>> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. okay. the breaking news this morning, donald trump about to take the stand in the $250 million civil fraud trial against him, his kids and his family business. under oath in minutes, a former president, a current presidential candidate, a current defendant in at least four other cases. among the other questions will he take the fifth? will he attack the judge or intentionally create a spectacle? will he implicate his children? or will he slip in a way that

might hurt him in any one of his criminal cases? not just high stakes, high unprecedented stakes. >> great point, john. trump is expected to be leaving trump tower any minute now for what has become an oddly familiar drive to the manhattan courthouse where once inside he could speak to cameras set up in the hallway. he's done it many times before. but today is different. he will then head into the courtroom where cameras are not allowed, have not been allowed since the start of this. once in court wild dynamics comes into play including while testifying trump will be sitting next to a judge that he publicly called a wacko, unhinged and also trump hating. talk about weird dynamics there. this marks the first time that trump himself is facing extensive courtroom questioning since he left the white house, even before opening arguments some, you know, month and plus ago. this judge already found that donald trump is liable for persistent and repeated fraud, and since then has fined trump

two times for violating a limited gag order. we have team coverage as this is going to be playing out across the next few hours. let's start with cnn anchor kaitlan collins who is outside the courthouse. what have you been learning about how trump has been preparing for this and his mindset going into today? >> reporter: i mean, this is a major moment for trump, kate. he has been angrier about this than almost anything else -- any of his other legal cases that have been surrounding him because this is deeply personal to him. it goes to the heart of what he has built his entire career upon, his real estate empire. while we know the outcome of this given this judge has already found him liable here, the question is how expensive this is going to be and just how much of a threat to that empire this truly poses to him and that is why he has been so angry about this, that's why he's shown up several days to this courthouse behind us to sit inside as he's watched other witnesses be called to the stand, at times where he has complained openly about how that

questioning has gone. he's whispered things to his attorneys who then stand up and object to that. you've heard him speak about it in the hallways. now it's going to be a different dynamic today because he himself will be the one under oath on the witness stand. i think that is a moment that shows just how much he cares about this, the fact that his children have been going to testify and really just the first time we've seen him testify himself in open court in over a decade. it's something he certainly has done before, but never in a moment like this one. so he has been preparing for it and really just the logistics of what this is going to look like and he's got three attorneys that will be inside that court with him today, but really trump has been running this. he has been directing his attorneys what to do here and so that's the question of what he says when he's actually under oath compared to what you've been hearing him say out in the hallway every day. >> kara scannell, i want to go to you. you've been inside this courtroom for so much of this trial, specifically what do we expect to see unfold today? >> reporter: well, i mean, as

kaitlan was saying his rhetoric outside is going to be very different from what he is going to endure over the course of this entire court day. we expect his testimony to take the full day. he will be under oath, he will be sitting just feet from the judge who he has criticized in the same room as the new york attorney general and he will have to answer specific questions about his business. the core of this case, these financial statements that the judge has already said are fraudulent, trump will have to answer detailed questions about this, about how he valued certain of these assets. he did sit for a deposition in april and he did answer questions under oath then, so we have a sense of what he's going to say, and that is that after he started running for president he said that he had little if any involvement in preparing these statements and like his sons, he also pushed some of the responsibility on to the internal accountants and the external accountants, but the thing here is he will be getting questioned, you know, they will be drilling down into these statements. he is not one who emails, we have not seen his name on any

email, but he will be asked pointed questions about this and it does did go to the heart of his business, the heart of his reputation as a successful businessman and the judge already saying this is fraud. when donald trump is here he's been in court seven days out of the 24 days of this trial so far, and when he is here the temperature rises, the tension in the room is palpable. he has been reacting to different things that have taken place in the testimony, he has become more expressive in that and so will he be able to keep his cool under questioning? and the question will be of how well the judge is able to rangel him. the judge has taken control of this, telling certain witnesses he doesn't want a speech, you answer the question yes or no. donald trump is known for wanting to give these speeches, wanting to give an explanation and the attorney general's office has really pressed a number of witnesses here saying these are yes or no questions, answer it yes or no, and then asking for any superfluous things to be stricken from the

record. two, just trying to keep donald trump in line, keeping him focused on the questions and not letting it get out of control. this is expected to go all day and court wraps around 4:30. >> kara, thank you very much. let's go from the courthouse to outside of trump tower where donald trump will be leaving very soon. kristen holmes is standing by. you have some great reporting coming out this morning just about how it's really become the trump legal strategy has by force or by design kind of maybe sort of become a campaign strategy as well. how trump's lawyers and campaign staff are managing all of this. >> reporter: that's right. there really is no separation anymore. this is a massive undertaking by both of his lawyers and by his campaign advisers. i spent a lot of time talking to them about how exactly this was going to work, and essentially what it looks like is guesswork. you have the lawyers estimating when exactly these trials are going to be, they do believe a

lot of this is going to shift, some of these days might change, but they have to build an entire campaign apparatus and schedule around those trial dates, when they expect trump to be in court. this is really just the kickoff of these enormous amount of trials that he is expected to face for the election in 2024. and they do believe that they have put an infrastructure in place on the ground in several of these early states so that if trump is having to be tied up in court, that they can actually still run a campaign without him on the ground, but that is a very difficult thing to do. so, again, this is a massive undertaking, one of the things that we really noticed when we were talking to these campaign advisers, to these allies of donald trump, is just how intermingled all of this was. we had a campaign advivisers working directly with lawyers, campaign spokespeople who were getting messaging from the lawyers. the fact that fundraising appeals go between being attacks on these various cases to attacks on ron desantis.

there is no two lanes anymore. we are completely in a lane where the politics and the legal has combined and now his team is going to have to navigate that as we get closer to the election. >> just to let people know where things stand and who has moved so far, the judge just walked behind our kaitlan collins at the courthouse, donald trump just left trump tower behind kristen holmes there. so the players are starting to move around right now. kristen, i want to go back to you with one question here. many legal analysts are suggesting that part of trump's plan today may be to blow things up, to go in there and literally blow the trial up with, you know, histrionics and testimony like that. have you picked up anything, any talk among the lawyers or i imagine campaign staff that he plans to make a show of this on the stand today? >> reporter: i think we're going to have to wait and see how he handles this. that wasn't part of the prep session that i heard about from yesterday, they really just went through the logistics, there wasn't any kind of talk about

there being histrionics, however, we do expect him to go to the cameras outside of the courtroom. he is going to want to take every opportunity that he possibly can to spin this narrative into what he wants it to be. john, we have talked about this a number of times. donald trump does not want to play cases out in the court of law, he wants to play them out in the court of opinion. what happens in those courtrooms, when he comes out he is going to say whatever it is that he wants and whatever narrative he wants to tell and that's why he's going to likely go to those cameras. and i am told by a number of sources that are close to the former president who say he's actually acting confident going into this trial about this testimony, but, again, a lot of this is going to be what he does on the outside of that courtroom. now, really important thing, i know kara mentioned this, is that anything that he says in that testimony under oath can be used against him in other trials, and one thing that we have been watching is just the fact that there have been some concerns recently over verbal

slip-ups that donald trump has had on the campaign trail. is that something that could happen when he's under oath today, when he's making his testimony. that could cause problems for him in the future. but, again, in terms of have i heard that he's going to make a scene, try to take command of the stage when he's actually in the courtroom, i have not, but i have heard there is a likelihood he will try to command the area outside of the courtroom to tell his own narrative. >> all right. well, we have our best reporters and anchors in all the right locations. keep us posted as to what you see and hear over the next several minutes. >> we could be hearing things publicly in the 9:00 hour, they head into court and 10:00 hour there will be a lot coming out in the next minutes. as we wait for donald trump to arrive to court, what could this testimony from the stand mean for his business empire and for his campaign? and is he going to actually testify or could he still plead the fifth? there is a lot to discuss here.

that's next. plus, we're also live in tel aviv as the israeli military says that it has effectively cut gaza into two and is advancing toward gaza city. the weekend of huge strikes there, the developments on the israel-hamas war next.

we're standing by for donald trump to arrive at the courthouse in manhattan. his business empire at stake. he's getting ready to take the stand. >> just minutes away. with us now elie honig, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. also with us former manhattan prosecutor jeremy isa salan. i mentioned there has been some speculation that trump when he gets on the stand will go in there and try to blow things up. by that i mean derail the trial, go after the judge, go after the

clerk. the reason being -- and this is a quote from alan dershowitz in a rolling stone article -- he says, quote, when a defendant honestly believes he can't get a fair trial from the judge one of the tactics is to antagonize the judge to the point of causing reversible errors. in other words, go after the judge, taunt the judge, draw the judge into doing something that will hurt the case going forward. >> you normally would never say poke the bear of the judge, that the ramifications could be quite serious, but when you're looking in this situation it's potentially -- potentially a double win for donald trump, and what i mean by that is you have his court of public opinion which we know that's where he's going with regularity, it's a campaign fundraising opportunity and galvanize the masses, but when you already have to a certain and large extent lost because there's already been a ruling by the judge as to this fraud then this is the opportunity to say i'm going to push that judge to a point where he or she, in this case judge

engoron may do something inappropriate that results in a reversal error. you're setting up an appeal possibly. >> how is that possible? when this is not a judge trial, this is a judge-only trial to go in there with the intent and think it's going to be a win to blow things up? >> i'm not sure it's a conservative strategy, lowercase c, but it's a strategy when you're desperate, when you've already lost as donald trump has. one of the counts the judge has already found against donald trump, a persistent fraud count. this is going to be a test for this judge as well because the judge has to resist taking the bait. >> keep talking. we're looking at donald trump arriving at the courthouse as we speak. continue, please. >> this same donald trump has already been poking the judge both in the court proceedings but also in public on social media. donald trump has said over the top things about the judge, technically does not violate the gag order because it only applies to the judge's staff, but this judge is going to have to sort of find the sweet spot here between on the one hand keeping donald trump in line, not letting donald trump make

this trial into a circus, but on the other hand not sort of lashing out at donald trump, not making a potentially incorrect ruling against donald trump just in the heat of the moment. i want to watch the judge here. >> can we role play for a second here? >> sure. >> if i'm donald trump and i'm on the witness stand and i'm saying, witch-hunt, democratic judge, democratic clerk, what does the judge then say? >> first he says, mr. trump, objection, presumably there will be an objection, objection, sustained, mr. trump. to stop. please stop what you're saying. objection sustained and i'm striking what you said from the record. i'm removing it from the record. >> and then i say donald trump, witch-hunt, democratic judge. >> i'm going to warn you once again, this is an inappropriate answer and again i'm striking it from the record. if you do it again i may have to strike your entire testimony. >> and then just for emphasis trump goes democratic judge, witch-hunt. >> i think the judge will say that's t i've warned you several times, i strike your testimony, i strike your testimony from the

record, i'm going to consider this case without t you have disobeyed this court over and over again, i've given you many, many chances. >> if this is a choose your own adventure we're playing out that's avenue a. avenue b could be pleading the fifth when he takes the stand? >> yes, it could. i always loved those books as a kid, the choose your own adventure. >> me, too. >> i just want to follow up. there's always the possibility, though i don't think it will happen that the judge can remand trump, basically put you in whether it's temporary for the afternoon or overnight, that would be a catastrophe for the case and a win for donald trump. >> in a cell? >> correct. in a cell. do i think that would happen, that would be extreme, i don't think that will happen. i don't think that's the way it goes. as to the fifth -- >> yes. >> -- this is not a criminal case where i or you or anyone could say i'm not going to speak and hurt myself. i will take that fifth. you can do that in a civil case but at the same time this judge and there's not a jury here can say i'm going to have an adverse

inference -- >> he has already lost, why give them anything else? >> there's also the deniability and we've said this and i've said this to you, john, before and i believe to you, kate. you admit what you can't deny and deny what you can't admit. i may have seen or done this but it wasn't my fault. he's going to push off blame. >> legally speaking this is an easy strategic decision, you take the fifth. all indications from trump's camp and people are that he will not take the fifth and he will, in fact, testify. if you are just doing this by the book as a lawyer you say, okay, you have the right to take the fifth even though this is a civil case. there are any number of prosecutors who already have charged you with various crimes not relating to this fraud but they could still do that. why would you take the stand, testify and give them any opening, any basis to revive an investigation? on the flip side as kate said i would say, donald trump, you've already lost one of the counts in this case. there is going to be a penalty imposed. we're going to appeal for sure, but by testifying you don't really stand to gain much here

unless of course you're playing the pr and political game which is out of my court as a lawyer. >> donald trump arrived to the courthouse just minutes ago, presumably he will speak in front of cameras before he walks into the courtroom. we are standing by to hear that. we've asked a lot about what he might do and the judge might do. i want to talk about the state here. he is a state witness today. the state has called him to the stand. what is it that they want to do? how will they approach this? >> they want to confront donald trump, doesn't necessarily have to be aggressive or over the top but they want to confront him with documents, with tangible, objective documents. do you know what i would ask as the first question, i would say to donald trump how big is your apartment? this is the famous apartment that's 10,000 square feet, he claimed it's 30,000 square feet. >> 3 x what it actually was. >> if he says 10,000 square feet which it is rounding off here you say, okay, this is this document where you said 30,000 square feet. that's fams. if he says it's 30,000 square feet you call a surveyor or something that says it's not

30,000 feet. you have to know what you have locked in and you have to have documents. they did this to eric trump last week. when he tried to deny things they had emails showing that he was involved in the creation of the financial statements. that's how i would go about this. >> so trump's attorneys didn't question either of the sons when they took the stand last week. why would they or wouldn't they want to question donald trump? and they would be going obviously second here in doing so. >> almost like they're crossing their own witness. >> yeah. >> absolutely. it's different, there's different types of ways you can ask the questions but depending on what donald trump says and how he acts will dictate the response from his team, his attorneys. >> do you think that could change kind of as the day progresses their thinking in this? >> i think so. keep in mind that he is not the average witness meaning i think most witnesses and certainly my clients are going to be controlled and you never know exactly what they're going to say but you really have an idea where this guy will go off the

teleprompter even if it is in front of him. if he does something extremely self-destructive as opposed to i don't know or i don't recall or the fifth, then there is the greater possibility that his attorneys will try to fix that error to make sure that record is correct but at the same time they don't want to give him too much air and oxygen to damn himself further on the stand. >> cleanup on donald trump in the midst of a court hearing could be -- >> a big spill. >> much more to come. >> we are live at the courthouse, outside trump tower, inside the courthouse, watching this very carefully. in the meantime, there is a brand-new poll out this morning that shows what the impact of convictions in the criminal cases would be or rulings against donald trump in this case might be. how could that impact trump's standing in the polls? stay with us.

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all right. you're looking at the brand-new poll from the "new york times" and siena college that has democrats very, very nervous this morning. what it did is it looked at the six battleground states, nevada, georgia, michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin, head to head matchups between president biden and former president donald trump and in all these states but wisconsin, five of the six states, donald trump is leading and in nevada, for instance, by a fair amount. again, this is what has democrats nervous at the top level. what's going on underneath? for that we have cnn's senior data reporter harry enten. so this is the head to head matchup with biden against trump. i said democrats are nervous this morning. would any democrat besides biden do better against trump? >> and i love that you said all of those states at one time.

i'm going to make it simple and i should note of course that this is -- >> trump. okay. >> trump, yeah, that's trump. trump versus the democratic margin. look here, what we see is across those six battleground states, this is what we have with biden. vice president harris does no better. she actually does a point worse. but here is the interesting nugget in that, look at a generic democrat versus trump, the generic democrat beats donald trump by 8 points. by 8 points. now i think there's this question if you ask some democratic strategists, hey, wait a minute, maybe we should be looking beyond who is in the white house right now and who is his vice president and maybe saying is there somebody else out there? >> again, just to be clear, you know, biden loses to trump in these polls, harris loses to trump by worse this these polls. generic faceless nameless d beats trump by a lot. >> a lot. it's not even close. it's not even close. >> the flip side of that, we say, you know, trump is leading

biden, but how would another republican do? >> okay. so obviously you have a somewhat competitive gop primary going on, right? across those six battleground states among likely voters trump leads by 3, ron desantis also leads by 3, no better. look at nikki haley, look at this, she's up by 9 percentage points, by 9. so at this particular point if you are a republican you're probably saying, do you know what, desantis doesn't do any better but nikki haley would blow joe biden out of the water in these six battleground states according to this poll. nikki haley has a real argument to make on electability. >> there is a debate wednesday night and when nikki haley gets up on the stage and says i am the most electable against joe biden. i do better than donald trump and ron desantis, the fact of the matter is -- >> the fact -- that is exactly the fact of the matter. that is exactly what's going on. if we have this federal election trial, if trump is convicted and sentenced in the federal a

election trial across the six battleground states, look what happens, now joe biden -- yes, your head went shaking like that, he goes up by 9 percentage points. we are still a year out from the election. there is a lot that can change. i think that nikki haley argument, hey, i'm more electable than donald trump, this poll makes the suggestion, hey, that could really be the case. >> right now trump leads biden by 3, by plus 3, but if he's convicted, biden is leading by 9? >> it's exactly right. that's what the poll tested. it's obviously a hypothetical at this particular point, but this hypothetical is something that i think will get a lot of republicans talking or it should anyway. >> that is a huge swing there. harry enten, thank you very much. >> there is a lot to talk about in this. let me bring in alice stewart and jamal simmons and cnn senior political analyst john avalon. ja jamal, let's start with david axelrod, top democratic strategist. his take on this has been deservedly so a lot of attention. he says -- no matter what it's a

year out, there is reason to be concerned. let me put up this first tweet, he says, in terms of biden, he has defied conventional wisdom before but this will send tremors of doubt through the party not bed wetting but legitimate concern. are you legitimately concerned? >> of course. we should always be legitimately concerned a year out from election day. the democrats the way the republicans and democrats run elections right now are always head to head, always nail biters. i think you've got to be concerned. let's just take a step back and think about this from some perspective here. first of all, donald trump's numbers here, 48, 49% in all the polls, we just did in these states, that's exactly where he was at election day in 2020. so it's not like donald trump is actually going up or going down, it's joe biden is the one who has lost some traction with some democratic voters. >> i look back at the "new york times" polling of registered voters one year out from the 2020 election it showed good signs for joe biden in michigan, in pennsylvania, in arizona. and then that spoke to how things landed on election day

2020. >> well, it didn't quite because donald trump did better than people thought, joe biden didn't do perhaps as well as people thought but he won that election. 49% in georgia, ended up around the same place. lastly, if you think about nevada, which is the one place where the president is losing to donald trump, kind of getting smoked by donald trump in this poll, right? there's something about it that's a little peculiar. john ralston is the dean of nevada politics, he said clark county which is two-thirds of the voters in nevada, two-thirds of the voters in nevada are in clark county, a plus 8 democratic county. they've got trump up 46-40. if you saw that wholesale movement from donald trump in a place like clark county that would happen all over the country. it wouldn't be like a 50/49 race, it would be like a 54/48 -- >> it's not a 50/49 race according to these polls. it's not as bad as you're saying

but a fairly sizable trump lead particularly in nevada. >> any advertising from the president's campaign -- >> that's not true. there's been a lot of pro joe biden advertising around the country. one of the notable things they've been advertising on bidenomics and other things and it hasn't really had an impact as of now. >> right, but you haven't seen them going after donald trump. >> that's right. >> this is going to be a negative campaign over the course of the next year. >> john avalon, i want to read another part of this tweet, this is tweet number two, this is on whether or not joe biden the president of the united states should run for reelection, john. david axelrod says only joe biden can make this decision. if he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the democratic party. what he needs to decide is whether that is wise. whether it's in his best interest or the country's. what about that, john? >> that's tough stuff coming from david axelrod who, of course, was instrumental in the picking of joe biden to be vice president back in the '08 campaign with barack obama. look, i think what this poll shows, among other things, is

that joe biden's biggest problem is something he can't do anything about, which is his age, and perceptions of vigor around that. can democrats do a better job trying to sell his accomplishments to the american people? yes. they clearly have not done a good job doing that to date, but there are fundamental problems for him in this poll that don't seem to be true of a generic democratic candidate. it's late, it's always later than you think. i don't think democrats should be dismissing this. i don't think most are. but, you know, one of the things you heard the white house say if biden wasn't running maybe trump wouldn't be getting in. this decision needs to be made soon and there are signs that biden is what a drag on the ticket right now. doesn't mean it can't be turned around. democrats have a good special election record, but on issue after issue they're trailing trump where they shouldn't be, including on the issue of democracy, by the way, where biden is only leading him by 3 points. if you want to make that the centerpiece of this election, which i believe you should be,

objective facts suggest he should be blowing him out of the water on that one. >> still, it is -- i guess i would put it as wild to think hearing from david axelrod, only joe biden can make this decision. and also -- let's go over to the courthouse very quick. lower manhattan, this is new york attorney general who is bringing this civil case against donald trump today. listen. >> -- misrepresented and inflated the value of his assets. and before he takes the stand i am certain that he will engage in name calling and taunts and race baiting, and call this a witch-hunt. but at the end of the day the only thing that matters are the facts and the numbers and numbers, my friends, don't lie. thank you. >> all right. facts and numbers, numbers don't lie. they're headed into the

courtroom, the attorney general seems to be ready for this day to come, as she's waving heading up the stairs. this we will continue to track. donald trump is at the courthouse as we saw him enter a short time ago. alice, back to the politics. honestly, the legal and the politics, they collide. >> right. >> john and harry were just highlighting what the polling looks like if donald trump is convicted and sentenced. there is a 6% swing amongst voters towards joe biden so they say so far in this poll. that's not good. >> that's not good, but what the trump team is looking at right now is how does this impact his base and the republican in the primary election? they are just really looking at the primary right now which i think is very short sided, we need to be looking at electability in the general election. what we have seen is as his legal woes grow so does his political power with the base. as letitia james said donald trump will come out and say this is a witch-hunt, judicial prosecution, overreach by

political adversaries and his base and viewers conservative television in a conservative media, that is all they're going to say time after time after time, and his folks believe that and they believe he is being unjustly charged. they believe he is taking one for the team because if they would go after him, they will go after them. they believe that. and that really solidifies his support with the base. the problem is that's not true and independent voters and rational republicans realize that's not true. they are going to unfold a very serious case of fraud in this case and people are going to take notice and say, we can turn the page. we have other options. we have a strong republican primary field that is out there campaigning, which should be our nominee moving forward and certainly to take on joe biden. look, i think what david axelrod is saying about biden is accurate. there should be some red flags and concerns about his electability in the general election. we heard the same thing from james carville, the clinton --

the mind behind the clinton campaign. he said a month ago that democrats need to wake the "f" up on the risks of joe biden in the general election. i think we're going to potentially see some names potentially come in because, you know, axelrod was clear, obama's poll numbers were about the same at this point in his reelection, but obama was 50 and biden is in his 80s. >> much more to come. stand by. we're keeping a close eye on the courthouse in lower manhattan, we're waiting for donald trump to -- yep, walk through that hallway and enter into that room right there. keeping a close eye on t we will be right back.

in just a few minutes donald trump testifies in the new york civil fraud case against him, his kids, his family business. he will be on the witness stand before that. he may choose to speak to cameras, which are set up inside the hallways of this courthouse, he rarely misses the opportunity to say something. and today what he says, perhaps even more important, because it will be literally minutes before he is side-by-side with the judge under oath. will he attack the judge in will he attack the case? will he indicate what he might say on the stand? we are standing by to hear that, which could take place any minute. >> you're looking at that live picture of the hallway, which is where we would expect him to walk past. outside of the courthouse, standing by for us, kaitlan collins, paula reid, they are both there for us. kaitlan, the attorney general just walked up the steps and spoke right behind you. what did she say? >> reporter: yeah, it was a notable moment to see her. she's not always in court every single day that this trial has been going on, but she is here

for the bigger moments. so she is going to be in that same courtroom with the former president, she was talking about the numbers and the facts and saying that those are important, that they don't lie and how much they matter here. of course, she also is talking about the criticism that she has faced, the attacks, from the former president, talking about the race baiting as she referred to it. that is something that he has singled out multiple times when criticizing her publicly, and that is going to be an interesting factor in the room whenever, of course, they are both in there to see them both face-to-face, given what the judge has said about trump's attacks on courtroom staff and on what that looks like. the judge saying feel free to criticize me, but don't criticize my staff. that law clerk that trump has been criticizing will also be in the room today. paula, just to hear from the attorney general, she doesn't have to stop and speak to the cameras, but it was notable that she came out and that she took that moment, even briefly, to do so before also waving to the anti-trump protesters who were over here across the street. >> reporter: yeah, that's a choice. for the attorney general of the state of new york to come out

and address cameras before a defendant in a civil trial takes the stand, that is unusual. and the comments she made there are also unusual. she tried to anticipate what he would say and she is likely right, he is going to either on the stand or right after try to paint this as a political witch-hunt, but by coming out and addressing cameras, some may ask or significant that she may be feeding into this idea that he is being targeted or political purposes. she has lawyers in there who will be cross-examining him, who will be direct examining him today, and that's really where she is questions should be asked, that's where they will be answered. to come out and try to get out ahead of his testimony, that is an unusual move, and arguably, helps to amplify trump's argument that there could be some bias or some political motivation. so, yeah, it's a choice for her to come out and address cameras, she's entitled to do that, but that is unusual. >> reporter: she's coming out speaking, we may hear from him. he was late to court at one point because he was outside

speaking to the cameras for so long that he actually entered the room late. i think one thing that is notable here is we are going to hear from trump today. i mean, he could plead the fifth, but doing so here would actually be more damaging because a judge takes that into account when they're making the final decision here of what the restitution is going to look like. >> reporter: that's exactly right. there is no jury, it's just the judge, the judge has already found him and his co-defendants liable for fraud, this is the penalty phase and when he sat for a deposition in this case, he invoked the fifth amendment hundreds of times. but if he does that today the judge can draw a negative inference. kaitlan, you and i both covered trump at the white house, we know this is a test for him to remain composed, concise, and stick to the script that his lawyers would like him to, which is arguing that these valuations were subjective and there were disclaimers in all of them suggesting that banks should do their own due diligence. that's what he should be sticking to on the stand, then when he walks out of the courtroom he will have a sea of

cameras and reporters where he can turn campaign mode back on, but it's so interesting to see this today because he's going to be on the witness stand and his legal and political interests really diverge and we will all be watching to see which way he goes. >> kate and john, that's an important point because trump -- typically the lawyers are the one running the show and they're telling the client here is how you should answer this question or do that. it's been the reverse here with trump telling his own attorneys what they should object to and how they should handle this. we will see what it looks like when he is on the witness stand not simply sitting as an observer in court as he has been for several days now. >> kaitlan collins, paula reid down at the courthouse, thank you very much. >> here with us now elie honig with us. elie, one thing that we know is donald trump has been doing some sort of prep ahead of time. you've done prep before when you're talking about a state's witness. this is very different. how would he be -- what should he have been -- how should have

his attorneys been prepping him? >> first of all, that certainly suggests he will testify and he's not going to take the fifth. >> great point. >> no reason prepping if you are just going to say fifth. we do this as lawyers, prosecutors and civil lawyers. you want to get that person ready for the worst-case scenario. get your witness ready for the worst-case scenario. what we used to do is we would go down the hall and find a particularly tough prosecutor and say, hey, can you do a mock cross exam on this witness? can you get this guy ready? can you put him through the worst? the prep was usually worse than what happened on the stand. if this prep is going to be any use to donald trump they can't just lob him soft balls, this he have to try to simulate what it's going to be like right off the bat. the other thing to keep in mind, usually when a witness takes the stand the easy part is first, it's the direct exam, the witness that that party has called, it's open-ended questions then comes the cross. this is the opposite. it's the ag office has put donald trump on the stand, we're going to be essentially right into the fireworks right away. >> karen, one of the things we

heard from the attorney general, she said numbers don't lie, and that jumped out to me when she said it because it gets to something that elie had said before, which is that if he were one of the state attorneys he would go to donald trump right away with numbers and say, what can you tell us about the valuation of this apartment or that apartment? how can numbers be used if you are one of the state's attorneys asking him questions? >> i think there are some objective facts that he can be confronted with, the one that everybody keeps talking about is the size of his manhattan apartment that it says it was 30,000 square feet but it's actually closer to 10,000 or 11,000 square feet. those are the types of numbers that don't lie, that are objective, that i think they can confront him with and say, you signed this piece of paper that said that it was 30,000 square feet when you know that's three times the size that it was. that kind of a thing. those are the types of things i think they mean when numbers don't lie. but when you value a piece of property it is more of an art

than a science and i think that's going to be one of the things that will be discussed things to be discussed at length. but when don jr. and eric did not try to dispute the facts, becaused away from them and said, i don't know what the numbers are, right. somebody else did that. so it is going to be interesting to see what donald trump does, and whether he says, no, this is really worth $1 billion or a high amount or is he is going to say, well, i don't know, someone else prepared it. that is what i am looking for the see here. >> and this is one of the things when you are talking about the art than a science talking about real estate, but when you are reporting value to a lender, to bank you have ta a fiduciary

responsibility to report that and more of facts than art, and he is wrong, and it is not okay, and art of the deal to say that your apartment or your assets or these three billions of dollars are over valuation. >> there is some art to it, but it is not a free-for-all, and that is the fact that the judge makes in the ruling before the trial started. there is room for subjectivity and some minds can vary on the value of a property, 10% or so, but people have to understand the extreme variations. mar-a-lago, and the buildings was valued bay county accessor, $20 million and the trump claimed it is worth $500 million and this is 25 times more. and another example seven spring, resort in upstate new york was valued at $26 million and trump's people claim it is

$300 million and so it is not 10% or 20%, but it is ten times or 20 time, and to kara's point, is he going up there with a straight face and not only are the numbers -- >> and here he is. >> i am. >> so while israel is being attacked and ukraine is being attacked, and while inflation is eating our country alive, i am down here, and these are all political opponent attack ads by the biden administration. their poll numbers are terrible and you saw what happened today with "the new york times" and cbs came out with a poll that i am leading all over the place, but it is very unfair situation, and this is really election interference, and so this is really ridiculous, and the numbers are greater than on the financial statement, and they have proved it saying that mar-a-lago is worth $18 million,

and it is 15 to 100 times more than that, and it is a terrible, terrible thing. these are political operatives that i am going to be dealing with right now. you have a racist attorney general who made some terrible statements, and you have seen somebody who came over the wires today and it is a sad situation for our country, and you should have this for the third-world countries, and very unfair. very unfair. so meanwhile, the people of the country understand it. they see it. they don't like it. they don't like it. it is a political warfare as you would call it or political lawfare, and i have a lot of names for it, but it is usually something that takes place in third-world countries and banana republics, but to the extent that we have never seen it here. but we will go along and we will hopefully do very well in every regard and win the election and make america great again. that is what we will do, make

america great again and we have to get rid of the thugs and the people who must hate our country to do this. but we will fight very hard for our country. thank you very much, everybody. all right. what you heard there was a campaign speech from someone about to be under oath on the witness stand. clearly so, and i think that he would admit that it was so, and he talked about israel and ukraine and he talked about inflation and he talked about the polls. >> and we going to win the election as he said before he went to take the stand. >> and then he briefly talked about the case itself, and one of the things that he mentioned was the valuation of mar-a-lago which he says is 50 to 100 times more than what he suggested in this courtroom. and kara, a lot is going to happen in next few minute, and donald trump out loud there within minutes and like within 10 minutes under oath testifying. and so does anything that he

said there impact what is happening behind closed doors. >> first of all, i wanted to clarify, he said that is the biden administration bringing this, and this is new york state attorney general letitia james who is independently elected by the people of new york, and nothing to do with the biden administration and correct that. this is not going to impact anything that happens inside and he did not mention the court staff. >> no violation of the gag order there. >> exactly. so, that is okay. it is predicted he would make a speech ahead of time which is why the attorney general letitia james made a brief statement ahead of time to say this is what is going to happen. numbers don't lie. so he made his statement. this is what he has been doing. but let's see what he does when he takes the stand, and he sits down, and he raises the right hand like everybody else to swear to tell the truth, andnot me god. he has to be careful of perjury

which is could open himself up to in that alvin bragg has an investigation, and criminal examination open to the exact same fact, and so the manhattan d.a. team will be watching this as well to see what does he say or doesn't he say, and that investigation has always been open, and is still open, and this trial has provided a lot more information for the criminal prosecution. >> well, comments like the one that donald trump just made, and he has made several times, they do lock him in, and lock him in front of the trial, and he said these valuations that we gave were underinflate and worth 50 to 100 times more, and he cannot push back on that on the stand, because he is saying that the valuations were legitimate. >> and now, our special live coverage continues right after this.

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