Bill how was the weekend . Dana you . Bill excellent. Youve been waiting for this, right . Dana i read about it all weekend. Bill cohen is on stand. Prosecution is relying on cohen as their star witness. Questions over his credibility could make his testimony damaged goods in the eyes of the jury. Well soon find out. Former president said this before he went into court today. This trial is lagged. It is dishonest, a disgrace to new york and a disgrace to the country. I should be out campaigning now instead of sitting in a very cold courthouse all day long. This is a biden prosecution. It is election interference at a level that nobody in this country has ever seen before. Bill eric shawn brings us up to date outside the courthouse. 30 minutes in and how would you summarize it. We are, bill, good morning. The people call Michael Cohen. With those dramatic words the testimony of former President Trumps loyal fixer and lawyer on the stand now testifying against his former boss. The prosecutor starting off the testimony by bringing the jury up to date in terms of Michael Cohens life story saying he is 57 years old, married 30 years. How he got involved in the trump orbit. He described how he and his family including his parents all owned several condos in trumps building. 1 on park avenue specifically. Cohen a wealthy businessman. He lived in this building on park avenue and at one point the Board Of Directors wanted to take Donald Trumps name off the building. Cohen didnt like that so he fought to keep Donald Trumps name on the building. Cohen was a lawyer was successful and they were able to keep trumps name on the building and donald trump was so impressed with that he called Michael CohenOut Of The Blue and offered him a job. Michael cohen didnt believe it was serious at first but then did meet with the former president at trump tower and was offered the job as an inhouse lawyer. He said he basically dealt with a lot of issues, renegotiated bills, for example, if a law firm or vendors would send bills and the former president thought they were too high Michael Cohen would renegotiate them down. That was his inhouse role. Renegotiate, challenge invoices, challenge bills from vendors and Construction Sites and this sort of thing. They havent gotten to the heart of this case. The allegations of the 34 counts of Business Fraud against him. Cohen, of course, expected to testify he reimbursed Stormy Daniels 130,000 from his Home Equity Line Of Credit and it was the former president , when he was president , in february of 2017, had a meeting with Michael Cohen together in the oval office in the white house. At that Meeting Cohen is expected to testify the former president then told him that he would reimburse him to keep Stormy Daniels quiet and that they would illegally call those reimbursements on those check Legal Expenses for Michael Cohen. The former president this morning coming into court saying they were Legal Expense. He was legitimately paying his lawyer Michael Cohen. That is up to the jury. The heart of the case they havent gotten to but they are laying out the basic background of Michael Cohen. Bill some of the notes coming out of court now. Describing how they would receive invoices for work that the Trump Organization did and oftentimes he would call to renegotiate a lower price to paraphrase. He has talked with trump every single day and multiple times a day, a quote. Confirms that was preelection thousand 16. Dana we have our legal analysis continuing. We add john yu to the conversation. President trump before court today declaring his innocence. Im innocent. This is a political witch hunt. Nobody has seen anything like it. I tell you what, the Appellate Division, the judges should step in. What this judge is getting away with is disgraceful, including the fact that we have 100,000 people in new jersey. They would like to show their support. Dana is it possible the Appellate Division would step in here . It is highly unusual but not totally out of the question. I think it is unlikely. I think what the court will do is let merchan finish the trial, get a verdict and his case is so riddled with mistakes and problems the Appellate Court would have to pingpong this case back and forth repeatedly to try to fix all the errors as they went on. Part of that is the trial judges strategy here is to steam roll through the problems, the ones weve been hearing about on your panel this morning. The failure to find any kind of legal crimes that have been committed. Failure to connect what happened last week with the explosive Stormy Daniels yesterday with the actual charges. The ambiguity of the indictment. Not telling trump what the real crimes are. This will have to wait for appellate review. Maybe merchan will come to his senses and acquit trump. Dana i just had to ask. I like to ask a smart person about it. Bill cohen is describing how they commune indicated with each other. Trump made using emails, prosecutors can follow the paper trail. Dana not wrong. Bill as we have seen time and time again. Jonathan turley, jump back in here because it seems pretty straight forward now like the trial has been clarified and its been clarified to this point, it is cohens word against everybody else. Do you see it that way . Well, weve already learned a couple of things. One is that a vortex did not open up the minute cohen took the oath and have the entire courtroom disappear into the netherworld. We can check that off. The fact that cohen is taking another oath itself was quite an attraction. And obviously he will get it was interesting before his testimony to watch this effort to get in the agreement of the accountant. That was such an obvious and dishonest move by the prosecutors. You have to wonder whether this judge is having second thoughts about his failure to stop this case or at least force the prosecution to be clear about it. There is nothing stopping the prosecutor from calling that accountant. The introduction of that agreement was clearly intended to suggest to the jury that they have some smoke than gun evidence. But because of this agreement they cant present it. Thats entirely untrue. And so merchan was right to say im not going to let you do that. It goes to how this is a they are proving stuff not in evidence while leaving suggestions of stuff that is in evidence with the jury. So the thing to keep in mind is when the prosecution wraps up its case, the defense will stand up and make a standard motion for a directed verdict to say there is insufficient evidence to support a crime in this case. Thats an extremely powerful argument because you have seen were still debating what the crime is. Even on this network you have people disagreeing as to what the theory of this case is. The prosecution is about to wrap. What the prosecution is worried about even the judge must say i gave you a shot and you didnt sink it so i will direct this verdict. I will issue an acquittal. The way they get around that is just get cohen to say this happened. That he intentionally wanted me to put wanted this to be a Legal Expense and intentionally committing fraud and trying to conceal Campaign Violations, even though very few people on earth would believe Michael Cohen, the prosecutors will argue to the judge that is a credibility question, judge and you need to let this go to the jury whether you believe him or not, that is a fact question for the jury. Thats their entire strategy. As unbelievable as cohen may be, i dont think the prosecutors think he will be believable. They want him to check a box. Bill wow. Just to quick follow on that. You are arguing that the judge is having second thoughts about previous decisions that have been made in this case and i would just add to that, jonathan, it came from the bench on friday afternoon when the judge told the state to tell Michael Cohen to stop talking after all the tiktoks and tweets came out. You are making a case now that the judge thinks they may have gone too far . Im not saying the judge is having second thoughts. He might be. I cant imagine any competent lawyer at this point would not be embarrassed by what has happened in the courtroom. It is a disgrace this case has gotten this far. I would hope he would have second thoughts. Keep in mind when he told the prosecutors to telco hen to stop the antics. Why wouldnt you do that at the beginning of the trial . You were doing it the weekend before he testified. This guy has been out there with a threering circus going on and you havent said a thing. Then suddenly it would be nice to go through the weekend without him trolling for dollars on tiktok. Dana i want to call for this other sound bite from President Trump and call for number two on that sheet where he talks about something jonathan said and get andys take. Watch here. Do we have that . Theyre working on getting it. Ill set it up. He talks the innocence and rule of law. The other thing is, andy, the prosecution said something last week that was music to my ears which is that they think that their case they might be able to rest their case this week, okay . Then we could all move on and get whats going to happen next. Here is what President Trump said about declaring his innocence and it is a sham trial. Watch. This trial is rigged. It is dishonest. It is a disgrace to new york. It is a disgrace to the country. I should be campaigning now instead of sitting in a very cold courthouse all day long. This is a biden prosecution. It is election interference at a level that nobody in this country has ever seen before. This is third world country, not the usa. Dana your thoughts in terms of the integrity of the prosecutions office. In question certainly. I was reading the headline in newsweek saying alvin bragg hasnt come close to proving what he lidgeed. Part of why he wasnt clear about alleging it. Whats insidious about this, i want people to understand, bragg is a very smart guy. He is not incompetent. It is not that he doesnt know what he was doing. He was a top prosecutor in new york state. He was a prosecutor in my old office, the u. S. Attorneys office in the Southern District of new york. He knows the stuff he is doing here is improper. It is a completely political case and he hit the jackpot with judge merchan. I would like to believe, as jonathan was suggesting, that maybe he is having second thoughts. But every time i start to give in to that idea, a little birdie on my shoulder says if his daughter is Making Tons Of Money as a progressive activist who does Campaign Work for Top Democrats who define themselves by their loathing of donald trump, does he wants to be the judge who throws out the case against trump . I just dont see it. Bill okay, guys, stand by. Guys and gals, stand by. Well go on hold for a moment. Dana one of the things Michael Cohen said his time working for President Trump and the Trump Organization was fantastic. Thats just consistent with everyone who has testified so far that ever worked there. They seem to have enjoyed the experience and things went south indeed. More coming up. Well take a quick break and be right back. Its easy as 123. One call newday and apply. Two take out an average of 70,000. Three pay off your credit cards i hear it all the time. People tell me theyd love to buy gold. But because its gold they think it must be complicated. It isnt. 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Dana i think you want to know for real . 1200. Michael cohen had more than 30,000. Thats a pretty long list. Dana how many do you have . Bill i will find it. Contacts. Dana it was his job. Bill 2,142. Dana wow. You have more friends than me. Bill who am i talking to . Dana or you are just older . Thats kidding. Bill we have our Attorney Panel joining the conversation. Good morning to all of you. There is not a lot of new detail, i think, thats relevant. They are going over the relationship right now. Charlie, let me call up this poll from the New York Times. Because others were making the point earlier the longer the case goes on the higher that trumps numbers go. Thee sen was making that point. This is telling when you listen to people like mark penn talk about polling. If you are at 50 , youve got a commanding lead. Sometimes they take that race off the board at 50 . He is at 49 in arizona, 49 in georgia, 49 in michigan. 50 in nevada. Keep in mind our Georgia State polling at fox is 50 or above for three months time, charlie. Yeah, im always skeptical of horse race polls this early in a campaign or actually at any point in a campaign because im always suspicious of them. Whats interesting here is the movement. You can always trust the movement. Those numbers have been moving in trumps direction the longer and longer they do this to him. And because this whole thing really is political. If you watched the rally in new jersey, a state that is a deep blue state surrounded by blue states as deep a blue country as you can get and trump and trump had 100,000 supporters. It sent off shock waves in politics. Democrats who work are freaking out right now realizing that is not going well. Dana compare it to the wawa when President Biden went and the campaign staged that event for him to go to wawa and knowed was inside. The few people who spoke to him didnt have nice things to say to him. The worst thing. A rally with 100,000 people. Barack obama had some big rallies, but barack obama never had a rally this big eight years after he was first elected. It has been eight years since donald trump was first elected and he is still this guy has staying power in politics. This guy is next level when it comes to politics. And democrats are terrified of facing him in an election. They have no choice but to pull these ridiculous antics and i love something that Andy Mccarthy just said and hadnt thought about this. Judge merchan, not only does he obviously this whole trial is ridiculous, absurd, and even if you accept the prosecutions premise of all of it, they arent making their case. Think about the the flip side of this not only is he pursuing the case but also doesnt want to end the case. He doesnt want to be the thing that delusional democrats who think it will work, he doesnt want to be the bad guy that says its ridiculous and pull the plug on it and have the last democrats in the hill still fighting this ridiculous fight. People see through this and it is benefiting trump and backfiring and so delicious to watch. Bill one thing to add. It is not apples to apples. Four years ago trump had a rally in wildwood at the Convention Hall with 7400 people show up. 12,000 total trying to get in. They couldnt get everybody in. Same location, same town. This was a whole different venue, on the beach. It was cold and the wind was blowing. We were told that the venue can hold 30,000, no more than 40,000. The campaign saying they had upwards of 100,000 people there. Nobody has denied that. It is safe to say whatever the number is in the end dana you can see it in the video there. One of the things were seeing, jonna, dont just take it from people who might lean Donald Trumps way. Listen to this person. He is at cnn. Trials against him keep him in the spotlight. Infuriate his base and may serve to make him the object of some sympathy among people in general who believe that his prosecutors are politically motivated. This happens to be true. I doubt the new york indictment would have been brought against a defendant whose name was not donald trump. Dana In The Beginning you have said that is what has offended you so much of about this entire thing. A great Talking Point but it goes deeper than that. People not fans of donald trump should be looking at this prosecution and saying to themselves this scares me because if they can do it to him, they can do it to me, my husband, my wife, my brother, sister, anybody. We have to put a stop to that. One way to put a stop to that is take