Transcripts For MSNBCW Deadline 20240703 : vimarsana.com

Ended up getting indicted. Newly released Court Transcripts show his outbursts earned him a stern rebuke from judge juan merchan. Judge merchan saying to trumps attorney, todd blanchethis, i understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually, and thats contemptuous and has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that. Trumps attorney, mr. Blanche, quote, i will talk to him. Judge mer shonn speaking to the court, so i am speaking at the bench because i dont want to embarrass him. Mr. Blanche, i will talk to him. The judge, you need to speak to him. I wont tolerate that. Mr. Blanche, i will talk to him. Now, one of the moments that inspired that and angered trump so much was Stormy Daniels description of part of their encounter in a hotel room in 2006. For reference heres how she described it on camera for 60 minutes in all its cringeworthy glory. It started off all about him, just talking about himself and hes, like, have you seen my new magazine . He was showing you his own picture on the cover right, right. I said, does this normally work for you . And he looked very taken back like he didnt understand. Does talking about yourself normally work. Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it and ill never forget the look on his face and he was like what was the look. I dont think anyone has ever spoken to him like that especially a young woman who looked like me and i said, you know, give me that and i just remember him going, you wouldnt. Hand it over. And so he did and i was like, turn around, drop them. You told donald trump to turn around and take off his pants. Yes. And did he . Yes. So he turned around and pulled his pants gown a little. He had underwear on and stuff and i gave him a couple swats. So that happened. Heres how judge merchan described trumps reaction when trump when Stormy Daniels recounted that moment in front of the jury yesterday. Quote, one time i noticed when ms. Dams was testifying about rolling up the magazine and presumably smacking your client, and after that point, he shook his head and he looked down. And later, i think he was looking at you, mr. Blanche, later when we were talking about the apprentice, at that point he again uttered a vulgarity and looked at you this time. Please talk to him at the break. Stormy daniels stunning Testimony Led to a push by Donald Trumps Defense Lawyers for a mistrial and judge merchan did decide to strike some of the things she said, but Stormy Daniels Testimony On The Stand Yesterday provides a critical piece of the puzzle in a case that alleges a coverup of hush money paid to hide her story, a story that went right to one of candidate trumps biggest political vulnerabilities, a story that includes the sordid details Stormy Daniels described before the jury yesterday. In a motion, this story, your honor, her account is highly probative of the defendants intent, his intent and his motive in paying this off, and making sure that the American Public did not hear this before the election. It is precisely what the defendant did not want to become public. Now, Stormy Daniels is set to return to the stange tomorrow to continue with her crossexamination and most likely a redirect by the prosecutors setting the stage for another key witness. The New York Times reports this in the weeks ahead mr. Cohen is expected to take the stand and Connect The Dots between the salacious details and the substantive documents. Testimony from the woman paid for her silence highlighting trumps potential criminal intent in the Trump Election Interference Hush Money Trial is where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Lucky for us we have a full table. Yasmine very vsubian and, katie, youve been covering this for the New York Times and john howlman is here. He made a glorious late hollywood entrance. I sit in the basement of the courthouse and its hard to get out. Youre excused. Also joining us former top official at the Department Of Justice, andrew weissmann. Speaking of sleeping in basement, no one can claim more times these days than andrew weissmann. If youve seen his apartment, its no big i meant here. I want to put the elephant in the middle of the table. Stormy daniels testimony is provoking, and i think tapping into all sorts of Gender Disparities how she was received, socioeconomic disparities. I think theres a thing i said this yesterday, i felt bad after reading her testimony about her life story for sort of shorthanding her, porn star Stormy Daniels. She is a human being. She had this interaction with trump. Everything about it is the kind of stuff that, i mean, you and i talked days ago about being uncomfortable preStormy Daniels. This is the stuff and i keep thinking about everything trump did from the amount of money he paid to The Sound Of Trump On Tape saying to go and, you know, cash, cash, cash, no, no, no. To peckers agreement and line in the sand, i wont be a bank. I keep thinking of everything she said in the context of how desperate trump was for us not to know it. Thats why i also think we cant overlook the testimony we heard yesterday morning as well from the publisher using Donald Trumps own words against him, right, because in that testimony, you see a man, hear of a man who is a billionaire trying to teach the rest of america how to also be a billionaire. How to pinch every penny down to the paetsch clip, he says, right. Sign every check. Know where every check is going. And then you hear this account from Stormy Daniels, a detailed account that he continues to deny about meeting in 2006, about having sex the night after they met. Continued conversations for eight months after the visit to trump tower. How she was then threatened in a parking lot outside of an Exercise Class with her daughter. And then, of course, the whole scheme that was concocted by Michael Cohen and her attorney at the time and her agent and connecting those two and then wondering if the jury, in fact, believes the account of Stormy Daniels, and then if they say to themselves, yes, i believe her, then they think back to the man they heard about early that morning, right, because every day i feel like its a different trial and what i mean by that is every day, the testimony can stand on its own. They think back to the testimony from the punisher in the morning and think, well, this is a man who pinches every penny. Why would he pay Michael Cohen 420,000 to cover his taxes, to double the payment he already made because he wanted to cover up something beyond just legal expenses, right, and that is why i keep going back to the paperwork, right . Weve talked continuously as weve kind of led up to this moment where we felt the star witness was going to be Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, right, but the smoking gun who is going to be Michael Cohen is the guy who knows if donald trump said to him, we got to pay her because i dont want the voter or electorate to ever know. He is a problematic star witness but the paper trail, the papers, right, the documents, the signed checks, the invoices, all of those things are what are ultimately going to tell the story and convince this jury as to whether or not they believe donald trump is guilty or not and that is why yesterdays testimony was so stunning. I will say, the end of the direct from hoffinger in which she brought up that truth social tweet from donald trump in which he said i never met this woman. We were never together. Who is this crazy person . After all of that detailed testimony completely contradicting all of what Stormy Daniels had just detailed and it was this really, i think, at least for the prosecution powerful closer before they moved to cross. Kate, theres always sort of a debate about whether his lawyers are lawyering or sort of Talent Managers in their own right and it was clear yesterday when judge merchan said i cant do all the objecting for you that judge merchan was slightly underwhelmed by the lawyering. Yes, i certainly think that when he said that he was putting the impetus on them to say, you need to come out and object to the things youre having problems with. I think they believe that they had worked some of these details out ahead of time and didnt need to do so much but certainly i think he is really putting really putting that pressure on them to take a stand when they think theres something problematic and i certainly think that even judge merchan said there should have been things that may have been better left unsaid as this testimony was incredibly vivid and incredibly detailed, but, again, you know, really putting that pressure on trumps lawyers to do something and then as you said, further keep their client in order and not have him step over the line of the gag order and enter into witness intimidation. He sustained even when there wasnt an objection. He said sustained and we were like did somebody object. He said i sustained when you werent even objecting. This is on you to make these objections if you feel as if theyre going in a direction this which you dont want to go. These are details that are extraneous and not necessary to testimony. You know, andrew, i think, again, this was testimony that was experienced totally different if you saw it and heard it than if you read it on the page and on the page it was clear that the act and the story she would tell if she were free to talk to the media was exactly what he paid to suppress, so as someone in my line of work i thought it was interesting to understand what he didnt want people to hear between the drop of Access Hollywood and election day 2016. Such a compressed period and his political crisis has been entered into evidence from the cspan tape guy and i thought that the idea that she was telling the whole story of how she ended up in his hotel room, how the sex went down, the Power Disparity she felt, the important point she made several times that she didnt feel threatened physically by him ever was part of what he was paying 130,000 to make sure not a single voter heard between the drop of Access Hollywood and the election, but it seems to have created a lot of churn and sort of legal circles. So explain that to me. Well, i mean i think that has that exactly right which is i keep on analogizing her and with all due respect to her and her point that she is a human being and a person with a life story is that for the purposes of this trial, she is largely not entirely but largely an exhibit meaning this is the story. What you are hearing is what would have been made public in October Of 2016 but for the Hush Money Payments and these are the Hush Money Payments that hope hicks has already testified donald trump told hope hicks essentially, thank goodness that Michael Cohen paid it, otherwise, this would have been something we would have to have dealt with before the election, not afterwards, so the story is actually one where you dont actually need to know whether it is truthful or not, although obviously the jury and us in the public are interested in that, but for the purposes of the trial, it is really just is this the story that they had an interest in suppressing and creating these false Business Records to cover up the suppression . And just going back for a second to the judge Merchan Intro that you had where he basically said, you know, tell your client to clam up in front of the jury, i think its really important to note here that, you know, were operating in two planes. Theres sort of the political plane, and theres the trial plane, and it is important to know that if donald trump, he obviously is a criminal on the criminal plane. He does not have to testify. He has an absolute right not to. It cannot be used against him, but he has a right to testify. So, if he wants to hop on the stand and testify that she is a liar, he has the right to do that, and if you look at this from the political lens, you know, all of us are saying, gee, maybe shes not telling the truth, well, you know what, he has the ability to testify under oath subject to crossexamination that it is not true this the same way that she has now testified under oath that it is true, and until he were to testify, this is unrebutted in the political sphere. So, you know, this is one where he may want to get his story out by muttering under his breath but this is one where, you know, if he really, you know, can put his upon where his mouth is, you know what, if you really think this didnt happen, you have a right to testify and be subject to crossexamination on that issue. We know hes on tape talking about exactly how the money would be moved to her and just moving into what the jury heard and what they thought of it, again, im not a lawyer, youre not a lawyer so this is a perfect part for you and i to have together. I think the point is if you are uncomfortable listening to her story, if you made thats why he paid 130,000 to make sure you and the american electorate never heard that story from the swatting to the condom to the stds whatever you felt most appalled by, that was worth 130,000 to silence. Yeah. And i agree with andrew, this is there is a legal realm and there is a political realm. I dont really think that anybody believes him does anybody believe he didnt do this . Nobody believes im sure theres somebody. Sure. Theyre out there. There is so someone that jim jordan believes trump. In that period you just talked about in october which i remember vividly 2016 there was this parade of women who came forward and accused him of Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct and denied all of them. All of them. Every single one, didnt matter. There were some of those women had detailed accounts. Some had less detailed accounts. Some were more credible. Some less credibility. Their posture out of Access Hollywood, well deny every single one of them and attack every single one of them. At the time and now im not sure that many people then believed him, even the people would voted for him. I think a lot looked at donald trump and thought, yeah, of course, donald trump has catted around, you know, and now these women are mad and whatever but i dont think the Fundamental Question was whether he did this thing or not and in Stormy Daniels case they met and took this picture and give archbishop Everything Else we know, journalistic evidence and the courtroom, i think the only the questions revolve around the thing youre getting at, nicolle, which is for a jury and for political sort of the two things come together is is it did he why did he do this, not why did he do the thing with Stormy Daniels but why did he decide to silence her . Why did he do that and what was the effect of that and if that was an act of election subversion, thats one thing. If that was a guy who didnt want the world to know, his wife to know, anyone to know that he had an affair with an adult film actress, thats another thing and there is a whole other political thing of how much of this now. Not then. I dont deny had this account had it come out in the fall in its full tawdry glory could have had some effect on the election . Do you think it would have changed i dont know. A lot of people, joe was talking about it on morning joe. People after monica lewinsky, bill clintons Approval Ratings went up and i think a lot thought bill clinton was a dog and people in a different time related to interns and Sexual Harassment and people have different sensitivities. Bill clinton, he is a scoundrel. A little of that has always been true with him. Very close election. When we get to the end for the jury is not going to be litigating this in the end i think there are lawyers and andrew and i were talking earlier, there are lawyers think this is a mistake for the prosecution to put this on, because they didnt need to prove this. In the jurys mind thinking about why. What was the motivation for doing the thing tass are in the record . This does illuminate the motivation because there is that thing you just pointed to, which is, wow, trump was thinking what this would sound like in a moment they were beating back most of these accusations when they were successfully politically beating back most of the accusations from these women might have been problematic. They were certainly terrified of it on the Trump Campaign across the board that a detailed account from one of these women that was credible would be the thing that would sink him. All right. We have so much more to get to and barely scratched the surface. No one goes anywhere. Also to come the trump appointed judge in the maralago case has given the crimealy indicted expresident a really big and long lifeline. What that means for that criminal case thats so rock solid. Even bill barr said his goose was cooked. Still important to have faith in the rule of law, we are told. While this Current Trump trial is goin