Warning to israel, the comments from Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu about a ground invasion. Nikki haley is coming off the sidelines, as the 11th hour gets underway on this thursday night. Good evening, i am katie fang in for stephanie ruhle, 14 days in to Donald Trumps criminal trial, Stormy Daniels returned to the Witness Stand and faced off against trumps defense team in a very interesting crossexamination. My colleague Laura Jarrett has more. Reporter tonight, Stormy Daniels leaving court after a blistering crossexamination. Former President Trumps team suggesting she has been trying to cash in on her story of sex with mr. Trump at a celebrity Golf Tournament 18 years ago which he denies ever happened. The defense accusing her of lying. Trumps attorney, Susan Necheles, hammering her years of acting and directing the poor in industry, saying it gave a lot of experience in making funny stories about sex appeal or appear real. She fired back and said that the story was untrue i would have written it a lot better. And they grew heated, youve acted and had sex in over 200 poor movies but according to you, singing man sitting in bed and a tshirt and boxer shorts was so upsetting that you almost fainted . Daniels defiant, saying he was twice her age and vigor. And Susan Necheles said you made this all up right . And Stormy Daniels says no. And she said your story has completely changed, hasnt it, and daniels answering no, saying the signed statement where she denied an affair with mr. Trump was done while she was trying to comply with the terms of a Nondisclosure Agreement in which she was paid to keep silent. The defense argued daniels has a financial stake in trying to take mr. Trump down, after making more than 1 million offer story and books, a strip club tour in various items on the website, like a stormy saints of indictments candle, accusing her of selling a story that you promised will put President Trump in jail, right . Figure no. She responded. Much of the testimony is far removed from what the presumptive gop nominee has been charged with for allegedly falsifying Business Records to hide a 130,000 payment to daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors say the payment was meant to keep her quiet so she couldnt derail his campaign but the defense says there was no crime, it was all a shakedown. Daniels testified today, i was asking the so my story to publications, to get the truth out, and Susan Necheles said she couldve just done that with a Press Conference for free. Daniels responded i could have. And she asserted you chose to make money, right . And daniel said i chose to take the Nondisclosure Agreement. The jury hearing a phone call between Michael Cohen and daniels lawyer who negotiated the nda, the lawyer saying she wanted the money more than you can ever imagine. On redirect by the state, daniels told the jury money did not drive the motivation for signing the nda, quote, we are all happy to take money, it was just a bonus. The former Trump Aid Wester House said the story testifying saying i remember he was very upset, and late today the judge denied the defenses new renewed request for mistrial, his attorneys had argued that the Salacious Testimony was prejudicial and irrelevant, the judge also refusing to change the gag order, which currently bars mr. Trump from commenting on the testimony. Everybody so what happened today, out of the to do any splitting, i have to get on the ping campaign trail, im not supposed to be here, we are so innocent, theres never been anything like it. With that, lets bring off the lead panel, hugo, with the guardian, chris, former prosecutor and writer for the magazine, and germy salon, Criminal Defense Attorney and former ada of the manhattan office, jeremy, i will start with you, we are both former prosecutors in da offices, mine was a state Attorneys Office but i do start with this with you, the shaming that went on today reminded me when i prosecuted a Sexual Assault case in the Defense Attorney tried to shame the victim by attacking the way she dressed or what she did why she was where she was at the time she was, most shocking, done by female Criminal Defense Attorney, your thoughts about whether that strategy backfired . Figure sometimes as you know, you come with a woman Defense Attorney to try to soften the blow and they did quite the opposite, it was dehumanizing, degrading and insulting, sure she may have lied and wanted money, and frankly donald trump once money, rich to be rich, i think it backfired. You have to take an approach of not coming out swinging because donald trump wants her to pay back in spades, it doesnt help your client even if you wanted to happen, it hurts and you and the Defense Attorney doesnt want you thats not to be the bad guy center of attention, all the sudden you have a sympathetic witness which becomes a story, which you didnt need to be, about the sex when it is not that case. Hugo, to jeremys point, why waste so much valuable time if youre the defense crossing Stormy Daniels on all of these issues when you just got up and made a big inc. On tuesday about the prosecution getting too much time into the details . I went back and looked at the Opening Statement by todd blanche, he actually says to the jury, im going to Say Something else about her testimony, her being Stormy Daniels and this is important, it doesnt matter. Hugo, your thoughts about that . Trumps lawyers on the crossexamination of Stormy Daniels was really trying to focus on the inconsistencies in her various retellings of the story, because she has gone out and talked about her sexual encounter with trump at times but the one thing that was constant throughout all of her retellings of the story, and this was elicited by prosecutors later on, was she has always said that she had sex with donald trump, in 2011 when she did the interview with intouch magazine in 2018 and with Anderson Cooper and the stand at trial, and it was extraordinary to see Susan Necheles, trumps lawyer, spent so much time on the things that they later complained about when they made a motion for a mistrial, all this testimony and evidence about the salacious detail, including whether or not they had dinner, she spent a long time talking about whether trump had dinner with Stormy Daniels in there for she is embellishing or making up the story of the encounter, and that just focused more attention on the salacious details and not on the fact that she had no direct dealings with the falsified Business Records. And chris, i focus more attention on the fact that the defense did not object on tuesday, the motion for mistrial, the second one was denied by the judge, he excoriated the defense, the jury was not there, if you look at the transcript he said to the defense, i was surprised there are more objections and he said to hugos point, you didnt spend any time on cross with Stormy Daniels talking about her lack of personal knowledge about the falsification of the Business Records. This is the second motion for mistrial, was this done for the legitimate purpose of doing a mistrial now or just purposes of an appeal . Idled as any to do it for the purposes of appeal, they already have a motion for a mistrial but my suspicion is, they are doing donald trump spitting, is a notoriously difficult client, they made a strategic error by not conceding that this encounter happened, they could have preempted, if not entirely, much of her testimony, but prosecutors had to call her because trump has denying it for years and a serious mistake, todd blanche repeated the denial in the Opening Statement. Now if you believe her testimony, the only natural conclusions are that donald trump is lying as part of his defense and that his lead counsel is not to be trusted, because he will pass along his clients lies. All the stories of inconsistencies or whatever, the paperwork, Susan Necheles was driving at, i wasnt in the room but i found it, to be reading it, quite silly. The only thing that the jury needs to believe is that the two of them had sex, i dont think any serious person doubts that. If the story changes a little overtime, she wanted money, of the only thing the jury has to takeaways that they had sex, that is it. And they did not believe dino the doorman and yet they paid him off, if you dont believe her, why are you paying her off anyway. And the defense made an application as they call it in new york as you know, to amend the gag order, donald trump saying he needs to be able to respond to Stormy Daniels because last night her friend went on cnn and made some statements that corroborated, that was interesting, her Friends Statements desperate corroborated Stormy Daniels testimony on tuesday, senator rick scott from florida was there with his pal donald trump of the trial and he had some things to say. The judges daughter is a political operative and raises money for democrats. You got the lead prosecutors wife is a significant donor to democrats and to biden, so this is just a bunch of democrats saying we want to make sure that donald trump cant talk. Jeremy, the last time we were together we are talking with the gag order in the enforceability and whether trump was going to get jailed, the interesting nuance, the expanded gag order imposes upon donald trump that he cant make statements about witnesses etc. , and he cant make other people say it, in this instance was this a new version of donald trump trying to End Run A Court Order by having his surrogates run around in front of cameras and talk about other people . Two things, first of all, you heard from donald trump, we heard that he puts loyalty before anything else, intelligence, work ethic, integrity, thats what rick scott is, hes therefore is an agenda probably too but it lawyer soldier for donald trump. Lets look at who that is. Number 2, in terms of enforceability, think of this as an Order Protection situation, it is very hard to establish that it was done at the behest of the bad actor or the person who is the defendant or the accused, its the same issue, how are you going to establish and confirm and prove beyond a reasonable doubt, thats where we find ourselves, that rick scott was acting at the direction or behest of donald trump thats also part of the reason why the judges recognizing we need to keep it intact, im not going to limited other witnesses that may come on, they can have the fear that as soon as they are done testifying, is attacked by donald trump or somebody else. Is limited in scope and doing its job and ultimately maybe another fine or incarceration, which frankly is not that likely. Jeremy, if you are alvin bragg, do try to get even more expanded gag order were prevents that from happening, i imagine evidentiary hearing, you bring in rick scott and put them under oath and answer whether or not donald trump told him to say these things . I think that become such a sideshow, can you fathom me situation, i guess we can since we are here anyway, rick scott testifies and crossexamined and whether he tells the truth or not, this is a falsified Business Records case in the da needs to move it forward and get it done and get it to a conclusion. Hugo i wanted to talk to you about one of the other witnesses, rebecca menochio, the assistant to Alan Weissberg, putting aside the fact that Alan Weissberg and trump were thick as thieves, they went from the organization to Keith Schiller, his bodyguard, the personal address and thats all they needed to donald trump, and went through Madeleine Westerhaus , why are they not going to be patched to the white house like Everything Else would . We got a granular look at how the Check Signing Process to place, westerhaus testified about how they would go from new york, in a little fedex packet in the Manila Folder and the Invoice Backing and get fedex to dc and at the vet Keith Schillers house and he would take it to the white house, its an interesting story and the details that we have not heard previously. It is not clear why they went through this process, Susan Necheles tried to suggest on cross that it was maybe because the way that the white house Mail Processing work meant that the checks would not arrive to the oval office fast enough, they needed this expedited, that was not ultimately elicited. But it is interesting that tie all the characters together, we are talking about a criminal conspiracy here in earlier we had Stormy Daniels talking about how it was Keith Schiller who wanted to set up between trump and Stormy Daniels back in 2006, and Keith Schiller makes another appearance and tying the entire story together, and this ensemble conspiracy cast of characters, in that sense it was quite significant tiling tying the story in one nice bow. Keith schiller is the Bodyguard Standing outside the hotel when Stormy Daniels goes to have the dinner and i believe the reason why he goes to Keith Schiller so that there is less of a trail, list of people knowing at the white house that these checks are going to donald trump to sign them. And Madeleine Westerhaus, the last witness on the stand, the waterworks bothered me. I know shes young but hope hicks, Madeleine Westerhaus, crying on the stand, both of them paying some type of homage to donald trump but she still just like hope hicks, did her former boss in. She said that donald trump paid attention to the details. He signed the checks himself by hand with the Notorious Sharpie but he definitely was aware of everything going on. Are these witnesses that are being called by the prosecution, and they are there via subpoena, are they doing damage to donald trump, when the cross gets up, so Susan Necheles, are you okay, you were young when this happened and you made mistakes . Because look, some of these witnesses are filling in fairly narrow gaps in the evidence, establishing fairly narrow things but useful to the das case. I want to echo something that jeremy said, i sure his view, this needs to move to the main event at this point. I dont know how many books they put into evidence by donald trump at this point but are we going to ever talk about his involvement in falsifying records or whether he knew there was an underlying crime or had discussions with anyone other than Michael Cohen , whether the das office can establish he intended to aid or conceal the crime given his involvement in the falsification of records, of course theyre going to get there, theyre going to have to get there whether they like it or not, we are over halfway through the trial according to the das office his own estimate, and Madeleine Westerhaus will not make or break the case, the books are not going to make or break it that he wrote, they are useful, i dont think they have established the key thing yet, and they are going to need to get there. I want to stick with this for second before we have to part ways with jeremy. The falsification of the Business Records is the layout, it was never a retainer, youre not could desperate you have Michael Cohen testify, and donald trump admitted there were no Legal Services provided, those of the 34 misdemeanors right there, you dont think there has been enough of the prosecution to talk about the intent and motive as to why donald trump would want to hide this before the november 26 election . Thats not the relevant motive the need to establish, they need to establish that he falsified the records to conceal a crying. Someone has to put into his head or prosecution has to established by Circumstantial Evidence that he was aware there was potential criminal exposure