defense attorney joe tacopina who gave tomorrowal notice that he's leaving the trump legal team.r presence at the defense table and tacopina dit the ongoing appeal i mentioned in the defamation case. the times reporting on this as a development thats important because tacopina has been pugnacioush a lg history of trial court wins. and the client roster ranging from fox's sean hannity to the artist asap rocky and rodriguez. when tacop represented him regarding a steroids-related suspension case, quote, not a person that phones it in. wh defends you, he defends you like your family, end quote. as he was certainly on display the last time tacopina joined us on "the beat" while representing president trump in the hush money case. >> the payments were made to a lawyer and not stormy daniels. >> you seem to be putting forward a defense that's the kind that we've heard before. >> his lawyer -- >> his wife's on the line. >> did you know -- put the paper down. let me answer. >> did you know about this? i brought a card, and i wrote, purchased a horse. that's inaccurate and that's a lie, m

joe tacopina. he's the former lawyer of president, donald trump, and joe, thank you for being on. and joining us on monday. you announced you are departing trump's legal team, just days before you were said to represent him in the carroll case. this is the first interview you have done since you left the team. you and i have worked together for years on civil rights cases, and i know you as a tenacious, aggressive lawyer. why would you leave the team? >> by the way, it's the first and only interview, reverent, that i will be doing on this topic. you are someone, obviously, very special to me. someone i have a relationship with. very special ti'm going to disce and only once, to the degree i can. i left the team because it was just my time. i had a -- i had to follow my compass. my compass told me it was my time there was done. there are a lot of personal reasons that went into that. things that i can't and won't discuss. i also have a$ap rocky's trial coming up this year, which is going to take mos

what do you make of this last-minute departure from joe tacopina, right as trump begins his defamation so, he wasn't on this one, he was handling an appeal from the first one. so it's not going to affect this trial at all. i listened to reverend al's interview, and of course, when you say my compass in ordinary parlance, that's my moral compass. and one would have to assume that the immorality of the defense that was being requested, and the immorality of the acts of donald trump, and the ridiculousness of his not following lawyer's advice, is what drove him off of this. and he was very careful not to violate any lawyer ethics by saying this specifically what had driven him off it. but it is clear, and i just, i have to add one thing that elie said about humbug. i think the worst thing she did was not knowing how to talk to a judge. -- oh my god. i can't even imagine anybody having the stupidity to do that. that was thought one of her very worst. >> i was gonna say, i'm not a lawyer and i was reading the transcripts and i'm like, what, i've watched enough line order episodes to know no

alina habba's name was called because she is now the lawyer, because joe tacopina is now off the case has resigned from all cases related to donald trump. whole other issue. we would love to have him on. this is judge kaplan's order, defendant and his counsel are precluded from offering evidence, argument or comment suggesting or implying that mr. trump did not sexually abuse ms. carroll. >> this is a legal concept known as issue preclusion. a jury has already made findings that donald trump sexually assaulted e. jean carroll. any question that his lawyers ask that goes down that road should elicit an objection from carroll's lawyers and it should be sustained. if it goes so far as to taint the jury, there could even be a jury for a mistrial and a start over so that if there's a situation where they feel like they can't unring the bell. this jury has been instructed that those findings have been made and this case is all about the damages, the amount of money e. jean carroll should be awarded to compensate her and punish donald trump for engaging in this conduct. >> this is donald tru

taking the stand was, you know, they want the jurors to think bad advice of the prior counsel, joe tacopina, gave an interview to the reverend al sharpton over the weekend, and he said there were reasons he left trump's defense team. he wouldn't disclose them, he said he had a compass and had to follow it. >> a lot of that sound like legal jargon. what was accomplished today in the courtroom with donald trump on the stand. >> reporter: the most important thing that was accomplished with donald trump on the stand was not having donald trump on the stand. the most important thing accomplished out of donald trump's mouth when e. jean carroll's lawyer played a clip prosecute deposition, and his october 2022 deposition and this case, and watching donald trump watch donald trump was itself a very weird and meta moment but he was stoic, as he watched the plaintiff's counsel play a bunch of his prior testimony that i think will be damming for him, particularly when the jury comes to consider punitive damages in this case. why? because in the new york attorney general's case, he talked about his bra

with alina habba, it's worth noting that joe tacopina, the former lawyer, just recently stepped off that case. so she has had to step in, presumably with a larger role than she anticipated. mr. tacopina's a trial lawyer. alina habba maybe a very skilled lawyer outside of a courtroom, i don't know one way or another, but inside a courtroom she obviously doesn't know the rules of evidence. so it's an odd choice. and part of the frustration you are reading, lawrence, is because basic evidentiary issues and rules, the kinds of things that faith gay knows inside and out, are just not something that's part of her toolkit. >> andrew weissmann, faith gay, thank you very much for starting off our discussions tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. >>> and up next, what donald trump has done to women's ability to control their own bodies. >> the most intimate moments are between a physician, an ob/gyn specifically, and e patient, talking about their bodies and their life. and now it's as if someone standing in my office room telling us what we can and cannot talk about. ot talk about. when i was diagnosed w

this is why you need experienced trial counsel, ana, instead of joe tacopina, he had alina habba whoiliar with the rules of evidence, who was showing her own destain for the process. when you walk out in the middle of a closing argument, that's bad enough. when you're the former president and you have a secret service detail, everyone knows it. it's different than if you or i walked out of the courtroom. this clearly caught the attention of the jurors who have to leave their families and jobs to be there. yet the defendant doesn't have the respect for the process to remain during closing arguments. all that came back to bite him. as christy said, a mass stif punitive damage award. 83.3 million for the first verdict. the first verdict was $5 million. this shows how much this jury found him to be liable. >> they're already talking about appealing this. when would e. jean carroll see the money? >> it's going to take a while. he can essentially pay the full amount to the court and have them hold it pending appeal, but more than likely he's going to seek to secure a bond. that will be som

you interviewed joe tacopina, his former lawyer, recently on your show.at the fact that donald trump might be short on funds might have been one of the reasons he left? he said he had to follow his compass. do you think it also could have been that? >> could have been. i don't know. i know that tacopina had been involved in many cases with us, and i think that he just saw -- he said his moral compass wasn't there. he saw where this was going and didn't want to be identified. and i honestly think, and i would give this advice to the lawyers he has now. given his financial forecast, they better get paid now. because his diminishing abilities of this defendant of theirs, this client of theirs. if i was any of his lawyers, he better write a check before he cannot write one, because he no matter how you estimate it, he's facing a real problem financially. >> april, to you. >> i just enjoyed what reverend al said about you're fired. that's it. the apprentice and now the roles are reversed, to watch those who support him to either say, hmm, i'm not sure, and tho

. >> lawyer joe tacopina making a case for a defendant trump.one of the many court houses where trump faces these criminal trials. trum there the defense table. a key figure of the case in new york, in the civil case in new york, he has been viewed as a legal asset with a long history of trial court winds as the new york times reports. and a very assertive style which tacopina ace both in court and in interviews. you may recall that one. he's back in the news now because he has now exited both of these trump cases that he was working on. the new york criminal trial and where you just heard the que from, the sound that you just heard, the carroll defamation case. the timing is striking because both of these cases have actually been heating up. this comes after reported clashes among several trump lawyers. we have news on this from night, i mentioned it on the show, i want to mention it to you now. because tacopina is actually making his first public reports on all of this to end s and bcc al sharpton. >> i left the team because it was just my tim

and so this, i think, one possible explanation is if you remember joe tacopina used to be the lawyer, at least seemed to be the lead lawyer on this case, and he only recently withdrew from the case. so that may be a partial explanation for, you know, what's going on. one thing i will say just on the specific, which is -- i'm sort of chalking up to being performative, if you do not know the rules of evidence. if you do not know how to get documents into evidence and cross examine, and the judge in this instance, i thought was trying to help out by saying this is what you need to do, you know, show the witness the document. ask the witness whether she recognizes it, your response should be thanking the judge or be grateful and instead there was a display of sort of haughtiness and animosity that i could only think was performative because it's just not a normal reaction. i think any of us going into that situation would be embarrassed by not knowing the rules of the road and putting ourselves in that situation. but it really is a sign that donald trump is not able to and doesn't seem wi

. >> i'll be watching your interview with joe tacopina, rev al. >> i appreciate it. >> that does it for us this morning, we'll see you all monday. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. >>> right now on "ana cabrera reports," the final countdown in new hampshire, donald trump and nikki haley turning up the heat in new england, why the live free or die state is now do or die for haley. >>> we're also following a jarring warning from trump's legal team, what they're claiming could happen if he's left off the ballot in colorado. >>> also ahead, a terrifying moment caught on camera, a flight on fire midair and forced to make an emergency landing. what went wrong. >>> and later, say it ain't snow. more than 90 million americans under winter weather alerts with dangerously cold temperatures set to plummet even further. >>> we made it to friday. it is 10:00 eastern. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. thanks for joining us. we begin with the final four days left until the new hampshire primary. donald trump returning to the state today where he'll campaign this weekend alongside eli

reverend al, coming up on "politics nation" you'll be speaking to joe tacopina, the former trump lawyera defense. i am very interested to talk to him tomorrow about what made him leave. when you see how trump behaves in court where he grunts and makes statements that the judge has to reprimand him, any lawyer that has any self-respect probably does not want to sit next to him at the table, but i'll let joe tacopina speak for himself. i hope he comes back to the social justice cases that he is known and has fought for. >>> coming up, no labels, which is preparing a potential third-party presidential ticket, is asking the justice department to investigate what it calls criminal efforts opposing its bid to get on the ballot. we'll talk to two of the group's leading members next on "morning joe." the group's leading members next on "morning joe. when migraine strikes you're faced with a choice. ride it out with the tradeoffs of treating? or push through the pain and symptoms? with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose works fast to eliminate migraine pain treat it anytime, anywhere. wit

to that extent you don't have the joe tacopina anymore, you have the alina habba, but as you were describingbeginning of the show, alina habba has been stepping in it along the way, but for e. jean to have to get up and do this again and again and again is one thing, but for e. jean to have to explain and that it's not just when i go to court what happens. it's all day long. it's the death threats and the constant. it's never-ending and so i think the fact that somebody has the courage to go and do this, you have to take a moment and just realize that this is one of the most difficult days of e. jean carroll's life. >> of all of the forms is a septuagenarian to hold him most accountable. >> that is satisfying to see him held accountable for something, but i guess i would ask you, too, as a former trial lawyer, it does feel to me, and i'm not an attorney, while she is going up and telling her story and e. jean carroll is being exceptionally brave as many women and any victim of sexual assault will know, it seems that the former president is continuing to try to intimidate her. >> of course. >

we've seen it happen with -- joe tacopina who tried the last of these cases resigned from the team becauseis moral compass and there was a reason he and drufl fell out. now -- donald trump fell out. now i wonder, elinea hava was in the civil trial, we'll an opinion, judges has promised one by january 31st. and now she has for the first time lost a trial in the post-presidential era that has resultsed in a verdict against donald trump. in the excess of $80 million, is elena hava done as a lawyer for trump? even if she's not done as a mouthpiece? i don't know how much longer she's going to be trotted out in front of microphones if he keeps racking up losses like this. >> if you were an attorney and one of the many other donald trump cases and you watched the behavior that was on full display this week in court, his taking the stand for three minutes, on the courtroom today. what do you take away from all of that? >> i take away myself. he's the worst client in history. he can't be controlled. at a certain point it looks terrible for the lawyer. i want to say about haba, she's been lampooned

. >> kim, i'd like to play for you a little sound from trump's now former lawyer joe tacopina with my possible donald trump could end up convicted of one of these cases in your mind? >> oh, is it possible? absolutely. you have a jury of 12 who's going to ultimately decide this. jack smith is a federal prosecutor who i knew from his days in brooklyn. they're serious prosecutors. you can't say there's no way he'll get convicted or there's no way, you know, he'll be sentenced -- >> and the prosecutors that despite whatever political angle, you don't think would bring cases they didn't think there was some legal case -- >> i'm sure they believe in their cases. i do. i'm not going to subscribe to unethical conduct on behalf of prosecutors without seeing evidence. they believe in the case. it doesn't mean they're right, by the way, reverend. but they believe in their case. >> doesn't mean they're wrong, either, joe. >> does not either. >> is there a lane here where that would happen where trump is convicted before this election? >> it is. it is. and that could bring up the tough task of dec

joe tacopina says he has withdrawn from all cases related to trump.edia site. >> reporter: he certainly has. i think the weather is representative of what's happening right now. i think iowa has essentially come to town. the difference this time around is the former president won in iowa last night. they're not relitigating the case of sexual assault. e. jean carroll was awarded money back in 2022. the question now is how much. the former president was calling her a joke, saying he never actually met her. if you remember, we think back to that deposition of the former president, he was shown a picture of himself alongside e. jean carroll and asked to identify who the woman in that photo was. at the time he said, well, that's marla, his second wife. in fact, it was e. jean carroll. this is not going to be relitigated. this is just about damages. e. jean carroll is seeking $10 million plus in punitive damages. the former president wants to testify. you mentioned joe tack pino no longer wants to testify. you just mentioned it. he is continuing to defame

. >> joe tacopina, one of donald trump's former attorneys, with that assessment of the federal criminalesident. >>> meanwhile, trump is expected to be back in court today in new york and may take the stand in the defamation damages trial involving writer e. jean carroll. a source close to trump tells nbc news that the former president is, quote, planning on testifying, but his testimony will be limited if he takes the stand. not sure how that works. let's ask former litigator, msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin, who will be in the courtroom today. how does one limit his testimony? >> mika, the judge has already limited the subjects about which he can and can't speak, so when they're circumscribing the testimony, it's an understanding of what he can't testify about. he can't refute the fact of the sexual assault. he cannot, for example, say he never defamed her. both of those things were determined previously by a jury of nine peers last may in the first e. jean carroll defamation trial. this judge, judge kaplan, has determined because the parties are identical, the issues were identical. th