President biden defended Campus Protests but condemns law breaking and hate speech as Police Crackdowns continue across the nation. Also tonight, queen Rania Of Jordan joins me on the war that sparked those protests and the extreme suffering being endured by the people of gaza. Plus, i have a big announcement about a very exclusive interview coming up next week on the reidout, so stay tuned for that. We begin tonight with four words. What have we done . That was the late night text message that Keith Davidson, the former lawyer for Karen Mcdougal and Stormy Daniels sent to the former editor of the National Enquirer, dylan howard, on the night of the 2016 president ial election. Today, in a New York City courtroom, davidson continued his testimony in the first criminal trial of a former u. S. President , donald trump. Claiming that in the text, there was an understanding between him and howard that, quote, our activities may have in some way assisted the president ial campaign of donald trump. Those activities referring to the brokering of Hush Money Agreements alongside trumps former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the former publisher of the National Enquirer, david pecker, to keep mcdougal and daniels silent about their alleged sexual indonters with trump ahead of the 2016 election. The prosecution has used davidson to lay the foundation and background for how the 130,000 payment to daniels came about. To explain cohens motivation to keep daniels quiet. And the context surrounding her denials after the fact about the story when it went public. Today, the defense also got their opportunity to crossexamine davidson, invoking what appeared to be a twopronged strategy. The first was to make it clear davidson had no direct connection to trump and could not prove that cohen or howard were actually acting on trumps orders. In fact, before today, the two men had never been in the same room. The other was to try to undermine davidsons credibility by implying he had associated himself with people who had bad reputations and seemed to suggest that davidson engaged in extortion for celebrity gossip. A point the witness repeatedly denied. And this followed this mornings second gag order violation hearing, where the prosecution made their case for four additional violations by trump. It comes after judge juan merchan ruled earlier this week that trump had violated the Gag Order Nine Times already, fining trump 1,000 for each violation, and warning him that continued violations could lead to jail time. Court will be back in session tomorrow at 9 30 in the morning. Joining me now, susanne craig, Investigative Reporter for the New York Times and msnbc contributor who was at the courthouse today. Melissa murray, Law Professor AddNew York University and msnbc legal analyst and lachlan cartwright, former executive editor for National Enquirer who is now a Special Correspondent for the hollywood reporter. Thank you for being here. Susanne, give me your impressions on today . It was a real grab bag. As i was going into court today, i read the indictment over again. I wanted to see where it was heading, the 32 counts. What we saw today was a lot of smoke, but we saw more about the conspiracy in terms of what was going on. And we saw, i thought, kind of one of the most important things we saw was on crossexamination of Keith Davidson. Some people think the lawyers maybe should have stopped at have you ever met donald trump . No, but they just kept going. And they really dirtied him up. They dragged him into the guy who was dealing with sex tape brokers, trying to extort people. It was really ugly, and he was very uncomfortable. I think what they were trying to do at the end of the day was to make it look like Michael Cohen is an unsavory fellow and this guy is an unsavory fellow and donald trump was the victim of an extortion plot. It was this afternoon in court, i think that is sort of where i landed, that donald trump once again was a victim in this case of these two unsavory guys. It doesnt feel like that would make sense. And a new york jury might doubt that donald trump because these are new yorkers, they know who that is, what do you make of that strategy of trying to dirty up Kieth Davidson . I think the dirtying up of Keith Davidson, of any of these witnesses is important for the defense. We saw the dirtying up of Michael Cohen and he hasnt taken the stand. Everybody hates Michael Cohen. We hud a lot about how unreliable he was, how needy he was. Hes an unsavory guy. Keith davidson was also there to corroborate cohens story and it was necessary to drag him, too, as well as Stormy Daniels. He was also testifying as to the nature of payments to Stormy Daniels. Not only did he get portrayed as a serial extortionist. She was also painted as someone trying to extract this money from donald trump before the 2016 election because she didnt believe he would win and therefore her story wouldnt be valuable after the fact. There was this rush to do this, Michael Cohen was trying to get it done, and so was Keith Davidson. And the only person not in cahoots is donald trump. Is that credible as somebody who worked there . It rings true. Today for me was fascinating because it was always like a tabloid, you know, rerun of lindsay lohan, hulk hogan, charlie sheen. We had all these characters we had written about and National Enquirer brought back to life, and in that cross, i was watching Keith Davidson as the defense were really going for him. You could see he was getting more and more agitated. He kept saying its consideration. You know, he turned up his nose at the use of hush money and these payments, but it was consideration as how he phrased it, and inquiring minds want to know where dylan howard is. He keeps coming up in court, and very much in that message, what have we done, and were several days in and dont know, you know, where he is. He hasnt been up here. One really kind of notable thing today was how they went after Keith Davidson in a way that they did not go after david pecker on cross. It was notable, and david pecker is the guy. Hes the one who made the deal. You can look at these two in isolation and talk about it, Opening Question On Cross was have you ever met donald trump . Boy, david pecker sure has. They really, i thought, comparatively went light on him on cross. Why go light on him . I i thought it was really interesting that one of the episodes that was raised in the second request for enforcement of the gag order was a statement that donald trump had made in response to some reporters questioning at a Press Conference that happened before the trial. It was about david pecker. Hes asked a lot of questions but chose to answer this question about david pecker. David is a nice guy, david is really nice. And the intonation that the prosecution is making is this is basically skirting up to the edge of tampering and influence. Hes basically like david has been really nice to me, it would be unfortunate if he stopped being nice. Lets play Stormy Daniels. This is Stormy Daniels on jimmy kimmel after Donald Trumps state of the union, january 30th, 2018. Take a look. Did you sign this letter that was released today . I dont know. Did i . That you can say, right . That doesnt look like my signature, does it . Youre saying perhaps this letter was written and released without your approval. Hmm. Do you know where it came from . Do you have any idea . I do not know. So it came from the internet. You did not have anything to do with this. I also work for the fbi and im a man, according to the internet. Heres a picture of the letter, a january 30th, 2018 denial written for Stormy Daniels by Keith Davidson. I have been asked countless times to comment on reports of an alleged sexual relationship i had with donald trump many years ago. The fact of the matter is each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 2016, 2018, i am not denying it because i was paid hush money has been reported in overseas owned tabloids. Im reporting that because it never happened. This was another fun moment where Keith Davidson presented this sort of nondenial denial, and he kind of had to reason with the jury, if you break it down in that language, its true. And you sit there going, he actually said theres no romantic this is so great because every reporter gets these. She was saying there was no romantic sexual relationship. And then he was asked about, is that a truthful statement . He said yes, and he broke it down. He said there was no romantic relationship. And there was no sexual relationship. It was sex. So theyre denying it through that way. As well, he said there was no hush money because it was a civil contract. Consideration. Every reporter has gotten these nondenial denials to the point where one reporter who worked on this at the wall street journal, hes now at the times, he said we knew it was a nondenial denial. Theyre going to put Stormy Daniels on the stand and shes going to say what shes going to say, right . The big news is Michael Cohen, but by the time we get to that, everyone will be bloodied up. I dont know that that matters so much for this jury. At some point, the jurors are going to be anesthetized to the filth thats already been haired in the trial. They knew it would be filthy when it started and its been predictably filthy. At some point, you become inured to it. By the time you get to what Michael Cohen is going to say and see the documents because whatever you want to say about the documents, theyre not filthy. And there are recordings. A report today where they played that recording with Michael Cohen and donald trump where hes talking about gathering up, buying all these information in case he gets hit by a truck. Because you had all of this, like the defense emphasizing, donald trump is outside of the scheme, outside of the scream, you never met him, but there he is on tape talking to Michael Cohen, i wish we hadnt done that, i wish we hadnt paid the hush money. And why is he asking how is our girl karen . Theyre really pushing that angle. This is why it feels like it doesnt make any sense. You can say Keith Davidson is a terrible person. You can say National Enquirer is a tabeloid, so what. If these people, good people or bad, got together and did a scheme to cover up because of this election, they did it. Theyre all saying they did it. Keith davidson throughout, david pecker. Part of it too is these Defense Lawyers have an uphill battle. Michael cohen might be the crappiest witness ever, but donald trump is a pretty crappy defendant too. First, do we really think Michael Cohen is going to be a bad wince. He has done this show a dozen times. Michael cohen is a practices communicator. He was Donald Trumps goto communicator. Hes done podcasts, interviews, he has his own podcast. Michael cohen is not going to be a bad witness. Its such a ridiculous argument. Hell be able to communicate in ways the jury will find relatable and be able to absorb, but he has a fleet of Louis Vuitton baggage. That all relates to donald trump. Again, it opens the door for impeaching his credibility. My point is, donald trump is orchestrating this defense. You see him communicating with todd blanche, hes the guy in charge here. I think thats got to be difficult. He wants a certain narrative to be advanced. I think they are trying to advance this narrative. It may not be the best narrative. Well have another come back on the other side because we have so much more. All sticking around for much more on the first criminal trial of a former president and all the tabloid fun that took place today. The reidout continues after this. Were here with Chris Counahan of our local leaffilter. So chris, tell us how leaffilter is different from every other gutter protection on the market. 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Im told donald trump at some point walked out to cameras and said im not allowed to testify because of the gag order. And todd blanche, his lawyer, nodded like maybe. The judge has not ruled on this second request to enforce the gag order, but judge merchan was pretty stern today with this defendant, telling mr. Blanche that they really need to steer clear of violating this gag order. So again, keep as far away from this as possible. Hes really concerned, i think, about the prospect of witnesses being intimidated, jurors being intimidated. One of the discussions at the Gag Order Hearing Today was about how donald trump had railed about the jury basically being comprised entirely of democrats and manhattan being entirely democratic. That doesnt mean he cant testify. The gag order has nothing to do with that, right . He can testify in his own defense. This is part of donald trump walking back the statement, i am going to testify. He wants an excuse. Hes not going to talk anymore, we think, about the witnesses, about the jurors. And hes definitely not going to be talking about himself. This is the setup for that and were getting there. I think the real meat of it, at least todd blanche seemed to understand the gravity of what the judge said earlier today. I was promised an Alice In Wonderland story in the break. What a bizarre moment. We were talking about one in particular that came out in court today. I Keith Davidson retold to the jury how he was in a store and it was this Alice In Wonderland setting and Michael Cohen was having a melt down, saying hes not going to washington, trump is not bringing him on as a. G. Or a position, and he goes on a fullblown rant so he thinks that Michael Cohen is even suicidal. He says Michael Cohen was saying he wont even pay me for the hush money. To pay him back. He was having a full meltdown, and Michael Cohen said michael was heading to washington to be Chief Of Staff or the Attorney General. The Attorney General . And was that supposed to be part of the deal for the hush money, for him paying it . We dont know. That part is unclear. It could just be that Michael Cohen thought as being within being loyal. Also being in the inner circle that he would be given some kind of position in the administration. He would be brought along. But again, Attorney General seems contemporaneously, donald trump is calling in this period in