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hi, everybody. it's thursday. it's 4:00 in new york. it is also day 18 of the people of the state of new york vermont donald trump, the ex-president's former attorney michael cohen is just off the witness stand. the jury is done with their service for the day. prosecutors and attorneys for the ex-president are dealing with the all important question of what happens next. it's happening right now. a hearing over what the defense's case will look like and if they will make a case, if they have a case to present the updates from that hearing that is happening as we meet we'll bring them to you right away. all this is in the wake of a rather desperate and uneven attempt to undercut michael cohen's credibility. it was to be generous, hit and miss, defense attorney todd blanche had a second chance at cross examining michael cohen

after a day of rest yesterday. he moved around from topic to topic so quickly that todd blanche decided that todd should apologize to the jurors who would decide donald trump's fate. he said, quote, sorry, we're jumping around so bit. he tried to use cohen's words against him. including cohen's fiery comments criticizing donald trump, things he said on his podcast, as well as michael cohen's admission that he lied to congress, to which michael cohen pointed out it was all in service of donald trump and done in coordination with an attorney for donald trump. todd blanche also tried to make cohen out to be disgruntled and angry about trump not taking him to the white house. it earned him the 24 objections from prosecutors, the vast majority of those were sustained by the judge. and through it all, cohen proved himself a very well-prepared and

unflappable witness. during one tense moment, blanche did man to undermine one part of the testimony pfs. it was not significant to be you have discussed here. we checked our transcripts, but it was a piece of testimony from michael cohen on direct about a phone call cohen said was made in the days before he paid stormy daniels $130,000 in hush money. cohen said he told trump about the payment, but blanche today kplam clinton campaigned that cohen was talking to keith schiller about being prank called by a 14-year-old before cohen's cross-examination at the very start of court today, there was a lengthy side bar. it included a complaint from the district attorney's office about trump's allies muscling around in court. we on this program referred to it as the red tie brigade. the prosecutor asked they not with allowed to file in during the middle of court proceedings arguing that witnesses and jurors can see it.

today a whole new group of trump sycophants appeared in court including several of his fellow coup plotters, jeffrey clark was free. so was matt gaetz. so we start with legal analyst andrew weissman. he joins us after spending the morning in the courthouse also pack from the court is investigative reporter susan craig. also former prosecutor charles coleman. we're going to start as we always do with msnbc's vaughn hillyard outside the courthouse for us. vaughn hillyard, let's start with what's right now. do you have any insights with what's being discussed with the judge? >> reporter: there's currently with the jury having already been dismissed. there's now a conversation, like one this morning that started for 20 minutes in private, where there was discussions over the extent to which previous trials, previous information about michael cohen could be brought

before the jury. there's currently deliberation over the extent to which there are questions, as i'm trying to pull up in raem realtime, i got lost here for a moment. this is a little bit where we're getting into the weeds here. our own producer inside is noting that this is where we're at late points in this trial. and literally as we thought that maybe today would be the day that they would finish the cross-examination of michael cohen, you now have a moment here where there's last-minute negotiating over what can be brought before this jury ahead of what is now going to be a three-day weekend for them. >> just take us through what is expected to happen. the cross-examination is not over. it picks up again on monday. then there would be a redirect. so the prosecutors are taking notes of any -- i think we should say we're all grown ups. we're not going to grade on a curve. todd blanche seemed to have made

one good point about michael cohen's direct testimony about this phone call from october 24th. but the prosecution preparing and taking notes on anything. what is your sense of how long that will be, the redirect, the chance for prosecutors to go back and talk to michael cohen after he's been cross examined for three days? >> reporter: i think it will really depend after this cross-examination completes the extent to which they feel michael cohen was able to share a story with the jury that was compelling, believable, and do they need to try to fix some of the stories. particularly, that october 24th phone call between keith schiller and donald trump. let's also be clear here. going into that lunch break, that's where the october 24th phone call was called into question by todd blanche. whether those text messages would suggest that the conversation between michael cohen and keith schiller were something different than what michael cohen testified on monday to that conversation

being. the one part about this is that we're looking this afternoon, what other parts of michael cohen's story would be called into question. there were six other phone calls in october of 2016 that michael cohen testified to this jury about. in which he says that donald trump was giving directives to him to complete that $130,000 payment to stormy daniels. you didn't hear any questioning about the six other phone calls. you haven't heard questioning about the august 2015 conversation at trump tower. you didn't hear any questioning ab the 201 meeting, three days before inauguration, where after alan weisselberg and michael cohen scratched down on paper how he was going to be reimbursed and that meeting that says took place in which donald trump aprued how the reimbursement checks were going to get back to hill. we didn't hear any questioning about that story. you also didn't hear any questioning about the february

8th, 2017 meeting in the oval office in which michael cohen says he talked to donald trump about getting the assurance he would get those 11 checks over the course of the year 2017. so there's much of the story that michael cohen told this jury on monday and tuesday that under cross-examination, he has yet to be questioned about. a lot is hanging on that october 24th phone call being called into question. and michael cohen when he was asked about how he could recollect the specific phone calls, when he had 1,400 calls a month at that period of time, these were really important phone calls. i have been telling the story for six years and for six years my story has not changed. it's not changing today. >> it seems that all of the efforts to smear michael cohen are a bull work against todd blanche is doing. they elicited from hope hicks that he wasn't the kind of guy

to pay out of pocket for anything. michael cohen didn't have a leash long enough to buy his own cup of coffee. he got evidence from every witness that michael cohen never would have spent enough money. he didn't have a budget to buy lunch. >> are you reading from my noets with that is the script that is going to be flipped in summation. you already know the status is on that. but it's a duck on the june bug. they are on that. they know that's why hope hicks said this is supposed to be michael cohen out of the goodness of his heart did this. so they are going to say, look for all of as being, that's one more reason. as michael cohen testified, he said i told him not just because i wanted credit. that's what the reel rules are, but he wanted to get repaid. if they want to get repaid, you

need to tell him. they are going to have to come up with a different theory. he did this as an investment the to get good with trump and see if he bring him to the white house. and that when that didn't happen, he was so angry that he was only the personal council to the president of the united states. as lawyer, i'm not sympathetic to that story. gee, i'm only going to be the personal counsel to the president. these are the the cream of the crop. this is michael cohen. so this is disparity. and so that's their big problem is sort of taking small pieces and stringing together a narrative that actually holds water. and i think that's why vaughn is so right to say, look, how does what happened, let's think about it analytically.

how does that explain everything? and even the october 24th call where there was this good reason to think that something came up about this harassing call, this is not an either/or. you can walk and chew gum. that isn't a chot cha. also, that's not the most important call. one of the most important calls is the two calls with donald trump on the 26th of october, where he says, yes, go ahead and make the payment. we can't delay anymore. bless you. >> it's pollen season here. everything happens here on live tv. what is your sense of the dog that hasn't barked yet? michael cohen hasn't fallen apart.

he hasn't melted. he hasn't stood up and screamed. michael cohen has kept his you know what together under a cross so bad that the person carrying it out apologized to the jury in front of the jury. >> we did hear michael cohen yell once this morning. it was during a recording. it was the first time the jurors have heard the other side of michael cohen. but he has really kept it together under pressure. especially today, i maybe have a little take on calling balls and strikes in court today, and i think both things can be true. we should talk about that, but i also think that they did some damage to michael cohen today. they spent i don't know how many hours this morning going through his lies. it's points to where are they going, they were not just minor lies they were lies under oath, just like he's under oath now. they lead up to the call.

it casts doubt on the credibility of the call. he is a minute and 36 second call he places to keith schiller. and right before that, he's not just getting one harassing the call. he's getting multiple harassing calls from an unknown number. one person the forgets to hide the number. he gets the number. he has a long back and forth with the person saying, the person is 14 years old allegedly, we don't know this for sure. we don't know what's going on here. the person is i'm really sorry. mike sl like i'm going to sick the secret service on you. and they have a full exchange. >> so he wasn't a protectee of the secret service. >> this is the threat. he the calls keith schiller. in call, he managed to achieve both to relay all this information about the harassing phone call to keith schiller, and then he manages to get through to the president and relay the information about the payment to stormy has been made. that could have happened, but i felt it was effective that they

cast some doubt on it. but to vaughn's point, even if they did, there's so much more evidence that they haven't even brought up. most of thes cross-examination has simply been a character assassination of michael cohen. they haven't spoken to so much of the evidence already. it looks like they are wrapping up. so i think they are hoping this one shot they think is effective will cast down on everything. i'm skeptical of that, but i did think today they got a hit in it's not a knockout, but it was a hit. >> we say every day we have no idea what's landing with the jury. i have been on a jury two times. i only speak as a former juror. sometimes what you're experiencing is agitation that you're still there. sometimes you're riveted. we have no idea. i want to ask you about something david kelly said on this program, that he has put up witnesses and i think he was quick to say michael cohen isn't

that. but once a case has been established to the degree that this case has been established through documents, through witnesses very friendly and affectionate toward the defendant, you were in his example schizophrenic drug addict, there's a corroborator. so the mission itself stepping back of destroying, smearing and maligning a witness who the prosecution on direct was pretty thorough in indicting his past conduct, incluing everything todd blanche went over today, the lies to congress, the guilty pleas, i think the prosecution had dealt with most of those chapters of michael cohen's life on direct. >> i think the prosecution has al the presidential space to make this case not about michael cohen's testimony, given everything else they have presented on their case in chief. there's so much other evidence they can rely on in terms of summation where you don't have

to put michael cohen at the center in terms of his credibility and everything he talked about. there's enough other witnesses who provided evidence and testimony that has placed michael cohen in the room, that's made him an actor such that it corroborates his account of what things are and you don't have to take it firsthand if you think he's a scum bag or unbelievable or what have you. any prosecutor particularly at the state level has dealt with unsavory witnesses that we wish we had alternatives for. and you don't. and so the way around that is to focus on the evidence that works for you and the witnesses that aren't as problematic to make your case. they can easily do it. i think that the defense in terms of where this sort of punch today landed, it's not about quantity. it's about quality. it's about the heft of the hit that they made in terms of the prosecution's case. i would agree with sue. this october 24th phone call is not something to sort of gloss over and miss. but to vaughn's point, and vaughn is correct, when you step

back, you still have to answer the question to the jury, does this still make sense in terms of the overall narrative that you are trying to get the jury to buy. if you're the defense, to andrew's point, are you going to try to say michael cohen did all this out of the goodness of his heart. he was still personal attorney to the president of the united states of america. he's lying about everything. that's a lot for the jury to sort of process in one sitting. i do think, and this is important, as we sit and have conversations about the defense and their strategy, their strategy doesn't have to be as well defined as the prosecution because all they are trying to do in any realm that they can is create reasonable doubt. i do think there's a conversation to be had about whether the inconsistency or perceived inconsistency about this conversation creates reasonable doubt in the minds of a juror. so it's important to understand

the defense's line, it doesn't have to be straight forward. it can be all over the place, because all they are trying to do is poke a hole. >> i would just say as a former juror, if i sat there for 14 19 days and there was evidence he was innocent or guilty hinged on the october 24th call, i probably wasn't going to go with guilty in the first place. what is your sense of what else he has? we learned that he plans to be done monday before the morning break. so this was it. probably either his second best shot or sort of beginning of the end. i don't know how much time there is monday before the first morning break. >> i think there's a question. does he go back to the morning of october 26th when donald trump and michael cohen had had two different phone calls lasting several minutes before cohen went and set up an account

at first republic to begin that wire transfer. is he going to ask about the october 28th phone call and the 11:00 a.m. hour after he finalized the nondisclosure agreement with stormy daniels through keith davidson. those are outstanding questions. this story will come through closing arguments. as i learned from andrew weissman, it's the job of the prosecution to prove the defendant's guilt. at the psalm time, the defense for donald trump has yet to provide an alternative story or an alternative timeline to the events of the prosecution that has detailed in chronological order the defense team, they have not provided for this jury a more specific timeline of when donald trump did, in fact, become familiar with this alleged arrangement of $130,000 from michael cohen to stormy daniels. was it in early february in 2018 after the "wall street journal" wrote about it? those are some of the outstanding questions that frankly the jury and closing arguments when they are looking at the two side storylineses,

they are different. because they haven't answered those questions. his defense attorneys haven't tried to pave their own clear version of events either. >> so on that point of vaughn's, to the defense's story, he didn't have sex with stormy daniels. he did make every single decision. he did require his fos to haggle down every single bill and he did pay more than two times the reimbursement. >> and didn't take any negative actions with respect to weisselberg and cohen. >> to his other point, cohen is in the fold until '18. >> the idea is this has happened behind his back, which we know from everyone is not supposed to happen. and as michael cohen had repeatedly said today, if i did it that, i would be fired. so this is all happening -- the story is happening behind his

back and he did not know about it. and weisselberg and cohen, according to hope hicks, thank god michael did this. this isn't what did you do and i can't believe you passed these checks to me and i didn't know what i was signing, and i'm paying you twice as much money as i should be, and you never told me. >> and i did it 12 times. >> i'm now on record saying i reimbursed michael cohen for payments to a porn star. it sounds like he hasn't admitted that. the narrative is going to be difficult. i wanted to just raise one thing because this is definitely like you always tried your last case. this is going to be the mueller investigation, but todd blanche did a better job today. with respect to the testimony

where michael cohen lies in front of congress and the lies are distancing donald trump from the moscow tower. >> he lies about the times that he talked to trump about building a trump tower. >> he says three before congress. >> there's reasons why. >> and he the wants to make it earlier. he's trying to be like don't worry. not during the campaign. it was much the mall smaer. it was like earlier and little. and todd blaunch goes to that and you submitted a two-page document. this wasn't your spur of the moment tail light. and michael cohen on cross, you shouldn't be bring out bad facts, says, yes, that's not just my statement. that false statement that i

admitted was perjury, which by the way could only have been done for the president, michael cohen had zero interest personally in that. that was done by a joint defense committee that included the president of the united states' lawyer. that was like putting -- if you want the costello, what's happening behind the scenes, what are the lawyers doing, he just directly implicated donald trump in that scheme. >> back to the narrative, if the narrative is that he rolled like a mob boss, cohen gave another example of how he did that. >> so i don't know if you saw this, did we show that? trump is talking, we'll tell you about it on the other side of a break. an update from court. proceedings are done for the day. michael cohen will be back monday for the end of cross. what we expect to be redirect. the prosecution will have an opportunity to do that if they choose. still to come for us, a gaggle

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you need to know that mr. trump's personal lawyers reviewed and itted my edited my

statement to congress before i gave. to be clear, mr. trump knew of and directed the trump moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. he lied about it because he never expected to win. he also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the moscow real estate project. and so lied about it too. mr. trump made clear to me through his personal statements to me that we both knew to be false and through his lies to the country that he wanted me to lie. he made it clear to me because his personal attorneys reviewed my statement before i gave it to congress. >> so i wonder if you think the that will come up on redirect. >> i don't know that there's anything to clean up. cross-examination when you're a

prosecutor, your heart is in your throat. you want to see and be prepared the witness. is there something you don't know? how is the witness going to do. it's scary and they could be nervous and cave. they are humans. and one of the tricks of that defense lawyers do to try to shake someone from a story is the person gives an answer and say that didn't happen. and are you telling me, and you're like, okay, i don't think it happened. it's normal reaction. so what you're doing is you're taking detailed notes and you're keeping a line down this side of your pad. over here, you write down issues that you might want to clean up. and then the judgment call is doing some triage as to what's really matters. it's usually a mistake to just

go down a rabbit hole. you sort of want to figure out if wrour going to doed redirect. what are the key things you want to clean up. is there such a misimpression or so misleading. here, cohen cleaned it up. oh, that false statement. that was just a misstep by blanche. so i don't think that's one. there was one where they tried to make it sound like it was because cohen lied to the judge about accepting responsibility. that that is the reason that the judge at the sentencing of michael cohen gave him a lower sentence. again, to go back to the case i last tried, i know that the main reason he would have gotten a lower sentence is that he fully cooperated with the special counsel mueller investigation. there were two cases. there was the southern district case and the mueller case. he fully cooperated. we told the judge that. and everyone agreed he could get credit, which is what happens

when you cooperate. so it's not like he got credit for not cooperating, he got credit from the judge because he did cooperate. >> i guess what's curious to me and not being a lawyer, i have no idea what thought goes into a defense team deals with what they have to work with. what's so incriminating is the 12 pieces of paper. it's we know you don't put a criminal conspiracy on paper. but they did. and it's got chicken scratch on it. that's where they go with what they are rebursing with. rudy giuliani is saying the money was funneled through michael cohen. we have a tape. nothing that is incriminating and imperils donald trump legally has been any of the substance or tone or spirit or topic of the cross.

>> there's been powerful evidence. it's been in the 34 counts involved with the documents. the checks, the general ledger, and nothing has come up to question that at all yet. they do have to get to criminal intent. it's going to involve the conversations. despite what happened today, there's still multiple corroborating witnesses who gave testimony coming into michael cohen's. so when michael cohen talked, it was a very familiar story. they have not come back -- they have two things. they have not come back and really gone near any of this testimony about the heart of the matter. be it the records or about the meetings that he had where he talked to donald trump. just the one phone call. and i think that's important. and i'm also struck by i have been there every day. and i don't have a narrative yet of exactly how donald trump didn't know about this. we heard from one witness he was in the white house busily signing checks and wasn't really

paying attention. with us that cuts across against so much evidence and just the man we know, the micromanager that is donald trump. we have heard maybe the weisselberg and cohen, but that doesn't have legs. you want to hear it. we're going into closing arguments. >> they don't have to have a narrative. it's the prosecution's burden to establish their case beyond a reasonable doubt. and i think that has to be understood because big picture wise, the prosecution and the defense in this case have two very different goals. the prosecution is trying to persuade 12 jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump is guilty. the defense is looking to get one jury who is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt to hold out. >> in fairness, they have given us strings of a defense.

i would just like to hear of it more. >> i don't have the clarity you do. as a juror when you go in there with other people, you want to have a thing to hang whatever you decided to do. and i think that's maybe we're talking past each other. you want to go in and defend where you come down on. i don't know they have given anyone a thing. i want to bring vaughn hillyard back in on this. a little bit of suspense. a little lack of clarity about who her talking about. some of these organizations have reported that a lawyer whose name has come up, maybe that final witness, what is your sense of the one person that might be maybe the one witness that the defense calls if they do. >> robert costello at the heart of the testimony on tuesday, in which michael cohen was articulating that costello, who

was a trump allied lawyer back in 2018 and had a close relationship with trump, was in close contact with rudy giuliani, his friend. and rudy giuliani's client was donald trump. and costello, who michael cohen says never entered into a formal legal arrangement with has publicly suggested over the last year that michael cohen had acknowledged that they were trying to extort donald trump, and that he was doing this not through donald trump's direction. and so costello has been refuted. this allegation by michael cohen directly here. and there are e-mails from 2018 that have already been entered into the record that show robert costello suggesting to michael cohen at a point right before he flipped, you could say, that suggesting that he had friends in high places. and telling him that he was in contact with his friend, who was

in touch with his client, that meaning are rudy giuliani with donald trump. and this was all before michael cohen ultimately broke and began testifying under oath against donald trump. so robert costello has told tom winter that he's repaired to come testify, but at this point many time, he's not been asked to be here in lower manhattan at this point in time. >> and there is some expectation that the judge has indicated that both sides should be prepared to present their summations on tuesday, presuming they are done on monday. he's also indicated he would like to get those summations done on the same day. is that right? . >> reporter: right. the cross-examination of michael cohen should end monday morning. and then you'll have the summations. there's some questions around wednesday is usually a day the court is not taking place. the court had had sought to bring the jurors together. there was at least one juror not

able to make that happen. there will not be court on wednesday. ask then thursday one of the jurors, it's not clear, maybe an alternate, has to leave by 1:00 p.m. on thursday. so i know the idea was to hopefully avoid coming back after memorial day and allowing the jurors to go consider a verdict shortly after these closing arguments, but we're looking at a very tight timeline next week, especially with the fact had that the prosecution's own witness is yet to finish questioning. and robert costello takes the stand. just a few moments ago, todd blanche still did not shut the door on donald trump taking the stand himself. >> what to you make of all this sort of posturing? >> you discussed yesterday, i think with respect to the defendant not testifying, one, it's legitimate to always make that decision late in the day to sort of make sure, but even if

they know that it's not going to happen, it's useful to have the state be worrying about it. because it's going to eat up some of their time. >> do they ever testify? >> sometimes. this would not be the case. i don't knowst there's anyone who i heard anyone say it would be a good idea. that might be a universe of one, but the one being the person who could make the choice, which is donald trump. i don't think that's going to happen. with costello, it's interesting just because i don't think he's on the defense witness list. so that raises some issues for the state as to you're supposed to have a list of who is going to testify. they would have to be a good reason why it was unanticipated. i'm not seeing what that argument is, but i could be missing something that happened in the record that we haven't seen yet. they have been talking about three witnesses, the general counsel of the the trump organization, they said, no, he's not testifying.

that left two. one is an expert, and the other is donald trump. so i would be surprised if tell lo testified, just to remember he is the person who just before the case was indicted, you remember the delay in the indictment was that donald trump said i have somebody you need to talk to. and costello went into the grand jury and testified to the grand jury. that's the defense. because that means that the prosecution has had a really good preview of what he would say and has probably looked long and hard how to repute that. >> right. because whatever they do, the prosecution has a chance to cross him. the tables have turned. >> because i remember at at time thinking why would he go to the grand jury when i keep that secret and use it at trial without ever told the

prosecution having fwoen into the grand jury and told whatever story he told, that gives the prosecution a chance i'm not saying he lied to the grand jury. i'm saying if the state thinks he did, they have a huge opportunity between a year ago when he testiied from the grand jury to investigate everything about it. so they will be ready for it. >> no one is going anywhere. up next for us, trump got the band together again. we'll talk with another journalist who had an inside look inside the courthouse this week. he will join us, next. s week he will join us, next. s we may look like other money managers, but we're different. (other money manager) you can't be that different. (fisher investments) we are. we have a team of specialists not only in investing, but also also in financial and estate planning and more. (other money manager) your clients rely on you for all that? (fisher investments) yes. and as a fiduciary, we always put their interests first. (other money manager) but you still sell commission -based products, right? (fisher investments) no. we have a simple management fee structured so we do better when our clients do better. (other money manager) huh, we're more different than i thought! (fisher investments) at fisher investments, we're clearly different. see? homequote explorer lets you easily compare

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in court yesterday, i was sitting close enough i could look over trump's shoulder and see what he was reading. at one point, he was reading the quotes that these individuals were going through and making nations with a pen on the paper. bl before or after? >> while testimony was going on. while michael cohen was testifying against him, he was actually going through and annotaing the quotes. >> that is a second time we have played that because it's so mind blowing to me. thafls contributing editor andrew rice on tuesday night on our special coverage. he joins us now. he just left the coverage. this was someone who covered trump for nine years, perhaps the most stunning thing he's done in court. micromanaging what his surrogates were saying to get around the gag order because he couldn't. explain.

>> reporter: i think what he's doing is basically treating this like any other political event, like a political convention or something like that. he has surrogates this. there's a message of the day. and he clearly is coordinating that message with them and making sure that they are communicating what he wants to commuicate. communicating the things he's not allowed to communicate often times because of the restrictions under the gag order. >> what's amazing to me is the irony in all this. this is a trial about crime he is committed in the process of keeping stuff that he, dth dths, thought would damage him politically out of the national inquirer ahead of the 2016 presidential election. now he's made it the center piece of his 2024 election to have all the people who want to be on the ticket come to his porn star hush money trial. what is sort of the broader take away from the spectacle? >> reporter: i think the broad

er take away with regard to the politics of it is just how far the goalposts have moved in this country in terms of what we expect in terms of behavior of our presidential candidates. i'm old enough to remember presidents who were impeached for perhaps lesser offenses. now we have one that's actually on criminal trial. it doesn't seem to be hurting him in the polls so far. another thing he was doing in court on monday was actually perusing and holding up "the new york times" battleground polls showing him ahead by 5 or 6 points in all these battleground states. so he's clearly sending a message that he's prepared possibly for a conviction and prepared to sort of take the verdict the voters of the american people. >> that's everything that is going on outside. take me inside the courtroom. what did you think of this week's testimony starting with

michael cohen still on direct, ask we have had an uneven, that's the most objective way to describe cross, an uneven cross-examination by trump's defense lawyer todd blanche. >> reporter: i will say that today's cross-examination was much more strong and concerted. i think there was an extremely -- much more, he laid some blows on cohen in a way he hadn't before. i think also the prosecution has done a really good job in keeping and making it so that the case doesn't depend solely on cohen's word. throughout his testimony, earlier this week on direct, he was primarily testifying about things that other people had already testified about. things that there was corroborating evidence for, telephone calls, text messages

and so on. so really what the prosecution is saying, and i think this is a typical defense tatic is they are saying you don't have to believe michael cohen. just believe your eyes and believe your common sense about what happened here. >> we talked to david kelly earlier in the week about establishing enough context for that underlying crime of the motive being the election. that was earlier testimony. i think it's a safe assumption we can expect to hear that in summation, which both sides should be prepared to deliver on tuesday. is that a fair guess? >> reporter: yeah, i think that the underlying -- the prosecution has to prove that the records offense was committed in the course of kmuting some more serious crime. the more serious crime that they have really leaned into is a violation of election law of the new york state election law. so really what they have been trying to demonstrate throughout

was was donald trump's motive in making these deals was to advance his political campaign, tofs silence these women that could have damaged his political campaign, and the defense, by contrast, has been trying to get michael cohen and others to talk about how much president trump was motivated by his desire to protect his family, to keep these salacious allegations from getting out. the truth is probably a little bit of both. but i think that the prosecution has made a pretty strong case that the election was a major consideration, if not thee major consideration. >> let me just ask you quickly about the notes trump was taking on the kwoets that his surrogates had been delivering outside the courthouse. was the da in eyesight of that? do you know if their team saw? they sought to protect these proceedings and enforce the gag

order. did anyone see what you saw from their side? could you tell? did they have a view of that? >> reporter: i don't see how they could have missed it. because the lectern where the prosecutor was asking questions from is behind donald trump. and these weren't -- it wasn't unintrusive. he reads things in 64-point font or something like that. so if it's easy enough for me to read it from three or four rows back, i think they must have seen what he was doing. but i think they are also not really trying to too hard to get him held in contempt at this point. i think they are happy where they are. >> my biggest chuckle of the week. andrew weiss, thank you very much for joining us. we're going to sneak in a quick break. we'll be right back. g to sneak break. we'll be right back.

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we are back. vaughn, final thoughts for the hour. >> it's actually some hallway remarks that donald trump just gave. and i know he gives hallway remarks every day and a lot of it's repetitive, but we listen. and there's a quote here that he stated that caught my attention. and this is the quote. quote, i have the only illegal nda. now, when we say that, quote, this became part of what he does when he reads others who are allied with him, his writings.

that was the writing of andrew mccarthy in the national review. trump then stopped, looked up at the cameras and added in his own words, quote, i have the only illegal ndach and as far as my notes can tell, this is the first time donald trump has ever acknowledged this being his nda with stormy daniels. he in may of 218 in a tweet acknowledged there was an nda between michael cohen and between two parties, but he didn't explicitly say it was his. we did have testimony from david pecker two weeks ago saying that donald trump called him and referred to as our agreement with stormy daniels. but as far as my notes are -- and please anybody on the team here correct me -- i believe this is the first time, though, he has acknowledged this was an nda that he was a part of. >> yeah, andrew, i've never heard him acknowledge that before. >> i haven't either, and i haven't heard what he he said, you know, today. i wonder if he might have been referring to the gag order as

opposed to the underlying nda. >> there is this writing in it national review defending the legality of ndas. but he's never acknowledged being under one. >> absolutely. the ndas can be totally legal. there are components that actually at this trial there are components that probably aren't okay, which is michael cohen's provision that he added about the million dollar penalty. keith davidson said that probably wouldn't hold up. but that is -- there are lots and lots of things that donald trump has said that are completely inconsistent with a defense. we pointed out his statements in california where he said i in fact reimbursed michael cohen for the hush money payments, which is completely at odds with todd blanche's opening where he said this wasn't a reimbursement of a hush money payment. so this may be a continuation of that. my quick sort of take home today

i thought on cross something that michael cohen did i thought was very understandable when the cross was raised about you had thousands and thousands of phone calls. he said, yes, and some of you them you don't remember exactly when they were but you remember the substance of it. and others you do remember everything about it because it was so significant. it's very humanizing about memory. >> yeah, i think that's right. everyone can relate to that. i don't remember what i led with yesterday, but there are conversations that stick with you. i also think you've got the banker and you've got pecker and got keith talking about how dire this situation was and how intense all these conversations were on this topic. will you all be back same time same place tomorrow? thank you. we cannot do this without you. thank you so much for spending the hour with us. up next for us the tantalizing prospect of donald trump testifying in his own defense in his first criminal trial. they have not closed the door to

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hi again, everyone. it's now 5:00 in new york. but the question of will he or won't he, whether the ex-president will take the stand in his own defense in his own criminal trial still looming. last hour we learned a little bit more about the shape and direction of the defense's case in the election interference hush money criminal trial. after the jury was dismissed today there were deliberations over questions about testimony from a potential expert witness for the defense. bradley smith, a former commissioner of the fec, who intends to testify about the federal statute governing campaign finance contributions, giving us a slight indication of what could be the defense's strategy moving forward. meanwhile, michael cohen, the prosecution's last witness, was on the stand for hours again

today. his second day of cross-examination by the defense team. today's line of questioning by defense attorney todd blanche was stronger than his cross-examination of tuesday, which was basically not strong at all but still failed to deliver what any legal experts have described as a knock out punch. todd blanche spent a lot of time today attempting to undermine michael cohen's credibility leaving david frum of the atlantic to write this, quote, the trump defense is that everybody in the trump organization was a criminal except the boss. michael cohen will be back on the witness stand on monday when we expect cross-examination to start in the morning and then end before the morning break. judge juan merchan also instructed both sides to be ready for closing arguments next tuesday. this is where we start the hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. outside the courtroom for us nbc news correspondent yasmin vusubian is back.

and david kelly, he served as the chief of the fdny's organized crime and terrorism unit. with me at the table senior executive editor for bloomberg opinion and nbc analyst tim is back. and basial michael is with us. these deliberations over what if any case the defense will put on. >> it's hard to say. so far what they've appeared to do is what a lot of defense do is throw what you can against the wall and see what sticks. again, what you only need to do here is only convince one juror. unfortunately for them so far i haven't seen anything come up in the course of this trial that i think would drive a reasonable juror to have much doubt about what happened here even with the cross-examination of michael cohen. i do think that, you know,

putting the -- it's interesting that the judge is permitting them to put on this quote-unquote expert witness. it's typically not -- you know, you don't put on a legal expert at trial. the legal aspect really goes for the judge to explain to the jury the relevant legal issues thin course of his charges. my guess is that judge merchan is probably permitting this to avoid an issue on appeal. but, again, i don't really see this -- i don't know what this expert is going to say, but i don't know that it really will move the needle much. it may muddy the waters a little bit if they're not careful about limiting instructions, but i don't know if it'll move the needle much because there's a difference in the requirements for federal law and state law, number one. and number two, the fact that the fec really in this case was not in any way an excullpation of the defendant in this case as it was a political decision

where he had to split down what to do with the republicans and democrats and then you have some absentees. so i think that the fec's decision a nonissue. i don't think they'll get into it, but the legal issues, too, i think are barely irrelevant as we have different requirements under state law. and because it may not be a federal offense -- i think it is -- but maybe some problems with proving it. the state charges are different. >> david kelley if you're the prosecution don't you try to get the sentencing memo where donald trump is listed i think 34 times as individual one made relevant somehow? if you're going to talk about election crimes the federal system found donald trump an unindicted coconspirator in the investigation of michael cohen's campaign finance violations. doesn't that become central in the final throes of a criminal trial? >> i would love to be able to get that ip.

unfortunately, i don't know of an exception of the rules of evidence that would permit that. but that having been said mainly what has this trial been about? this trial has been about everything that's in that document, everything that this person number one did has come out through the course of the testimony. so they have essentially done that. and if it is really the focus of a particular federal document is not something that's really admissible at this trial. >> you know, tim, to david's point this is -- and i know the mission is different. i'm not a lawyer but i've been in two juries. it's to give jurors some doubt to hold onto. this seems a weird thing to give them. >> i think what they're betting in the cross-examination of michael cohen is if you undermine michael cohen's credibility you undermine the whole case. and if the whole case rests on michael cohen alone that might undermine the strategy.

everything he said has been corroborated by other witnesses including hope hicks and keith davidson and david pecker and voluminous amounts of documentation. >> yeah. >> and then i don't think they had an artful attorney representing donald trump. remember todd blanche comes into this case through boris epstein. boris epstein comes into trump world through eric trump. this is a series of fence posts recommending one another to donald trump. and he is so intent on judging people lie loyalty often rather than their skill sets he ends up with c-minus people pretending their a-pluses. and he hasn't delivered an a-plus examination. as we know the first day was a mess. today he had a lot of powerful bits of evidence showing that michael cohen is a serial liar and a dissembler and he runs a very crazy podcast. that's basically what you came out of this with. but he didn't weave that into a

narrative for the jury to latch onto, he didn't tell a story. and i think a good cross examiner tells a jury a story they can attach themselves to as you're mentioning, and i don't see that. if we're looking in terms of a hung jury, i don't see that happening but it could. >> anything can happen. we say this once every hour we have no idea, we have no have no idea, we have no insight, no visibility, we're not meant to. yasmin, let me ask you something about what trump's team has done. they have viciously crossed stormy daniels, who was not an eyewitness who the crimes alleged, and michael cohen, who comes on at the end as basically a human corroborator for things the jurors have been shown with their own eyes. the 12 -- i thought the most powerful thing in his direct examination is everyone gets put up, this is check to you. who signed it?

is it a fraudulent document, yes. this is a check made out to you is that a fraudulent document? yes. 12 times. and just did it three. you can see there's some sort of wave they were able to create around michael cohen saying, yes, i lied. i was part of a lie, part of a cover-up. they presented michael cohen on direct as a guy who wasn't just a liar but a guy who went to prison for lying. i was confused about what new ground todd blanche was trying to break to them. >> well, that's why in direct, nicolle, we had gotten information especially from prosecutors they were going to stick with the documents. they knew from the get go and we all knew michael cohen had credibility issues. you rightly bring up the case of the ledgers, ininvoices, the # 3 counts he was initially indicted for. those are the things that make the prosecution's case. it's not necessarily michael cohen's testimony. as tim said michael cohen is

just corroborating all the testimony we have heard beforehand for the prosecution. he's just corroborating so many of the documents we heard. you and have talked about exhibit number 35, how do you explain the first republic bank document in which allen weisselberg scribbles on that exhibit grossing up 120,000, $130,000, the $60,000 bonus, the $50,000 to red fish and the rest for taxes. the documents, the ledgers, ininvoices signed for checks by donald trump directly in the oval office will tell it story. i'll be interested to see what happens in redirect. that moment during cross-examination, they built this whole story about michael cohen being a liar. we all know this. as tim said this crazy podcast, they built that narrative of michael cohen. but that moment in which they talk about october 24th, the phone call made to keith

schiller, donald trump's former bodyguard that lasted 90 seconds and he said you're lying about this phone call. you're talking about harassing text messages with keith schiller. how can you basically talk about that along with stormy daniels in the same phone call? what they did not talk about -- and i imagine this is going to be brought up and clean this moment up in redirect -- october 26 two separate phone calls made that morning. one 90 seconds long, one 3 minutes long. that was the day money was transferred to stormy daniels. that was the day michael cohen testified to once again donald trump saying go for it, do it, get this thing over with. so i imagine that will also come up in redirect because there are a lot of outstanding issues that, again, go back to those documents that build this entire thing, nicolle, for the prosecution. >> let me show all of you what alvin bragg said about the election interference piece of this narrative. >> it is often short-handed to hush money as we've laid out in public court filings. the case is not -- the core of

it's not money for sex. we would say it's about conspiring to corrupt a presidential election and then lying in new york business records to cover it up. and so that's the -- that's the heart of the case as we laid out in court filings. >> we went back and watched that. today after asking you on tuesday about the sort of underlying evidence that bumps these -- the falsification up from misdemeanor charges to felonies, i wonder when you hear that trump wants to bring in a election expert, what does that mean they might be concerned about? yasmin you first, and i want to bring david kelley in on this as well. >> reporter: i think it's concern about what the jury understands tuesday be election law. they want the jury to actually

understand what it is that is being alleged here when it comes to influencing the election, right? why they want to bring in this fec official. if you look at kind of the notes they really got into the weeds the last 30 minutes of court today. they talked about the obstruction submitted by the prosecution and defense here. and judge juan merchan said basically i'm going to go over this thing, i'm going to let you know where i stand on this when i go over jury instructions and whether you then think your expert witness who worked for the fec, his testimony would be mentioned. they mentioned it would be short testimony. he would take the stand and explain for the jury before they went into deliberations, and he would come off the stand. by the way, i think that indicates it's likely the former president will not be testifying. don't quote me on that, but it sounds as if we're going into closings on tuesday. it doesn't sound like he's going to be testifying as of this moment.

and we heard from the defense they're going to give their final decision some time today. but they're going to want to define for the zwraer -- and i heard this, by the way, from other legal experts by the way, nicolle, why the prosecution didn't necessarily bring up an election law expert to get ahead of this as well. it's not necessarily surprising, but they're wanting a jury to understand what it means for that larger crime. >> david kelley, the prosecution did bring the c-span i don't know if it's the archivest, but the c-span official to show the tape of trump in his own words acknowledging the political damage he feared after the "access hollywood" tape came out. and he's very clear in his own words, you know, this will poison me, this will kill me, i couldn't win. what is your sense of -- and, again, i don't want to read too much into this, but if the defense is bringing on an election expert could it signal that they're just trying to hedge around the misdemeanor bumped up to felony piece of

this, that they're concerned if a conviction comes? >> yeah, i think what they're trying to do is try to say from the federal election commission perspective it's kind of the so what. what alvin bragg was talking about is exactly that, so what? we talked about in the early stages of this case one of the challenges for the prosecution is not just prove the false document. that's kind of easy, but to prove the so what. what alvin bragg says the so what here is it was corrupting a presidential election, and the vehicle for that is something that's prohibited under new york state law, which is coming up with false business records. and so i think what the argument here from the prosecution's perspective is, okay, well, look, i don't really care what the fec says. there's more than one way to skin the cat here. there's more than one way to corrupt a presidential election. and what the defendant has done in this case is corrupt it under

state law by falsifying business records, and that's the offense that we're prosecuting. so i don't really care what the fec thinks because under their tent it may not be a violation of their regulations, but that's kind of immaterial because he still can violate the law and corrupt the presidential election. the so what of his whole case in a different way. >> and if you look at the story the prosecution has told from the very first witness who was david pecker, it was about a year's long effort to corrupt the presidential election with the 2015 trump tower meeting where cohen september even a principal. it's pecker and trump creating a collaborative effort to plant negative stories about trump's rivals then in the republican primary, and they explain what they were. they were things embellish bide the national enquirer but inspired by trump's political analysis. ted cruz another, marco rubio

another. >> let's remember this is the same fec that decided to pass onto looking into the fact donald trump has channeled small dollar contributions into his legal defense payments. the fec has not enforced any kind of infractions that are glaring campaign finance violations for a long time. it's a pretty toothless agency, so the idea they've looked at this and passed or they didn't see anything wrong here i think is just a straw horse. and on everything else that took place here, they were very aware of the election. they were very aware that everything that they were challenged by could derail trump's presidency, and it's what motivated all of them. and it begins with the "access hollywood" tape, and it bleeds into mcdougal and stormy daniels and all the rest of it. >> it's interesting. as we talk about the fec, i think it's important to note that there is a bit of history of this in new york politics, that in 2013 individuals

connected to a mayoral campaign have actually gone to jail for the sort of shadow donations. and if you remember i think it was last year there are folks connected to the mayor of the city who were being arrested over these campaign finance issues. so it is -- it's -- i imagine that the fec individual is there to kind of muddy the waters and say one is -- one is the federal, one is state, but alvin bragg is involved in that mayoral case, and so i'm sure that he's clear on where the law is and that there is precedent for what they're actually taking donald trump to task for. >> you know alvin bragg, i mean what do you make of the case that has been presented and the missed opportunity and i guess the most generous way to describe todd blanche's earliest hours of cross? >> i've got to say for maybe all the conversation maybe not at this table but for all theether

in the air -- so many questions about whether he's been up to the task, and it has been a near flawless i think prosecution, right? and it has exposed so much of as you were going back and talking about defense posts what it is to be in donald trump's orbit, that there are just people around who are far more performative than they are substantive. and alvin bragg and his team have proven to be far more substantive and courageous in this matter. >> i think the best evidence of that are the nuts who showed up to defend donald trump outside the courthouse because he's getting his butt kicked inside of it. day 18 of the first ever criminal trial of an american ex-president. plus the return of the red tie brigade, those far-right maga extreme republican allies of the

disgraced ex-president flocking to the courthouse again to spread disinformation about the case, potentially violating the gag order and subverting the rule of law. also there today a major player in trump's 2020 coup plot, one jeffrey clark. we'll get to that later in the broadcast. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. tinues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. what the biggest companies deliver is an exceptional customer experience. what makes it possible is unmatched connectivity and 5g solutions from t-mobile for business. t-mobile connects 100,000 delta airlines employees, powers tractor supply's

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pain won't hold you back from your passions. it's the only solution with two max-strength anesthetics to deliver the strongest numbing pain relief available. so, do your thing like a pro, pain-free. absorbine pro. we're back with yasmin, david, kim, and basil. tim, you were in the courthouse today. two things that people thought would happen that didn't, i mean michael cohen didn't blow up. michael cohen was underestimated, and i know michael cohen is capable of a lot of outbursts but that he

didn't have one. it was the defense's strategy and expectation i think that he would. and trump has seemed to land on a coping strategy of closing his eyes. whether or not he's awake i'm not aware. is that a weird thing? can the jurors see him with his eyes closed? >> not only are his eyes closed, he's sort of leaning back. i think in the early days of the trial people said he was asleep. he might have been, but you can't sleep for eight hours. >> is he motionless? >> he's motionless. he leans over to one of his lawyers. he perked up and eyes wide open when the cross of michael cohen began, but with a lot of the other witnesses he was just lying there slightly tilted back with his eyes closed. >> there it is, do we have that, the sketch? >> i thought he's just -- yeah,

that's what he looks like. and i thought he's just going to never-never land because he doesn't want to see the porn star testifying against him and he doesn't want to see the turncoat in-house lawyer testifying against him. instead he's imagining he's on the first tee at beds minister or on the beach at mar-a-lago or eating a cheeseburger in the triplex at trump tower. he's doing any of these things that takes him to the happy place for him rather than what's going on in court. i think that's part of it. the other thing is donald trump is noticeably aged even since 2020, he's ea little more crooked back. he's very gummy. we've seen it in these rallies where he has nonlinear speeches and makes huge mistakes and goes off on tangents. so i also think he's aged. that's a factor. and i think lastly this is a man -- and we've talked about this now for many years but he's been insulated from his own

consequences since birth. so he's never really feared accountability. i've been watching this and i wasn't sure this case. i thought this -- and i still think it's the weakest of the four cases in terms of the legal existential threat. i think the other cases pose more of a legal threat in terms of the consequences. but as the case has proceeded on i've become more aware this could have a tougher outcome than i anticipated. and now i've been watching and sort of wondering is he thinking about the possible consequences here as we near the finish line and he's sitting there in his fugue state. >> david, there's been i think an admirable effort not to get ahead of the story, and i don't want to do that now. but we do know that judge merchan has told both sides to prepare to deliver their closing arguments on tuesday. then the jury will deliberate, and that process -- how long that takes is up to them, not any of us. but what -- what does the end of the process look like?

what should people expect? >> well, look, i think there's some concern -- people expressed concern about michael cohen being the last witness. the government wants something wider. but we have yet to see the redirect examination here. michael cohen has proven a good witness. i think on cross-examination there's a lot of givens here. you know what you're going to get in terms of information. you don't want to let the witness make your arguments. you want to elicit facts and you make the arguments. i think todd blanche is sort of stuck between the two places here. and once -- you mentioned a moment ago and the reason i raise this point you mention a moment ago about him not blowing up on the stand. once you've kind of gone through this with him for two days or so and he hasn't blown up, i think it's time to sit down. and i think the government will have a probably pretty effective redirect and those are going to be meetings and talk about the

jury charge and so forth. and then, you know, there's summations. and i think the jury's really ready to hear, you know, the jury charge and those summations. it's going to be interesting to hear. >> david, what would you -- again, i just know as somebody who sat on two juries just watching this but also covering the trump story i never heard before i heard from david pecker and he was eliminated with immunity. and the crushepdo after "access hollywood" drops. one of checks was on the front page of "the new york times." i've never seen all 12 of them. what milwaukees its way -- what makes the cut if you're an editor for summation in the prosecutor's closing argument? >> you want to make sure the jury understands what they just heard, so you want to kind of retell the story.

so you've heard from all these witnesses. let me go through with you and make sure you heard what i heard and tell you that story. and then i'm going to come back and say, now, let's talk about some of these witnesses, the people you heard it from and why it is you should believe them. so you tell -- what i would do is kind of tell the whole story and then kind of circle back and put the pieces -- you know, show them how that osage is being made, you know, why you should believe david pecker and why you should believe michael cohen and why you should believe stormy daniels. sure, they're liar, but they're in the thick of this with the defendant. you know, the defendant he's the one who picked these witnesses, the government did. so let me tell you why you should believe them and therefore why you should believe this defendant is guilty. so it's a -- from a prosecutor or lawyer standpoint it's a really -- the high point when

you can stand up in front of a jury and present to them that story that you work so hard to present to some of these witnesses -- >> what is the likelihood that a lot of that is what you saw with your own eyes, don't get fuzzed up by the efforts to discredit these two witnesses only in here because donald trump picked two to sleep and a tried to cover up the fact he slept with her. >> i'd love to use the sentence you just used in my summation. >> i've been watching trump a long time. >> throughout your whole coverage and, look, people talked about it. it's one thing to sit here in a television studio or over the cable and talk about what we're hearing happened. a whole different dimension is evaluating the witness -- you

know, eyeballing the witness. that's really kind of the art of the sixth amendment, because you need to be able to confront your witnesses. and like wise the jury needs to see and hear from themselves what's happening. they need to look at body language. and i think, you know, looking at how trump reacts to this where people can kind of -- is he concerned? that he's not concerned, that's all that's going to be going through their thought process. so all that stuff that's going on in the courtroom is really important for a jury's evaluation of how they should decide this case. >> that's so interesting. and just as you're talking i'm thinking about how he was reacting when stormy daniels was on the stand. he called her a word that rhymes with witch. they take all of it in. it's a privilege to get to talk to all of you about this. i'm sure we will be calling on you again. thank you for starting us off.

basil sticks around for the hour. when we come back how the tawdry display of loyalty to a disgraced ex-president by members of congress sort of backfired for them, leaving the gop at risk of losing control of the house of representatives. we'll explain that next. the house of representatives we'll explain that next. get a bundle of your choice on us. so you'll get a free phone and a smartwatch and a tablet. yep, all 3 on us only at verizon. we love being outside, but the sun makes our deck and patio too hot to enjoy. now thanks to our new sunsetter retractable awning, we can select full sun or instant shade in just 60 seconds. it's 20 degrees cooler under the sunsetter and we get instant protection from harmful uv rays and sun glare. for pricing starting at less than $1,000, transform your outdoor living space into a shaded retreat your family will love! when you call, we'll rush you a special $200 discount certificate with your free awning idea kit!

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called the four treasons. they look amen's warehouse softball teal team. they look like a singing group. it looks like they put mitt romney in a cloning machine but something went a little more wrong with each copy. >> so good. it's been like keeping up with the single most depraved sitcom you've ever sat through with a road tipping cast of guest stars playing the part of cheerleaders in matching outfits and everything. today rows in court reserved for trump's guests were so bloated with members of the pick me caucus, elected republicans transparently and gamely seeking trump's recognition and praise that one of his advisers reportedly asked some of them to sit in it back of the room. they were out of room. the only thing more humiliating than that the fact in attending court today those republicans either wittingly or unwittingly

sacrificed their majority for day. that house had to -- just one political stunt running up against another political stunt. and again like a bad sitcom there were weird crossovers from other trump trials. our producer in the room today noticed right away that jeffrey clark -- yes that jeffrey clark of oil spill fame, an architect of the fake electors plot -- was sitting among the general audience. joining urcower v david jolly who i've wanted to talk to for days about the goings on in new york. and chief of staff at the homeland security department miles taylor whose opinion i have also sought. basil is still with us. all right, david, what new is there to say about the debasement both of the body in which they serve, the party in which you and i were once

members, and the rule of law? these guys standing around -- i mean no one defended trump's conduct, and now they're all defending the crimes he committed to cover up the conduct. >> yeah, nicolle. i think what's new to say is this. look who's not there? the thousands of protesters that donald trump asked to come to his side, the millions of americans that he says are outraged by this, the speaker johnson, and the back bench members of congress they say they are there representing, nobody really cares about this. they're not out there trying to defend donald trump. they're hoping the matter goes away, which then leads to the question you posed about how emasculating it is for members of congress to show up to this trial simply to bend a knee to the former president and show loyalty either out of some sort of patronage opportunity or for an act of consideration for a spot on the ticket. emasculating and humiliating, come up with whatever words you might. and then i think it gets down to

the integrity of the institution of the congress. i know charlie sykes talked about this as well i think. we've seen the speaker of the house go to an active trial and see the members follow him there and essentially try to interfere with the administration of justice, to tell the american people that the courts now are corrupt, to try to undermine the judiciary, to see the members of the house republican caucus do that is a grave threat. it is part of the insidious that leads to january 6th to suggest that because law and order can't be trusted, we then have to take this in our own hands, they might be wearing blue suits and red ties but each of one of them might as well be carrying the pitchforks and bats we saw on january 6th because they are challenging the democracy in that courtroom just as much as the protesters on january 6th were. >> and miles, just believe matt gaetz if you're a maga republican and you're don't

believe david jolly. this is reporting. standing back and standing by, mr. president, gaetz wrote, he posted a photo of social media of him with other congressional republicans standing behind trump in a hallway outside courtroom where the former president's felony case is in its fourth week of testimony. we're at the you can't make it up phase of the story, miles. >> well, nicolle, don't you think it this point it must be really hard to be a writer for the onion? how do you even write funny headlines now when things like this happen in real life? they're all wearing the same outfit. i know we talked about it a lot, but it just shows how bad the cult is, that they all have to show up in the same costume. i mean this completely takes care of halloween, but more significantly it shows really how much influence he wields over these people. but number two, nicolle, it

shows the intimidation that donald trump has over the republican party, that they all have to come and parade to the courtroom to demonstrate their fealty towards him even though the polls should start showing them it's a political liability, even though it's costing them back in washington whereas you've noted they've had to postpone legislative business. they're still doing it anyway, so that infimidation is strong. so i think the most important thing here is this shows how bad a trump second term will be because the folks that you are seeing parade through that courtroom, that is donald trump's cabinet. those are donald trump's allies. those will be his leaders in congress. these will be the people running a second trump administration. if you think the lauren boeberts and matt gaetzs were on the side lines they're in the arena in a second term and some of them are in trump's cabinet running federal departments and

agencies. that's been for me the take away instead of the sideshow of the actual trial is that who is going to run the american people's government. trump's family members have been there and the disgraced officials who who run doj and the administration hoping for some kind of redemption in a second trump administration, and that should have people alarmed because that is not a picture of a well functioning government, and it is the picture of an unqualified circus. >> you know, the criminal trial for the sex with the porn star that he illegally covered up with fraudulent business records is actually not his biggest political problem. his biggest political problem today is that 15 to 35% of republicans in closed primaries are picking nikki haley who's been out the race for i think a little over two months. and that's in some ways more embarrassing than what he's on trial for. none of these people speak to that voter. jeffrey clark, mike waltz, bob

good. as miles was saying andy biggs, ralph loren, michelle boebert. he's right this is the cabinet. anna polina luna, these are the people that keep nikki's numbers soaring in close republican primary. >> he can't actually go out into the field and try to get those voters even if he cares about doing that because he's stuck in a trial. but, you know, all jokes aside what those members of congress look like are an army. they are an army for donald trump hypnotized and/or paralyzed by the proximity of power or what they perceive that to be. it scares me because, yes, they're potentially part of a donald trump cabinet, but where was that energy when children are being shot in schools?

they didn't show up in mass to try and support the families of those victims. in all major policies that are affecting their constituents, they don't show up with this level of energy. the nerd in me that reads the federalist papers from time to time always goes back to the point where they say that these members of congress are supposed to distill with wisdom the needs and desires of their constituents. where is that in what they do? >> well, we're so far away from that, but they didn't even go and do their own dumb thing. so their dumb thing today was going to be -- so we're so far from that they didn't even go and do other dumb stunt today. >> and they never will because as miles just said and david just said, they're so beholden to donald trump for the speaker himself to go to mar-a-lago to pay homage, that's what we're dealing with here. yeah, i think those nikki haley numbers, i'm glad joe biden has at least the money advantage to

go after those voters, right? but if you're looking for any sliver of what the republican party could be, that really is it right there. >> i think trump's too proud to go after those voters. they rejected him once, rejected him twice, off with your head. no one goes anywhere. we'll fit in a quick break. we'll all be right back. a quick we'll all be right back. all—new subway wraps are packed with delicious ingredients in a pillowy lavash wrap. finally a refreshing lunch that tastes deli— perfect for pro athletes like me, right? can i finish? try all—new wraps from subway today.

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for this country, and it just continues to play out. even as you watch these trials play out, i don't know what the legal outcomes of them are going to be, but the salacious details, the peek into his soul shows you what a corrupt thinker, what a corrupt operator, what a broken man this person is, and i can't imagine the difficult decision that rests in this lap going forward, economic decisions, border issues. if they're all self-centered answers that come out of his mouth just for his sole purpose of survival, we're going to have a rough four years. >> that was lifelong republican from georgia, former georgia lieutenant governor jeff duncan. david, we talked a lot with sarah longwell about permission structures. it is sort of the engine fueling the numbers i talked about 15% to 33% of republicans voting for nikki haley two months after she dropped out of the race. what do you make of that

project? >> well, look, i think donald trump has two major problems. one is he is off message every time he's talking about his victimhood as a defendant in trial. a lot of voters want to hear about angry economic populism. whether it's true or not, it works. and if they stay on message he's doing well. when he's says i'm a victim and you'll be a victim too if you cheat on your taxes, that doesn't work. those early haley voters stay in the haley voter lane. and donald trump is wrong on the issues themselves americans care about. you saw another group emerge yesterday with 40 or 50 members including john boehner, michael steel, cohen, simpson, a whole list of old school republicans who said, look, trump himself. peace through strength, a market-based economy. that is the haley lane.

if donald trump isn't ready to reach out to it, he will lose the race to joe biden. the combination of angry populism around his victim hood as well as turning upside down all the traditional republican ideologies will cost him the election because he'll lose that lane and it will end up in a statistically significant way going to joe biden. >> when he was, entertaining to his voters, novel to his voters, he won. but 2 extremely close. in 2020 he lost. this is an election where he is running as someone who needs to be protected by his base. that's the whole message. it is about you protect me from criminal prosecution and i'll protect you, even though he hasn't pardoned any of the january 6th people. i know it's a close election. i can read the polls. i don't know that i believe

them. they weren't so right before the mid-terms. what do you make of this growing public chore us of life-long republicans saying not trump, no way, not a good idea. >> i think it is making them sweat. these defections are very problematic for a man who won by the skin of his teeth and lost by the skin of his teeth. they're very, very worried about it. you see trump going on truth social and attacks people he says he's never met before in his life. he likes to claim he and i have never met and he gets on truth social to talk about it because he's really worried about what these defections mean. i think it could have an impact. >> david, miles, michael, thank you all. we'll be right back. hael, thank you all. we'll be right back. it shouldd wiffle tennis. pickle! yeah, aw! whoo! ♪♪ these guys are intense.

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