just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... that's like $20 a month per unlimited line... i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are grateful, and i will be back tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. i'll join my good friend and colleague rachel maddow and the rest of the msnbc primetime team for a special presentation, trump on trial. we'll break down michael cohn's testimony today. that's at 8:00 p.m. eastern. the beat with ari melber, who will be there, starts right now. hi, ari. >> we'll let you reset.

>> have a good show. >> thank you, nicole. welcome, everyone, to a two-hour edition of the beat tonight as we go through a big day in court. i'm ari melber, we have our special coverage, and we begin right now with the prosecutor's star witness taking the stand. you may have heard about it, you may have readied for it, we are now here. the former trump lawyer michael cohen testifying about the work he did for trump, saying under oath this was the dirty work of a, kwot, fixer. and recounting today and the jury hearing it from his mouth for the first time, the road to the payments at the center of this physicalny case against defendant trump. >> big day in the criminal trial of former president donald trump. >> the star witness takes the stand against donald j. trump. >> form fixer michael cohen now the star witness in the new york versus trump trial. cohen on the stand. >> an extraordinary showdown today in court. >> the man at the center of the hush money payments scandal is testifying. >> the ex-president coming face to face with the man who used to

do his dirty work who now has turned into the key witness. >> our own nicole wallace there putting it succinctly, from dirty work to key witness. prosecutors began today with questions about the deals made more what they call the catch and kill plot, including model karen mcdougal's story, of her time with trump. and that would have been a significant event having a significant impact on the campaign if exposed. if exposed, it would hurt donald trump, i should say. mr. cohen said that on the stand under oath. that matters a lot. and it matters for the jury to hear it for the first time. as i've told you before, and today's one of those days where the contrast matters a lot, what you know, what i know, what observer who is follow this closely know, is totally separate from what the jury learns in evidence, the strict rules for that. when we say there are tapes, you

as a person who is informed might say i've heard about the tapes. but what's entered into evidence is a different level. i can tell you as a legal matter, the fact this tape is relevant, that it has been found to be credible, you know, put so-called, you know, made-up stuff into evidence, that matters. and today is the day pursuant to cohen's under oath testimony that the jury is hearing this. the prosecution playing the now infamous tape for this jury, and boy does it create problems for the defense arguments that all this is made up or cohen's a -- or it came out of the blue, why is the jury hearing something that sound like donald trump that's been entered into evidence as donald trump that the judge has said, yep, treat this as evidence where cohen is secretly talking with his client and candidate trump. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that

info regarding our friend david. i spoke to allen about it, when it comes time for the financing, which will be -- >> what financing? >> we'll have to pay -- pay with cash. >> no, no, no, no, no. >> cohen telling a jury under oath that understood that the payment would come from trump, that's why they were talking about cash and how to do it. cohen saying, quote, what i was doing, i was doing at the direction of and for the benefit of trump. in other words, he did it. michael cohen under oath accusing his former client, his former boss, of these deeds. now, we'll get to what the jury will make of cohen's evolution, but even before you get to that, i can tell you this was bad, okay? the jury's heard all these other thing, some of them dry, some of them boring, some at times might sound convoluted or why am i watching a cspan staffer talking

about an old tape. i can tell you that today didn't play out that way. they got cohen to talk about this in detail and really explain it to the jury often in very direct, narrow answer, like the payments to daniels and that trump was angry to learn the whole thing had resurfaced in the critical campaign homestretch, cohen recounted. i thought you took care of this, cohen says that trump told him. i thought this was under control. just take care of it, a seemingly exasperated trump cold cohen, upset that this had come back up, again, according to cohen's account. cohen testified that he, like others, viewed the daniels' story as a catastrophic event. what, if anything did you think potential impact that the daniels' story might have on the campaign, and there you see it, cohen, catastrophic. as this was going on, trump, the defendant, at times was seen

looking away. he had his eyes closed. at other times he was seen reacting with his head bowed, even looking somewhat concerned according to at least one sketch artist there. cohen paints a damning picture of his client. he says trump was not only in on everything but well aware of the cover-up of everything. he was in on the plan to pay it off and he was in on the cover-up. and he was in on the theory that cohen and pecker and other officials have conveyed that all of this would have an impact on the election. and that's central to the felony charge. the cover-up was only for the 2016 election, not for some other set of reasons. cohen walking the jury through the secret agreement with the enquirer, which corroborates testimony from its own publisher, pecker, who was, of course, kind of the first star witness in all of this. confirming the stories would be beneficial to the campaign.

the jury was shown how that would work. cohen, like pecker, testified the tabloid never paud to kill stories prior to this situation of helping a tabloid publisher's friend, donald trump, run for president. trump's lawyers were able to show in questioning that the tabloid did coordinate with other people in the public eye and even some other candidates like arnold schwarzenegger about coverage. but it didn't get to the level of this very unusual catch and kill. and the big difference there is it's one thing to have some kind of agreement with people, sources or otherwise, it's another thing to start spending money on behalf of a campaign under the table. that's what's ealleged. cohen testifies when daniels' story first resurfaced, trump said this is going to be a disaster for the campaign and trump said basically delay the election, if i win, it won't have any relevance, if i lose, i don't really care, trump said,

according to cohen's account. now, note that contrast with trump's bravado about always winning. or lying about when he does lose like in 2020. a lot of people, including people friendly to trump, view that as his natural way or even honest way or he really does believe he won when he lost. we've seen people testifying under oath and you get a different picture. for example, right here, this then fixer says trump was making plans about losing and how h would play that, how he would save money if he lost in the context of a campaign catch and kill deal. so that already is a lot. prosecutors also used today to circle back to other individuals who've testified. and remember, trump defense lawyers have gon after people

like keith davidson, the lawyer you see on your screen, and suggested that maybe he was spinning or making things up in a certain way. but now you have people on both sides of emails and text, both sides of the contract, and cohen largely testified consistently with davidson. davidson, for example, had said cohn was frustrating to work with, because he made excuses for not paying on time. so remember, that's not like some compliment to michael cohen, it's just a claim about why things got delayed. and today, even if it comes to some sort of holy thing, how you use your time to celebrate a holiday, cohn admits he was trying to the lay because trump wanted to save money if he lost the election. the yom kippur holiday, up with of the hollyiest days of the year year for the jews, cohen says he would just use the

holiday and other things as an excuse. when asked according to who, after the election, it wouldn't matter according to mr. trump. trump did come around beaks before the election and told cohen there's no reason to keep this thing out there, meet up with weisselberg, figure it out. weisselberg is the now jailed cfo of the organization who's gone to jail twice now for trump-related crimes. we do not yet see evidence or indication he'll testify, although the judge did ask about it. we know the payments to daniels came directly from cohen but that the plan was it was trump's money, that all along it would be trump's money, that cohen was fronting the money just like a friend could loan you money or a bank could loan you money, this was just a bit more secretive. but cohen says to the jury today, trump promised to are pay him. and he wouldn't have paid daniels without that promise, permission, and plan, because everything required mr. trump's signoff, he testified, and he,

michael cohen, wanted his money back. now then there's the questions about family. the defense has tried to argue that trump, like many other people, might simply want to avoid personal family problems, public embarrassment, and would have other motivations, not the campaign thing, which again, matters because the d.a. has to prove the cam pawn motive if it's going to be a campaign crime. so again, imagine that you're a member of this jury. most of this stuff is new to you, you're supposed to keep an open mind, and you're following these claims over time. and so far the prosecutors have put on person after person after person with a lot of corroboration along with receipts. and so cohen addressed this as well, and he said, no, it wasn't about melania, quote, this was all about the campaign, according to trump's motive, campaign's conduct, and the risks they took to keep this secret. now, you take that all together,

and this is what they call corroboration. it doesn't mean it's done. if we were scoring this, we would say the prosecutors are way up, but they're supposed to be. they almost have to be at this point. they've been in control of the case. and as for cohen, they're up with him saying a lot of bad stuff about his boss that he has personal eyewitness knowledge of. this isn't some hearsay, this isn't some conjecture. he literally has tapes of his boss. he has texts, mail, explanations around it. he's been in and out of prison. he's under the thereto of perjury. he has every reason of telling the truth right now. that's bad for the defendant. but -- this isn't an on the other hand but -- how it really works is he hasn't faced cross examination yet. one of the reasons the prosecutors may have held him as one of the last witnesses is he's strong what he knows but compromised in some ways for cross. they've put on a lot of witnesses that have had really pretty straight forward time on

the cross examination. no perry mason moments. here there may be some as the prosecutors rest, before they rest you have a defense that's going to come in and say haven't you lied before? haven't you said on tiktok you want this guy in jail? wouldn't it be reasonable to think you're a little biassed right now if you've announced your goal here is not just to tell the truth but to get your old boss in jail? aren't you mad you had to go to trail? aren't you mad you were convicted of, confessed to this campaign crime and no one else has got in trouble about it. couldn't any of that cloud your judgement? and the jury might hear all of that tomorrow and thursday and have some doubts. but right now the prosecution is up, and right now if you were a defendant, forget trump, forget maga, forget the election, if you were a defendant in this kind of fraud case and your own lawyer turned in all the info, confessed, and said aurp part of the fraud, and remember, you can't use lawyers to commit that crime or any other, well, you'd be pretty hot under the collar if you were the defendant right

now. cohen's testimony will continue tomorrow and then cross, as i mentioned, after that. and we have two seasoned experts here to get into it, krity and molly, when we're back in just 90 seconds. n we're back in just 90 seconds keep up. thank you verizon business. (kevin) now our businesses get fast and reliable internet from the same network that powers our phones. (aaron) so whatever's next... we're cooking with fire. (vo) switch to the partner businesses rely on. hi. i use febreze fade defy plug. and i use this. febreze has a microchip to control scent release so it smells first-day fresh for 50 days. 50 days!? and its refill reminder light means i'll never miss a day of freshness. ♪

we're talking about cashbackin. not a game. not a game! we're talking about cashbackin. we're talking about cashbackin. we're not talking about practice? no. we're talking about cashbackin. we're talking about cashbackin. we're talking about cashbackin. not a game! we've been talking about practice for too long. -word. -no practice. we're talking about cashbackin. we're talking about cashbackin. i mean, we're not talking about a game! cashback like a pro with chase freedom unlimited. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours. oh, he knew about everything. everything had to go through mr. trump, and it had to be approved by mr. trump. >> michael cohen, that was the last time he testified under

oath, it was 2019. we had the footage because it was congress. today we have the expert, we have the words, we're going to get into it all, we have the sketches. we don't have video under the rules of new york courts, but we are joined by people who know the situation well, christy green berg, inside the courtroom today, and molly molly jong-fast. welcome to both of you. starting, christy, with what it felt like in court, what did it feel like in the room? >> even though we've heard this evidence before in the news, the access hollywood tape, the reporting that you mentioned, hearing it in that context, michael cohen hearing his own words, it did feel different. it felt momentous. and there were some really bombshell moments. that moment where they're talking about the access hollywood tape and michael cohen say, oh, this locker room talk spin, that actually -- that came from melania? that was something i hadn't heard before. i'm thinking, is that really

something that melania would have said? and then when they were talking about the stormy daniels payment and delaying the payment, the reasons for it, the fact that it was -- that he wasn't willing to make that payment if it was for anything other than the campaign, was just striking. i mean, it's $130,000. he's a self-purported billion nar, and he's not willing to spend $130,000 to sauf his marriage. and that's what the testimony was today, that, you know, if it's not before the election, then i don't really care. so that was really striking. it made me think he's so worried that this would have been a disaster if it had come out before the election because it would hurt these female voters' opinions of him, right now he needs to think about those five women on the jury, because i'm sure they don't have a very high opinion of him right now. >> yeah, i mean, female voters are the key here spchlt he needs to get, you know, he is running again for president. so i do think this is all really

meaningful. there's been some people saying it's not going to matter, but i think it does matter. it's permeating local news station, and a lot of people are getting their news from local news. >> he says according to cohen, and as i've emphasized, there's real risk and punishment if he was wantonly perjuring himself. and begun, we'll cover the cross when they deal with credibility. i say that to give people the perspective of what we're getting. it's not a direct quote, it's a cohen quote. having said that he said that trump said, quote, women are going to hate me. this really is a disaster. women will hate me. guy, they think it's cool. but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign, end quote. give us the context of when cohen was saying that, why is it relevant legally, and if you want, what it means that the jury is looking at him saying, okay, is he telling the truth or not. >> yeah, so this came up right before the lunch break, and it

was this moment. we had been going through a lot of documents back and forth and getting into the minutia of those, and then this was a moment where there was no document, it was tell us what you and trump talked about. tell us about these conversations. it really was a moment where he was able to say in donald trump's own words, like you could almost hear donald trump saying it was a disaster. i mean, it sounded like trump. so those statements, i think, were just incredibly meaningful. and why it matters legally is, as you said, in order to convert this falsified business records from a misdemeanor to a felony, have to be able to show there was an intent to unlawfully influence the election and that's what this payment was about. not about protecting his family but about protecting his campaign chances so that he could be elected. i think when it was put that starkly in the conversation of it's totally irrelevant if i -- if i'm not president than if i am president, i really don't

care. it was just so stark and really it had an impact. >> and molly, when you think about what the jury's hearing, again, this isn't supposed to be a case about, quote,unquote, morals. this is not a proceeding involving, for example, an allegation regarding sexual bhatry. >> right. >> it's not a custody proceeding for children where you can actually bring in more evidence of someone's conduct that way. this is really about did you lie about it and was it about the campaign. to kristy's point, people can come up with, and the jury may in deliberations discuss, what the multiple motivations were for donald trump, right? for example, he could argue that, well, as a reality tv show celebrity with a, shall we say, uproarious and messy personal life, he felt he could explain to melania. to melania he could explain it, here they go again. it's still not true.

the fact it's printed wherever it was printed doesn't matter, right, that's different than losing a voting block that he already was struggling with. how do you think the jurors will use what they have to use, which is their common sense? i'm asking you as an informed person but not as a lawyer. the jurors are instructed not to do legal analysis but to find the facts. >> look, those five womens have sat through stormy daniels' description, and that was pretty horrifying. i think that the defense made a mistake there by allowing all of that in the testimony. and you know, michael cohn is not some random guy. trump had him in his ecosystem for years and years and years. and he was his most trusted advisor. so if he maligns michael cohen, he's maligning his own judgement, right? this speaks as much about trump as it does about michael cohen. >> it almost feels like you're saying when you disstray you

diss yourself, i don't know if you heard that line. >> i did, actually. >> diss tracks back in the news, actually. but i say that communicatively. the point you're making is valid. that's a clear thing the jury is going to decide, kristy, it's either he did it for you or he went completely rogue. right? and if someone does go rogue, if molly has an accountant and let's stipulate for the sake of argument you don't do crack, but your accountant buys crack and accuses you of it, there's nothing tying you to that. but if the accountant or in this case i'll switch back to the lawyer, cohen says trump did direct it and it was planned and here is the tape. that's a lie. as for the corroboration, we spoke to cohen's advisor. here's what he told us. >> what other witness or witnesses do you think will most clearly corroborate his testimony?

>> i was in the room with michael two years while the prosecutors were preparing this case. >> i know. >> i can tell you that there was another major crime that michael was forced to plead guilty to, even though he had nothing to do with it except papering it. >> the jury has a very clear understanding of what the other crime was. >> i think it's really important. michael cohen has been precorroborated by other witnesses showing this was at the direction of donald trump. we heard from david pecker about the karen mcdougal payment. this was clearly something pecker had conversations with trump. it was clear donald trump knew about excite wanted those pauments made by ami. that corroborates when cohn says ami wasn't the bank anymore, they didn't want to make the payment, but somebody had to make this payment. after the access hollywood tape. we heard from hope hicks that was a crisis in the campaign.

for defense's there troy make sense, it would have to be that donald trump cared about karen mcdougal's payment but after the story didn't care about stormy daniels' payment and cohen did it on his own. lawyers like to get paid, we don't like to be the withins doing the paying. this guy doesn't just have $130,000 in his bank account. he testified i didn't want my wife to find out about this. i had to take out a homingty line of credit. i had to set up another account to make sure nobody's fingerprints were on it. h goes through a lot of trouble to do this. on the recordings saying this is at the direction, really, in coordination with allen weisselberg and that trump is kind of in on the fact that they're going to open up companies and structure it in a certain way -- >> did they get into why he didn't want to tell his wife? >> he said my wife would know tilt if $130,000 is -- >> and say like this isn't is a

good idea. >> yes. so he structured it this way coming up with a shell company and a separate bank account. >> this speaks to everyone's mindset of what they were doing. if you said, oh, a best friend at work or college buddy needs 130k for emergency cancer surgery and your wife might say well, why do we have to pay it? are we ever going to get it back? it's a conversation but it's not necessarily something you're so afraid to mention, 130k for my alleged billionaire boss' porn star payment, a wife might be like why doesn't the billionaire pay for it? right? >> he tried to get weisselberg to pay for it. he said you make a lot more than i do, why can't you pay for this? everybody's trying to get somebody else to do it. >> that's not going to win or lose the case, but that's why -- did you ever catch -- when i was in court the other week i was watching for the jurors. some of them are mellow, stoic, some of them are like, not

melodramatic, but they would react. >> i'm in the overflow room, so i don't get to see the jurors. i get to see everything else, but i don't get to see the jurors. >> well, in the room room, right, you see the jurors. and it's kind of like supreme court, i don't want to overreport it, but you do see a lean in. >> harry litman said during stormy daniels' testimony he saw zoors look like they were really struck by it. >> yeah. now, if molly's saying what harry said in our coverage, is that hearsay? >> sorry. >> i'll accept it for the truth of the matter. >> molly, that's just a really bad legal joke. >> it's really bad. >> but i'm not sorry. if there was a day to tell it, right, this is a big legal day. we really appreciate both of you walking us through it, especially with the eyewitness accounts and following every hour of it. kristy sticks around, molly, we'll see you late they are week, i hope. at least that's the plan. we also have maya wily on the full circle moment cohen is

facing. and later a mant d.a. veteran on the prosecution's strategy and what will be a vigorous cross. it's the next hour i'm anchoring as well. we have psaki. >> more than two weeks before the presidential election, michael cohen wired $130,000 to stormy daniels lawyer. that payment was to hide damaging information from the voting public. the scheme violated new york election law. the scheme violated new york election law at three in the morning. any time of the day. what people don't know is that not all dirt is the same. you need dirt with the right kind of nutrients. look at this new organic soil from miracle-gro. everybody should have it. it worked great for us. this is as good as gold in any garden. if people only knew that it really is about the dirt. you're a dirt nerd. huge dirt nerd.

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i don't want you to move. i'm gonna miss you so much. you realize we'll have internet waiting for us at the new place, right? oh, we know. we just like making a scene. transferring your services has never been easier. get connected on the day of your move with the xfinity app. can i sleep over at your new place? can katie sleep over tonight? sure, honey! this generation is so dramatic! move with xfinity. and i am going to jail in part because of my decision to help mr. trump hide that payment from the american people before they voted a few days later. >> wl, you remember that? michael cohen putting it in a

pretty straight forward way. we are waiting for the cross examination and other evidence and the defendant is presumed legally innocent. cohen's testimony comes six years after he pled guilty to that very campaign 5:00tivity the testimony you saw in the payment to daniels. cohen admitted to a judge that he acted in coordination with and at the direction of the federal con dat trump and that he participated in the conduct for the principal purpose of influence the election. a lot of people are watching to see how cohen would perform in front of the jury, his former boss, and this history of the foundation of where weeneded up in court. maya wily and kristy greenberg back with us. maya, we've watched michael cohen in public over the years. today was the most significant day. a lot of the other stuff matters in other ways.

all of us who follow this stuff, congress, of course, who dealt with it, his own legal odyssey, but today he was one of the last witnesses in a campaign-related trial of defendant trump. how do you think he's done so far? >> well, i'm going to start with the prosecutors themselves, because what they recognized and you all have already discussed in the previous segment is that they needed to make sure the jury's heard all the corroboration before they flaerd michael cohen and so that when michael cohen took the stand they would be able to hear the things that he is saying are things that others too are saying. and that's important because he has been consistent in those regards, and that goes back to what you just played when he said trump told me to do it, it was about the campaign and the election, i did it. and so i think that really goes

to the core. also that clip you played that alvin bragg and his team are responsible for trying to convince the jury it's true which was exactly what was motivating donald trump, what he knew, and believe michael cohen even though he hasn't always told the truth because he's told the truth about this. and from that aspect, ooud say michael cohen's been a good witness from all that we have heard and the prosecutors have done a good job making sure he was well corroborated before he sat up there at the bench. >> that makes sense. kristy, i mentioned previously we had a lot of our great team, lawyer, journalist, anchors rotating through the two spots we have, one inside the courtroom, one inside the overflow room. one of ours was there today and made an interesting point. i'm sure he'll speak more at 8:00 p.m. eastern tonight and 10:00 p.m. eastern tonight. it sounds like a plug, but it's

true, he will. but we heard a little bit from him today when he left the courtroom and talked about this contrast between the public michael cohen and then the jury learning about him through today's testimony that you also watched. let's take a listen to lawrence. >> the jurors so far have no reason to think anything negative about michael cohen. his demeanor has been flawless from the prosecution's standpoint. this is a version of michael cohen we don't see publicly. he is composed and he speaks carefully. his answers are short. as short as they can be, which is what the prosecutor wants from him. frequently the answers are yes and no. there's nothing combative about him. there's nothing defensive about him. >> your thought, kristy, on this sort of first impression for the jury and how did he come across on a scale from angry tiktok to disciplined law student in a law library, where did you see him

coming down? >> it was such a dichotomy in watching him on the stand from what we have flaerd all of the other witnesses. you heard keith davidson, stormy daniels' lawyer, saying nobody even wanted to talk to the guy. he's such a bully. he's so terrible to deal with. hope hicks saying i didn't know him to be a charitable person. he was always about himself and gaining credit. you heard a lot about him being a bully. he even testified to that earlier in the direct. he's a bully. he's a guy who would threaten people, companies, you know, with lawsuits. he would do -- he was the fixer, he would do the dirty work. he would roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. but you hear him on the stand and it's yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am over and over again. he was come poed, extremely polite when recounting conversations where he was angry. he wouldn't tell you what he said. he would say, well, i used an

expletive there. he was measured in his language, i think trying to avoid seeming like he was angry. it felt a little strange, honestly, given everything we've heard about him and what we know about him from outside, but that was a choice he made going in to really try to be tempered. >> and maya, how do you think that will hold up tomorrow or whenever the defense gets ahold of him? because they do know how the push some buttons. >> and that's their job, to push those buttons. that really is the big question. none of us can know until we see it. but clearly, clearly from what we're hearing and seeing today, it appears that michael cohen is well prepared for it. even on direct today, part of what happened was eliciting from him that he has been angry. he has been angry in the past. he was angry his bonus got cut in 2016. he was angry not feeling like he

was not getting a real consideration from the white house once donald trump took office for a possible, at least elevating him, right the terms of his ability to earn money. i think it's also to help michael cohen learn to talk about his own anger. it's not going to be credible for him to suggest h didn't have any. and they made sure that came out. so it certainly suggests that there's preparation there, but we won't know until we see it. >> and i'm not doing the trial prep, but here we are three lawyers talking about it. part of where you want to get the witness to is to be able to say, here's why i felt that way and here was my justified anger because of the things that happened in reality. so i really did make a mistake or do whatever. i really did go to prison for it. he really did direct me for it. and i did feel anger towards him

about that, but that is in service of let me tell you the facts that upset me rather than, oh, i'm unhinged and i'm so angry i'm making everything up, right? those are two different realities of how to present it, and the third would be, as you said, what they probably shouldn't do and haven't been doing today, which is trying to paint him as times person of the year, a walking mandela in our new york streets, and that none of the other disqualifying information is true. that would actually be a harder lift for them. we'll see how that goes down tomorrow, maya and kristy, good to have both of you. appreciate it. we talked about michael cohen and the d.a.'s broader strategy, though, is hear from cohen and d.a. bragg then by the end of this week they'll be ready to rest the entire case. why? we have an insider who's worked in exactly that office next. worke in exactly that office next. tomizable options chain, easy-to-use tools, and paper trading to help sharpen your skills,

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♪ ♪ [sfx] water lapping. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [sfx] water splashing. ♪ ♪

[sfx] ambient / laughing. ♪ ♪ i am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that president trump personally signed from his personal bank account on august 1st of 2017. when he was president of the united states. >> that's what they call receipts. and whenever you think of michael cohen, what he said he would do there, he did, and what he said there was true. that doesn't mean it's a proven physicalny yet on behalf of donald trump, but it is true

it's what happeneded. it's the evidence. it's why cohen is in court today providing the first ever testimony against donald trump by one of his lawyers in a felony trial. now, the d.a./prosecutors here are using the receipt, the documents, the bulk of this is substantiated, and therefore true, they argued. they're making sure their case does not rely solely on michael cohen's word. prosecutors also decided to build this all up over time and end with cohen instead of starting with him. how do they make such a decision in a high stakes case? what's it like working inside the d.a.'s office? i don't know. i haven't done it. but duncan has, a former prosecutor with the manhattan d.a.'s office. thanks for being hoar. how did they decide to go that way and is that bearing out as a smart order? . >> you can rely see the architecture of their case coming together. they started this case with the

conspiracy itself, taking a step back. this case is a falsifying business records case. and to get it to not be a misdemeanor, they had to show it was done with the intent to deceive, in this case deceived the voters, and that it was done with the intent to commit some other crime or conceal some other crime. and here what they've done is they've chosen to charge that this was a conspiracy to violate the nation's campaign finance laws. >> can i slow you down? >> please. >> you're such a good lawyer. it sounds like you're saying he lied in business, that makes it business fraud. >> right. >> it was too old, this happened too long ago to charge as a misdemeanor. these things wipe away in the law. but because it was part of this larger plot, they can charge it as a campaign felony? >> and that's correct. and so the way they started this case was putting it together as a conspiracy. they wanted to show this conspiracy and that's why you

heard first from david pecker and from stormy daniels' lawyer keith davidson. they've saved michael cohen for last and stormy daniels also because those are two of their most problematic witnesses for trump's cross. >> in your experience the new york d.a.'s office cares about catching and prosecuting conspiracies even when it doesn't involve donald trump, yes e? >> this is a bread and butter case. this case is charged routinely at the d.a.'s office. probably thousands of cases a year. >> do most of them plead out? >> yes, and the other thing that's remarkable is it's an e felony. while the defendant himself is, obviously this is one of the most famous defendants in the world, an e felony case almost always pleads out. >> first time offender probably no jail. >> yeah, it's usual someone would get an offer on a case like this, even with other open cases. >> you don't think they made an

offer? >> no, there was no offer in the case. >> and he's pretty stubborn. >> he's stubborn, but also i think he -- they're trying a case in front of the jury, but they're also trying the case in front of the american people. there are a lot of instances in this case where the lawyers seem to be arguing more for the public than they are for the days. and i think the cross examination of stormy daniels was an example of that. because a more tailored cross examination might have been more effective. they are denying that the sexual encounter ever happened and that she's a liar. and i think we can expect to see the same thing in the cross examination of michael cohen. i think that they're making arguments that are not as tailored as they could be for a jury, but they're making it in part for the american public. >> yeah. michael cohen went to federal prison for a federal campaign crime. at the end of the day, the d.a. argued they could have more than one aggravating crime, so to speak, but it's probably the campaign crime, right? and they haven't put up a lot of

evidence eon that yet. >> they've done a very smart job of not actually deciding yet what it is that is the predicate. they've said early in the openings they said that they pointed to this election law statute and at a side bar early on, they said this is going to be bumped up to a felony because of the election law. but they haven't actually said that for certain yet. they've allowed themselves a little bit of wiggle room to come back on closing and say the predicate is this new york state election law statute but it also can be taxes. it could be a federal election law statute. >> but you could imagine a jury deliberating here and saying, seems like the encounter happened, seems like they lied about the numbers. i mean, that's almost established. >> yep. >> but it's not clear what the campaign crime is. and if it's not clear, that's like a reasonable doubt as to what are we even talking about on the second one. >> that is one of the last questions, and frankly, there's one more witness coming that we don't know who it is. and it may very well be somebody

to explain what it is -- what law itself was actually broken, because they've intimated that this money that was paid to stormy daniels was a violation of the federal election campaign act. but the jury doesn't have evidence on that. now, it may be that that's something that's handed to them as the judge, but i think that is something that the defense certainly will harp on. >> so you're watching that as a potential back spot. >> i think it's something the defense could put evidence on. >> i'm running over on tomb, but i couldn't help but know us the you brought homework of your own. what with did you bring us sneer. >> this is actually the account statement on first republic bank. this is a document that came in through mcconney, the former controller of the trump organization p. what the payment scheme to -- this is the statement for essential consultants which is michael cohen's shell company that the money was paid to stormy daniels through. and on the face of it, this document shows the falsification

of business records because this is allen weisselberg's handwriting showing that the $180,000, it's $130,000 to stormy daniels. >> so from your time in the d.a.'s office, is that typical or stronger or incriminating evidence that you see? >> this is a smoking gun document with allen weisselberg's handwriting on it. >> wirs than usual? >> if you were in a movie, you would create this as a document to show evidence of guilt. the only issue is it's allen weisselberg's writing, not donald trump's. >> that will remind viewers why they spent so much time linking that. yep, they talked every day. that's very interesting. thanks for coming. thanks for bringing your ideas and evidence. this is a two-hour edition of "the beat" with special coverage. i'll be back with you at the top of the 7:00 p.m. hour as well with a different angle and i'll be back with you in about 3 1/2,

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i know mr. trump. i have stood by him shoulder to shoulder for the past decade. >> i think he's a wonderful man. >> shoulder to shoulder. not anymore. it's the transformation of michael cohen. it's something many people know about in america, no matter what your politics. a fixer and lawyer now turned

star witness and state's evidence against his former boss. we're going to explore that part. it's as much about the personal almost shakespearean evolution as it is about the law and statutes. that's when my special coverage continues as we're anchoring two straight hours here. top of the noex hour, we have a preview of the cohen cross-examination we expect and we'll be joined by jen psaki, michael beschloss, and more. and tonight, as you may have heard, 8:00 p.m. eastern, rachel maddow leads special coverage with lawrence and chris and nicolle and katie and so many others. that will be 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. eastern tonight. a big night. stay with us. it's fineeeeeeee! [splash] before advil: advil dual action fights pain two ways. advil targets pain at the source, acetaminophen blocks pain signals. advil dual action.

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you are with splenda zero-calorie liquid sweeteners. try all three. available in the baking aisle. good evening to you. it's 7:00 p.m. eastern. i'm ari melber anchoring coverage of what we believe is one of the most consequential days of testimony in the entire criminal trial of defendant trump. in some ways, what is happening today is going to be key. key to a potential conviction or a potential mistrial or acquittal because a lot of it is going to come down to whether the jury believes both what star witness michael cohen said today and whether they believe the corroboration that led up to today. it was all leading up to today. this hour, we have some very special guests we have not heard from yet today. michael beschloss in the history we're living through, jen psaki

on the wider context today, including some unexpected guests that defendant trump brought from the world of politics into the courtroom today. we begin with how michael cohen went down this road, which i don't care if you're one of those people who said i saw this coming, i read up on it all, i'm on it. back if you remember where you were in 2015 and 2016, few people could have then imagined not only the road michael cohen went on, but how today at this point in history with this campaign going, he is the key star and closing witness in a trial that tried to convict his former boss, donald trump, of a felony, and that is where we begin now. >> michael cohen saying, i was following directions. >> telling the court, quote, everything required mr. trump's sign-off. >> michael cohen testified to conversations ubkeeping the story of donald trump's affair with playboy model karen mcdougal quiet.

>> trump told him daniels' story would be, quote, a disaster for the campaign. >> the most important thing that the jury heard today, he wasn't thinking about melania. this was all about the candidate. >> our experts and anchors there walking through some of what we're learning, michael cohen testifying for over six hours. it continues tomorrow. under oath, this star witness made statements that the jury will either believe and that help prove the prosecution's case or that they may doubt. but either way, this is not one of those who done its where you're piecing together, you know, text and surveillance footage. you have the guy who was in the room where it happened, who says he's the fixer, who went to prison for this defendant. and now is discussing under oath what went down. he says the payments went to these two women for campaign purposes, that trump was in on it from the start, that trump did direct him. that trump said when paying stormy daniels, just do it. cohen is in a position to know

these things and prosecutors will argue where he is now, having finished a prison bid, is a place who he has every incentive to tell the truth. they will also say all of this matters and you'll hear some of this in the closing argument, it matters because he was in on it. that because there are crimes not unlike a mafia case, and i'll come back to that, when there are crimes and you need evident, it will often come from other people close to the criminal enterprise or even a part of it. can't all just be clean-hand witnesses. they will say that's why the prison time can't be held against him in this sense. people can judge him personally, morally or otherwise, but the jury's only question is he telling the truth or is he not. so he is potentially devastating. there's also the weakness. the defense team we know will be attacking michael cohen probably unlike any other witness. because of what i want to get into with you right now. the long and winding road of

michael cohen. he was not only trump's personal attorney, but he was the one who went even farther than most in trump's orbit by their own peculiar standards of loyalty. announcing he would take a bullet for trump. today, he was on the stand reminding everyone under oath, yes, he was the fixer, doing the dirty work. at the time, he had a mentality he recounts that meant he was honored to link up with trump in those early heady days of 2006 with his own legal and business career shifting into something that to him in new york felt much more high profile and high stakes with more glitz and glamour. that when he completed tasks for trump, he felt like i was on top of the world. and maybe in his own way, in his own mind, he was. until the fall. now, that back then is the michael cohen that people saw as they first learned more about the top folks in trump's orbit when he became -- it becameeft

he's a more serious type candidate in 2016. >> i know mr. trump. i have stood by him shoulder to shoulder for the past decade. >> i think he's a wonderful man. i'm obviously very loyal and very dedicated to mr. trump. i'll do anything to protect mr. trump, the family, now vice president elect pence, as well as the campaign. i think he's going to be a great president. mr. trump has a significant number of people. i like to keep myself in that little circle of extremely loyal people. >> extremely loyal. that was then. but as we chart what happened, what is key to how we got here with cohen as state's evidence as the top witness against his former boss, the person who could get him a felony conviction, who could be part of that, part of a jail sentence, part of impeding donald trump's request to return to the white house. to get there, you have to

understand, how in the end things fell apart, because it was fast. in '18, the feds raided cohen's offices, they see his records, and became clear whatever might have touched trump who was then president and had a type of temporary federal protection against federal charges, they were finding dirt on cohen. but even amidst that rocky process, trump and cohen's relationship initially seemed like it might hold. trump attacked the raid as disgraceful, and cohen initially seemed like maybe he would stand by his boss. of course, for anything federal, if his boss was willing to extend himself, he could legally pardon cohen, early or late. might be controversial, might look guilty, but he could do that. here's what you have to remember about donald trump. he doesn't do that kind of stuff. even for his loyal fixer. even when his loyal fixer was clearly facing prison time. so as a practical matter, even though trump had that power and could have done it, whatever he

thought the risks were political or otherwise, it became clearer trump wasn't going to do that. he wasn't even paying the legal bills, trump wasn't paying those for cohen. if you're not getting temporary money from the guy who put up his own money for you, you might not be on your way to get a pardon. michael cohen began to understand what others have lived through around donald trump. and he would not just be thrown under a bus, that he would be lodged under a bus and driven back and forth and back and forth until his body was broken while donald trump watched from the sidelines and said, you see the guy with the broken legs? it's his fault. i didn't do anything. that was a key shift in this long road. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no. >> why did michael cohen make those if there was no allegations? >> you have to ask michael

cohen. michael is my attorney. and you'll have to ask michael. >> that on air force one was the sound of a very powerful man unleashing a torrent of questions and scrutiny and legal heat on the man who actually allegedly did the crimes for him along with a lot of other potentially legal dirty work. as the times reported in exhaustive account, that contributed to cohen's decision to, quote, turn on a man he had long idolized. cohen flipped. he cooperated with the feds. he pled guilty to his own crimes, including this key crime that led him to what you see here in overhead footage to walk into a federal prison. a federal election crime. that was his day going in. he began to denounce trump in all forums. i should note at times that's gotten him in trouble, including recently the judge in this case objecting to the unfairness of cohen unloading on trump in live videos. this is him under oath to

congress, you can see lanny davis in the background. he also told us his views on "the beat." >> donald cares for no one or anything other than himself. >> i know what mr. trump is. he's a racist, he is a con man. and he is a cheat. i am going to jail in part because of my decision to help mr. trump hide that payment from the american people before they voted a few days later. >> and that's how we got all the way here. to paraphrase the grateful dead, everything leading up to this day. so what happened today? and how will jurors take today and the coming days and we have been told by the d.a.'s team they're going to rest as soon as this week, and how will they take it all in as well as the potential complications of the road we just revisited? because there is anger there and credibility there. there is a criminal record, and there is a by any standard

complicated relationship with defendant trump. the short answer as we go through our special coverage is we don't know. makes it kind of interesting when we don't know. the legal answer is, let's be clear. there is nothing unusual about prosecutors, as i mentioned earlier, leaning on the eyewitness account, evidence, and testimony of people implicated in crimes. so close that they were potentially just really friendly with thugs or gangsters or that they were in some sense part of the operation. in fact, having someone flip from inside the enterprise can be one of the best things for prosecutors. so let's take an example, and i want to be clear, we're talking about the example of using implicated testimony. we're not comparing the underlying crimes. this is a business fraud case. we're about to go into a mob case. but the idea actually is stronger for the d.a. because if

you can believe someone who steals full-time for a living or lives on the other side of the law for a living or is involved, god forbid, in murder for hire, if you can believe that person for testimony because you figured out they're telling the truth, by that standard, this business fraud lawyer looks even more palatable. so let's take a new york case, john gotti on trial for mob related murder and racketeering. but it was a confidante at the top, not someone who was peripheral, it's sammy the bull gruvaughno who provided some of the most incriminating testimony in a federal courtroom against the alleged mob chief, john gotti. >> considered the most significant mob defector in history, was john gotti's right-hand man, until october when he flipped as they say. >> once gotti's closest confidante has told a federal court about the killing of

gotti's predecessor. >> a good loyal soldier. john barked and i bit. >> he held a burning picture of a sink and took an oath of silence. if i ever break my oath, he said, may my soul burn like this saint. assistant u.s. attorney john gleason asked, are you breaking that oath now? he replied, yes. >> are you breaking that oath now? yes. there are parallels here, including the dramatic history anneck almost life follows art level of these vows. and make no mistake, as they say in court, these are vows to hide and lie. so they do complicate the testimony for the jury when somebody comes along, in this case the people, that's how they refer to the prosecutors representing the state, representing the people, the prosecutors say now you can believe him. but we have seen in heavy serious cases, juries look at

the evidence and say, well, if they were involved in the crime and there's enough evidence to show now they are really telling the truth, then burning vow or not, oath broken or not, if it is now the real final true story, it may work in the case. as for the one i just mentioned, it was a month later after what i just showed you when a jury convicted gotti of murder and racketeering. a big deal after he beat other cases. it was that testimony, sammy the bull, that made the difference. prosecutors are betting here that after all the corroboration they have provided, they have put this star witness, michael cohen, in a position to be a type of sammy the bull, to be the insider that the jury doesn't have to love, the jury doesn't have to have dinner with him, and the jury doesn't have to believe he told the truth the whole time. they just have to believe that in this testimony, starting on this day that we're living through today, that's starting this monday morning and through the rest of this week, he told

the whole truth and nothing but the truth. did he? and where do we go from here? and why does their personal relationship matter so much? well, we're going to turn to that exact question with jen psaki and lisa reuben in the courtroom today right after this short break. orsht break. clogged gutters can cause big problems fast. until now. call 833-leaffilter today for your free gutter inspection. i've had terrible flooding problems on my porch. now i understand why. right now leaffilter is offering a free inspection, on your schedule. leaffilter is a permanent gutter solution, so you never have to worry about costly damage from clogged gutters again. call us today and schedule your free inspection. to schedule your free inspection, call 833.leaf.filter today or visit leaffilter.com. i was born with wings, but psoriasis swooped in to clip them. it crushed my confidence. but no longer will psoriasis get a piece of me. i can love my skin again. with bimzelx.

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i'm visiting president trump in the oval office for the first time. he says to me something to the

effect of, don't worry, michael. your january and february reimbursement checks are coming. >> michael cohen, the last tim he testified. we're joined by jen psaki, msnbc host and former press secretary to president biden. and lisa reuben, who was inside the courtroom today. lisa, we just looked at the long arc of michael cohen. how much of that relationship's evolution was key to what the jury heard? >> i think a big part of it. particularly because michael cohen today wasn't fighting the central premise that once upon a time, he was in love with and subservient to donald trump. michael cohen has made all sorts of excuses for his behavior over the years. today, this was a michael cohen who very much owned the fact he was so excited to get a job offer from donald trump, that he didn't even go back to his law firm after the job offer came. they were sitting in trump tower. trump offers him a job. he never went back to retrieve his belongings, he was so excited.

that excitement came through today. on the other hand, he was very clear about the fact that many of the crimes in which he participated he did at the behest of donald trump and was crystal clear about the one missing piece of this case, which was the ways in which trump directed him to and knowingly intentionally participated in this falsification of business records, which i think we're going to hear more about tomorrow, as susan hoffinger completes her direct examination. >> jen, the jury has to make sense of all this. they are the key decision makers. but when you look at the case, it does touch on the campaign and politics. yet, just like a january 6th prosecution, the politics are not supposed to distort it. you worked for president biden. the issues of january 6th mattered. he was the president-elect that they were trying to illegally

overthrow. a fair trial relates to the facts of what they did that day and not other politics. it's not the first time america has had to navigate this. john edwards is someone you're familiar with. the fact that he was on a campaign and that was related to the trial wasn't supposed to determine it. i'm curious what your insights are like of what it is like in these high pressure situations to work and be loyal to someone and then turn around and provide these facts and how that should come across to a jury ideally as a fact process and not which team are you on. >> of course, and that's the amazing thing about the judicial system. it's a jury of your peers. 12 normal men and women sitting there making the decision. i mean, a couple of the things that struck me about what michael cohen talked about today given his closeness to trump, it was sad at moments just hearing the reporting on what he had to say about the relationship and how their relationship changed. felt a little sad for him, to be honest.

but it reminded me a lot of some of the things hope hicks said, given how close she was to the frump family as well. she was thought as almost a version of a surrogate daughter, and they both spoke to trump's role in decision making, how involved he was in decision making and engaged in decision making. it came across as unlikely to either of them, two people who xue him well, that trump would not have been engaged in every decision. michael cohen can speak to this more intimately and specifically than hope hicks and they talked about kind of his motivation. his motivation. to your point, it's not about politics, but this also was, it took place during a period of time, we all lived through in different ways, where they were withholding information through a coordinated effort with the "national enquirer" from the american public. to influence an election. they both spoke about what his motivation was, and those were the two pieces that stuck out to me. how a jury will hear that, we'll see.

i'm interested to hear him put more meat on the details of the oval office meeting as well. >> here we are discussing this. we haven't even hit this point yet today but it's so striking. let's contrast to another political figure who is presumed innocent but faces a lot of incriminating evidence, democratic senator menendez. many members of the democratic party have broken with him. some said he shouldn't be running right now. opposite in the republican party. absolute opposite, but then today, lisa has been in the courtroom, i have been in the courtroom. today for the first time, we started seeing potential running mates to donald trump showing up in this courtroom. jd vance is one. we have photos to remind people what he looks like. a shot of him there. this is pretty artistic. you have the foreground blurred. i have to say, good photograph. >> quite a photo. >> from the photojournalist. shout out to the photojournalist and sketch artist. that's jd vance in the red tie.

"the new york times" put it, remarkable that trump has senior elected officials and a possible running mate, they call him vp nominee, sitting in the courtroom listening to a recording of trump talking with his lawyer about paying for material from the enquirer. it underscores how completely trump has gotten the party in his grip since those moments when the tape was actually made. striking, bears comment. your thoughts? >> yes. this was sort of a side show of today. but an important one because it says a lot about the republican party and trump's hold over the republican party, as that report just outlined. jd vance and others, senator tuberville and others, did what trump can't do, essentially. he went december they went out and attacked bragg. they attacked the daughter of the judge. they attacked the whole process here. these are things that trump is not allowed to do. they did it on his behest. then you know what he did? they clipped it for social media and posted it, like they were proud of it, to prove their

worth here to trump. the third thing about this is they traveled to new york city. these guys don't like new york city. you know, they talk about new york city and how terrible it is, but they were there because they wanted to show their loyalty. now, whatever that means for the vice presidential process, who knows. there are reports that vivek ramaswamy is planning to potentially come, that tim scott is planning to potentially come. it tells you so much about what people in the republican party think is needed to be on the ticket. >> i want you to continue the point by asking you this. he is legally presumed innocent. and we have to follow the process. but can you even think of any other case, this didn't happen in the john edwards case. we haven't seen it with menendez. can you think of a case where rather than say, let's see where the facts lead, which is kind of pretty responsible, people start showing up and kind of just saying, like, a show of

political force, because if we were in a fact based world within that party, you might not want to do that if you care that someone becomes a convicted felon. >> that's right. typically, democrats, republicans, if somebody is under huge legal attention, and this is certainly more significant than most other cases, the party would run from them because they don't want to be tied down to them. this is the opposite of that. in the last couple weeks we have certainly seen a number of potential vice presidential running mates or people who want to be close to trump suggest that or leave out in the open that they might not support the outcome of the election. right? these are also people who will not say that joe biden won the 2020 election, many of them. so it's becoming kind of these litmus tests. joe biden didn't win the 2020 election. leaving open the possibility they'll challenge the outcome if trump doesn't win. now showing up to sit there and support a person who is sitting in a criminal courtroom because

he paid hush money to a former adult film star. this is not -- there's no standard for this, but it is showing you a lot about the direction of the litmus test for approval among the maga right. >> yeah. i think that's a fair way to put it. we're going to hear a lot more from both of you in the days ahead in the trial and from jen along with rachel and the whole team at 8:00 p.m. eastern. i'm going to fit in a break because we have michael beschloss standing by and a former insider on the pressure that trump is facing, how it's rattling the defense as they get a big swing when they get their turn with cohen. and the tapes. stay with us. with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain.

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we are following star witness michael cohen's first day on the stand today. the testimony included the now infamous recording of cohen and trump. remember, for the jury, this is a big deal. we may know all about it, but now the jury is hearing it as corroboration of this star witness. here's the audio. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, david. i spoke to allen about it. when it comes time for the financing -- >> what financing? ? we'll have to pay. >> it's a damning tape. it also does raise questions though about mr. cohen. what kind of lawyer was he? why would he be making secret tapes of his own client? it's legal in new york state, but it's so unusual that in some

states it's illegal to make tapes like that. well, cohen said on the stand this is the only time he ever did it. the only time he recorded trump and his reasoning was the complex dynamics with the other witness the jury has already heard from, the tabloid chief david pecker who wanted to buy and catch and kill the stories and there were concerned about trump paying them back because they knew trump well and people who knew trump well who were friends with him like david pecker knew that he would stiff anyone if he got the chance. so cohen is saying under oath the reasoning was to assure pecker trump was really in on this one. so i could show it to david pecker, show that, quote, trump is going to pay him back, and i also wanted pecker to remain loyal to mr. trump. that is an explanation. it's also one you could imagine the defense attacking a lot, both to argue it's not true or to argue that cohen in general is still not reliable to this day. you could imagine the defense asking tomorrow or thursday, so, mr. cohen, this key tape that is

now the center of this case against your former client is the one and only time you ever recorded him. what a coincidence. how convenient. you must have a really good radar for when to record and why should we believe you and who else did you record, and did you have it in for him even then? again, cohen has some answers including trump's well established tendency for stiffing people. this is the kind of back and forth the jury is going to witness. cohen has the first-hand knowledge. he says trump was directly involved in all this, and the tape does show that, but it could raise other questions. remember, earlier, the d.a. played another recording, not of cohen but trump speaking with stormy daniels' lawyer, which tried to show at the time cohen's view of trump's state of mind. >> i can't even tell you how many times he said to me, you know, i hate the fact that we did it. and my comment to him was, but every person that you have

spoken to told you it was the right move. >> lordy, there are tapes. it is fascinating. the kind of thing that if didn't already know it, if it wasn't such a highly covered and saturated topic, if you were a juror who wasn't keeping up on every twist and turn and national news and then you say, there's a tape of that, a tape of that? a tape of trump? it's a lot, but it will also raise questions about this at best unusual and at worst questionable practice of secretly taping everyone you're dealing with. that's just some of what's coming out of this first blockbuster day of cohen's testimony. we wanted to give you that report on the aspect of the tapes. now, what will the defense do? what does the cross look like? we have a very special guest coming up for a whole different angle on this who has actually been at the defense table, and the strategy. that's next. lawn disease? been going around.

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farxiga can cause serious side effects, including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract, or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection, an allergic reaction, or ketoacidosis. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ mr. trump is a con man. he asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie about it to his wife. which i did. >> michael cohen who has testified about all of this before, but today in the first criminal trial of his former boss, trump, he took the stand and re-enforced the evidence the defense is trying to deal with. that trump directed these payments from the start. that he had a campaign motivation.

cohen asked to be informed of developments. he said it was an immediate type of thing and he offered new details about the mood around trump. saying after the "access hollywood" tape, trump was worried, quote, women would hate him and it was a total disaster for the campaign. the defense though has not had its turn yet. that could prove pivotal this week. we turn to a defense attorney with deep experience in this exact space. william j. brennan represented trump in the second impeachment and the tax fraud case against the trump organization. welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> great to have you. you have a lot of experience with exactly some of these type of situations. so before we get to the cross, what do you think are the potential holes or places for reasonable doubt around cohen's testimony? >> well, ari, as i see it from the cheap seats, i'm not in the courtroom, the whole case, which is really cobbled together with duct tape and zip ties must end in the commission of another

crime. really, this is like an indictment in search of a rhyme. is it federal campaign violations, is it federal campaign finance violations. is it state law? they still haven't really articulated what the eventual crime they must tie up is, but they have a witness, the only witness, really, kind of the bridge on the moat they have created that they can tie it together with who is a convicted liar, convicted perjurer. he lied to the fbi. i apologize, the irs. he lied to congress, he lied on other things. i mean, this is their guy. so at the end of it, no matter how well it goes on direct, mr. blanche will get up and cross-examine him. there's plenty of fodder there, and eventually, judge merchan will likely charge the jury. there's a great charge, it sounds so poetic and latin. but it's -- false in one, false in all. if the jury finds, if they find

he lied about one thing, they can believe he lied about everything. so you know, this guy is the poster boy for a polluted source. >> bill, i almost felt like i was at catholic mass or in church. i take your point, and i'll say, when you assert that they have largely not stipulated and proven what that other crime is, you know, as we say around here, i say fact check, mostly true. i think it's an issue for them. i will draw your attention and the viewers' attention to they did speak to it in opening arguments. the d.a. says, it was election fraud, pure and simple. we'll never know and it doesn't matter if the conspiracy was the difference maker in a close election. so how do you respond to the fact that while i take your point, they have not substantiated a ton of evidence sof said election fraud, but in the opening and the jury heard that, they said there's election

fraud and now they have cohen up there saying, hey, i went to prison for federal election crime. >> well, ari, here's how i see it. i may be skewed towards the defense since i have been practicing criminal defense law for 35 years. but i try to be objective. all you have heard after four weeks of testimony is that allegedly, apparently the defendant denies this, but allegedly, there was an encounter with him and stormy daniels. and allegedly, hush money was paid. and you know, if that happened, that's not a crime, by the way. the ultimate issue is, was it done in furtherance of another crime, and you know, you've got 12 jurors there, some of whom are married and married men, we do sets and subsets, all juries are the set. a subset is all married jurors. a further subset is all married male jurors. when they get back there and the defense argues, you know, if

this happened, the defendant was worried about his relationship with his wife and his family, and even if they find that there was a collateral issue of the election at the time, you know, they're not mutually exclusive. there could have been two reasons. the primary reason was he didn't want to face his wife and his family. this is a not guilty. >> i think you're right that some jurors might question that, whether they have doubt as to that piece of it. having said that, i think you would agree the judge is going to charge them to find the facts about what the evidence showed trump did, not what they would do, right? same as i mentioned the mafia case. >> i agree with you. >> you might say, i would never act like sammy the bull. i hope not. but you're not supposed to transpose, nor reasoning or your personal relationship, right? it's what trump's motivation was. go ahead. >> i saw your earlier piece when you compared this trial to the john gotti trial.

and sammy the bull to this witness. sammy killed, i think, 19 people. i don't think we're quite there yet. >> i'll let you finish. i wasn't comparing the underlying act. i even said that beforehand. >> i know, i know. yet, you did make the comparison. but anyway, one of your earlier witnesses and i think it might have been jen psaki, i'm not sure if it was her or not, but somebody said how could you possibly go to the courtroom and support this man? he's presumed innocent, ari, like any citizen of this country. i'm not here to defend donald trump. i'm here to talk about citizens. could be you, could be me, could be jen psaki, could be somebody in kansas city. when somebody is charged with a crime, it's an unproven allegation. he is presumed innocent. >> i take your point. we mentioned that tonight. let me turn you as well before i lose you to the cross-examine. you have this experience representing trump. it would seem that they can do a lot. that trump's lawyers can probably get more done in

raising doubt in the jury's mind with this witness, cohen, than some of the previous. your thoughts on how they approach that. >> ari, this guy, if you went to webster's dictionary and looked up polluted source, lying witness, this guy would be staring at you. he lied, he lied, he lied. he then went on a redemption tour, he lied again. he went on another redemption tour. if you can believe today's press, he's shopping some reality show where he calls himself the fixer. he testified today he wanted to monetize his relationship with the then president. and he taped his own client. how do you think the two lawyers in the jury are going to digest that? the man taped his own client. >> i got a minute now. i got a minute. >> if you have one roach in your house, you have 1,000. >> with a minute left, what question or two would you ask him as a witness about that

unusual practice? >> oh, my god. i would do two hours on that. that's just -- that's reprehensible. >> getting at the point even at the time, he does not seem to be providing the required loyalty and advocacy to his oath. >> no, because with this guy, you know, i have been representing people 35 years. their interests are supposed to be paramount to mine. where is the conflict? with this guy, it's all about him. how can i make money on this, how can i benefit, how can i be attorney general, what can i do to make my stock rise? this guy is trouble. >> well, bill, this was really useful getting your perspective. i told viewers you can't understand a case unless you get both sides. i would tell you good-bye in latin but i don't know how. i don't know how. >> hasta la vista. >> there we go, bill. we'll have you back. >> thanks for having me.

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today's testimony is a moment in history. we don't know whether it is going toward conviction or something else but it is a former president facing accusations from his own lawyer, who was in the circle of trust at the first ever criminal trial of everyone,

anyone who has served as president. the only thing on my mind was to accomplish the task to make happy, michael cohen sat on the stand. for historians, there are always accounts, especially when it is a lawyer, a once loyal aide who even has resequence and a privilege, that might turn against you. it takes a high bar for a lawyer to be able to talk. there are restrictions on that. if you are accused credibly of committing crimes with the lawyer, you might lose that privilege. the echoes, of course, go back to nixon, whose star witness was a lawyer. >> what did the president know and when did he know it? >> i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and that if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. >> lawyer john dean turned star witness. other echoes we have as part of our special coverage, michael, your thoughts today. >> i think you are saying it exactly right and nixon is a great place to start. if there had been no john dean,

richard nixon might not have had to resign, he might have served eight years as president. that is how important a witness can be, as you know professionally. look at michael cohen what the consequences of his testimony both today and in recent years could be. it might be said that if michael cohen were not around, and not able to give this kind of testimony, donald trump might be able to survive this trial. >> and when you look at the parallels, how much does it matter that the person, in this case, the witness who proverbially flipped, can explain, in plain english, in this case to a jury, in dixon's case, to a different set of regulators, if you will, why they shifted? >> john dean was, of course, in a televised hearing in the senate, which everyone was watching at the time. i remember as a child, i was

watching. the fact that john dean was credible had a lot to do with the fact that opinion shifted against nixon, very different from this. the other thing is compare even nixon, which we thought was a big deal to what is happening right now. what could be the consequence if donald trump is convicted? let's start with the fact that if he is a convicted felon, the state of florida, new york, felons cannot vote. could he vote for himself for president, for instance? within that, this could have a big impact on whether he is elected. this is not gerald ford against jimmy carter, 1976. this is a candidate who has promised to be at least a dictator for a day, to review the possibility of dismantling our constitution, of subordinating the department of justice to himself in an autocracy. that could happen next year, that could be

writing on what happened today. one other thing, let's say that donald trump is convicted. we don't know if he's going to be. if he is and he's nominated and elected anyway, what does that say about respect for the rule of law? that means that a majority of american voters are saying we don't trust our legal system. it doesn't work and we are expressing ourselves by saying we are going to elect donald trump, although he was convicted criminally. if that happens, are we going to be living in a land without long? will there be any rule of law? who would feel that he or she should obey a system that so many people had said is obsolete? >> a chilling and important question. i want to warn you, you have about 45 seconds until we hand it off to rachel. but, this chart shows all the trials. and, months ago, many people said here's the one that is

more important, here is the one that should happen. what does it tell us, in your view, about the humility that history can teach us, the fact that we don't know where things are going, that when we look at something like that, all prior elections have melted into the fact that for a range of reasons there's one green arrow left him it is the in progress trial, the others to see what they are going to happen at all? >> completely. there will be a lot of people who will say trump was not tried on the more serious charges and this thing is a sideshow because it involves people like stormy daniels and other witnesses who are at least unorthodox. what i would say is that is the way, and i think you would agree as a great lawyer, this is the way our system works. what was al capone finally convicted of? not his greater crimes but tax evasion. that sent him to listen. alger his was convicted not of espionage against the soviet union. that statute of limitations had run out. he was convicted in 1950 of perjury. he went to prison. if donald trump is convicted and if he has to serve a

serious sentence, that doesn't mean anything less than it might have meant if he were tried, let's say on withholding classified documents. >> really fair points all around, michael beschloss, thanks for joining us. >> thank you always. >> you have been watching msnbc coverage of what all agree has been one of the most significant days of testimony, the former lawyer and self- described fixer for donald trump, michael cohen, laying it out. the testimony will continue tomorrow and then we will get across. we are looking for the history together. thanks for spending time with us as mentioned, rachel maddow and our whole team began special coverage, starting right now. >> the people of new york call michael cohen, the star witness at the center of the case takes the stand.