In the 11th hour with Stephanie Ruhle starts right now. Tonight, Michael Cohens crossexamination. Donald trumps defense team is trying to paint him as motivated by revenge and money. Plus, what the former president s entourage said outside the courtroom. Then President Biden announces new tariffs. What it means for the economy and the campaign. And it january 6th Takes Center Stage in tonights primaries. An officer who protected the capital and a Convicted Rioter are both on the ballot as the 11th hour gets underway on this tuesday night. Good evening, once again, im Stephanie Ruhle live from washington, d. C. And we are now 175 days away from the election. And today at Donald Trumps criminal trial in new york, Defense Attorneys got their chance to go after trumps former fixer, Michael Cohen. The defense tried to portray cohen as obsessed with the desire for revenge against donald trump himself. Here is my colleague, laura jarrett, with more. Reporter tonight, Donald Trumps defense team tearing into the prosecutions star witness, suggesting mr. Trump in selfdescribed fixer turned critic Michael Cohen is out for revenge on his former boss. Do you want President Trump to get convicted in this case, Trump Attorney todd blanche asking . Sure, cohen responded. Cohen recently thing the former president belongs in a cage, like an animal. The defense trying to cast cohen as motivated to lie, that he previously fed prosecutors dirt on mr. Trump to get out of prison early, and that now his financial livelihood including Media Appearances and podcasts centers on trashing mr. Trump. Cohen acknowledging he has made more than 3 Million Office books, disloyal and revenge, and that he had been going on tiktok six days a week to slam his former boss to paid subscribers, saying of his past praise of mr. Trump, at the time, i was kneedeep in the cult of donald trump. The defense getting cohen to admit he previously described himself as obsessed with mr. Trump, insinuating he was jilted once pushed outside the trump orbit. The state case largely depending on jurors depending cohens word, as he is the only witness who said the former president knew his internal records were falsified. To cover up cohens payment of an Adult Film Actress before the 2015 election. Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to those lowlevel felony charges. Had a very good day. I think we are exposing this scam for what it is. Thank you very much. Reporter earlier today, the prosecution questioning cohen, who told the jury these invoices seeking repayment for Services Rendered in 2017 were false records, and that the Retainer Agreement he references never existed. Prosecutors guiding cohen through check after check with the retainer language included, all false statements, he said, because they werent for valid legal fees, but reimbursements for the hush money. Cohen describing a meeting with mr. Trump at the white house in 2017 where he posed with this picture. Cohen says they discussed mr. Trump reimbursing him for paying off stormy daniels, an arrangement developed by Trump Organization cfo Allen Weisselberg months earlier. I was sitting with President Trump and he asked me if i was okay. He asked if i needed money, i said no, im all good. He said because i can get a check. I said no, im okay. He said all right, just makes you deal with alan. testifying later he was frightened when the fbi raided his office in 2010, saying mr. Trump told him dont worry, im the president of the united states, stay tough. Which cohen took to mean dont flip. But cohen says he turned against mr. Trump after consulting with his family. My wife, my daughter, my son all said to me we are supposed to be your first loyalty. Cohen has been disbarred and convicted of lying under oath. Tonight the Defense Zeroing in on his mothers. Trump attorney blanche asking cohen if he was motivated by fame. Cohen responding that is not fair to say. Blanche then quoting this excerpt from cohens book, saying i wanted it all, power, the good life, public acclaim, fame. Those are my words, cohen said, yes. The trial will resume thursday morning when the defense is set to continue his Cross Examination of Michael Cohen. With that lets get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel. I have some great friends here in d. C. With me. Pulitzer prizewinning investigator with the washington post. Former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. In a federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of michigan. Her new book, attack from within, how disinformation is sabotaging america is out now. All right, what stuck out to you in this crossexamination . What stuck out to me is that former prosecutors dont make particularly good Defense Attorneys. Take it from a former prosecutor, i would never pretend i could do a searing crossexamination. Why is that . Prosecutors deal with what is. Defense attorneys deal with what couldve been, what mightve been, what shouldve been. They have to be creative, they have to think outside the box when they are trying to tear down the building that the prosecutors figuratively are trying to build. Todd blanche, i dont think, did a very effective job. But you know, the prosecutors did a great job of drawing the state. That is fronting all of the weaknesses in Michael Cohen, the person he is, the witness he is, because they rented the fact that he is a liar, he is a perjure or, he is a convict. He did all these horrible things. So then, when todd blanche started saying wait a minute, mr. Cohen, youre a liar, the jury is probably thinking to itself the prosecutor told us all this already. I dont think blanche was the most effective cross examiner. What you think about that . This is lances only second criminal trial as a defense attorney. That is almost amazing to me, that donald trump would choose someone. Even if blanche has a great reputation, the fact that he has never done this specific thing. I do agree with lynn that prosecutors tend to get a lot more practice on direct examinations and his Defense Attorneys who do more Cross Examinations. Nonetheless, he was probably aggressive the way trump wanted him to be. I thought some of his aggressiveness really failed to land, the way he came Out Of The Box with the very first question about an insult but cohen made on tiktok about blanche himself. And that drew an objection and a rebuke from the judge who said this isnt about you, mr. Blanche. So i thought that was a really awkward way to start, and one that really just did not land. As the prosecution has already portrayed, Michael Cohen is not a nice guy. People within the trump family and the Trump Organization described many of his flaws already, and i think that it may be that they are going, instead of the targeted, laserlike approach, they are going for the wear him down approach. Maybe that will happen, but i didnt think they got into many licks on day one. Michael cohen knows where all the bodies are buried. Next Allen Weisselberg, cohen is a number two. If donald trump could do the whole thing over again, do you think you wouldve done more to keep cohen in the family . One of Donald Trumps absolute worst mistakes in this setting, according to Michael Cohen, was to quibble about repaying and paying Michael Cohens legal fees. While he was under investigation. Remember, Michael Cohen gets his home raided by the fbi, his wife and his children are sort of freaking out, saying dad, whats going on. His phone and his computer are taken. And then he stopped hearing from trump world, and there is some bickering about paying his legal fees. A lawyer whose office is right around the corner basically gets silenced, and that is when Michael Cohen starts to wonder am i on the outs . Am i no longer in . And he begins to cooperate with the feds. Along those same lines, it is fair to say that both the civil fraud trial in this one largely happened because cohen flipped on trump. Yeah, cohen is important. I mean, i would go so far as to say he is an essential witness. All of the other testimony from the and the stormy daniels, and the hope hicks, and all the corroboration by checks that donald trump was writing out of the oval office to reimburse Michael Cohen. The false ledger entries, the emails, the text entries. They are great, they are important. But Michael Cohen is really essential. He is the one who gets the direct out of Donald Trumps mouth. And i think he is been corroborated in enough ways that they were ready to accept and credit his testimony by the time he hit the stand. Lets go back to the scene that carol just said. The last time Michael Cohen said he spoke to donald trump was 2018 when the fbi raided his home. In the hotel room. And trump called him on the phone and allegedly said dont worry, im the president of the united states, stay tough. That is a staggering quote, if true. But does it help the prosecution . It because there is the if true, his word against trumps. I think so. Nobody has to like Michael Cohen here. Whether he is loyal to donald trump or not loyal to donald trump. For by many accounts he is a despicable person. But i think the way the prosecution will use that and say you bet he is a despicable person, and he is the person that donald trump chose to be his fixer and work for him closely as his personal attorney. Donald trump was the person who chose Michael Cohen to be with him. But i think that book that you just gave suggests that this was an enticement to Michael Cohen, to be loyal and to work with me. And if the jury believes that happened, they could suggest that when Michael Cohen became disloyal, the opposite became true. Which explains, i think, the rift between them. One of the things todd blanche tried to do today with say hey, in 2013 you said trump was great. And in 2016 you said trump was great. Yeah, thats what i was working with him and i dont think that anymore, because he abandoned me, he isolated me. So i decided to confess to my own crimes, i decided to cooperate, and now i dont believe hes a great guy anymore. Do you think this could blow up in the Prosecution Space . I mean, todd blanche is painting cohen, we have all laid it out, as a thug and a liar, and beyond a trump loyalist. Carol and i both covered trump back in the day, and i can tell you first hand, Michael Cohen was impossible to deal with. He was like a human gangster shield for trump. And by the way, he loved that gangster persona. He was desperate to be super important. He has since turned. What if the jury only believes the first half . You know, you ask could this blowup in the Prosecution Space . First of all, there is no such thing as a sure win. A short guilty verdict. Take it from someone who had plenty of not guilty verdicts in his career. But heres the thing. Everybody else suffered all the consequences. We think he is part of this criminal conduct. And i think that common sense may help win the day. Do you really need to believe Michael Cohen, to your grade point . Do you really need to believe Michael Cohen is a great guy, and a truthful person, to look at all of those checks written for a phony Retainer Agreement that clearly Michael Cohen didnt have . That is just demonstrably false. And who was signing the checks . As you pointed out, from the oval office, starting in 2017. Donald trump. It sort of strains credulity that a man, regardless of what his moral value is, regardless of how annoying lets talk about the work he was doing. Regardless of how bullying he was from you and me on the phone at time to time, and other reporters. He confessed to crimes and went to prison for a series of events that involve this. This transfer of funds from donald trump. And there is no way there isnt a crime being committed on the other side of the ledger. Donald trump had another entourage of highprofile defenders at the trial today. It was extraordinary. The first few days of the trial, no one, zero, not a family member, not a friend, not a spouse. Now it is like the gop all stars. Today the Speaker Of The House had Nothing Better to do, nothing in d. C. But to go and sit in the courtroom with trump. One of trumps primary opponents was there. Is this sort of a strategy to get closer to trump, or is this part of a strategy to get around the Gag Order On Trump . He cannot go after the judge or the jurors or the judges family , but maybe these jokers can. Yeah, and fact, Senator Tupper built made a comment that was really quite similar. He said he was going because he wanted to take a stand against the gag order. What exactly does that mean . It doesnt mean that they are there to violate the gag order . That they are taking their cues or orders from donald trump . You know, hes not allowed to say these things, and in fact, he has been ordered not to direct others to say things. But as Michael Cohen has testified, we know what he wants us to say. We know what he wants us to do. He wants us to defend him. So it could very well be that they are there either because they see it in their own political best interest to do that, they want to help donald trump, they want to intimidate Michael Cohen, i dont know what it is. But today they were all in unison saying almost identical things about this trial. So it is hard to imagine that this is some grand coincidence that they all showed up on the same day and said the same things. They didnt just show up on the same day and say the same thing, they were all wearing the exact same outfits. We actually have that sound bite. Lets play it. Hopefully we have more and more senators and congressmen to go up every day and represent, and overcome this gag order. That is one of the reasons we went, to be able to speak rps for President Trump. There he is saying it. At what point does the start actually bump up against a line of violating the gag order . Well, donald trump is prohibited from threatening witnesses or jurors, or directing somebody to do it. Do we really think we are going to have evidence, anyone is going to go on record to say yeah, he directed me to do it . No, they are doing Donald Trumps bidding. But what a difference 50 years makes. Because in 1974 the Congressional Republican leadership marched to the white house and told the republican president resign or be impeached by a rum party. 50 years later, some of the Congressional Republican leadership marched to a new york courthouse and stood outside and stood by a Republican Former president. This is mike johnson announcing we are all in, we are the pro crime party. Liz cheney actually called Out Speaker Johnson for showing up to support trump. She said she is surprised he wants to be in the quote i cheated on my wife with a porn star club. Meanwhile, johnson says he is working to rein in what jack smith is doing. Do you think democrats who saved Mike Johnsons job are starting to have second thoughts . Im sure they were always worried about whether or not that was a good idea. I mean, what is mike johnson standing for . And im not picking aside with liz cheney or with donald trump. But what is mike johnson standing for their, by going outside a courthouse and saying this is a sham . I question whether or not these are real jurors. I question whether this is an appropriate way to pursue this case. I think this is all a scam. Im paraphrasing, of course. He also, steph, almost verbatim repeated the claims that trump was sanctioned for about the judges daughter, claiming that she is a westernized democrat, Making Money Off of this. None of which is true. But interestingly, to choose those words and that exact thing of attacking a judges daughter. I sure hope nothing happens to any of the judges Family Members after this. You realize just saying that, you sound like we are talking about a mob trial. I sure hope nothing happens to the judges family. You realize, we do need to take a moment and realized how crazy that is. But remember, we have lived this already. The ei field office in cincinnati, if i am remembering that right, was attacked the day after donald trump said tha