Norman, bad news. I never graduated from med school. What . But the good news is. Xfinity mobile just got even better now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. Plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. I gotta get this deal. Thats like 20 a month per unlimited line. I dont want to miss that. Thats amazing doc. Mobile savings are calling. Visit xfinitymobile. Com to learn more. Doc . All day long Michael Cohen has testified that he is a liar, admitting he lied to congress, to the government, to the public. He spoke for 8 hours and 12 minutes on the stand over the last 2 days total. With the trial in a lunch break, we go to crossexamination set to start when court resumes. And the big question is whether the jury will believe him hen he says donald trump directed him to pay hush money, to keep Stormy Daniels quiet. And, quote, it should not affect trumps chances to become president. I andrew weissmann, charles coleman, and paul butler with andrea in washington. Weve all been saying this is the star witness. This is the moment weve been waiting for. But the truth, andrew weissmann, is that this is the moment weve been waiting for. The crossexamination. Some think that todd blanche, who has the trust of donald trump. How does he approach this . Where does he start . So, the good news is, that i dont think you have to be particularly skilled to do this crossexamination. Theres so much material. Things you can go with are, all of the statements that have been made by Michael Cohen, in support of donald trump, denying all of this going on. In other words, before he cooperated, to say this is all just essentially a witch hunt. Two, you can go vitriol saying he much he wants to see the result here. Three, you can go to the fact that he took an oath, just like the oath he took before he testified today, and violated it. And bring that out. Fourth, you can go to the fact that he taped his own boss. He taped donald trump without telling him. And so, he is willing to do things behind Donald Trumps back. In other words, thats going to be a key theme of did he just pay the 130,000. Thats in the bank. Theres no way to dispute that. But they have to say that all happened without donald trump knowing. You can say, you made a Tape Recording of him and didnt tell him. Youre willing to do things behind his back. Those are some of the things that were going to hear. Which one he starts with, i dont know. But theres many, many ways to do this. How combative does this get . Its going to be a question of cone. I have to say, having been in the courtroom, the judge is an adult and sets a tone of decorum. When we talk about the crossexamination of Stormy Daniels, it reads harsher than it was experienced. No one is screaming. No one is yelling in the courtroom. They have to take the decision that what Michael Cohen is saying is false, to prevail in this case. The jury has to find theres reasonable doubt and its important that hes not cooperated. I think it will be pointed but i dont expect there to be the kind of thing you might see on tv or someone screaming and yelling and raising their voices. Do you start from a position of, okay, what were going to focus on is what i think we didnt do. Where i think he didnt close the holes. Yes, you can impugn his character. Other witnesses have impugned his character. You can say, he has taken an oath and violated it. Is that where we talked about in the last hour, where he didnt Connect The Dots of donald trump, to bring it to that felony . And thats really where you go after him. I think its and also. The first thing im going to do, if im doing the cross, im going to take him out of this hero mode. Im going to try and start, from a very 30,000foot highup view, youre not the guy you just tried to be in front of the jury. Im going to take him out of that, as quickly as possible, before i get into the specifics. At some point, it is critically important beyond just trying to impeach his credibility and damage that for the jury. It is critical for them, to accomplish you werent able to do things for the prosecution to get them where they needed to do. Im curious, danny, your thoughts, in terms of the order. Andrew brought up points. I think you hit those specifics. For me, im starting really wide. And get the jury thinking out of their minds as quickly as possible. I agree with andrew theres an embarrassment of riches. So much. For that reason, i actually see Michael Cohen as being a difficult witness. Even though i agree with andrew, but there is so much. We have three lawyers here. Lawyers on the other panel. Everyone does it differently. Everyone prepares in a different way. It changes throughout your career. Every new lawyer scripts it out perfectly with Bullet Points and sub headings and everything else. Everything blows up once you get started. This is a script that for each question, you have someone thats answering it trying to thwart you. When you have this much material, its the scariest thing for me. How do you organize it . How do you organize the crossexamination of a Michael Cohen . Andrew ticked off five or six different points. But those are pages and pages of points you can make. Then, how deep do you go . Stormy daniels, did you walk to the hotel or not when youre preparing the cross, thats important. We have to be careful. Too into the weeds and the jury is not going to care if she lied about being at the hotel or having dinner. Do you expose every inconsistency they had in life . Or do you pick and choose . All the while, you have to improv right out of documents or notes you prepared. Things can go sideways with every question. Every question, no matter how skillfully crafted, that witness is looking to zing you on it. You not only look bad but you might get thrown off the rhythm and script. When you prepare a script, you cant be too rigid, you have to improv right out of it. Theres concerns of taking the root of, do you point out the fact he didnt close the deal . Thats speaking to him as a truth teller. If he is going to lie and say anything, the hard part of going with, you didnt say this and didnt say that, at closing, theyre going to be saying in summation, this guy is willing to say anything. Why isnt he filling in those gaps . Its a hard thing. And the government is going to say that. Theyre going to say, you cant pick and choose. You know, youre saying hes a total liar. But he didnt actually say everything the state needs him to say. You have to be really careful. Thats an inconsistent argument. That cross is operating two purposes. Thats why people would hire you and not me. Also that i dont have a law license. Andrea . Just very quickly, weve got some news. The prosecutor has told judge merchan this morning, Michael Cohen is the last witness. After the redirect the crossexamination and the redirect, the prosecution is apparently going to be resting and saying, as they had, most likely, depending how long the crossexamination goes, this week is it for them. We know tomorrow is not a trial day. And friday is not, as well. This week, it is their son barrons high school graduation. Barron trumps high school graduation. Do you go big or small . How do you start the crossexamination after the lunch break . You treat him with the test. You want the jury to know, he is a lying, convicted criminal, who should not be believed. But i would go after him on some of the substance. Hes been saying, vaguely, that trump directed the hush money payments. And that trump knew about and in some sense directed the falsification of the Business Records. Where is Donald Trumps where are his fingerprints . I thought the interview with lanny davis, Michael Cohens lawyer, was effective. It seemed like he was walking back the guilty plea. And i dont think the jury would favor that towards him. Lanny pivoted. Its not Michael Cohen on trial. If you look at a lot of this, you could get that impression. So, Michael Cohen is a person who directed or was responsible for getting Karen Mcdougal and the door man, them getting paid for hush money. He worked with Stormy Daniels lawyer, Michael Cohen did, to get her paid. What about donald trump . And his relationship to the false Business Records. What do we have on that . We have most revealingly, trumps handwritten notes on one of the drafts. We have Michael Cohens testimony, that trump directed the payments to be made this way. Then, we got common sense. Would Michael Cohen have taken out a mortgage on his home, that donald trump wasnt going to reimburse him . The question is, will that be enough for the jury . Indeed. And chris hayes has come out of the courtroom out of the courthouse. Talk to us, chris, about what youre watching. You were in the Overflow Room . In the courtroom . What were you seeing . I was in the courtroom i was in the courtroom. I was seated right i was in the courtroom, seated right behind this weird phalanx entourage. Behind the speaker. Yes. We hind those folks. It was fascinating. I thought cohen maintained, from my accounts of what i read, he was succinct. He sounded earnest. He was in a register and tone that we dont normally associate with Michael Cohen. There is a number of striking moments. One of them was the back and forth about the attempts by a lawyer named bob costello to get Michael Cohen under a retainer to essentially keep him in the family when all of this is starting to fall apart after the fbi has raided Michael Cohen. Theres a number of points that emails from mr. Costello are read into evidence, that have a very, you know, mob movie feel to them. Kind of combination of flattery and menace in equal measures. Youre loved. You have friends in high places. Sleep well tonight. Trying to set up a back channel that Michael Cohen can communicate to rudy giuliani, who is representing the president as his client. All that part, i was watching the jury during that portion. It was quite colorful. None of it felt like the kinds of machinations of the way he could be implicated. It seemed like an intent and pressureful campaign that brought to bear on Michael Cohen to keep him from, quote, flipping. And enter into evidence are tweets by the president of the united states. Talking about flipping, expressing disappointment when he has. I thought that was a highlight. And the most interesting part of the day, in some ways, and probably the most important, was the last hour was essentially a prebuttal of the cross, in which, Susan Hoffinger went through all of the different times Michael Cohen has lied. His legal troubles, the fact hes been disbarred. The fact he objected to the pleas that he entered, that he said he doesnt really kind of agree he should have pled guilty to those things. They tried to parse that. I thought it was relatively successful, given a bad set of facts. That is going to be interesting. That is going to be an attempt that says, this is a guy that made mistakes or lied. Hes lied in different direction s faced legal trouble. On the core of his interactions with trump, he is telling the truth and reformed in a sense and what he has told is corroborated. Its interesting. Robert costello, so close to giuliani. Thats like what was happening with some of the january 6th witnesses. This is spelled out in court, in testimony. Theyre trying to keep him on the reservation. On the family. Dont go off and flip. And then, publicly, saying it. But that last hour, it is fascinating to read it. All those admissions are really going to be the way the crossexamination probably starts. You know, you lied. You cheated. You did you know, everything you tried now, just now to take back your plea, your guilty plea. Who is the authentic Michael Cohen . Thats the way they would probably take it, right, chris . Yeah. Yes. And in some senses theres an interesting one of the narrative themes throughout this whole thing, right, is the similarities between cohen and how cohen operated and trumped. And the fact that trump liked him. When trump stiffed his law firm for the first time, they brought Michael Cohen to get the check. Theres a fractal nature that you got this minitrump figure. The Justice Department was Weapon Siized against me. And theres some merit in some ways to the allegations that Michael Cohen has leveled with bill barrs level of injustice. And there is a sort of this sense, in which, this kind of cutting corners, not telling the full truth, feeling like youre only under siege and persecuted. Theres some resonances and echos between how donald trump performs that and a lot of some of the personality traits. Particularly those that are zoomed in on cross and were touched in the prebuttal. Theres a little news from our reporters in court, during the morning side bar. Merchan said that Michael Cohen will be the final witness. During that meeting, blanche said he could not commit to calling any witnesses. He says the defense has one Expert Witness who couldnt be available until monday. But his testimony is contingent on a decision about how the instructions to the jury will be written. He said he did not know whether donald trump would testify and that the defense has decided not to call allen garten. Danny, will you put that into plain language for me . Look at this by example ending sooner than expected, we can infer, where the prosecution said they had two witnesses and now, only one, that this is a lastminute or endofgame decision, a judgment call, as to the final witness. And look, ive been saying this all along, the prosecution moving as quickly as they have, has thrown off the defense. Theyre planning for whatever witness they plan to call. Hes not available. They have one witness . Theyre not committing to that. The defense case is almost always much, much shorter than the prosecutions case. I frequently call zero witnesses and rely on the burden of proof and say they havent proven it. You can make the argument to the jury, they didnt make the case. I didnt need to have witnesses. Its not incumbent on me, its incumbent on the prosecution. Do jurors look at that and say, you didnt have a defense . They are going to be instructed against that. It is the states burden of proof to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. And i believe, danny, wouldnt you then, as a defense team, take on a burden, by presenting something, in some ways, it changes that dynamic. People start to think, the states case, versus your case. Particularly, if the defendant testifies. It becomes a swearing contest, in this case, i think that would end very, very badly for the defense. I would be shocked if donald trump actually testifies. I think were going to get a statement from him that says about how the case is so weak i didnt need to. Something like that. Pretty typical. Yeah. Maybe not. Chris hayes, give us your take on what we heard from todd blanche who didnt know whether or not donald trump would testify. I think it would be malpractice. I wouldnt put malpractice past them. We know what happens in the Attorney Client relationship between donald trump and his lawyers. This trial has it as its central focus. I mean, its not the first one. Look at rudy giuliani. Look at two other lawyers who are facing Jeffrey Clark or john eastman, the people that respected the president in some capacity, are facing sanctions, disbarment, criminal prosecution. I wouldnt put it past him. Theres enough reptilian sense of protection, with the lizard brain. Chris hayes, were relying on this updated document. How does it look in there, how are his kids reacting . Whats the jury looking like . Give us some sense. His eyes have been closed most of the morning. I cant say whats happening behind the lids. His eyes have been closed. The jury has been paying careful attention. The prosecution has done a good job of moving things quickly and using these exhibits that allow a place for visual focus. But the most striking thing to me, was the rows in front of me. When you have ramaswamy and other congressmen, eric and laura trump. The individual that works in the staff to compile to make things to make the defendant feel good about himself. I was watching herself at work, as she was copying and pasting to be printed at lunch. Hear im sitting and watching, here are all these people who have allowed not his family members. And not even the staff who work for him. But the people, like vikram swami, who are playing the Michael Cohen role. Theres Michael Cohen there, a diminished man. People encountered him you remember what Michael Cohen was like in 2017 and 2018, full of bluster. Full of confidence. Full of intimidation. And now, hes up there, looking gaunt, looking defeated, on the Witness Stand. And youre watching the next it ration of People Auditioning to be the next version of that guy up on the stand, or the next version of mike pence, the former Vice President , who sure as heck is not in the excuse me to support the man he served in the white house after they sicked a mob after him chanting, hang mike pence. You have a set of people that have no connection that are looking at the ghost of christmas future, the man on the stand, that was this figure that thought he could generate, revenue, fame and fortune and power for himself by proximity with donald trump. And ended up on the wrong side of the bargain. And yo