Stewart, her grace, and her spirit and so well so many others who she touched tonight on three, 60 disorder in the quarters, the judge in the former president s Hush Money Trial criticizes the Defense Witness for breaking the rule the core also Breaking News on the Helicopter Crash that killed a rons president and eight others will have legs on the investigation. What it means for iran in the world. And later oneonone with we didnt bill maher talking trump biden. Would he thinks is wrong with American Politics and culture. Good evening. There was drama today in the trump Hush Money Trial. The license which we have not seen in the more than five weeks are proceedings no sooner of the prosecution rested and the defense called another witness. The judge merchan cleared the Courtroom Rare Act after the judge cited that witness, attorney robert costello, for improper courtroom behavior that included rolling his eyes and an audible sigh. At one point, merchan said to costello, quote, if you try to stare me down one more time, i will remove you from the stand not something that defense likely wanted to see or hear is the whole purpose of colon costello, who had once given legal advice, the prosecutions star witness, Michael Cohen, was for him to undercut cohens credibility the defense later as judge merchan to dismiss all charges over cohens credibility issues, the judge would only say hes reserving his decision. Trumps onetime fixer, an attorney spent more than 17 hours over four days on the stand. Today, the defense got cohen to admit he stole from the Trump Organization for an unrelated expense that was included in the alleged 420 Thousand DollarsStormy Daniels reimbursement at the heart of the Felony Charges against the former president. Now, the prosecution has painstakingly try to use Witness Testimony to paint trump as a micromanaged manager who would know every detail about that payment in order for the jury to find him guilty of falsifying Business Records the prosecution also tried to rehabilitate damaging testimony. Cohen game on thursday when the defense used Text Messages between him and trumps bodyguard, Keith Schiller to suggest that a subsequent call on october 24, 2016 was not as cohen had testified, a way to contact trump about the final details of the Stormy Daniels payment meant but as the messages suggest, a conversation with only schiller about a 14yearold crank color who was aggravating Michael Cohen. Today, prosecutors showed a still photograph from this video of a trump rally that night in florida. You can see there trump waving and in the spot shadow Keith Schiller both sides stipulated the video concludes roughly five minutes before that 8 02 pm phone call. Now, prosecutors were suggesting that it proves that schiller could have handed the phone to trump when cohen call that he was that close to him. Now thats of course, up to the jury to decide a jury that the judge today said would here closing arguments next week, but not before cord is back in session again tomorrow with that lawyer, robert costello, back on the stand. Im joined now by criminal Defense Attorney arthur aidala, former federal prosecutor, jeffrey thuban, seen an anchor, abby phillip, who was in the courthouse today New York Times senior political correspondent, Maggie Haberman and arun Kara Scannell because in the courtroom also with this johnny jones, former chief judge of the Us Middle District Court of pennsylvania, carey. You were there and i know you just got the transcript what was that moment like between judge merchan and robert herself . It was really intense. I had not seen anything like this and it came as castello was on the Witness Stand Being questioned by prosody excusing by trumps lawyers and the prosecutors kind objected a number of times. I counted there were at least 15 sustained. Objections. A judge saying castello couldnt answer the question because those former prosecutor. And even after the judge sustained some of them, he continued to speak. You could kind of see the judge getting frustrated, but then it snowballed after costello had after one of these sustained objections, Castello Let Out A Gs and it was audible enough to be heard in the back of the courtroom. And it was then that the judge excuse the jury. And once the jury was out of the room, he turned to costello and said, mr. Acosta hello, i want to i would like to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom. Costello interrupts him and says, but im sorry, go ahead, judge. Merchan, i want to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom. Castellows is right. Judge has. Okay. So when theres a witness on the stand, if you dont like my ruling, you dont say jeez. Okay. And then you dont say strike it because im the only one that can strike tests in the courtroom. Do you understand that castula says, i understand. Judge has. Okay. And then if you dont like my ruling, you dont give me sayyed and you dont roll your eyes do you understand that du you understand that casella said i understand that. I understand what youre saying. Were sean said, okay. Thank you. Lets get the jury back and then theres this moment where the judge says to him are you staring me down right now . And castula says, no, im just wondering how and the judge says clear the courtroom, clear the courtroom. Chaos ensues as theyre trying to marshal thought all of the press and the number of media, people are objecting, saying we have a right to be here are lawyers here, and the officers saying everyone has to get out, has to get out. They remove us all. So everyone leaves the courtroom of everyone. No, they didnt remove the politicians that were there supporting trump. Theyve removed the members of the media. And this one row of members of the Public Public in the courtroom and then we have the transcripts. So now we know what happened after that. And the judge had said to castello, serwer, your conduct is contemptuous right now. Im putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous. If you try to steer me down one more time, i will remove you from the stand and castula says, can i Say Something, please . The judge . Says, no, no, this is not a conversation wow maggie great stuff. Before, i have never seen this before. Be in a trial. Were donald trump as the defendant and the witnesses, the person who is drawing this kind of outrage from the judge is not what i expected. Because we had been looking for trump to be the person acting up in ways the judge would find upsetting any has a few times, but not like this. But it was not entirely surprising because anybody who has dealt with above hello knows that he can be a wildcard. And this is why a lot of people in trumps world thought calling him was a risk. And we got to see what a risk it was because this all took place in front of the except for that. But at the end, but the objections all took place in in front of the jury the parts of cross that took place today by the prosecutors were not great for costello and so Michael Cohen, who is a key witness in this case, has gotten pretty roughed up by the defense by todd blanche, in particular, are specifically i should say, and today he said he stole from the yeah. And that was that was a came and in some ways was more significant than what happened last week, which was a pretty dramatic moment. But to then go into closing with what marsha sean clearly thought was a sideshow and he made that clear when he was talking about whether even let costello testified to certain things Have Castello behave this way and then just sort of Have Castello reinforce part of what prosecutors arguing here, which is that there is a sort of manabi aspect to this case and to a lot of the behavior by the trump people. It just doesnt seem to help im pleased. Its like as if fox news jumped out of the Television Vision and into the courthouse today. And thats been the risk all along of bringing in a character like michael. Costs are like bob costello. He is someone who obviously thrills the right with the way that he attacks Michael Cohens character. Im sure he thrilled donald trump with his testimony last week in front of the house a committee, but in a courthouse that is not the tone and the demeanor. I mean, we talk all the time about how judge merchan is a very softspoken judge. He does not want people. He does not raise his voice. And the general conduct of council, prosecution and defense is even toned and measured, even when they are making objections. So for Something Like that to unfold in this courthouse its a sideshow judge. I mean, what do you make of how the judge handled it . Well, my, first comment would be just another de the office for judge merchan. I mean, i cant even imagine i would levitate out of my seat if i had a witness who is a lawyer an officer of the court, and knows better than to talk over me and give me the eye when he sitting there, i think he handled it perfectly to warn him that he was going to hold them in contempt. The Greater Question is from a tactical standpoint, why they call this witness and jurors tend, and ive said this before to sort of cleave to the judge, the judges that are protector, the person who breeds them sends them off at the end of the day they dont like when a judge gets walked on by a lawyer or in this case a witness, it leaves a really bad sensation of bad taste in their mouth and you know, to your point about stealing from trump that got washed over by this witness there was a moment and they took that moment away by coal in this witness with all due respect, your honore. And i didnt mean to talk over you know, now, you know, on the Defense Attorney, im like, Ladies And Gentlemen Of The JuryMichael Cohen admitted to grand larceny grand loss. A. Admitted that to the prosecutors in the within the statute of but to Hearing Charges against him he is so in their pocket they are so indebted to him that they didnt even charge him with a very simple crime. He admitted to the crime. He admitted it to them its an insult, arthur, i dont i dont disagree with you. That thats a moment in the case. My question is, why you then you dont sell it gives a Counter Narrative costello look. I wasnt in the courtroom you guys were i dont know what that is. And i will tell you this, judge, when i Defense Attorney and im calling witnesses. And now, after ive walked the jury is watch the judge go question. Answer a question, answer question, answer. And now i go up and i ask the questions. Objection. Sustained. Objection. Sustained. Objections as saying you know what, i looked at the jury, i they want this hushed up. They want this hush stuff. They dont want you to know this. I wasnt how the jury was looking at lets talk about the substance of castellows testimony and lets talk about costello. Anybody remember the molar report . Hes actually a big figure, maggie. And i were just talking about this he the exchanges between him and cohen are according to robert muller, a dangling of a pardon from donald trump, but he was allegedly sort of the emissary from trumpworld to cohen to dangle exactly. And thats what youre going to hear in the crossexamination tomorrow . To add to this atmosphere of mafioso stinking, corrupt relationship between donald trump and Michael Cohen. The record all castellows irish. So i know you talk around mafioso and a guy named costello for the record, is i did make that i am im a little sensitive i meant i meant presidency italianamerican generic organized crime. Can i just make a point that arthurs point, it is true. They called him because he tells a Counter Narrative and he tells a different version of a story then what Michael Cohen does with similar facts, he tells a version which is actually it was Michael Cohen reaching out to me and theres more extensive version. But that wasnt what look, the caveat. We dont know what the jury thanks. And we need to say that over and over again, at least in the courtroom, that wasnt what came through because he was stepping on himself. It wasnt just the objections. He at one point, susan hoffinger, the prosecutor who was doing the crossexamination of him, was asking a question and he spat out speak into the mic and the jurors, two of them looked at each other but when he did that, so i dont i dont know how much is that counternarrative came through. I understand what youre saying. I think the client was very happy, but i think what the defendant is happy with and what the rest of his team is happy with his not always the same thing. Thats all im saying. Its really one other point that i would just make in terms of what the judge said about how judge were sean handled it . I think they were sean has actually been bending over backwards to be fair to the defense, the Defense Cannot Stand Him and thats very clear in everything. I think that with a lot of things he has done, he has tried not to be in confrontation with donald trump how you justify kicking out the press and keeping in Donald Trumps supporters when you say clear the courtroom, i dont quite know how that works. And the judge was also even before costello took the stand he expressed some concern for the defense that this was not a wise course of action. He basically was like, are you sure you want to go down this call to sack of this Pressure Campaign allegedly that Michael Cohen said he was subject to. He tried to warn them and they didnt listen and they put him on the stand anyway. Well see what the result will be in the moment that i noticed today was with the clip from cspan, that there was an inability, apparently just and then they stipulated later they thought better of it. Which youd get at sidebar and say, are you kidding me that you wont stipulate to this and i understand its a death cage match. Nobody wants to stipulate to anything at that point, but im not sure that thats a good tactic to du and maybe thats what the former president shook with Michael Cohen stealing from the Trump Organization how important is that well, i think it is. It gives the defense the opportunity to say hes not just a liar, but hes a thief. So you double up. It is important and its going to come out and closing arguments and theyll lean heavily into it. I just dont know whether the jury doesnt have baked into the narrative already. This is a bad guy and theyre not particularly surprised about it from my perspective, i dont know that its as severe as it was made out to be in the moment today where i would agree with that because i mean, just being in the courtroom, i felt like there was a little bit of a dichotomy between people who were in the room and outside of the room. And i was an overflow but i was hearing the arguments as they were happening. The gist of the story was both bad for Michael Cohen and also bad for trump because at the end of the day, the story was essentially that trump that Michael Cohen got a company to pay for trump to do better in some stupid poll that no one cared about and trump didnt want to pay the company and that Michael Cohen eventually gave them 20,000 in cash which and then took the money that the Trump Organization repaid him bad for Michael Cohen. But also the sort of little Between The Lines part of it is that trump probably would not have paid them at all. How about this . That doesnt make iri has been and weve covered it for four weeks trump is so careful for this money. He knows where every dollar goes he signs every check that tiffany frame 650 grand weight that went disappear. He didnt know that agree with you on that . And i think that i was surprised that the that the defense didnt actually doubled down on that because youre totally right that its not actually clear whether trump knew Michael Cohen was actually paying that company and the defense never really went down that road to say, well, if trump is so careful why didnt he know about this it is worth remembering. The prosecution did mention this in his direct testimony, so this was not a hidden bought imam shell. The other thing is cooperating witnesses often do terrible things and they get pretty good passes all the time and isnt that right i just need to say this for my own Peace Of Mind. If donald trump is sitting in that seat, if barack obama was sitting in that seat, or joe schmo was sitting in that seat, whoever it is, i dont get what party or a member of if i am the district attorney, the way i was raised in the law, you do not bring the very first case ever against the president of the United Sta