mr. blanche, called mr. cohen lie or at five times? i don't know if anyone's actually counted that, but it sounds like it was a lot of times and i think that that was a miscalculation, not just because i'm here to support but my clients credibility. i think he was very credible, very honest, very forthright, very composed on the stand. and he gave no reason for the jury to believe that he wasn't telling the full and complete truth. actually, sometimes he over allocated to things that at some point the defense that so you lied to congress on this in this date and michael said, yes he hadn't. so he's over admitting to crimes and to bad conduct, if anything. i think he handled themselves very well on the stand. and it's it's no wonder that the defense went after him. >> they clearly were trying to rile him up at times when he was on the sand. he remained very calm, really throughout,

mr. blanche misstated the law in new york to the jury. at best, it is california law and we request that it be stuck. merchan, i have a copy of the proposed instruction. todd blanche, your honor, the proposed jury instruction is fine. on the retainer agreement, we very much believe we have not misstated the law. our arguments were that the witnesses testified about their understanding. we request permission the brief on a potential instruction on that topic tonight. so they're getting into a number of things, but where is this going, catherine? >> two things. one, if you've tried enough cases as a prosecutor, you've always had at one point some defense attorney slip in the don't send my client to prison argument. what you do is what the prosecutors are doing. ask for an instruction. it's outrageous, oh, my gosh. i didn't lead a charmed life as a federal prosecutor. you're used to every once in a while that happening and the judge will give a firm instruction. punishment is not your concern. sympathy for the defendant is not your concern. f

mr. blanche says well she never said any of this to michael cohen or ami in 2016. she didn't speak to mr. cohen or ami in 2016. but you know who knew what happened in that room? mr. trump knew. and those details of what happened in that room. those messy details. that is motive. that was mr. trump's motive to silence this woman before she could tell her story in 2016 less than a month before the election. so these are not. this is not irrelevant. mr. trump was aware of those details. and the fact that the testimony is prejudicial and messy. according to mr. blanche. that is why mr. trump tried so hard to prevent the american people are hearing about this. the prosecutor told the judge about additional details of the sexual encounter that stormy daniels revealed in her interview with the district attorney's office. the district attorney deliberately, the district attorney knew they wanted to minimize the details of the sexual encounter. here is what the prosecutor deliberately left out. quote. at one point ms. daniels was asked, you know, did you feel anything unusua

mr. blanche is doing what i would expect a defense attorney to do. go after reasonable doubt. go after intentionality, whether or not mr. trump intentionally did the things he is accused of doing. you go hard at michael cohen, who is, in fact, a thief and a liar. >> we hear now from blanche's own words that he is just about ready to wrap up. he is going to give them a list of ten reasons why you should have reasonable doubt to the jury. smart thing to do in a case like this, robert? just leave them with, here is all the reasons besides the fact as he has laid out that michael cohen is a liar and in fact, he played excerpts of cohen screaming on his podcast, but give them a list, here you go, one through ten, why you should have reasonable doubt, does it work? >> i'm brought to think of the great trial lawyer who maybe some of the other guests know about. race horse haines would say, sometimes the only thing you are is the cockroach defense. what he meant by that was you get them there and mess up what they have. sometimes you just have to go with what you've got. there's a nobe

mr. blanche. please have a seat. for someone who's been a prosecutor as long as you have a defense attorney as long as you be you know making a comment like that is wholly inappropriate. it's hard for me to imagine how that was accidental in any way. i will give a curative instruction. i will ask the people and see you at 2:00. prosecutor, mr. steinglass, thank you. and then lunch recess was taken. everyone goes away for lunch and this is what happens after lunch. the defense has finished. they have stopped their case. this is it. they're done. prosecutors are about to start their closing argument, and this is how it starts. the judge says let's get the jury please. sergeant says all rise, jury entering, jury enters. judge merchan says you may be seated. the clerk says case on trial continued, all jurors were present and properly seated. then the judge immediately says this. jurors, before we hear the people summation, there is an instruction i wanted to give you. during the defense summation, you heard mr. blanche a

mr. blanche be.rategy to meander to wear down michael cohen and get him frustrated, tired, angry, off his game a little bit. but i think that on a redirect, you would want to be a little more focused. cover just the important matters, get in, get out and sit down. >> michael cohen was rubbing his eyes a bit during the cross-examination earlier today. that was hours ago. >> now, going back into the courtroom, barbara and everyone here at the table, when you met with the da pomeranz, the d.a. who thought this should have been prosecuted and actually quit, wrote about it, do you remember saying you believed ms. daniels was engaging in extort. yes, that they were extorting mr. trump. blanche, in your mind, there are two choices, pay or don't pay. you went a long time without paying, cohen, yes. blanche, you went a long time without paying. you referred to it as a hush money payment, a payoff, cohen, correct. blanche, you recall prosecutors saying it was a payoff. cohen, yes. blanche, make no mistake, it

mr. blanche actually said, this is not the type of witness you want.didn't choose michael cohen to be our witness. we didn't pick him up at the witness store. the defendant chose michael cohen to be his fixer because he was willing to lie and cheat on mr. trump's behalf. mr. trump chose mr. cohen for the same qualities that his attorneys now urge you to reject his testimony because of. >> yes, i thought that was really well done because although andrew has been telling us for months, i agree, that this is going to happen, the way that josh did that, by finding a quote from blanche and then tying it to that to illustrate, we didn't pick this guy. that guy picked this guy. he chose him for the very reasons his attorneys are telling you now that he can't be trusted. that is absolutely true. he went on to say that cohen was always more of a fixer than a lawyer, that he never really served a legal function, that he was always there to do the jobs nobody else wanted to do, the jobs that trump wanted to keep quiet because cohen's number one quality above ever

mr. trump. cohen appearing blindsided. blanche grilling him, "that was a lie, you did not talk to president trump. you talked to keith schiller. you can admit it." cohen responding, "no, sir, i don't know that it's accurate." cohen adding "i also believe i spoke to mr. trump about the stormy daniels matter. blanche shooting back, "we are not asking what you believe. this jury does not want to hear what you think happened." cohen's credibility key to the state's case as he is the only one who has testified the former president had advanced knowledge of the plan to pay off daniels to protect his campaign and then signed off on a scheme to pay cohen back, allegedly falsifying business records to disguise his reimbursements. mr. trump has pleaded not guilty as his defense attorneys have argued nothing was falsified, and once again challenging prosecutors today that the former president only cared about shielding his campaign from daniels' damaging story. blanche pushing cohen about mr. trump's reaction the first time the former presid

mr. blanche, yes i will. immediately after the lunch break, before the jury was brought back into the courtroom, defense attorney todd blanche asked the judge for a mistrial saying that so much of stormy daniels' testimony was unduly prejudicial, including details like donald trump, quote, not wearing a condom. todd blanche raised to that and said this has nothing to do with why we are here. that the details of the sexual encounter were, quote, extraordinarily prejudicial and you can't unring that bell for the jury. the district attorney said the conduct that stormy daniels described as a witness was precisely the conduct that donald trump was paying to try to hide. the judge noted that he sustained almost all of the trump lawyers the -- lawyers objections and then said in an insult to the trump lawyers, quote, i was surprised there were not more objections. that was a signal to donald trump that his lawyers did not do a good job in that section of the trial. the judge said he would issue a limiting instructi

and then a little bit later, blanche says, do you recall on or around november 13, president trump pick mr. priebus to be the chief of staff, right? cohen says, yes, sir. blanche says you told your daughter we're disappointed. cohen says that i wasn't considered yes, sir. in the middle of all of that blanche also brought up all these people that cohen had apparently said he wanted to work in the white house to include expenses and mr. room at the time to be kind of a wash on this because michael cohen just stuck to it saying essentially they're equivalent about semantics. and michael cohen was saying, i want it to be personal and turn it all along. i want it to be personal attorney to donald j. trump and they were quibbling of do you your daughter, said you want it to be special assistant and he said, no, that's semantics. anyway, what are never leave this would be a decent, nice little piece of peace across because hey, it goes to his motivation. >> you want to get this guy back your bitter and b, it's probably a lie. i know for a fact it's a lie because i wasn't room with two other peopl

mr. blanche, i will talk to him. >> the court, you need to speak to him. i won't tolerate that. >> mr. . >> your thoughts on that? >> there was a moment today where stormy was telling the story of being in the hotel room and a spanking donald trump, to which he obviously got pretty aggravated, i think, uttered a certain word that was audible at least in the well, in the front of the court. and was admonished for it quite some time later. >> katie, could that lead to more contempt charges? >> i mean, yes, it could be literal contempt in front of the court. there's different ways to assess contempt. it can occur outside the court. if it's in front of the judge, it's direct criminal contempt. it depends. this was all done outside the presence of the jury, so todd blaunch as the lawyer for donald trump, incumbent upon him to say mind your ps and qs. this is an important point. the jurors are watching everything. it's not that they're focusing on stormy daniels when she's testifying. they're looking at donald trump, at eric trump, at the other people. that's why it's important if you're todd

mr. blanche was lead counsel. >> the only cross-examination she did was of stormy daniels. nnan, thank you very much. and our special coverage continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. r a quick bre. don't go anywhere. ... we had toe had seen all these shows... now that we have verizon, we can stop pretending. (vo) disney+, hulu, espn+, netflix and max. all for just $20/mo. only on verizon. (mom) my turn. looking for a smarter way to mop? try the swiffer powermop. ♪♪ an all-in-one cleaning tool that gives you a mop and bucket clean in half the time ♪♪ our cleaning pad has hundreds of scrubbing strips that absorb and lock dirt away, ♪♪ and it has a 360-degree swivel head

mr. blanche, but you know who i am, don't you? cohen, i do. mr. anche, as a matter of fact, you went on tiktok and called me a crying little-- this is a euphemism here-- poop- - didn't you? cohen, that's probably something i would say. judge merchan called lawyers to a sidebar, the official court transcript tells us what went down. here is the court. judge mershon, why are you making us about yourself mark easter blanche, i'm not making this about myself your honor, i have a right to show this witness's bias, and he has expressed bias about the lawyers, just on who he represents. the court, it doesn't matter if he has bias towards you, it doesn't matter. the issue is whether he has bias toward the defendant. don't make it about yourself. i'm going to sustain the objection and instruct the jury, please don't make it about yourself through the cross-examination did not get much better from there. during roughly two hours of questioning, trump attorney todd blanche painted for the jury several conflicting profiles of michael cohen, and why he was test

mr. blanche, after this bombshell moment the october 24 call nobody reported on this. a lot about an hour later, michael cohen said, yes, i lied in 2017 before congress, and i read a statement that was a total lie but who gave me the words that went on that statement, either mr. trump or his attorney gave me those words. that is a prosecutor. that southern nation a perjury. and if dado hammer that on cron closing or never a bottle, the prosecutors are committing malpractice so the lie that he relate to congress, was fed to him by trump or his attorney, right? in your accusing cohen, be at a liar. >> interesting lesly alice, generosity, thanks to both of you for being here. it just blocks away from former president trump's criminal hush money trial is the corruption trial and bribery trial of senator bob menendez, democratic new jersey he that's underway. jurors have been shown the 13 gold bar is at the heart of that bribery case. in addition to hearing testimony from an fbi agent who found nearly 100 million dollars stashed in a burberry brett bag, a timberland boots.

mr. blanche? we will try to answer that tonight and more, but we need to start with what happened in the last few moments. the summation from the prosecution literally ended in the last five minutes. we do not have an official transcript at this point. i will read to you from our reporters updates about what has happened about the way the prosecution concluded. forgive me for this not being word for word perfect, but this is the best we've got. joshua steinglass is the prosecutor giving the closing argument. he says, quote, listen carefully to the judge's instructions. it is a crime to willfully create inaccurate tax forms. the defendant had an incentive to keep the conspiracy quiet and, postelection, and effort to conceal the same conspiracy and prevent the catch and kill scheme from going public. he had every reason to continue to conceal his election fraud and at the end of 2017 he already announced his intention to run again. any of the things i mentioned is enough for you to conclude that the

mr. blanche, i will talk to him. i won't tolerate that. mr. blanche, i will talk to him. that's pretty wild behavior. >> i have seen this movie before. it's my fourth trump trial in 12 months and have seen it before. aside at the e. jean carroll trial and the -- trial. i guess it went better for him for not having been there not just because he did not testify because he does stuff like this. at the second e.g. carroll trial he banged his hand on the table and looked at the jury and said a did not happen. >> absolutely you can't do that. >> the judge called it what it is. contemptuous. it literally is. >> he has said before that he would not define a violation of the gag order, on his own without emotion. what the client does in court is not extrajudicial as he pointed out the other day. i think he is dead serious when he talks to todd blanche which is why you hear this, i will talk to him. i will talk to him. i do not think we saw that for the remainder of the day. trump is dancing on the head of a pin. the problem is the das office knows that. they know judge merchan is

mr. blanche, i will talk to him. the judge, you need to speak to him. i won't tolerate that. mr. blanche, i will talk to him. now, one of the moments that inspired that and angered trump so much was stormy daniels' description of part of their encounter in a hotel room in 2006. for reference here's how she described it on camera for "60 minutes" in all its cringeworthy glory. >> it started off all about him, just talking about himself and he's, like, have you seen my new magazine? >> he was showing you his own picture on the cover -- >> right, right. >> i said, does this normally work for you? and he looked very taken back like he didn't understand. does talking about yourself normally work. someone should take that magazine and spank you with it and i'll never forget the look on his face and he was like -- >> what was the look. >> i don't think anyone has ever spoken to him like that especially a young woman who looked like me and i said, you know, give me that and i just remember him going, you wouldn't. hand it over. and so he did and i was like, turn around, drop them. >> you

mr. blanch, but we are essentially off for a week. there is no prejudice. you can present your case out of order or witnesses take the stand at 9:30. charge conference on thursday and tuesday summation. so there's no prejudice to anyone and nothing has changed. blanche is going to speak to his client. >> they're going to work a full day thursday. that came from the transcript. the alternate juror and the judge says i was going to proceed without the alternate. anyway. but the alternate jury who had a problem thursday, so thursday will be a full day. >> can i have a reality check. even if they put the witness on, how much time are we talking about, how much will it delay things. >> the witness will take, what, four seconds. >> this is going to take 96 seconds. a new york minute, whatever expression you want. it's basically you testified before, you have said how c-span keeps documents. is that true for this exhibit, yes. we offer it. >> is there an issue to take things out of order and before the defense has started. >> the judge offered that. there's two wa

mr. blanch showed and talked about some tweets and some postings that michael cohen, the star witness inhas made over the past several weeks, including on tiktok, including showing a doll of president trump in an orange jumpsuit saying you can send money to his commissary telling donald to stop messing with me. you should get your donald trump action figure in the orange jumpsuit before it escapes. that caused some giggles and laughing where people are watching the trial in the overthrow room. the basic legal foundation for this is that mr. blanch is trying to show there is no gag order on michael cohen and that his client, former president trump, is within the legal boundaries to attack cohen and attack others who are attacking him. it seems that judge merchan is giving blanch a little morally way in this gag order hearing than he gave in the first. the judge has found the former president violated nine of the gag order rulings in terms of speaking out about the jury and witnesses in this case. the former president faces four new ones including one in which he attacked the jury saying t

mr. blanche who by reputation is a tremendous lawyer. these lawyers are doing a great job.k to your point for a minute about the alleged , you f someone has not been called because they're unavailable or for whatever reason, if you can take that into account in your deliberations they don't have mr. weisselberg to corroborate mr. cohen's story of what happened. and it's interesting, ana, in this case that the $130,000 was as a result of cohen getting a loan on his own, which he lied to his wife about. so there's a lot to work with here. >> okay. >> it has nothing to do with president trump being the defendant. if joe blow was the defendant i'd feel the same way. >> i hope you'll come back so we can continue this conversation after we see more -- >> i'd love to, thanks for having me. >> thank you so much, william brennan. appreciate you. >> thank you, ana. >>> up next on "ana cabrera reports," while the eyes of the world have been focused on tensions in the middle east, secretary blinken is on the ground in ukraine trying to dispel any doubts about u.s. support. support. we'

mr. blanche hasn't let me ask you, sara, this phone call from october 2016. again, this is a new lie, at least a new accused or alleged lie as it were, in which cohen two days ago. and this is testimonies, policies he has never given before said this was the phone call where trump sat where i told trump the deal with stormy daniels was done, but then they have all this other evidence suggesting that at least some of that phone call was about a 14-year-old doing prank calls on him when he talked to trump's body guy, who then, according to cohen, handed trump the phone. >> well, it wasn't a particularly long call, which of course works again, 96 seconds, right? works against michael cohen. and there's the fact that all of the corroborating evidence around the call has to do with something totally different, which is michael cohen getting these prank calls or harassing calls from a teenager. obviously, that does not work in michael cohen's favor. and the fact that they've already sort of set out this backdrop of michael cohen has a liar. michael cohen as someone

blanche. for anyone who is counting mr. cohen has been on the stand for more than 14 hours with more to come on monday. and nearly all day today, todd blanche tried to undermine mr. cohen's credibility as a witness. blanche spent half the morning recalling different episodes when michael cohen lied publicly. lied to congress. lying in court. lying about whether or not he sought a pardon. essentially forcing cohen to admit repeatedly that he has been untruthful. blanche also tried to paint cohen as something of a renegade. a man who spent the 2016 election cycle casting out on his own. speaking to the press publicly and privately without donald trump's consent or supervision. he tried to call into question michael cohen's memory. and that built into what was probably the biggest moment of today when the defense managed to cast out on a key part of cohen's story. now, to understand exactly what happened today, you have to go back to 2016. when donald trump was running an unusually lean campaign for president. and one of his un

mr. blanche, i worked closely with sue necheles, she's a tremendous lawyer. i'm sure there was a lot of collaboration. for whatever reason, mr. blanche was lead counsel. >> the only cross-examination she did was of stormy daniels. joyce vance, mr. brennan, thank you very much. and our special coverage continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. r a quick bre. don't go anywhere. ... we had toe had seen all these shows... now that we have verizon, we can stop pretending. (vo) disney+, hulu, espn+, netflix and max. all for just $20/mo. only on verizon. (mom) my turn. looking for a smarter way to mop? try the swiffer powermop. ♪♪ an all-in-one cleaning tool that gives you a mop and bucket clean in half the time ♪♪ our cleaning pad has hundreds of scrubbing strips that absorb and lock dirt away, ♪♪ and it has a 360-degree swivel head that goes places a regular mop just can't. so, you can clean your home, faster than ever. ♪♪ don't mop harder, mop smarter, with the swiffer powermop. (man) every time i needed a new phone, don't mop harder, i had to switch carr

mr. blanche and mr. beauvais or a plus lawyers? he's in good hands, but it's a question hit the nail on the head two, it's it's playing into the narrative. the defense will sell he if this happened and if cohen paid this money, it was to avoid embarrassment and shame to a man who was a relatively newly married and had a brand new baby son and didn't want his marriage to go down the drain if there was a political benefit, it was collateral, it wasn't the prime primary motive. and wolff, you only need one jaroun to buy that. yeah. and it's interesting how the jury assesses that very question. we can all agree this was embarrassing ones children, spouse, family, extended family, whatever else. but also maybe problematic for a presidential campaign. now, both can be true and the question is how the prosecutors make sense of that, but also to a point that the jury doesn't regard it's simply as trying to paper over personally embarrassing conduct, but also relevant to the campaign and really has not been any testimony that this transacti

mr. blanche got the answer he wanted, it was a bad answer. a witness on the stand, under oath, admitted he had a personal interest in the outcome the case. the witness's interest in the case should be to tell the truth. and that justice be done. cohen said, no, i really care what happens here, i want this guy in jail, i want this guy convicted, so, blanche took the answer as we were taught to do as prosecutors, put it in his pocket, and moved on. i'm not sure it is a terrible strategy, frankly. because, ana, if you want to dwell on the good answer that you just got, it could get worse, right? maybe cohen recognizes what he did and said and then tries to clean it up, if you ask him another question. you got answer you want, move on. >> on summation, that's a great point, on summation now, you can say, you know why he said that, here are the reasons why, it is not in evidence and you're allowed to tell your story on summation. why we got that answer is not in evidence and that's a great tool for the defense on summation to hit on and hit on and

mr. blanche, to his job. he's and the judge will will charge to this jury, jake, that if a witness has a bias our skin in the game? you take that testimony with caution when supposed to say they rob the bank, they drove the car. it was blue and it was raining out. not i want him in jail. i got a little silly little tee shirt on this cohen is reprehensible. so cohen is asked if he loves being on tv. he says, yes but more so when he was on tv on trump's behalf less now, blanche confirms with cohen he did not meet with the manhattan da's office between such and such dates, cohen's manner is still very even were told would you just rest your case if you were the defense, the prosecution, let's assume they finish their case whenever this crossing examinations over. and there's a redirect, et cetera, et cetera, and the prosecution says, okay, the prosecution rests. would you if you were todd blanche say what we rest to like they didn't they didn't meet their burden. i think there's a good argument in favor of doing

blanche. for anyone who is county, mr. cohen has been on the stand for more than 14 hours with more to come on monday. and nearly all day today todd blanche tried to undermine mr. cohen's credibility as a witness. blanche spent half the morning recalling different episodes when michael cohen lied publicly, lying to congress, lying in court, lying about whether or not he sought a party, if it essentially forcing one: to admit that he has been untruthful. blanche also tried to paint: as something as a renegade, a man who spent the 2016 election cycle casting out on his own, speaking to the press both publicly and privately, without donald trump's consent, or his supervision. blanche tried to call into question michael cohen's memory, his ability to recall key moments in this case. and that all built to what was probably the biggest moment of today, when the defense managed to cast doubt on a key part of commerce story. you have to go back to 2016 when donald trump was running an unusually clean campaign for president. and one

mr. blanche he did a poor job on cross-examination. he poorly prepared or prepped or was ready for bob costello, who i wouldn't just say drop the ball was a potential double or triple you're not a home run, but he couldn't get on base because it's misconduct in the way he behaved was adeline. you think things like the gloat comparing michael cohen who really did a terrific job and that's credited steinglass and that team as sort of the michael jordan of lies. what did that get them to be cute and funny. it wasn't it didn't do anything. the prosecution was methodic buckle. they were deliberate boring at times, but they did their job. and unfortunately for mr. blanche, he was meandering his he says closing was and when he when he across the dam and michael cohen, his last question, i won't pull it up. gave michael cohen the ability to sort of build themselves right back up. he left the question out there. that was open-ended. you did not direct what you do in leading as a defense attorney and gave him the power to rehabilitate himself. h

mr. trump was aware of those details and the fact that testimony is prejudicial and messy, according to blanche, that is why mr. trump tried so hard to prevent the american people from hearing about this. the prosecutor told the judge about additional details of the sexual encounter that stormy daniels revealed in her interview with the district attorney's office. the district attorney deliberately did not use those details in stormy daniels' testimony because the district attorney knew the judge wanted to minimize the details of the sexual encounter in the testimony. here is an example of what the prosecutor deliberately left out of stormy daniels' courtroom testimony. quote, at one point ms. daniels was asked, you know, did you feel anything unusual? now the answer to that question was going to be, i felt what it felt like to feel the skin of a 60-year-old man. i was 27 years old and that was different than anything i had ever felt before. now that's the kind of detail that would corroborate her account of having a sexual interaction with the defendant, but was not elicited. your honor sustai

blanche says that story alone is ridiculous. but he says it gets worse for cohen on the rest of the recording. mr. ohen did not actually take that call and there's no dispute about that. blanche shows the call log. it went right to voicemail. the f is for forwarding. it was forwarded to his voicemail. he lied to you when he said he answered that call. ana, once again, reaffirming over and over again. the question is how much is too much? >> blanche has to deal with this call, right, because jurors love this kind of evidence. this is tangible evidence that they can sink their teeth into, and it's a recording and they don't have to rely on a witness' account of what happened years ago. he's trying to twist it in any way he can to support his position, the former president's position, to poke holes and to use it to show that cohen's testimony and perhaps the testimony of other witnesses were lies. he's using it -- he has to deal with it and he's doing the best he can with it. >> if i could, your thoughts on that whole -- the time period that is or is not unusual? >> in terms of the break? >> yeah. >>

mr. blanch, that it should not be considered by the jury, absolutely.ing the court to do. he goes on to continue and the judge tells him and interrupts him to say you said your lies your irrefutable that you said he's going to, that you think he will fool them into believing this slide. and i certainly hope he doesn't convince 12 jurors. >> and every one of those singular points for dismissal of the case right now was that great question that i taught on the side and he said that alone was worthy of having the case dismissed where in the 90- second phone call might have discussed more than that >> every defense lawyer will make that motion, we understand it. and i'm not sure if it will be made and you know, todd's had his moments and ahigh school has not had his moments. so i think that tomorrow will be an interesting day as we have a sort of short day, and i'm interested, where i think that they had a spectacular day today, you know, in terms of if there is anyone out there that it was a master class and hats off. and that it was tight and she was maki

fact that he's a convicted perjurer. >> blanche was saying there were plenty of times in 2015 and 2016, that you would comment on stories without speak to go mrisn't that true. no, sir. i would always get in line with a conversation we had on a specific topic, and if he didn't like the response, it would probably cost me my job. blanche, campaign, did it ever get upset with you because you had gone off message? cohen said i heard about it. so it does feel like they're building to something, where cohen frequents. >> they have some instance where they can say, like before lunch, that. if not, then i agree with chuck, you're not going to make points. >> don't they coach to not say things about always? >> you can spend lots of time prepping your witnesses. it's like a bird, when it gets to the nest, it does its own thing. and you can't talk to them, by the way, while they're on the stand, and by that i mean from the time they're sworn in until the time they are dismissed as a witness. you can't sort of re-prep them. i'm sure that's the rule here. >> you can't. >> i'm watching this cross as it's going off on google doc. i see open ended questions

mr. blanche promised you? well, what have you heard? it is an odd promise, because the evidence seems so clear from the start that is what this was. i think it is a bad self- inflicted wound. flicted wound >> blanche's biggest blow to cohen's credibility, although this is subject to interpretation, was the october 24 phone call in 2016. that was only one of at least six other calls. in october 2016, that michael cohen testified in which trump gave him directives about how to deal with and to do the stormy daniels payment. none of those other calls had been brought up by the defense. we have also not heard any questioning about the actual meetings that michael cohen said he had where they discussed the whole scheme. so again, is that something that the prosecution goes to on redirect to kind of rehabilitate his credibility? there seemed to be a moment in time that when we were listening on thursday a lot of a set is there something there? >> yeah, sure, so this is only a problem for the prosecution if they don't fix it on redirect. as yo

mr. trump. cohen appearing blind sided. blanche grilling him. that was a lie. you did not talk to president trump. you talked to keith schiller. you can admit it. cohen responding, no, sir, i don't know that it's accurate. cohen adding, i believe i also spoke to mr. trump about the stormy daniels matter. blanche shooting back, we are not asking what you believe. this jury does not want to hear what you think happened. cohen's credibility key to the state's case, as he's the only one who has testified the former president had advanced knowledge of the plan to pay off daniels to protect his campaign and then signed off on a scheme to pay cohen back, allegedly falsifying business records to disguise his reimbursements. mr. trump has pleaded not guilty, as his defense attorneys have argued nothing was falsified. and once again, challenging prosecutors' theories that the former president only cared about shielding his campaign from daniels' damaging story. blanche pushing cohen about mr. trump's reaction the first time the former president learned of daniels shoppin

mr. blanche said he is going to end his cross thursday. for the trump team, do they call any witnesses? trump himself take the stand? i think both of the answers to those questions are likely know. and i think as we think about, dana, you are talking at the outset of this thing, get to other issues at other things at some point, be interesting to me to see how this plays afterwards with mr. trump's -- the independent voters in these states, these five or six states that really will make up the difference. karl was on your show this morning, with you and bill this morning, and he was saying, we don't know yet how this is going to play, but as a trial, i'm no different than when i was before, i'm the same place, i have not seen anything yet -- we don't know the charges yet, we don't know this furtherance of another crime is. as we sit here today it is very hard to see or imagine -- go >> judge jeanine: but that's the whole point. if you don't know what the charge is, how can you possibly charge the jury, and jury instructions are going to be everything. >> harold: judge, that's why i am a

mr. blanche. so i thought that was a really awkward way to start, and one that really just did not land. as the prosecution has already portrayed, michael cohen is not a nice guy. people within the trump family and the trump organization described many of his flaws already, and i think that it may be that they are going, instead of the targeted, laserlike approach, they are going for the wear him down approach. maybe that will happen, but i didn't think they got into many licks on day one. >> michael cohen knows where all the bodies are buried. next allen weisselberg, cohen is a number two. if donald trump could do the whole thing over again, do you think you would've done more to keep cohen in the family? >> one of donald trump's absolute worst mistakes in this setting, according to michael cohen, was to quibble about repaying and paying michael cohen's legal fees. while he was under investigation. remember, michael cohen gets his home raided by the fbi, his wife and his children are sort of frea

mr. blanche told the judge he's going to get it the end of the day thursday. he should be hitting.ith revenge. you wear t-shirts with trump in bars, behind bars. so going through that. i think on the direct, just a little bit the prosecution should have owned a little bit of the hatred of donald trump, because bring that out on direct as opposed to coming out on cross. it's a good reason why he would hate donald trump. he basically was thrown away after he spent all that time, and i still says it wasn't an attorney/client relationship, it was master/servant. that's the reason he hates him. that doesn't mean he's making this up. lanny davis says he may not like him, they may not find him contrite, but he's telling the truth. >> it's such an interesting point. i wonder about that because it's not like every other case. if you have a garden variety case at a company and one person has an unhealthy obsession with another person and that can kind of make them look, for lack of a better term, they look unhinged or bananas and you say to the jury, we shouldn't even be involved in this. wh

mr. blanche try and undercut his testimony?nt a good deal of his time trying to do this and illustrated examples of michael cohen lying in the past and allegedly on the stand in this particular case. the critical part is there are cases where michael cohen is the only one testifying to the centrality of donald trump's role in this alleged scheme. giving jurors a reason to doubt michael cohen is critical. that was a huge part of his closing. several times, blanche would bring examples of michael cohen allegedly lying and punctuate it saying that was a lie. blanche actually gave michael cohen his own special title for not telling the truth. he said you know how people call tom brady the goat, the greatest of all time, michael cohen is the gloat, the greatest liar of all time. >> as we said, the defense went first this afternoon. it was the prosecution's turn. how have they tried to recast their case to the jury? >> recast is the right word. while the defense focused on the financial records and how you cannot trust michael cohen,

mr. blanche, formal prosecutor, has been insufficiently aggressive. mr. trump wants him to attack witnesses. attack with the former president sees as a hostile jury pool. and detect the judge. trump who often complains about legal fees and sometimes refuses to pay them, has wondered aloud why his lawyers cost so much, according to the people times spoke to. it brings us to the last witness the jury heard from. keith davidson. a pretty key player in this affair. a lawyer who never got money directly from donald trump it represented stormy daniels and karen mcdougal and negotiated is for both women to withhold their stories. infidelity with trump ahead of the election. in court, davidson walked through -- walked the jury through the text and related the excuses that michael cohen gave when the payoff to stormy daniels failed to materialize., quote,, he stated computer systems are all -- so many fireballs. the secret service is in here. davidson and his client did eventually after a fair amount of follow-up get that $130,000 directly, as you might recall, ou

mr. blanche. later when we were talking about the "apprentice," at that point he uttered a vulgarity and looked at you. reminds me when someone says your kid is misbehaving in class, can you do something about it. >> g yeah, that's the judge sayg i watched him in contempt of court in his seat, in the defendant seat in this courtroom and he said he's not going to hold him in contempt, but he said that's contemptuous behavior. and as you say in the transcript we read about an hour ago, but laura was watching those and wondering what was going on. every time i walk out of that courtroom, every single time i always think i'm walking into why i thought donald trump would never run for president. because he was living this life, and i knew he was living this life and new yorkers knew he was living this life. he was at a golf tournament where one oft the holes in the golf tournament was sponsored by wicked pictures, the leading porn producer in america at the time. a that's the golf tournament he wantshe