money so felt even for the 150 k, that it was an excellent business deal. so for even $150,000 a good deal, he ripped up the agreement. hoffinger says did you update mr. trump? cohen said trump said wow, that's great. he was happy. this is circumstantial evidence about another hush money payment but it's not the heart of the case here. it's not what donald trump is accused of wrong doing here. it's not michael cohen paying his own money to keep daniels quiet. it's not donald trump paying repaying cohen and calling it legal services when it was not. danny was saying the defense might have an argument that this is, they're going too far into

these circumstances. but don't they need to set this up given that trump doesn't have a paper trail? don't they need to set the behavior up time and time again to tie donald trump to this even though there isn't a paper trail? >> exactly. what they say in new york, this was necessary background information and this is interwove with the crime. that's why the judge allowed this evidence to come in because it leads to daniels. >> and it shows the micro management. i want to bring in andrew weissman, former senior member of the mueller probe and who has been in the court's overflow room today because there are not enough seats. andrew, did you have a view of donald trump? how he was behaving with his nemesis on the stand? >> you can see there's a camera directly on the former president. obviously, there's also a camera

on the witness stand so you could see michael cohen clearly in many ways, when you go to a tennis game and you can't see too much versus when you watch it on tv, you could actually see very upclose a lot of reactions and one thing that seemed pretty odd was it again appeared at some point that donald trump's eyes were closed. i'm not going to say whether he was sleeping or not. but it's an unusual reaction that i certainly when i've done trials, i don't usually see the defendant asleep or with their eyes closed. >> andrew, let me ask you about an article you wrote in that the prosecution doesn't really need michael cohen. isn't he the person that will tell them about that oval office meeting where trump agreed to pay him back? isn't that the key allegation in this case? >> so, my piece didn't really

say that they shouldn't call him. i can really understand why they would, but the thing that surprised me about this case is just how strong it is up until this point. and so i think very often when i've called an insider like i analogize this to calling an insider like andrew fastro in the enron case or rick gates in the paul manafort case. when you call these insiders, they carry lots of baggage, but essentially, the jury kind of knows the scheme. knows what happened. but they want to hear it sort of directly from somebody on the inside. i think that was really the import of a very speedy, direct examination as yasmin pointed out moments ago. when she was commenting on this, which is that the direct

examination is really lashing all of the testimony that michael cohen has given to documents, texts, agreements, that corroborate what he has to say and of course, the jury knows a lot more than that because they've heard from key witnesses like david pecker, hope hicks, keith davidson, jeff mcconney, before this. so so far, it's going really well but as your panel is noting, it's less about direct examination and it's going to be much more about cross-examination and how michael cohen holds up there. >> and right now in court, they're being in the access hollywood tape and how cohen first learned about it, from hope hicks, and corroborating her testimony. he got an e-mail from steve bannon as well regarding the tape. he was in london, he says, he believes, yeah, in london. celebrating his daughter's 21st birthday. and so he get this is e-mail between cohen and bannon as well

as hope hicks, jason miller, kelly ann conway, other campaign advisers. so everybody was involved. >> he also is getting an e-mail from david farn thol asking for comments saying urgent "washington post" query. here's what was in this tape i saw, can you get a comment? probably has an e-mail from me one minute later with the same comment since we went to air seconds after "the washington post" posted it. let me ask you, andrew, about how michael cohen has appeared on the stand. the world knows michael cohen really well at this point. we understand he can be charming. blustery. he can get angry, feel grieved. very easily. if you've been on the receiving end of any of his phone calls when he was working for donald trump, you could get all of the emotions in the span of five sentences. how has he been today? i know he's been working with

hoffinger for a year on this testimony. >> and is he too talkative? >> yeah. so, yeah. so those are great questions. he is doing really well on that score. very often, hoffinger will say briefly tell us. so clearly trying to not have what happened with daniels. make sure the witness is just focused on the question and just answering it. michael cohen is doing that. he is not straying at all. he is answering the question directly. then there were flashes of charm but he is neither angry. he's not off point. acting thin skinned. i'd be very happy with what he's doing. just answering facts and coming off quite well. again, it's direct examination

is a much easier process because you know, you go over the questions and you have a sense of what is going to be asked and they're not hostile questions. i just want to comment on a few things he said that really resonated, at least with me. i can't really say that a jury, but he was asked to sort of get a sense of how much he was really, almost enamored. he said you know, he loved working there. he said it was like a big family. when asked how did it feel when you would go in and tell donald trump about the latest thing that you were doing because the constant theme was of just walking right down the hall and telling donald trump everything that was going on. that's going to be an important theme in closing. he was asked how did you feel when donald trump would say

great or fan tasic. he said i felt like i was on top of the world. >> that really struck me as well. in the opening of his testimony. how excited he was to be in the aura of the great man. he had been plucked from a smaller law firm and all of a sudden and he was moved up and promoted, andrew. >> he saw trump as a god. a kid from long island. this bombastic business man. he looked up to him and bought a couple apartments in donald trump's buildings. he got his attention through a co-op fight or apartment board meeting. he would scream at you.

the way that michael cohen's been described by witnesses. when the access hollywood tape drops on october 7th and cohen is testifying, this could be interesting because michael cohen was not an official member of the campaign, but the defense wasn't really a member of the campaign. he was kind of like a side. this shows he was integral in the campaign at least in this time trying to do damage control for this access hollywood tape.

he said the e-mail from hicks. saying we need to hear the tape to be sure, but deny, deny, deny. he talked about warning steve bannon to call. hoffinger -- in order to protect mr. trump. another e-mail from bannon, it's all over the place. who's doing damage control here. hoffinger asks still in london and several calls to hope hicks. correct. hoffinger says did donald trump call that day. michael cohen says yes. hoffinger says did you have a separate call with trump on october 8th? he says yes. they show the call log between trump and cohen. hoffinger asked what were you doing. cohen says i was with my family and friends in london having dinner but i stepped outside to talk the call.

hoffinger asked what did he want. he wanted me the reach out to my contacts in the media and the spin he wanted to put on it was that this was locker room talk. something that melania recommended and to use that in order to get control over the story and minimize the impact on him and his campaign. cohen says he reached out to members of the media. hoffinger said to members of the press, we talked to you. some sense of the reporting was quite damaging and they wanted comment. this is true, i was one of the reporters. he talks about a series of texts between cohen and chris cuomo. you join the defendant. i'm in london. michael cohen to cuomo. i've been asked by everyone to do shows starting tuesday. cohen, not sure what i'll do. cuomo says will be too late. he is dying right now.

says cuomo to cohen. the depth to which michael cohen was out there trying to do damage control for donald trump regarding the access hollywood tape. does it establish, andrew, a tighter link between michael cohen and the campaign and at this point, is it necessary? >> the question is something necessary is such a great question because when we get to summation, all of this is going to be little pieces. i do think one argument the defense really will not have is the idea that cohen was somehow out of the loop and not connected to the campaign. this was not somebody would turn to. remember, the entire d.a.'s team that sort of the thesis here is that these payments needed to be kept off of the campaign books and you're going to hear about

not just the payment to daniels, but also this $50,000 payment to this thing called red finch. all of this, both payments has nefarious purposes according to the d.a. he was a very useful component of what the trump organization and donald trump was doing and not having a paper trail of the trump campaign itself i think was part of the scheme. so i think that's not going to be the most truthful line of cross-examination. i think they're going to say these direct conversations where they were one-on-one. really on those conversations only have michael cohen, not donald trump, you know, to as witnesses and you shouldn't believe him. and that's where i think michael cohen's testimony this morning was, there's a piece that i think you'll hear again and again, which was michael cohen

was asked did donald trump use e-mail and he said no, he didn't. and he said did you have a conversation about that. he said donald trump said i know too many people who went down, went down, because of e-mails. and that, to me, was to reminiscent of when don mcgahn has recounted, the former white house counsel, said he was berated by president trump for taking notes of their meeting. saying why are you taking notes? real lawyers like roy cohn don't take notes and don mcgahn said well i'm a real lawyer and i take notes. that was just very reminiscent of not having a paper trail. >> no, andrew, that's so funny because the contrast between don mcgahn, the white house lawyer, and roy cohn, the ideal and the idol of a lawyer.

>> for donald trump specifically. >> for donald trump. picking up on what's happening right now. cohen is talking about how long before the election this was. the tape. he says a month. he is dying right now to mean? tremendously negative story in the trump campaign. what did you understand as a result of communications about the impact of the access hollywood tape? it's going to be significantly impactful, especially with women voters. and there's an e-mail, over the donald trump playboy article owned by ami and cohen is telling them i told them to immediately take it down. what also strikes me negative to

mr. trump and with impact the campaign. it strikes me that katy, you know this better than anyone at the time. hope hicks was talking about cohen in a very different light about his interventions. cohen thought it would be central to the response to access hollywood. strikes me that hope hicks and others and especially since he was in communication, might not have thought -- >> michael cohen did a lot for the campaign. he wasn't, in the same official capacity as say hope hicks was or steve bannon or kelly ann conway. somebody traveling with him from rally to rally. but he was playing a role. he did set up a diversity council for donald trump. he held events where he was trying to burnish the black support for donald trump. he played a role in trying to

get donald trump into communities that he would not otherwise be in. he made inroads. made relationships. set up events. often begging donald trump to go to those events. he was not dead set in the middle of the campaign, but he had donald trump's ear. he was of use to donald trump. donald trump is on the record somewhere saying he has his use of michael cohen. michael cohen is a history of being the attack dog for donald trump. and it's a well documented history. he's been the attack dog on a number of occasions to a number of different sources. reporters or people with stories or business deals or you know, contracts he didn't think were fair. payments, bills he thought were too high. there's a long, documented history of michael cohen doing

donald trump's bidding. when you're talking about this moment, october 7th, moont month before the election, what you say donald trump was doing. really, everyone in the campaign was scrambling. they needed to make sure that donald trump wasn't going to hemorrhage the support of women. suburban women. remember the people that did not elect him in 2020. the people that did elect him in 2016. what do we do to convince them this is not a big deal. locker room talk. we heard donald trump call it locker room talk after the tape came out then we heard it repeated by women. it's just locker room talk, boys being boys. so it's something that was working. michael cohen was one of the people getting out there and calling reporters saying locker room talk, locker room talk, locker room talk. >> andrew, you were talking about taking notes and all that. there was another instance in testimony today about using an

encrypted communication signal. how common is that and how striking might that be in a prosecution argument that they were doing covert things by using these encrypted apps and by not having a paper trail? >> so i think it goes to two things. one is stronger than the other. with the evidence that he did not want to use e-mail and people were communicating on an app called signal where you can set that to sort of automatically delete in a minute or a day or a couple of days so it's very hard to have an outsider access it and it can just go away forever like the kids used to do with snapchat. it helps explain to the swrur why you need witnesses like michael cohen.

you will hear an argument, which is it cannot be the case where you can commit a crime with a conspirator, criminal, and when that person then testifies, you say wait a second, you can't believe that person because they're a criminal. it's only so much you're going to be able to corroborate in e-mails, texts, money trail wanting to know about explicit conversations, there's now an explanation. i've seen that in other cases as well. obviously organized crime cases. even on white collar cases in enron. the executives, there was no paper trail. so you had to make the case through cooperating witnesses. that being said, the use of signal obviously is not a one to one in terms of it's not like everyone who uses it is a criminal. so you can't put too much weight

on the fact of using signal. you know, meaning that you're up to no good. there are many legal and valid reasons to use an encrypted app. and so it really is going to have more valid to explain sort of an option to certain types of records in this case. >> back into the courtroom and again, you might ask for why is the access hollywood necessary. why is it necessary for michael cohen to describe what it was like to describe the campaign a month before the election, to worry about hemorrhaging suburban women and voters about the contents of this tape. well, what does that do to daniels? hoffinger says the access hollywood tape comes out on october 7th. on october 8th, something else happens. this could be detrimental to the campaign. that is stormy daniels. so hoffinger says was there a call about a stormy daniels that

wants to get her story out as well. michael cohen says yes, that conversation came. hoffinger says daniels was looking to sell her story. did you know who she was? michael cohen said yes. it referenced back to 2011 in reference to having her removed from dirty.com. what did you think about the potential impact it might have on the campaign? remember, this is one day after the access hollywood tape. cohen says catastrophic. this is horrible for the campaign. hoffinger said had you learned from miss daniels did for a living? that she was an adult film star. hoffinger. in 2011, did you have a conversation with donald trump about daniels? cohen says yes, after i received the inquiry from howard, i went to donald trump's office and knocked on the door and asked if he knew who she was. he told me he did and i stated what the story was that existed on dirty.com.

that they had a relationship in 2006 and i told him one of the things we need to do is take care of it and he said absolutely. do it. take care of it. hoffinger asks did mr. trump met her after a golf tournament? he says yes. he met daniels and others there. she liked mr. trump, that women preferred trump -- hoffinger said did you ask him if he had sex with her? cohen, i did, he did not answer directly. said she's a beautiful woman. did you discuss with general council of life and style. cohen says we'll file a lawsuit. she asked there's conversations where in touch, correct, cohen says. so after you succeeded in making sure that the in touch article didn't come out did you update mr. trump? cohen says yes and i gave credit to keith davidson. so this is all updating as we're

speaking. this is michael cohen saying the stormy daniels story was a problem for donald trump. was a problem for the campaign. especially on the heels of the access hollywood tape. andrew, what is the prosecution need to establish here to really send their case home? >> so, you know, i would say that it's, the defense is going to have to say this is all made up and a lie. and this goes back to the conversation that you were having with danny, which is this is why it's so relevant to show a pattern that this is what's been going on with respect to the door man story. this was what was going on with respect to the karen mcdougal story. it's something david pecker did. we were engaged in a catch and kill scheme and so this is just another instance of that and so

it does make it relevant and corroborates it by showing this is the scheme catherine was talking about. i think that the final piece for the prosecution is going to be about the payment scheme. that it's the cover up. here, the jury has heard over and over again about this vital period and how tenuous their sort of future was once the access hollywood tape came out. they've now heard this over and over again. it's going to be hard to say michael cohen's lying about that. but the key part is going to be was donald trump aware of the cover up scheme which was to disguise his repayment to michael cohen as legal fees as opposed to just a reimbursement of the hush money payments. i think the next big thing we're going to hear is going to be michael cohen talking about

conversations one-on-one with donald trump including a conversation in the oval office. where he's going to talk about that. but that's sort of the big final piece for the prosecution. and then i think we'll get to cross-examination. >> and going back to what's happening inside the courtroom. hoffinger, the prosecutor, asking moving past 2011 between that and 2011 and 2016 and found out howard, regarding stormy, had you heard anything more about the stormy matter? cohen says nothing. hoffinger said when you heard on october 8th that the daniels story had resurfaced, did you also learn from mr. howard there was an attorney represented her? cohen says yes. davidson was going to be representing her. same attorney as last time where he had a positive result. so now they're introducing a series of texts, 16 now.

this is october 9th, a month before the election. howard to cohen. keith will do it. let's reconvene tomorrow. thank you, resolution consultants llc. please call my cell because michael cohen is in different time zones. hoffinger says did you return from london. texts between howard and cohen connecting keith and michael connecting them both. this is davidson, the attorney who had cleaned up the deal before now being brought back in. creating an llc. >> tell me how you established that, not you, but michael cohen. why you did it and now here it is used again and this is the heart of this case. >> that's why his banker testified and why davidson

testified. it's sort of corroborating him. that's right. his banker said that. so this is all him now putting a bow on it but as andrew said, donald trump is charged with causing false entries in his business record. he gave me the big thumb's up, so that's the crime causing the false entries. >> danny, as a defense lawyer, you knew this was coming but how are you going to try to undermine the credibility of this testimony? >> defenses options have been narrowing since day one. the prosecutor is building something. they have to build it almost perfectly because any kind of reasonable doubt, the foundation crumbles. but much of what a defense attorney does is not plan, but react. so i would say the defense has been whittling down since day

one to really just really one of two avenues. number one, michael cohen went rogue. he did this without donald trump knowing about it. >> undermined by, that doesn't make sense considering all the context back and forth. >> that's why they introduced it, to show it lez likely. the other angle is probably going to be intent. they're probably going to focus on the absence of intent to defraud. but as catherine probably knows, the definition of intent to defraud in new york is much broader than you may think. the defense will try to frame this as this was just a company making false enter tris that never got out to the public. the definition of that intent is broader and the prosecutors benefit from it. >> how important is it to establish that it was the campaign that was the motivating factor and not keeping this away from melania? >> very important because well,

assuming for the moment that is the secondary crime the state is going to use to aggravate the falsification of business records into a felony, it's critical. but we're in this very strange situation, we're not entirely sure what that second crime, that aggravating crime is going to be. we have a pretty good idea. we've narrowed it down to a couple of different crimes but yes, it's key for them. they've been laying the foundation all the way. we've heard this from other witnesses. was this about melania or the campaign. that's why you have witnesses testifying including daniels, as to the value of her story increasing as the election approached. other witnesses who talked about the concern for the campaign and not melania. you have some testimony that trump was also concerned about melania as well. so the campaign is everything. if they're going to use some form of election law to aggravate this to a felony. so that is key. it's a theme they've explored throughout the trial. >> there's some interesting stuff happening.

i know andrew, you want to jump in on this. this is michael cohen testifying about donald trump telling him about the story at risk coming out. he says i did tell donald trump because it was a matter that affected him and that was what i always did. hoffinger asked was this a serious matter. cohen says a very serious matter. he says then he was really, really angry with me. i thought you had this under control, cohen says donald trump says. we did in 2011 but i have no control over what she goes out and does. he said there was a previous denial and he said just take care of it. there was a lot going on with the campaign. this is a total disaster. women will hate me. guys may think it's cool, but it's going to be a disaster.

at the time, cohen said trump was polling poorly with women and this coupled with the access hollywood tape would not be good for the campaign. stated it was a disaster. and wanted michael cohen to get control over it. so this is the first introduction of michael cohen saying donald trump directly told me to take care of it the access, not the access, the stormy daniels matter. take care of the stormy daniels story. it's going to be a disaster. this is what michael cohen is testifying that donald trump told him in the aftermath of the access hollywood tape when the daniels story came out. hoffinger then asked did you have a conversation with donald trump about a particular strategy? cohen says he told me to work with david and take control and purchase the rights and purchase

the life rights. he says push it out as long as you can just get past the election. >> you know, katy, it was only days before the debate. >> yeah. let's get into that. trump also say ifs i win, it won't be relevant and if i lose, no one will care. so just delay, get this past election. i need for it to be silenced for the next few weeks, which is going to underscore what the prosecution wants. they want to say that this was an attempt to mess with the election. this was an attempt to influence the election. to make sure women didn't hear about the story and a couple of days later, there was the debate at washington university in t. louis. >> you remember the strategy. i want to get andrew in here. just how important is this as a

piece of this testimony as a piece of evidence in the prosecution case as one of those building blocks? >> totally important. there was a direct order from donald trump on this point. a key admission from if you believed michael cohen, it's a key admission here. it does also the question you were just talking to danny about. which is you know, if the state can't prove that part of the motive here was for the campaign, then this is not a felony and it is, there should be a not guilty verdict on that ground. it would only be a misdemeanor, which is not charged. so it goes to what the motive was. and the fact is if you're not caring about stormy, you know, after the election, that means that you obviously are not thinking first and foremost of

the effect on your life. importantly, under new york law, it is only necessary for the state to show that this is a motive, a meaningful motive. it is not required for it to be the sole motive. in other words, if it's less than 100%, it is still a crime. frankly, almost nobody could ever show that it's 100%. on this particular issue, the state is in good shape based on this. and just remember the timeline that we are hearing which is the statement we heard from michael cohen, which was that donald trump said delay this as much you can. see if you can push this off past the election. we already know from davidson that's precisely what happened. that the money wasn't coming. the money wasn't coming. stormy daniels talked about that. and they said they didn't believe michael cohen's stories that were trying to delay payment.

so he's clearly saying i did that after direction of candidate trump to try and see if we could get past the election. and finally, the jury has already heard talk about something that michael cohen said he heard directly from donald trump, which is the concern of how stormy daniels and then the access hollywood tape would play for women in the election and state has played a video clip of donald trump talking about that very issue about his concern about how it would play with female voters and he basically is saying it doesn't take a lot for me to lose the election. >> just to put a point on this, the next thing he says is cohen accounts what donald trump thought melania thought about this. he goes how long do you think i'll be on the market for. not long.

he is wasn't thinking about melania. he was thinking about the campaign. >> they're having michael cohen lay out every conversation he had, every step he took after the access hollywood tape, after the daniels story, then what conversations he had with donald trump, what donald trump hold him to do. the defense is going to argue, well, this is really not about a campaign. it was to protect his personal life, his wife. this is damaging to the relationship. this is the prosecution trying to knock that down. they've done that before with other witnesses. donald trump saying i'm worried about my wife and people have testified it was really more about his personal image in this case. and michael cohen says it was about the campaign. we are building to the moment where michael cohen makes a payment then meets him in the oval office after the election says are you going to pay me back then the series of checks that pay michael cohen back. not just the $130,000 but the

$130,000 plus the taxes he had to pay on it, right? >> right. the prosecutor's already a lot of the way there. you see this one interaction where he says apparently, trump told cohen to work with pecker and purchase the rights and stop this. arguably, you've got half of it right there. all of these days we've been on trial have been leading up to moments like this. that's often the way it is in trial. you have days and days of sometimes excitement, moments of excitement, long periods of boredom then you have a moment like this, which in my view is a line that if i'm the prosecutors, i'd put it up on a big powerpoint. prosecutors love powerpoints. more words with lots of bullet points. and you can expect they'll probably have one with those words we just heard right up there prominently in bullet form. >> let me ask you about threshold. the defense is going to try to poke as many holes as they can. you said the defense's options are narrowing. what is the threshold for the

jury and what might the defense be hoping for from at least one of the jurors? >> they're hoping for a couple of things. i expect their final arguments will be more legalistic. in other words, they won't attack the facts as much you might expect. what could they argue about the payment from cohen to daniels? nobody can seriously doubt at this point that cohen paid daniels. we've seen the checks that michael cohen received checks that appear to have been signed by trump that were a kind of reimbursement. what we don't know is donald trump's intent. because he hasn't told us yet. he might. but probably not. and michael cohen is really going to be the primary witness cohen will be the primary witness to tell us what donald trump told him and what the intent was, along with a recording of trump's own voice. so, the arguments may end up being more legalist up, remember

todd blanche said in opening statements there is nothing wrong with influencing election. candidates try to influence the elections in many, many difficult ways, but i expect that's the avenue the defense will go to. i don't expect them to put a lot of evidence to contradict facts, so assuming they're going to have the fact, they are what they are, other than cohen being a liar about everything, i think we'll see legalistic arguments in the closing. >> if they filed it as story quashing, would that have been fine? >> yes, if donald trump had pulled out his own checkpentagon to stormy daniels in this amount and called up the f.e.c., and said, in case you're wondering, i did this, arguably there's no

crime there. here's the side letter agreement that they just discussed. and about by october 11th. it was being stormy daniels' lawyer in both of these transactions. and you had discussions of how much would need to be paid? cohen -- the sum of $130,000, daniels would sign an nda so she wouldn't speak of t. and breach provisions, a $1 million violation, with liquidated damages clause by the way, that's an insaying clause. she would oi them a million for and whose idea was that? mine. a side letter agreement? cohen -- this would

indicate --ened the name is peggy peterson and -- and i was the only one who had that one page. that way, with only one, there's no way for it to be released and the information would never get out. why didn't you sign it? cohen, excuse me, during my conversations, it was about delaying the deal, pushing it past the election, delay? he wanted me to wire transfer and i expressed it would be ten days to fund the transaction. i would have waited ten days and then do it again, which i was instructed to do, to push it past the election date. you could have funded it earlier? so you tried to push it off the additional ten days. cohen -- i was following direction. they have just broken for the lunch under 12:00. >> that ties it up with a bow,

catherine, does it not? >> it does. i know this is not a complete transcript, i was home he why zoo whose direction are you following? donald trump or allen weisselberg, that was the direction. >> we're waiting for a full trip, but we're just reading off a document that's being updated by reporters in the courtroom, who can only type so fast. they do an admirable job, but -- >> amazing. >> they do an amazing job. >> liquidated damages clause has to have this tie to, just plucking it owl a million, good luck getting it enforced. >> she could never pay that. >> you mentioned roy cohen earlier, why -- with cohen's testimony for a while at least, he had found that roy cohen.

i know i'm going flip, but the false entry was calling him a lawyer. he hadn't don't -- >> who is roy cohen? >> as i understand it, he was a lawyer that was famous for playing, i guess, hardball, very controversial guy, got disbarred. >> there's a term that -- i'm not going to see it -- that roger stone uses it, it's rat-something, but, you know, it was the nixon eia, do whatever you got to do to get this buried, and donald trump met him when he was young, coming up in the real estate and tabloid world here in new york city, and he taught him, always deny it, deny everything, do whatever you have to do to make something go away, get ugly, get dirty. >> go on the offensive, go after people. it seemed like for a while michael cohen was a lawyer in

his firm -- we haven't heard anything that's real legal services. that's interesting to me, too. the allegations is cohen claims these were legal service, but there's an argument to be made that cohen rarely did anything that -- and basically negotiating bills down and yelling at journalists. >> andrew, one of the biggest things about this case that strikes me is that donald trump keeps a very tight circle around him, a very tight circle. they did not want to get alongside of donald trump. you have allen weisselberg, serve a said prison sentence lying for donald trump. he doesn't let people get away, generally speaking. he let michael cohen get away.

michael cohen is proving to be a damages, a big pain in the you know what, at least, for donald trump. >> this trial is not seeing the bigger picture. on the one hand, you get a sense of donald trump surrounding himself with people who are folks that we know are convicted felons. steve bannon just had his conviction affirmed in the d.c. circuit. roger stone was convicted by a jury. paul pan afort was convicted by a jury, and then by a guilty plea. rick gates, his deputy campaign manager pled guilty. i can go on and on about all these sort of people he surrounded himself with, who have pleaded guilty to serious felonies. michael cohen being one of them, but by no means all of them. so that's on the one hand.

on the other hand, the jury also got a picture of him as a good boss. there were several women who worked for the trump organization or worked for him in the white house, or both, who had very favorable things to say about him as a boss, that he was pleasant, he was loyal, he was a good boss, and respected them, so you get in many ways what i think people -- eye specially journalists, and katy, this may be resonating with you -- as somebody who is charming, as somebody who can portray himself one way to the electorate, but has a very different and darker side. i think that is something that is really playing out in this trial, when you think about, you know, lawyers for a president, you know, in my world, i think

you're the salt of the earth. i think of bob bower, dave kendall, the people that are at the pinnacle of the legal profession, and michael cohen, that he is not. he's not even portraying himself that way. it's a striking array of persona that the jury have seen and a microcosm that journalists have experienced in covering trump over the years. >> one more question about prosecutors' strategy here. we're on the lunch break. we come back to court at 2:00 p.m., not the usual 2:15. michael cohen is reaching the crescendo of the stormy daniels story. how much longer, and where do you think the prosecution will

go? do you think they'll be done today with michael cohen and then cross examination. >> they're experienced prosecutors, moving it fast. i'm very impressed with them. the things that remain, we've heard michael cohen tried to delay the payments to stormy daniels per the directions of candidate trump. when time runs out, there are two telephone calls documented in telephone records between michael cohenened donald trump. we'll hear that, and presumably we'll hear him say, fine, go ahead, make the payment. it will be unusual for michael cohen to make those on his own. that's usually not what lawyers do. they don't pay $130,000 for a client