Thats tonights last word. The 11th hour starts right now. Tonight, day two of testimony the former president s new york Criminal Trial. What we heard about the catch and kill scheme to help donald trump, and what happened in a heated hearing over trumps gag order. The Senate PassesUkraine Finding and a possible tiktok band. We will breakdown the real winner of the 118th congress. Good evening once again. I am stepanie ruhle. We are 196 days away from the election and today Donald TrumpsCriminal Trial feature two main characters, Longtime National enquirer Publisher David and one of trumps own attorneys, todd blanche. Todays hearing started with a hearing over trumps gag order and it ended with the judge telling trumps loot lawyer, you are losing all credibility. Heres Laura Jarrett with all of those details. Tonight, mr. Trumps long time friend david the former publisher of the National Enquirer offering the jury a rare glimpse into the underworld of Tabloid Tactics as the state seeks to prove the former president doctored his internal Business Records to cover up the payoff of an Adult Film Actress days before the 2016 election. David described a meeting in 2015 with mr. Trump and his former fixer, Michael Cohen, he said he agreed to serve as the eyes and ears for rumors that would hurt trump. He said what i would do is publish positive stories about trump and publish negative stories about his opponents. The prosecution showing the jury a series of glowing headlines about then canada trump and derogatory ones about trumps opponents in closing including ted cruz. He also testified his company paid a doorman 30,000 for completely untrue story about mr. Trump fathering a child with his housekeeper, so the doorman couldnt take the story elsewhere, trying to save mr. Trump and the campaign, the potential in person embarrassment. The state seeking to hold mr. Trump in the criminal contempt for violating the judges gag order that bars him from attacking trial witnesses. So they can talk about me and say whatever they want, they can live and im not allowed to say anything. Id love to see everything thats on my mind. The defense argued that trump should be permitted to respond to political attacks and the gag order should not cover repost of someone else. The judge didnt rule today but seemed exasperated telling the lead defense attorney, you are losing all credibility with the court. Minutes later, during a break, mr. Trump, back on truth social, falsely writing the judge had taken away his right to free speech. This is a kangaroo court. The trial will not be in session tomorrow but testimony will continue on thursday. With that, lets get smarter with the hope of our panel and we definitely need help. Susan glasser, staff writer for the new yorker, conservative lawyer george conway, and he is in town for this trial, and former new york prosecutor and civil rights attorney charles coleman. I want to start wide and then go deep. George, your biggest take away . It was how trumps lawyers got creamed on the gag order, and the second biggest take away is how good a witness david was. For the prosecution. Hes telling the story in an orderly fashion, he, you know, hes just the right demeanor to tell the story, chronologically from beginning to end, the theme being, this was all about affecting the election. And you know, that is, he is taking the weight off of Michael Cohen, that will be the defense who will try to build up the importance of cohen , a combination of basically setting the stage, for explaining why they ended up doing what they did with Stormy Daniels, and basically, explaining, you know, and then the paperwork, you, you dont really need that much from cohen , so its a pretty powerful presentation, we will see how he does on cross. What is the defense going to do, just try and destroy his credibility and lets be honest, when you are the publisher of one of the biggest, multiple tabloids in the world for decades, there are going to be holes. I guess there are but i mean, whose buddy was he . So im not sure how theyre going to do that, im sure theyve got something but if , you know, ask with the demeanor and with the calmness that hes been showing in the courtroom and you know, and doesnt try to fight on cross and do things that you dont want witnesses to do on cross, like get defensive just stick to the facts, concede what you have to concede, you know, he can end up being just his credibility could end up winning the case for the prosecution alone. I have to agree with george 100 on this one. I think the prosecution had a really good day. Its one of those things where, on one hand, you sometimes want to do your best as a lawyer but they got a lot of help in terms of the Gag Order Proceeding and how poorly trumps defense team did. To go further, a large part of the defenses case is going to be built on trying to chip away at the credibility of Michael Cohen as well as Stormy Daniels with regard to ulterior motives, with a witness Like David Setting the stage the way he did, you dont have to rely on the credibility as much, such that when it comes down to summation you can say, you dont have to believe Michael Cohen, you dont have to necessarily like or believe Stormy Daniels, look at david this is someone who knew trump, someone who had a relationship probably longer than any of the witnesses that you will hear from, with donald trump, and listen to what he told you. That is going to be key and then with regard to the gag order, stephanie, they blew it. And they blew it in grand fashion. But hold on, they blew it in terms of the Performance Today but when it comes to the consequences, what is trump really going to face, 1000 for each one . Is he going to go to prison . Really . I dont know that they blew it in terms of the performance, the problem was they had nothing substantive to say in trumps defense, the arguments that they were making were complete yes, one was, well some of these were just retweets and the other was, well he he was offended. And show me the judge, they said show me the attacks and it was like well part of the problem is when you are Donald Trumps lawyer, you are all trumps lawyer. But that was the problem here and actually charles brought this up today, in a tweet where he said, clearly, this man is encompassed enough lawyer to know what he is doing here is completely off. He had no choice, hes going to have to at a minimum i would have expected him to walk into court and at least have some sort of a plan or guideline to present to judge merchan to say, listen this is how we should go about evaluating these things to try and give his client some wiggle room. You know trump is not going to change. So you at least have to try and give the judge something that he can work with that donald trump might be able to follow. The fact that none of this was done, was a shocker to me and it reeks of a client that cannot be controlled. Hold on, lets bring susan in. Lets say donald trump does end up in jail for a short period of time, at some point, because of the gag order. How much is that going to impact public perception, and how much is it going to impact the trial, how much would it disrupted . Its not going to happen. I mean, i could be wrong, youve got a lot of distinguished lawyers there. Its not going to happen, donald trump is trying in my opinion, to bait the judge and the judge is frankly, and other cases as well, his strategy is in fact to violate the gag order and see how far he can push it in part, to break the credibility of institutions, thats the playbook that hes been running his whole life, and i believe that he believes that this judge is not going to put him in jail for violating the gag order and in fact, he is proving the hollowness to a certain extent and how the rules are different for him than other people and of course, thats really what this whole trial is about, isnt it . Im going to disagree about him having a strategy. The man does not have a strategy. He is just a psychopath. He cannot follow rules, he cannot be controlled, and hes going to push the edge, no matter what, unless he comes up against an immovable wall. And i think with the judge can do here, is, i think there will be a 10,000 fine, but the thing i would say is, the next time, weve been clear here, the order says this, my explanation in my decision here is, heres why these were violations of the gag order, the next time you do this, youre going to spend an hour to in a holding cell and if you do it a second time, its going to be four hours, and then its going to be eight hours, and then we are going to send you somewhere where you stay overnight. Hes not going to like that. I mean, he may be trying to bait the judge but, its going to make him look weak and sad. Can donald Trump Control his behavior . Which its not clear that he can, so you are saying these are consequences, its not entirely clear to me that he could prevent himself from doing that. I absolutely agree, but, the judge has to telegraph this out in advance before he does it. Hold on, susan . Im curious whether george thinks that donald trump is really going to go to jail for violating the gag order . I think its possible that i think its statistically possible and i think the way you do that is to give the warning and say, you are this close. You are this close. How about the fact that its day two, and judge merchan tells trumps lawyer, you are losing all credibility, can that not get lost here . This is why i said they blew it. You cannot have as much trial in front of you and have a judge, was presiding over the trial tell you, that you are losing credibility because guess what . Once its gone, its very difficult if not impossible to get back and you dont want to have to deal with that in addition to trying to wrangle one of the most difficult clients in judicial history. Thats not something you want to have to sort of balance in terms of what you are dealing with as an attorney. In terms of what judge merchan may do, i do believe that he is going to lay out a plan to go forward but i disagree about the strategy. Ive said for a very long time and i maintain, he is intentionally putting pressure in all of his cases, why . Because he finds a way to spin the narrative. If judge merchan throws them in jail for contempt, hes going to turn around and raise insane amounts of money as a martyr, if he doesnt, he continues to act can i add just one thing, quickly, for so long, everyone has said you cant hold trump accountable because this will happen or that will happen, you know, its happening, and its fine, theres like no one outside the course courthouse. Are you so sure about him raising money, in 2016, there were massive crowds, there will people day in and day out standing outside trump tower. I was standing outside trump tower and you know who was speaking to see if he showed up today, passersby who were going to tiffanys or look at the gucci store so the story of 2016 was this maga crowd but it seems like the story of this trial, in 2024, is that its awfully quiet outside the courtroom. I think theres a difference, donald trump the candidate and donald trump the defendant are one in the same in this really interesting amalgamation. I dont necessarily think the public support of coming down to the trial at this point is going to be what it was when he was a Novelty Choice in 2016 but i still believe that he will be able to galvanize the Financial Support from other people across the country, if he positions himself as the marker that he wants to believe that he is. Its growing old, though. He has tapped these people out. And the ft reported that he has 200,000 less small dollar donors. Thats a huge number, even in the primaries today, in pennsylvania, you know, nikki haley, got a really good percentage and not even in the race. I want to listen to something that senator mitt romney said earlier today. Watch this. I think everybody has made their own assessment of president trumps character, and so far as i know, you dont pay someone 130,000 not to have sex with you. You do not pay someone 130 grand not to have sex with you. Susan glasser, i never thought i would say, savage words coming from mitt romney but alas, here we are. Here we are, but i have to say, mitt romney is a reminder, look at his colleagues in the senate, people like ted cruz, marco rubio, ive been thinking about them today with this extraordinary testimony and i think its really gripping testimony from the former boss of the National Enquirer, admitting, under oath, on the stand , that he essentially is working in concert with donald trump, and his minions in 2016 to plant false stories about trumps opponents including ted cruz, including marco rubio. Vicious, personal lives, about both of those senators, not only are they, here we are eight years later, they are endorsing donald trump, they are working for donald trump, they are sucking up to donald trump, under oath, the former head of the National Enquirer is admitting, that he essentially humiliated these men, in pursuit of Donald Trumps white house candidacy. And, you know, again, this shamelessness, the willingness of these folks to commit sort of like, you know, i dont know, like, harry carey, to debase themselves to the public. Its really humiliating, isnt it . I think so, so george, you are the table republican out. I havent been a republican listen, don johnson oh in republican circles, when news like this, when you see david saying yep, i made up the stories, its what i did , like what happens in republican Cocktail Parties tonight, what are they saying like yeah, he made up stories about my dad, still voting for him, how does that work . I cant fathom it. I just think what they do is they do this, i mean, i was on the in the first class car oh, im sorry, first, you were that outfit and now you just told us, first class. This guy starts getting into a discussion, im headlining a fundraiser in d. C. For the Biden Campaign and what am i writing, because i was talking while he was writing and he starts going oh, joe biden, i couldnt vote for him and i was like, why, oh, The Abraham Accord were you talking to a grizzly bear . Im having a discussion and basically he didnt know who e. Jean carroll was, what they do is, they do this, they stop listening, they turn off the things that undermine their views of what they want to believe. They shut themselves out from reality pay but thats why this trial is actually good because a lot of people have forgotten about these women, about Stormy Daniels, and i think that all of these people, Michael Cohen and his fixer, this brings them back into the news cycle. Theres a lot of folks who might say, i just dont want to hear about all of this. We have no more time. Im so sorry. Miami vice showed up look at this. Hes doing his thing, whats going on . Oh my goodness. You are leaving us charles, the rest of these turkeys are coming back but before we go to break its time for quick update of our dj t tracker, the stock fell 8 to close at 32 bucks today, the same day trump qualified for and earn out bonus of 36 million shares, this is important, so you are going, that thing is tanking, itll be worth nothing, its not worth nothing, yet, and at todays price, though shares that he was just gifted, would be worth, under 1. 2 billion in that big boys pocket. Republicans came into congress with big plans to squash joe bidens agenda but with tonights passage of the foreign aid bills, is it just proof that joe biden is coming out on top . Later the president is in florida reminding voters of the stakes when it comes to abortion. The 11th hour just getting underway on a tingtuesday night. Tuesdayt hi, im katie. I live in flagstaff, arizona. Im an older student. Im getting my doctorate in clinical psychology. I do a lot of hiking and kayaking. 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