you've been watching our special trump on trial. you can connect with me online, including asking questions about this trial at arimelber.com. keep it right here on msnbc. hello and welcome to our special, new york versus donald trump. i am ari melber and we have

breakdowns on the testimony including emotional moments for long time trump aid hope hicks on the stand. prosecutors are putting forward stormy daniels and karen mcdougal's lawyer, keith davidson, earlier in the week all to confirm a very damning story we heard. they've done it this way to confirm it for the jury before they hear from cohen and then corroborating that is what we told you about. and then ending this week with a rare view inside donald trump's uppermost senior aides and brain trust. hope hicks taking the stand and bringing jurors and the rest of us into these secret meetings and discussions as the access hollywood tape broke. as trump assessed the damage. hope hicks, you see with donald trump, that is a coveted post

in any campaign and especially in his. someone on the stage and in his ear and on the plane. that is the role she had, so this was important testimony including the deals to silence these women. it matters because this is reliable testimony from a long time trump loyalist. that is hard for the jury to ignore. it is also from a person, as a witness, who clearly decided to cooperate with these probes. to testify under oath, that that is the better course. i want to mention that she did that today. we have some context leading up to friday's testimony because she did that testifying about january 6. there she was. you may remember she cooperated. she discussed what she knew under oath. she talked to investigators and even discussed her own private text on that day. january 6, when she told others she was so upset. quote, everything we worked for

wiped away. what you see on this screen is the way we experience different probes. january 6 they had the cameras on and you saw her talking. under new york law, less transparent. we have the sketches, but we don't have video cameras in court. both times, to be clear, hicks was a key witness. she is cooperating and that led to this reported falling out with trump, now the defendant. she said she was nervous on the stand. she answered questions confirming she has under subpoena, paying for her own lawyer and in a moment that does matter for a jury, this is still a human exercise, hope hicks broke down crying on the stand at one point. this was reported and discussed. it was apparently, the best we could tell from reporters in the room and the context that we have, a genuine display of emotion from her as she felt the weight of this moment, the raw pressure of testifying against her longtime boss, who stood or physically sat through

her entire testimony, watching. and maybe the details were tough for her to share in this manner. remember, hicks was from a close aide in the business to that key post for a candidate obsessed with press. while trump had his famous fallings out with aids, a lot of people did not last through the first year of the administration. she kept his trust and became white house communications director. she witnessed every scandal and her testimony this week hurt trump when she had her hand in everything. she discussed the priorities in the campaign and communications. why does that matter? the point isn't whether he is an apprentice style boss or not. it undercuts one of the trump defenses i told you about and he is entitled to his defenses but one of them is i was out of the loop and i'm busy running for president and others are getting it done. this is hope hicks, not just

nobody and she saying the opposite. he was hands-on, he said the lead, they followed. she also confirmed what we heard from another witness this week. rhona graff, the trump assistant, was basically crucial. that is corroboration. of trump attorneys get up and say who is this, who is that, well, they have the evidence and see every position she held and she is the one corroborating these others. in another blow to trump's efforts to find some distance from the inquirer, hicks also confirmed that she had seen trump talking to the inquirer chief, david pecker, who was the witness earlier. trump congratulating him on a phone call after he went after ben carson. here is what is interesting about that. he might've thought that trump was working with the press like usual. you call the inquirer one day and fox the next.

now however the jury is hearing this testimony and understanding of potential confirmation of how the inquirer was carrying out the campaign edicts. this wasn't like where you might share ideas or facts and see what they might report. this was more like calling someone who was operating publicly, commercially and financially for an arm of the campaign, but doing it off the books. that is part of the crime the d.a. is trying to prove and whether testimony was so significant. i will tell you there is more. hope hicks also took the jury inside trump world in a very unusual way. in the very private, panicked moments when the campaign was rocked by the video you see on your screen. the bombshell access hollywood tape. remember, no one knew this existed at the upper echelon of the campaign except maybe donald trump might or might not

remember what he said. this isn't any witness. prosecutors determined hicks was actually the first person to bring the news of this impending bombshell inside the campaign to the campaign manager and again, you and i might remember hope hicks. not everyone remembers every aid and every white house campaign staff, but boy will you think she is important when you determine that the washington post had this bombshell. the person they went to who they knew was a top aide who would get to trump and the other leaders was not a campaign manager. it was not a friend or family member. they went to hope hicks. the washington post reporter contacting hicks with this bombshell scoop and a deadline for any campaign response they wanted to give. she rushed it to campaign leadership. there was a palpable panic and she testifies of the initial response was, you need to hear the tape to be sure, but, quote, deny, deny, deny.

she recounted trump privately knew this was going to be a massive story. she said this was a crisis. now take that in and say what are we talking about? are we doing campaign memories or a documentary where you go back and look at an old campaign? no, the point is not that hope hicks has fascinating and sometimes never before heard details about the pivotal campaign moment, although she does have those. the point is that she was eyewitness to donald trump's apparent motivation, which the prosecutor said is now part of the criminal intent in what they have indicted as this cover-up and campaign felony. hicks testifying that trump saw all of this as chiefly a problem for the campaign. i will read to you this key passage. sometimes the key passages are someone saying yes or no. trump was concerned these reports could hurt his standing

with voters. hope hicks says, yes. that is some of the strong testimony the jury heard the end of this weekend a lot of folks probably remember where you were when you first heard about this tape and its raw admission of grabbing women by the -- and you might remember the fallout. hicks recounting that intense period, describing how it dominated coverage leading up to the next big moment, the presidential debate. this was with clinton and trump when a lot of people thought trump was already down. this was a body blow like none other. this is legally relevant as to whether donald trump was, like his lawyers suggested, not involved, didn't know what was going on or it was a personal thing or a campaign thing. so we put together in the context of our reporting, beyond what was said today, some of that explosive period in the campaign homestretch.

>> donald trump's presidential campaign in turmoil tonight, facing withering political fallout. >> the house speaker released this statement canceling trump's event. i am sickened by what i heard today. >> senator john mccain pulled his endorsement. >> when the tape comes out he drops from 41 to 38 and on the weekend after everyone has seen the tape, he falls through the floor. that is why they are driving the republican party and donald trump off a cliff into the political abyss. >> mitch mcconnell called the comments repugnant and unacceptable. >> you do not recover. this election ended. all i can say is, i'm sorry. >> now, it did not end. republicans did turn on trump in the 2016 homestretch. that kind of reaction might be politically unrecognizable today. in the past few years we have seen entire crimes and insurrection dismissed by republican party leaders. a reminder of how much has changed once trump did get out from under that october scandal

to go on to win the electoral college. this all matters in the trial because it speaks to the campaign motivations i keep mentioning to you. hicks was telling the jury that republicans who ran congress or the nomination in past cycles had particularly sharply worded statements against trump over this issue. over what he said on the tape and whether that is how he dealt with women. she mentioned romney, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell. prosecutors view it as key to what they are trying to prove to the jury. why donald trump would, in october, take such extreme, they allege criminal, acts in the campaign's waning weeks. he was losing party leaders. his whole campaign was panicked. his own top loyal aides saw the problem. he was losing the narrative. losing the mainstream press. while trump still thought, and by the way let's be clear, he

thought at the time that he did have a narrow path left to the electoral college and to winning. he also perceived that one more story or allegation that linked up with this tape scandal would do him in. a guy who has all this bluster in public, never admits to losing in private. according to his own aides under oath he is a different guy. you've got to remember when you're dealing with someone like this that they play different roles and in private he thought, i am losing for sure and i am toast if one of these stories comes out. that, prosecutors say, is how he and campaign leadership viewed the stormy daniels and karen mcdougal stories. hicks confirming the argument with evidence, with eyewitness testimony that michael cohen and the inquirer had to bury both of those stories and do it as a campaign plot for trump to keep that narrow path even possibly open. hicks asking michael cohen for example to get tabloid

publishers number on november 5. remember i told you about the receipts? it doesn't matter what the jury thinks about the people in this communication are what they are doing. what matters is if they think people are telling the truth and if what they said about what happened matches the other documentation. this is bad news for trump because these texts are in the evidence for the jury and this is as good a confirmation as you can get in writing between key people who are both trump loyalists at the time. hicks testifying she asked because trump wanted to speak with him and so she connected the two of them. but she did more than that. she also connected the dots. if this sounds like it is bad and damning evidence against donald trump it is because it is. it does not mean the story is

over or he is guilty. he is legally presumed innocent and they have to use the high bar of behind -- beyond a reasonable doubt for 12 people. if they convince 10 or 11 people that what you heard did happen and it amounts to this cover-up, that's not good enough. they need all 12. i say that to say when we follow this case as we do in our specials, we are not looking at it as a jump ball. we are looking at whether the d.a. is carrying that burden and how this evidence may play with this jury, but they certainly seem to have moved to the ball this week. we have melissa murray and andrew weissmann as part of our special leading us off when we are back in 90 seconds.

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try it for free at freestylelibre.us i was becoming increasingly concerned that we were damaging, we were damaging his legacy. >> what did the president say in response to what you just described? >> he said something along the lines of, you know, nobody will care about my legacy if i lose. >> trump aid hope hicks, that is what she looks like testifying under oath. that was a different proceeding where we had cameras. the january 6 probe in congress. we are now joined by melissa murray and andrew weissmann. i know both of you watched closely today. what did you think of ms. hicks testimony?

>> i think your description of her testimony being a body blow is totally accurate. this i think took a sledgehammer to a major defense. prior to her testimony a big gap in the d.a.s arsenal was did donald trump know about the payments to stormy daniels as hush money payments? the d.a. conceded he did not sign the actual agreement that michael cohen signed and stormy daniels and her lawyer signed, but there was a blank with respect to this signature block for the president. also michael cohen had said with respect to the payments, he said maybe i'm going to have to pay on my own and donald trump is not going to pay in advance. so there was a lot of concern of how are they going to link donald trump to the actual hush

money payments with respect to stormy daniels? david pecker had already given a link with respect to karen mcdougal and the doorman, but the case is really about the stormy daniels payments and hope hicks, a reluctant witness who tearfully said, from within the trump campaign, said donald trump told her that he was aware that michael cohen made these hush money payments. he tried to say he only learned after the fact, which by the way does not matter. as long as he learned and knew before he was making these reimbursement payments, that is good enough. >> right. if you reimburse someone for buying you crack, you're still on the hook. >> yeah, so she gave that and also suggested she did not believe donald trump story that this was something that michael

cohen did out of the goodness of his heart. she said that's not who he is and he likes to cook -- likes to take credit for things. she also said i don't believe that story, but it doesn't matter. you will hear from the d.a. that it does not matter if she believes him or not, because as long as you actually now have donald trump knowing about the hush money payments to stormy daniels, that is the predicate for the false business records. the major gap that the defense seemed to want to exploit has been completely closed by a witness who i think is going to be just impossible for the defense to say was lying and misremembered this because it was so palpable in court that she did not want to be there and did not want to give this testimony. >> melissa, your view on the strongest testimony this past week? >> i think i am maybe less

sanguine and muted in my response to hope hicks. she did close the loop for the prosecution, but also closed loops for the defense as well. she emphasized that donald trump was very cognizant of his wife's own view of the things that it happened, certainly in the wake of the access hollywood tape. that he was very concerned about her, that he respected her a great deal and instructed hope hicks not to deliver newspapers that covered the story to her residence so she would not see them and that will be a big part of the defense. they only have to establish reasonable doubt for a single juror to hang the jury and they could make the point that this was never about the election, this was always about his wife. to be fair, as andrew says, she does link donald trump to all of this and his concern about the election. there is a lot of testimony there when the stormy daniels situation does come out in the press in 2018, where he muses that it is probably better for this to come out now, rather

than before the election. i think that goes to the processes -- prosecutions case. hope hicks may have opened the door for some possible impeachment of her character. she notes she did not see the access hollywood tape, but her immediate response was to deny, deny, deny. a classic thing a pr flack would do, but it does suggest she was already making the case without knowing what transpired on that tape. >> we are talking about alternative facts land, so that becomes common. i guess the question is which hat do they have on? i think she has some potential standing with the jury and that she came through, unless she is the most incredible actor ever, most people can't cry on command. part of what juries do as you know so well is use their eyes and ears to assess whether they think the version they are hearing is basically true or if somebody is actually lying on the stand. i also want to draw your

attention to how different a world it is. we all know what things have been like in the past few years. how cynical people feel about politics. i mentioned that in our reporting at the top of the program. go back and leave -- and look briefly at one of the only public statements he made that could be called a partial apology. it reminds you of how much of a problem this was in october. take a look. >> i never said i'm a perfect person nor pretended to be someone i'm not. i've said and done things i regret and the words released today on this more than a decade old video are one of them. anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who i am. i said it, i was wrong, and i apologize. >> i was wrong and i apologize. not a deep fake, melissa, and actual statement under duress. how does that work in the story

that the prosecutors are trying to tell through these witnesses? >> i think that goes to the point the prosecutors have been trying to make and hope hicks helped confirm that he was concerned about the election and concerned about what it might mean for the electorate if news of karen mcdougal and stormy daniels came out, especially hot on the heels of the access hollywood tape. again it is a long time since this happened. we had a pandemic, a coup, all kinds of things. are the jurors going to remember that in october 2016 this is all anyone could talk about and it seemed like literally the worst thing that he could do? to what he can and will do and i think it is likely that this might seem really quaint to the jurors and sort of piecing all of this together as a campaign to get elected and to silence some of these facts that could

come out and be really damaging to him. that may be harder to piece together. i think she did a lot of good work for the prosecution. i am interested to see how the defense uses her in closing arguments. i think bove was tentative with her today because she began crying. i think he would have bloodied her up a little bit more if she had not been so in distress. >> that is the human side as mentioned. i have about 30 seconds, andrew. any thoughts on that on cross? >> i want to take something melissa said, which is it is right to anticipate that the defense is going to be saying this is about melania. as melissa notes there is contrary evidence in the record, but the jury i think is going to be instruct did that you can have a dual motive. the state does not have to prove that the 100% intent in his head was the election.

if there was a dual motive, that he was concerned about the election and his wife, he is still guilty. so the state will certainly be wrapping themselves around that jury instruction to say the hope hicks testimony should be believed, including the part about the concern about what melania's reaction will be, but that doesn't mean he wasn't concerned first and foremost or even in part about getting elected. so they can sort of embrace that part of the testimony and still win. >> that speaks to again how people understand other people's motive. we talk about criminal intent and why instructions can matter so much. sometimes i might go running to get fresh air, but also to lose weight and you can't just say i only went running for fresh air, that was the only reason. obviously the criminal motive has to be substantiated enough that it carries the day, even if there is other stuff in the

mix. andrew, melissa, thanks to both of you. appreciate it. coming up, we have what the judge told trump to his face. and as we take it all and i'm thrilled to tell you presidential historian douglas brinkley is here as we make sense of how love this will live on for years and years, the first-ever trial of a president. first, the tapes, that is next. ♪♪ chevy trucks' advanced camera technology lets you see over, under,

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plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! our special continues as we track the star witnesses damning evidence and the judge letting trump know what the rules are. this has been the third full week of a bruising period for defendant trump. >> the ex-presidents and her parents came was blown wide open. >> talking about how deals came together for karen mcdougal with ami. >> one of the most significant testimonies. >> trumps legal team tried to paint davidson as an extortionist who made a career targeting celebrities. >> donald trump has never been closer to spending a night in jail. >> they are threatening to throw the republican nominee

for president in jail for talking. >> sitting prosecutors have now called hope hicks to the stand. >> i think the jurors will not only be listening carefully to everything hope hicks is saying, they are going to be looking at how trump responds. >> that is just some of what we lived through in one week. the judge also held donald trump in contempt for the first time. he was fined and learned he could go to jail if he does not shape up. davidson, the former lawyer for mcdougal and daniels, said trump was worried about the campaign. national enquirer payments to mcdougal were all about helping the candidacy. prosecutors also played that audio of cohen discussing trumps feelings and therefore his knowledge of the payments to daniels. >> i can't tell you how many times he said to me, i hate the fact that we did it.

and my comment to him was, but every person that you've spoken to told you it was the right move. >> and our special continues with a special guest. a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney. welcome back. >> thank you. >> what stood out to you in this very dramatic week? >> you know white-collar criminal cases are usually boring. testimony can be a drag. very document heavy and complex, but certainly not the case in this trial with donald trump. what stood out to me was keith davidson. you know, the strategy that the defense has in distancing trump from davidson, from these payments, in that they establish davidson only communicated with cohen, never trump. they brought out that the only time davidson was ever in the same room as trump was in the manhattan courtroom.

he had never spoken about this so i think that was a slamdunk for the defense. for the prosecution he established that there was a transaction. that cohen did pay stormy daniels, that he facilitated this whole thing, $130,000 in exchange for her silence. for me i think that davidson did what he was supposed to do for the prosecution and i think he helped the defense and hope hicks's testimony corroborated what he said. he did say that cohen called davidson and complained because he was expecting a job at the white house. i did so much for this guy and i've been left out. then you have hope hicks saying i don't know cohen to do things out of the goodness of his heart. he does things for credit, for self-interest. the defense is saying cohen made these payments on his own because he had other incentives to bury this story. >> let's dig into what you raised.

we talk about the ground for the prosecution, but i reminded everyone and you know this quite well. it is not like picking between two stories. it is not either trump did it and did that sound likely or did cohen do it and does that sound likely? it is a much lower bar. it is if the jury has a reasonable doubt. i think that is important to emphasize because as a viewer you might say this is more likely and i would say based on the current evidence i do think the other story is more likely, but is there reasonable doubt as to whether cohen went rogue? >> you just have to get one person to think about this in the way the defense is painting it to be. that is trump had other things in mind. he has self-interest. he wanted the job. he did this because he wanted to protect the big guy, right? his boss.

the defenses scoring points enough to change one person's mind. >> and you still paid it back. even if you say this popped up in a different way, take a look at cohen describing trump, then president trump, paying him back. >> i'm visiting president trump in the oval office for the first time. he says something to the effect of don't worry, michael, your january and february reimbursement checks are coming. >> that is if the jury believes cohen because the defenses maligning attacking his credibility. >> and they will say the checks exist. >> right. yes. cohen is a convicted per juror, so that clip is not as convincing for me. again it is up to the jury and whether they find cohen credible on the stand. >> are you surprised or does it

make sense that the d.a. delayed cohen? we heard about star witnesses and he has not come up yet. >> i'm not surprised. they have to tell a story in a particular order. they started with the first witness, david pecker, for how all of this came about. this catch and kill deal with trump and cohen. so the order they are going in, i'm not surprised. they are telling a story and building up to cohen being their star witness. he's got to be watching this. he has to be hearing what's being said. >> he has been doing a lot of tick-tock, i know he is watching. >> i want to say that the prosecution's warning him against that, but that is something he can be cross- examined on. i am not surprised by the strategy of the prosecution. >> really interesting point. especially your expertise on

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this first-ever trial of a former president matters. it matters to the people involved. it can matter to the defendant of convicted of a felony before

the election and it matters and many other ways in our life and history and rule of law. is it breaking through, as the saying goes? are people hearing about it? you are following it if you're listening to my voice right now, but there are interesting ways to understand how this is playing out as it happens. for example it is making headlines around the world because this is something the united states has never done before and if you check around the country in local papers, where a lot of people still get their news, it still makes the front pages. including those cohen tapes recorded by the former trump fixer. those are not only newsworthy, but for many americans they have echoes in past presidential style scandals and tapes of a president.

>> what can we learn from history as we live through it? i mentioned i am excited about our next guest, historian douglas brinkley, the author of many books including the nixon tapes. welcome. i'm thrilled to have you on as we make sense of this week. >> i'm glad to be here. it is a riveting week. it seems to me that trump has himself really painted in the corner. i think today was the kicker for a long week. i know that it is like a spider web. you've got to follow all of these tentacles and some people may be bored with it. they can be forgiven for not knowing lawyers or who is on deck tomorrow kind of forecasting, but we all know and feel that trump did this. if he is found guilty it will be a shocking moment that a president, the leader of the party of abraham lincoln is ostensibly facing jail time or

house arrest. he may not meet his comeuppance and there will be appeals, but nevertheless it takes your breath away that we allowed our political theater to get to this sort of decadent, bottom line. >> i think that makes a lot of sense and as with anything in a society, it matters what other people think. what are our common understandings. those of us in the news, which we were saying the first draft of history, but the whole point is we are doing it hour-by- hour. you are doing it allegedly at a higher pay grade, more sophisticated. we are looking at these trends, but people are following this more than other things in the last years of chaos. here is a poll for your review. 45% of people say they are following this closely or very closely. that is more as you know, douglas, then a congressional battle or other assorted legal

issues that you and i and others might say are important but don't captivate the country and yet i'm guessing you would say that is probably not at the high watermark of watergate or nixon. how do you make sense of something like that if it is broadly 40 or 50% of the country covering this trial? >> well, with nixon you have the tape, the smoking gun, where you heard nixon asking the cia to get the fbi to call off investigations. all of these things started unraveling for nixon. trump will meet his comeuppance if he is found guilty, if these jurors say he is found guilty, because he will have to go to milwaukee and wherever he goes people will realize he has been convicted and he can pretend to wear it as a badge of honor, like he did when he was

impeached twice, but the truth of the matter is this cuts close to home. we are talking about his wife, the former first lady, having to endure mcdougal, daniels and the seediness of it and anybody that is having dinner has issues to start with because it is a junk paper from its inception. but this is the kind of can of worms that trump revels in. he makes good speeches. if he does the convention he might be able to hold his base. i'm sure he will, but it is nibbling away in wisconsin and michigan and swing states. there is no way this trial, particularly if he is found guilty, will be seen as an asset for a reelection campaign. >> know and that is what is so funny about the ridiculous propaganda. i use that word elaborately. everyone knows it is bad if you are indicted and worse if you are convicted and that is worse if you run a company or the country or be in the local

community club, golf club, whatever your sport. it is certainly bad in today's politics because so much those walls into the accusations of criminality and donald trump was a master of that. crooked hillary. he was impeached over trying to create a fake ukrainian investigation of the bidens. so you don't need to be a kind of news buffed to know that he thinks this is bad and is going to hurt him. i wonder how you perceive or make sense of the history and real-time of is this like nixon? is it like vietnam, is it like the civil rights movement, in the sense that they become saturated experiences. covid would be another example. or is this still the other half of the country tuning it out that does not want to deal with it? >> i think it is still divided. i bet if you went to fox news right now they are covering campus protest, not really covering a lot of what is going

on in this trial. >> why would you go to fox news right now? i am kidding. people can watch what they want. i am kidding. >> i know. look, we are divided, but in the fall people have to look at trump with scrutiny and i think the mistake we made is kind of book ending trump with the elevator ride beginning in politics and ending with january 6, when really we should be looking as election corruption on both ends, meaning the access hollywood tape followed by the hush money cover-up, showing he would do anything to not lose at the outset and then an election riot, insurrection. those are the bookends in my mind of what the trump presidency is really about and -- >> can i had a book? you have the 16 issues indicted as campaign crimes. you have what you just said,

2020, but you also have no other president twice impeached and both of those were about election crimes and abuse of power. we haven't passed the criminal line in terms of conviction. that is a lot of evidence of election crimes. i will let you have the last word. >> i know you love quoting from hip-hop artists and others, but bob dylan used to say you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. in subterranean blues. no one needs someone to tell us whether trump is part of the hush money payment to stormy daniels. of course he is. this is his poodle, a lapdog for donald trump, doing the dirty business and trump was probably pleased cohen bought them off so cheap. he probably thought he would go up to a quarter million and saved himself some money, but

we have to give trump credit for recognizing what a dire threat it was, because he could not have survived access hollywood on top of stormy daniels and all -- >> which as we said on the show. i appreciate the bob dylan reference. he also said they both probably lied. the newspapers, they all went along with the ride. in this case the tabloids. good to see you, douglas. >> good to see you. >> absolutely. as we look at how this is playing out we will show the memes on the internet also following the trial, when we come back. so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. we really don't want people to think of feeding food like ours is spoiling their dogs. good, real food is simple. it looks like food, it smells like food, it's what dogs are supposed to be eating. ♪

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our founding father would be upset about reports he was sleeping in the trial. >> eventually they have to put him on a baby monitor. oh no, he is on his stomach again. i have to flip them over. >> they find him $9000 for violating his gag order nine times. trump is like, i get the 10th one free, right? >> comics roasting the trial but as we keep an eye on how this is playing out we noticed on one of the most popular platforms in the country among young people, the trial is breaking through with folks watching, reacting and debating it. >> oh my gosh, do we need to talk about the trump criminal trial? >> hope hicks is testifying and spilling the beans on her

former boss, donald trump. >> speaking of hunches, trump's attorney has a number in cross- examination and we get a look at how bad things will be for michael cohen. >> he can testify in his own defense. the gag order is not preventing that. >> these folks care about nothing but donald trump. >> talking big and using the back door to bailout. >> it is another sign of our technology and world and society is changing. people cannot only watch, they can talk back. some of these videos going viral. always interesting to see how someone is making sense of it. we will be right back. k. and that person... is impossible to replace. you need clem. clem needs benefits. work with principal so we can help you help clem

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i am signing off from this special hour. keep your right here on msnbc. welcome to our new special. new york versus donnell. we will bring you this brand- new break