About so where does it all go from here . Plus, did trump cross the line, judge juan merchan may once again punish the former president for violating his gag order, what the prosecution is asking for as they try to get trump to stop. On the surface, it may seem that trumps trial and the escalating violence and chaos on College Campuses have nothing to do with each other, but one of trumps former aides says it may, in fact, be part of a perfect political storm that is Helping Trump, boosting his election odds even as he sits quietly in court. But we start right here in New York City where a lunch break just began after a pretty wild morning at trumps trial. Its the former president accused of a crime, but todays proceedings have been focused squarely on his former fixer, Michael Cohen, his credibility, his likability and the lengths he went to to protect his boss as election day 2016 approached. Cohen hasnt even taken the stand, but his name has already come up more than a thousand times at this trial so far. I want to bring in nbcs Yasmin Vossoughian whos outside the courthouse, paul butler is a former federal prosecutor, Georgetown Law Professor and an msnbc legal analyst. Jim messina served as White House DeputyChief Of Staff under president obama and led his 2012 reelection campaign, and Danny Cevallos joins me here in studio. Hes a Criminal Defense Attorney and an msnbc legal analyst. There is so much to get to, danny. Its been Keith Davidson on the stand, right . But the focus keeps coming back again and again and again to Michael Cohen a thousand times. Hes been name checked in this trial. A lot of what we heard hasnt been flattering, but is that actually part of the States Strategy here . Heres the thing, cooperating witnesses or people like Michael Cohen who is cooperating witnessesque, they always have problems. In The Grand Scheme of things, witnesses like Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson arent all that bad in the spectrum of cooperating witnesses. These are often people who are hardened criminals who may be brought into court in shackles and prison gear. You dont have that with Michael Cohen or Keith Davidson, but the people know that these are problematic witnesses because they seem seedy. Michael cohen seems impulsive, rude, and possibly even somebody who makes bad decisions all on his own. The people know this, so theyre getting out in front of it. Theyre doing the right thing, what you should always do with cooperators, what im sure paul butler did many times is you get in front of the problem. You bring it out in your direct examination that these people are problematic. The people know that davidsons going to say these bad things about cohen. They know because theyre asking the questions about cohen, and its good for the people to get this out in the open instead of letting the defense expose it and the people look like theyve been hiding this the whole time. All right, paul, the defense has spent the last hour or so trying to discredit Keith Davidson. Of course the lawyer for the two women at the heart of this, and they want to show that he cannot tie the Stormy Daniels payoff back to donald trump directly. Do you think that they have been successful in undermining that testimony . Somewhat. So the Cross Examination so far has emphasized that its donald trump whos on trial, and Keith Davidson never had any personal contact with donald trump. One of the first questions davidson was asked during cross is whether he had ever seen donald trump in person before this trial, and davidson said this was the first time. So hes testified that he believes Michael Cohen was acting on behalf of trump, but the defense is going to suggest that theres reasonable doubt. Yasmin, tell me what you can, then, about how both sides are tried to use davidsons testimony to make their case. Reporter it was, chris, i have to say a really fascinating morning to say the least. When we talk about the direct from the prosecution with davidson, they talked about really the time line. They talked about the pseudonyms that were used, right . The loyalty from Michael Cohen, his fervent kind of commitment to making sure this deal went through, his loyalty to donald trump in communications with davidson and making sure the payoff went through, but then also his difficulties in communicating with davidson and dylan howard having to act as an intermediary or a mediator because Michael Cohen was becoming so difficult to communicate with and davidson felt as if he was not being truthful with him about why it was they were trying to delay the payment. We know allegations have been made that it was donald trump, in fact, who wanted to delay the payments until after the election depending on whether or not he won or lost that election. It was interesting to see that entire time line, chris, laid out, and then when we went into Cross Examination, it was all about chipping away at the credibility of davidson as an attorney, right . His list of clientele, his roster of clients that he has served going after, for instance, Lindsay Lohan when she was in rehab. They wanted to chip away really at the credibility, and they did that for quite some time. Bove really went at davidson for quite some time. There was a risk, i think, for the jury in seeing that, okay, we know what youre trying to get at. Lets get back to the matter at hand, and when bove eventually circled back to what they were dealing with, they talked about, for instance, the retainer that davidson took from Karen Mcdougal and that the initial agreement between Karen Mcdougal and bove was for, i believe, a 25 retainer, that retainer that increased to 35 making bove making davidson, excuse me, seem as if he were out more for money than anything else. It was a real interesting morning, i would say, and i think the big moment for the prosecution was when davidson had emailed Howard On The Night of 2016 and said what have we done and howard emails back, my god. And this was the night in which we learn that donald trump had become the next president of the United States in 2016. A real moment, chris, inside that courtroom for the prosecution in understanding what had led up to that moment, just two weeks, by the way, prior, the emails beginning two weeks prior on october 26th as laid out, chris, by the prosecution. Does that moment, danny, that yasmin just pointed out say unequivocally to jurors, at least in the minds of these two guys, they knew who was behind this and it was donald trump. They knew who they were trying to protect, and it was donald trump. Yes, but the people know that David Dennison is not giving them trumps involvement. They must have more evidence of trumps involvement. Thats the one thing thats glaringly absent. It seems to me the peoples plan here is to first establish the element of their case that is the transaction from Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels and then presumably theyre going to shore up the trump involvement part later. That will obviously come from Michael Cohen. It may come from other places, maybe hope hicks. We dont know yet. But they are trying to lock in and i think theyve put a lot of evidence in. Its almost indisputable at this point that Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels this money. But David Dennison and even david pecker to some degree is never going to give the people absolutely Donald Trumps involvement, and they know that. What theyre getting from David Dennison is irrefutable proof at this point in my view that there was a transaction from Michael Cohen, a payment of money to Stormy Daniels and that he brokered the entire seedy affair, and it is a seedy affair. Its not necessarily bad for the prosecution. They want them to see every element of it. David dennison gives us it gives lawyers like me an introduction into an area of law practice i never knew existed, which is the underbelly of Celebrity Payoffs for silence. Something i never knew existed. All right. So paul, it was really interesting to follow, even on our document, were not in court any of us. But the prosecution also brought up Stormy Daniels denial that she had a relationship with trump. She signed a document, we think maybe, to that end, something trump himself posted about right before the trial started. So what did we learn, put this in perspective for us and why the prosecution even brought it up . So trump has suggested that Stormy Daniels just like Michael Cohen is a liar. Shell say anything because she doesnt like donald trump, and so at one point, she engged in this kind of lawyerly answer about her relationship with donald trump. The truth seems to be that they had a onenight stand in terms of sex, and after that they had Something Like a Business Friendship i guess you could call it, and so when she says very specifically that she didnt have an extended romantic relationship with him that the defense will suggest thats just a sleazy lawyer being sleazy once more, being very lawyerly but not really trying to come up with the truth. So again, theyre just trying to suggest that this guy is an extortionist. Theyve also presented or asked questions to elicit that he threatens high profile people like donald trump. He threatens them by threatening to expose their secrets unless they pay him off. So the defense wants the jury to think that the hush money payments were not about Helping Trump win the election, which is the prosecutions claim. The defense wants the jury to think this was an Old FashionedShakedown Scheme committed by a sleazy lawyer who the prosecutors are presenting as a star witness. Jim, lets talk about the politics of this deal between cohen and davidson to hide Stormy Daniels story was signed on october 27th. Thats less than two weeks before election day, and honestly, people were already voting. So if that story came out at that moment, is it reasonable to think it could have changed enough minds that it swings the election . Oh, absolutely, chris, because remember whats happening around that. You have the Access Hollywood tape. You have kind of all of this happening as voters are making up their mind in the final part of the election. We know as political professionals that up to 10 of americans make their minds up in the final week or so, and so if youre the Trump Campaign or youre Michael Cohen, you just cannot allow this to get out there, and thats why they did this. It is absolutely clear from a campaign perspective, you just could not have this coming out right in the middle of an election in the final days when voters are actually, to your point, voting every single day so people like Michael Cohen are hired to make this go away, and thats clearly what happened. Let me make an argument on the other side that this is no longer the 60s or the 70s, that this is not a case where a president ial candidate goes on a boat named Monkey Business with a woman who is not his wife and finds himself in trouble as a candidate. Youre convinced that it would have made a difference . How close the election was, were talking about thousands of votes in a few key states. It goes into the entire narrative that the Clinton Campaign at the time was trying to move that donald trump was shady and had all these problems and was a shyster, and this would feed that narrative, especially, chris, around the Access Hollywood. I mean, this would have been a twopart series here to show what this guy is and who he is to these women voters who ended up going away from clinton to trump in the final days of that election after the comey letter. A onetwo punch. Yasmin vossoughian, thank you. Paul, jim, and danny, youre all going to stay with me. In 60 seconds, judge merchan is now weighing if trump violated his gag order again and what the consequences should be if he did. Plus, our Reporting Team is just getting to the cameras outside the courthouse to give us color about what happened inside, so dont go away. T happd inside, so dont go away i thought water would help with these dry spots. Thats lawn disease. But Scotts Healthy Plus will cure it lawn disease . Been going around. So like other people have it and its not. Pick up a bag of the new Scotts Turf Builder healthy plus lawn food today. Feed your lawn. Feed it. upbeat music with the push of a button, constant contacts ai tools help you know what to say, even when you dont. Hi constant contact. Helping the small stand tall. Right now our Reporting Team from inside the courthouse where donald trump has been just got to our cameras outside the courthouse. Let me bring in msnbc Legal Correspondent lisa rubin, and msnbc contributor and New York TimesInvestigative Reporter sue craig. Theyve been in the court Overflow Room all morning, which is where members of the press can listen to whats going on because of limited space inside the courtroom. Usually when i go to you, lisa, right when you come out at the lunch break i ask you, you know, what your big headline is, which i think implies like what was the most important thing legally . But so much of what i read today got my attention, and i imagine got the attention of the jury. So im kind of asking you a twopart question. Is there one thing legally and another you think may have clicked something for the jury . I think legally the one thing that i think is important to understand is that Keith Davidson is no angel, but notwithstanding that, when his client went forward and denied her relationship with donald trump, he and she were careful about the language that they used. They didnt see it as inconsistent with the Nondisclosure Agreement that she signed or with the existence of what actually had transpired between her and donald trump, and i was speaking of Stormy Daniels now. Stormy daniels wanted the world to know she had been paid no hush money, that she had no romantic relationship with donald trump, and as Keith Davidson testified today, he viewed that as perfectly consistent with the Settlement Agreement that he negotiated and that Stormy Daniels executed. Why . Because as he im sure will be infamous now said nobody ever thought there was a romantic relationship between Stormy Daniels and donald trump. Rather it was a sexual encounter. And so Keith Davidson is a very careful witness. He parses his words. That having been said during the last hour, emil bove who is Donald Trumps lawyer really tried to dirty him up, and we are swimming in muck right now, chris, with respect to the world in which Keith Davidson lived. If david pecker was the creme de la creme of gossip, we are no longer in first class. We are living in a world where as Somebody Just said to me during the break, i didnt even know there was such a thing as a sex tape broker. Well, guess what, there is, and his name is Keith Davidson, and we are all learning that today. Okay, so sue, i want to get to you in a second, but i also want to like take people behind the scenes that you often other lawyers that are in there put in notes for us of your observations. This is my favorite observation of the day just because it harkens back to one of my favorite sketches ever in the history of saturday night live. You describe the vibe between bove and davidson as quineses macho. What was going on between those two guys . Im from los angeles originally, ive watched my share of telenovelas. There is definitely a like im going to out lawyer you vibe between