Mary trump gets tonights last word. Tonight Opening Statements in Donald Trumps first criminal trial. What happened today in court and why prosecutors say he orchestrated a Scheme To Corrupt the 2016 Election Plus what is next for Speaker Johnson, now that the house has passed aid for ukraine. Then we are days away from Supreme Court arguments on trumps Immunity Claim. Retired Military Leaders are warning, this case is about National Security. Three of them are here at the 11th hour gets underway on this oneday night. Here we go. Good evening once again. We are now 197 days away from the election. But we are not talking about the election today, Opening Statements got underway in Donald Trumps first criminal trial. The former president was forced to sit in silence as lawyers from the Manhattan District Attorneys Office alleged he and his allies were part of a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. The goal, to bury negative stories about trump so voters would never see them. Trumps lawyers told the jury he had no involvement in any coverups and there was nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. Laura jarrett was in court and has the details. Tonight, prosecutors painting a stark portrait of former President Trump in their Opening Statements during his hush money trial. A case mr. Trump has argued, is designed to derail his campaign. This is done as Election Interference, Everybody Knows it. The prosecutor said its mr. Trump who was guilty of Election Interference by paying off an Adult Film Star to silence her before the 2016 election, telling the jury, this is about a criminal conspiracy to bury a story. It couldve cost of the presidency. And then lying in his Business Records over and over again, to cover it all up. The alleged scheme stretches back to 2015, a meeting at trump tower between mr. Trump, his former fixer and Attorney Michael Cohen and david packer, the longtime publisher of the National Enquirer. This is where prosecutor say the trio hatched a plot to buy and bury any damning stories about mr. Trump, a tactic known as catch and kill. It was the release of the access Hollywood Tape that turned the campaign upside down in october of 2016, lead prosecutor angelo reading mr. Trumps most incendiary remarks for the jury today. Arguing the former president was so desperate to contain the damage with female voters he directed cohen to pay off Stormy Daniels so she can go public about an alleged sexual encounter which mr. Trump denies. But its not the hush money itself that he is charged with in this trial, its how then President Trump documented his monthly Reimbursement Payments to cohen on internal records as Legal Expenses, prosecutors telling the jury today, it was election fraud, pure and simple. But mr. Trump is not facing conspiracy or campaignfinance violations, something the defense sought to highlight today saying the payments to cohen were for Legal Expenses arguing theres nothing wrong with trying to influence an election, its called democracy, not a crime. Former National Enquirer publisher and longtime friend of donald trump, david packer was the first witness called by the prosecution and testified briefly about what he called using Checkbook Journalism to pay for stories. Hes expected to continue his testimony tomorrow. Donald trump has pleaded not guilty and denies having any relationship with Stormy Daniels. We need some help here. Lets get smarter with the help of our lead off panel, what stuck out to you . How badly the day went for trump. I think his lawyer struggled in the Opening Statements, and it was really notable because the state put on a convincing Opening Statement and i think you know, in particular, what todd blanche ran into, he couldnt say what his client wanted him to say, the defense didnt charge this case and so, he was left having to say things like, you know, this is President Trump, you should all refer to him as President Trump, there was stuff about how who cares. This the criminal trial and the argument you making is how you refer to, what you call them, that was his big moment . He led off with that. I think everyone in the courthouse kind of looked around and thought, is he really going with this argument, he eventually segued into saying, trump was ignorant and all of this and he couldnt be held accountable because this was all Michael Collins doing and he never signed off on the check. One argument that todd blanche didnt make which ive heard that new york team discussed in previous days was the idea about how voters werent apprised of any information before the 2016 election because they would have been privy to the trump organizations work. It was all and Opening Statement for an audience of one, which was trump. Youve been following every step of this, what was your take away . Very similar to hugo, i think the trump Opening Statement fell really flat, there were three arguments that the Opening Statement made, it wasnt trumps ideas, it was Michael Cohens idea to do all of this, and im sorry, Michael Cohen took out a Home Equity Loan of thousands upon thousands of dollars on his own in order to pay off Stormy Daniels . No lawyer does that, zero, the idea that he would have done it on his own out of the goodness of his own heart or something, thoroughly implausible. Second, you put on the screen before, todd blanche, trumps lawyers statement saying theres nothing wrong with influencing an election, its called democracy, that is illegally bogus department because influencing an election is sometimes legal or illegal, if you vote for someone to vote for you its illegal, here trump is accused of trying to hide the gifts essentially to him, and avoid the transparency that the campaignfinance laws require, thats a crime every day of the week third, he says, well, these payments are for purely legal experience experiment expenses, and that i think, is going to be a problem we will hear a lot about over the next month, stephanie as the child goes ford because as an attorney, the last thing you want to do is overpromise in your Opening Statement and tell the jury, the evidence is going to show something that it doesnt actually turn out to show and thats when you blow your credibility our colleague made this point earlier today, who is the witnesses going to testify that these payments were for legitimate Legal Expenses, its just unthinkable. I think a poor way to start, which is why trump has always been scared of not just the other trials but this trial in particular. David, what do you think . Im struck by how this trial has given us something that i didnt think we would ever see which was, trump doesnt use female, he doesnt create a paper trail to show you what hes thinking or what he did and he makes decisions in a room with a small number of loyalists, thats why it was always a hard nut to crack to explain trumps motivations in a court of law or a newspaper story, you had to get one of those few people, now they have it, Michael Cohen, one of the people whos been with trump forever and trump has alienated him, and we will here in a courtroom somebody say, there were three people in the room but i was one of them and with david, we were two of them, so we will have an instance i didnt think we would see, that kind of person turning on trial. When the defense as their witnesses, who is donald trump going to have because this family man, who, supposedly according to Donald Trumps team was really just protecting his family, none of his Family Members showed up in court to be with him, it was Lawrence Odonnell earlier who said even jeffrey dahmer, his mom and dad, they came to court every day of his trial, so the only people who were ever in trumps inner circle were the likes of Michael Cohen or david what about his family . Are they going to be Defense Witnesses . Donald trump might have been a little bit involved in this transaction but i dont think they were really privy to this. I dont see them calling those folks that make a case that this was something good. I think what they will rely on the idea that its a bunch of dots here but we dont know enough to connect. They dont know enough to say this was trumps attempt. I think you need to prove this case. Neil, do you think it makes a difference, do you think the jury notices that donald trump is a man standing on. We see other defendants show up with all sorts of Family Members and support to try and gain sympathy with the jury, will it impact the jury in any way that nobody has shown up for trump as of yet . Im not sure that people in the spectator stands is going to make a difference but i think on a closely related point, which is basically the witnesses against trump, people like david, Michael Cohen, these are people that trump hired and paid, they are all his confederates and yes his strategy is Michael Cohen has no credibility, but he is trumps criminal, hes the guy that trump brought in to start all of this in the first place, and so, i do think that the jury at the end of the day is going to be left with, god, every person that seems to surround donald trump is a criminal or a liar or a scoundrel or all of the above and in a way, thats going to rub off on donald trump, and so, i think that dynamic is definitely going to be at play and remember, theres a lot of charges here, theres 34 different counts. I mean, thats a big indictment, 34 is so huge, the Superlong Double Album of taylor swift only has 31 tracks, its an amazing record by the way, but that just shows you, theres a lot going on in this criminal trial and today, we started to see the Prosecution Layout those first three key elements that trump paid off the doorman, he paid off one National Enquirer story, and now hes paying off another with Stormy Daniels. Lets talk about david, former owner of the National Enquirer at a number of other magazines through american media. He has been entangled with donald trump for decades, right, he is the king of new york tabloids and nobody loves to be splashed across the tabloids or have bad stories about him hidden more than donald trump. The fact that is the first Witness For The Prosecution , what did he tell the jury today . And has trump said, we know trump goes bad on Michael Cohen every day and yesterday, what has he said about david, theyve been friends and allies for decades. David was the false witness, at trial you start with your worst witness and and with your strongest witness. I think it was very telling in the Opening Statement from the prosecution that they wanted to make this link directly to the election, you know the whole groundwork leading up to david was trump entered into this catch and kill scheme for the campaign, and it was for him to be the eyes and ears of the campaign from negative stories that could be coming down the pike and this is where its going, he was being asked about how he operated and orchestrated the catch and kill scheme, over 10,000 that individual editors had to come and ask them if they could spend that kind of money on sources and trying to get stories, and he will narrate the entirety of the relationship between trump and him and the National Enquirer thats what makes him such an important witness. The prosecution is hoping he will be that narrator . Absolutely, thats the game of the prosecution, you start with him because hes the guy thats negotiating early, even well before he was president to adopt this catch and kill strategy, and look, everyone would love to have newspapers and catch and kill situations if youre a candidate or any kind of high official or you know, a corporate ceo or whatever, right and would love to im sure, have someone whos going out and buying every story about his son and making it so none of them could be published because thats what he did here. And i think, we are going to see more from he just testified for a nanosecond today because one of the jurors had an Emergency Dental problem, so its the next day or two, that we are really going to see that testimony come out. Former National Enquirer executive was on our air earlier and i want to share what he said about david he will be the star witness of this case. And the prosecution will really be relying on him. You know, he can really set the table here, going back to that meeting, at trump tower in 2015, august of 2015, two months after donald trump goes down the escalator, where they have this meeting, its Michael Cohen and its trump and its david and he said he will be the eyes and ears of the campaign. I will purchase negative stories off the market and we will run negative stories about your rivals. David, tell us more about this relationship, i can remember back in 2017, when Donald Trumps daughter and father, his wife, the two of them were disappointed and furious that the likes of vogue magazine werent writing glamorous stories about them in the white house, so what did david do, he went out and bought us weekly entered into a Lifestyle Magazine a platform to showcase the trump family in the white house. Talk to us about how these two men know each other and have been essentially in business for decades. This is an ugly side of journalism, i should emphasize that thats not the way that we do journalism, we dont buy stories in order to kill or publish them. But thats the way the National Enquirer worked for years, theres been recordings showing that there were instances where they killed negative stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger back when he was running for governor so they can sell more muscle magazines with his name on them. They did it for tiger woods to get a good interview, they buried a story about him. This was something that had been going on for a long time and that was the world that trump lived in for a long time. You see in the situation, yeah, he says, we are going to formalize this, the thing weve been doing informally all these years, now we will formalize it and i will do it to benefit your campaign because i want the access and the power and the stories that i will get out of that. My publication will benefit if you rise so im going to start finding the stories that hurt you and make sure that no one else sees them. Trumps lawyers are denying that there was any relationship between donald trump and stephanie clifford, a. K. A. Stormy daniels, how did they do that without donald trump taking the stand . Very, very hard. Obviously the prosecution has to prove that to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, so the prosecution bears the burden but as long as they introduce some testimony, that says so, its going to be hard to rebut that in the minds of the jury. Its true that donald trump has a Fifth Amendment right of course, not to have to testify, and whatever thought he might have had about testifying, i think it was destroyed this morning because the judge in what is known as the sandoval ruling, told mr. Trump that if you do testify, everything is fair game, basically from the new yorker Attorney General civil suit against you and all the things you were found liable for there, the lying that you engaged in, in court when it comes to the gag order, what happened with e. Jean carroll, all of that could come out as part of a Cross Examination of donald trump, so hes not going to testify. I suspect they will not spend much time on this claim that there was no relationship because you know, there are tapes here, Michael Cohen, audiotaped donald trump telling him to go pay off Stormy Daniels. I mean, maybe he just wanted out of the goodness of his heart to give her hundreds of thousands of dollars but i suspect that