Prosecution. Michael cohen, back on the stand. Susan hoffinger went through the different times that Michael Cohen has lied, his legal troubles, the fact he has been disbarred. And under crossexamination from the defense. He is obsessed with revenge against donald trump, thats what theyre saying. As donald trump roles and with a full entourage including the Speaker Of The House. President trump is a friend and i wanted to be here to support him. Tonight, chris hayes and alex wagner break down what happened inside and outside the courtroom with Rachel Maddow, katie phang and msnbc political experts, when special Coverage Of Trump On Trial begins right now. Good evening from new york, i am chris hayes, along with alex wagner. Thank you for joining us for our special coverage of day 17 of Donald Trumps criminal trial. We will be joined by Rachel Maddow and Lawrence Odonnell in a minute to break down what we heard from the most pivotal witness in the case, Michael Cohen, today. In my case the experience was firsthand as i watched cohen testify live in the courthouse and the big question today, because cross began, is how did Michael Cohen do . The morning began with finishing direct testimony with the prosecution before an anticipated crossexamination with the defense in the afternoon and from the stand, well, he told the jury a story that is now familiar in the broad outlines. Michael cohens transformation from a loyal, conniving, Energetic Hustler on behalf of donald trump, who admired and emulated his boss, to a fierce trump critic who has now spent years cooperating with investigations into him and occasionally railing against him. The transformation from trump acolyte to critic effectively destroyed the previous version of Michael Cohens life, a version you get the sense that he enjoyed. Today he sat 10 feet away from the man responsible for all of that, while he outlined what prosecutors say is an illegal scheme to falsify Business Records tied the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels. The problem, of course, is that much like his former boss, Michael Cohen is a guy with a long record of not telling the truth. Of obfuscating, avoiding, lying. At least from where i was sitting today in the courthouse when it came to the core allegations and that we will discuss in the next few hours, cohen did seem sixyear did seem sincere or at least on the level, but the major question might be what the jury makes of the man they saw on the stand today. I will have a lot of questions for you. Great. I will say that i was struck over the course of the past few days and it came to a head today that a certain part of the Defense Strategy seems to be predicated on the assumption that people are no bigger than the jobs they do, right . And that Stormy Daniels would reveal herself on the stand to be a sleazy Bottom Feeder and that under withering Cross Examination she would fall like a house of cards. The same assumption seemed to be made for Michael Cohen and as it turned out, Stormy Daniels was an incredibly strong, sort of resilient witness that seemed incredibly credible and in some ways humiliated the defense and the crossexamination and Michael Cohen, who they tried to prod into being a rage machine to reveal he was nothing more than a bottom feeding grifter, ended up keeping his composure. They would give the jury outlandish statements he made and he would say it sounds like something i would say. He was unapologetic, took pride in the work he did and i dont know, he seemed credible on paper. What was it like in the courtroom . In the courtroom, throughout the day we started with the direct and went to cross after the lunch break. Generally my first time in the courtroom. Unlike Tommy Tuberville i did not find it depressing. It is like my bronx elementary school. This is judge merchan, the judge presiding has tremendous and palpable equity with which he orders the proceedings. It feels like the epitome of judicial Temperament Exuding from the bench. Everything that is happening is sort of orderly and moving along. In terms of cohen, i agree with you. Lisa rubin had this point, i think we will talk to her in this hour. The big question today was, will there be some blowout moment . Like in a few good men, where he slams the podium and says yes, im lying, or whatever. I dont know what the fantasy was, but you are right that he kept composure the entire time and maintained that quiet, chastened version of himself. There are a few glimmers of the other Michael Cohen. They are like, did you call him a cheeto faced dictator . I am mashing up the assertions together, but it is like he had sort of relinquished his rage in a lot of ways, for the most part. That seems really powerful to me. I will say and we will talk about this more throughout the evening, on cross there were moments where he seemed nervous, shifty, a little cottonmouth, going for water. There were long pauses. When you ask someone a question they go that paws doesnt make you think now i am going to get the truth. There was a little bit of that. Again, all of that i think is a little atmospheric because none of that pertains and i think we will talk about it through the next few hours. None of that really drilled down to the sort of core issues for guilt or innocence of the defendant, who sat there, i will say, with the phalanx of friends, Family Members. s buffer zone. Is buffer zone. The person who puts together the word document with nice articles about him. We will talk about that. I did see the sausage getting made. The sausage that gets fed to Donald Trumps ego, being made. This epitomizes a little bit of the cross, which is Blanche Saying i dont know how much the jurors know. Blanche saying, i am still in 2015, that in your view President Trump speaks from the heart . I said that. Blanche, all he wants to do is make this country great again. Cohen. Sounds right, yes. At that time you werent lying, right . At that time i was kneedeep into the cult of donald trump, yes. That was the story that got told today. We watched, under direct, the trajectory of Michael Cohen in the fold and outside the fold and that continued in the cross of is there something the jury should suspect because he went from inside the folder outside the fold . Were joined now by Rachel Maddow and Lawrence Odonnell, who was also at the courthouse today. The simple Scorecard Reporting is not a single relevant point was scored against Michael Cohen on Cross Examination. To everyones surprise, the demeanor held up. The suspense was, wow, that is the most remarkable version of Michael Cohen we have ever seen. Can he do it on cross . When he is challenged he is such a combative guy in every environment, but he was contained, as most people are, by the pressures and the confines of the courtroom, especially the Witness Stand. Youve got to remember that when lives end up in a criminal courtroom and you are the key witness for a criminal prosecution, yours is a broken life. Because you are here as the eyewitness to your Friends Murder and you are part of a tragedy yourself. So Michael Cohens life was broken by all of this and what you saw on the Witness Stand was this broken man and i love some of what we saw from the courtroom art. The capturing of Michael Cohens mournful face, which is what this was. This was someone morning for his own mistakes. Terrible mistakes he made in his life and then describing eventually what was a Family Intervention to get him to turn away from what was literally his life of crime with donald trump and save what could be left of his life by the simple course of telling the truth to prosecutors, doing time in prison it turns out is going to be a consequence of this. Chris, one thing i would say about Michael Cohens pauses on Answering Questions as i took those to be a smart moment. The jury wont be thinking the way i am about it, but having seen a lot of witnesses, especially lawyer witnesses, what he is doing is listening to every word you just said and deciding how to answer it, whether he should answer it, whether he should ask for clarification. It never felt to me like there was Something Weird about the pause, but it could to a juror who does not know what i see is going through his mind. Having been through depositions, there is a little bit of this. A question is asked and you sort of quibble the characterization, so you brush it back a little bit, so that blanche comes back. At one point there was a big standoff when he said, was it a lie . Well, it wasnt truthful. If you want to call it a lie there were a few of those standoffs, but i think it was intentional on cohens part because he is a lawyer, he is being careful. He understands the weight of this. Is this going to last . It was very clear today the sort of spectral presence he has is a gaunt, broken guy. That remained throughout. Rachel, obviously you are following closely today, im sure. What was your big take away . My big take away was, is this all there is from the defense . I think that the defense is under no obligation to put any witnesses forward at all. Lawrence has been articulate and persuasive in saying that there is 0 chance they will put the defendant, their own client, donald trump, on the stand in his own defense. But we dont know if they will put anybody. So if they dont, this is the defense. The crossexamination of Michael Cohen is the defense case. To get what blanche was able to get out of him today, there was nothing. Which makes me feel like they must be incredibly confident in their ability to try to get a Mistrial Ruling here or something surprising is going to happen on thursday or they just did not bring it, because there really was nothing. Especially when you consider that when the prosecution laid out their case at the outset, they basically said this is a documents case. We are going to put Michael Cohen on the stand. He is a very controversial guy and for good reason and you will hear about why, but everything we need to prove to you in order to come back with a guilty verdict will be bolstered by corroborating evidence from multiple witnesses and documents. They spent the last couple of weeks doing that. Authenticating the documents and getting the corroborating testimony. They get to Michael Cohen and he performs perfectly as a witness for them. He does not lose his cool, as you guys were saying. He answers all the right questions. He doesnt go into weird soliloquies or sidebars that might be picked apart. They hand him over to the defense after lunch and i have to tell you, i thought this is it. They will keep donald trump out of prison. It was just nothing. So maybe thursday is going to be something, but otherwise it looks like they are not mounting a defense at all. I was struck by the same thing. Not only wheres the beef, but also the sort of spaghetti against the wall nature of the line of questioning from the defense, rachel. They tried to paint cohen as a bunch of things. An unreliable narrator or grifter or someone in it for themselves, selfish. Ray spurned the lover. Someone who was obsessed with donald trump and then when he was cast aside for not getting a position in the white house he was intent on destroying donald trump. Did you find any of those characterizations particularly effective . I might have found anyone of them effective, had the prosecution not laid all of them out in advance to put them in context and tell us all what they mean. I did not know that Michael Cohen had called the defense lawyer, todd blanche, a crying little swearword. The very first thing today. That he had complained about the Defense Lawyers in a tiktok video or something. That was new. Will that change my view about what Michael Cohen brings to the case . No, but the prosecution did a good job eliciting from the other witnesses. Oh yeah, Michael Cohen called himself a lawyer. A fixer, he only fixes things he broke. We got all of this stuff, all of the ad hominem anything you could want we have already had and then they put it in context. Here is when he stopped serving donald trump. Here is what he has done since. Here are the sins he committed and the ways he atoned. So, for todd blanche to be out as the defense lawyer saying, Michael Cohen, didnt you lie to congress . The jury must be thinking we heard the explanation already and we know what that is. Why are you bringing it up . The thing that struck me today on that point, on the cross, again, i do think there are plausible stories to tell. For instance, spending a lot of time on his podcast and all of the different merchandise you sell on your website or associated websites. Showing donald trump in prison and send him to the big house and not the white house. There is a story to tell that this guy is so out for revenge he will do whatever it takes to put him behind bars. But that part at least was legible to me. There were large parts of the cross today that i could not follow. I think i am pretty good at following stuff, generally. I followed the direct. Part of this i will say is a small color thing and something we can talk about with legal experts. In the direct all of the evidence is being put up for all of us to see, which is extremely helpful because you see the documents. During the cross, when they would present a document to Michael Cohen to refresh his memory, it was not admitted into evidence broadly. Which means he is looking at a screen. Again, this is intentional. It means that it is really hard to follow the whole thing. There were long lines of questioning where i was like, i am just lost here. What are we doing with the phones . Why are we on the phones still . It got worse because Michael Cohen is looking at a document none of us can see and is saying you are mystery you are misrepresenting what is on this document. Welcome to the representation of a guilty client. This is what it looks like when a Criminal Defense Lawyer has a client to did exactly what Stormy Daniels says he did. This is what it looks like when you are representing a client to did, indeed, conspire to create false Business Records. If they had Something Better you would have heard it in the first 10 minutes. They dont have anything better. Youre not going to hear anything better. The game is, and it is a legitimate legal game, that they will try to create not just reasonable doubt, but president ial level reasonable doubt. They will want you to bring a higher level of reasonable doubt because this man was president , so you cant possibly convict him on the word of that man. Stay with us. It was a combative scene in the courtroom, but the Scene Outside was somehow just as wild. We are talking about the transparent attempt to appease trump and the work around the gag order with the Speaker Of The House, basically, next. Detect this living with hiv, robert learned he can stay undetectable with fewer medicines. Thats why he switched to dovato. Dovato is a complete hiv treatment for some adults. No other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato. 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