And again that matters. Because the question being raised whether past the point of anger which hes allowed to feel and into something that involves a vendetta where the truth might be sacrificed. Or lied about that history. He said he did ask to be President Trumps personal attorney, but not a different rule of general counsel. It went on and on like this today, if you will. Ke this just like it did the other day. And so its possible or dilute the larger. Defense attorneys are trying to make, but that they are trying to raise. Its possible on the other hand, and i was watching Michael Cohen go through it, that the cuts can slowly eat away as the key witness to Donald TrumpsState Of Mind. Another way to put this is without the other money guy, Allen Weisselberg, who is in jail can certainly make trump look bad here in the real world. Others can factor that in, the guys have been to jail twice now. Without the cfo they needed the other trump aid who knew about the state of his mind. In a moment that grew heated, pushing Michael Cohen on this phone call he made. They can Michael Cohen insists he spoke directly to trump, and thats a viable story, because donald trump can get calls to a mainline, to a secretary, to a security line, then its handed over, and we do that all the time. We dont get the top people directly. The story is that he spoke to trump. And the call mattered, because he said he and trump connected to someone elses phone, and it was incriminating, because cohen assured trump the Hush Money Deal was done. Trumps lawyer pounded on that. That was a lie, he practically yelled, suggesting cohen maybe only spoke to the bodyguard and was now trying to make it worse and and this other detail, which becomes something that people can debate. Now, thats a big moment. It doesnt mean cohen was lying, it doesnt mean the jury buys that, but its memorable, and it allows the defense to put this front and center, and they will probably refer back to in their Closing Arguments. Remember he raised the question, he raised some lies, and you can take his words. Michael cohen simply suggested that attack and impugning of his character was not accurate. He said, im not certain that is accurate, i believe i spoke to mr. Trump about the Stormy Daniels matter. He responded this jury does not want to hear what you think happened. Yes, i am doing my best Court Reporting here, giving you a little spice on it. Mr. Blanche was generally respectful but would dial it up, and there are certain tricks he would say is there any doubt, or if, he would use these basic lawyer tricks and do the one i read to you where you say we are not asking for that, we are asking for this. Its tactical and the kind of where the lawyer was trying to get cohen cornered. Thats one memorable exchange played out for the jury as the audience for this tale about who is telling the truth. Cohen is not having his best week of the trial , but not the worst either. And remember the prosecutors have been ready. Testimony comes on the heels of corroboration for many witnesses of the core outline of what cohen is asserting , like david pecker, like Stormy Daniels, but if they are any good they will try to close the circle , and what they said in their opening is they are implying if you think cohen is lying about this key stuff it couldnt just be him. You would have to have these at the people risking so much including Perjury Charges to make up some sort of conspiracy, and why trump would cut the checks. Trumps lawyers took a kitchen sink approach. One layer said sorry, we are jumping around a little bit, and it was more than a little bit but, they landed some blows on cohens credibility. And i want to show you another part so you can make sense of whats happening and why people are saying the jury might have more questions about cohen at the end of the day. They asked cohen about something he did, but it does mean he lied. And a violation of bar rules, he was secretly recording his own client, breaching legal ethics. Trumps attorneys said you understand its not ethical for a lawyer to record a conversation with their own client, correct . Cohen admits, thats correct. Then he admitted he did exactly that with donald trump, and then to explain the reasoning was to share with a third party. This is not alleged to be a crime, but if you do that is a lawyer, you are breaking the very privilege you take an oath to uphold, which means as you can if you tell your lawyer something you dont keep it secret, they could stop representing you and take it to the literal grave. They dont tell anyone else or tell anyone else with a live recording which breaks the privilege. He did that to a member, even a friendly member of the media. Hes putting it all the way out there. Now, that could again, be part of what they believe is part of the course stuff. And, its one of the hardest things for trumps side. This is the same thing i mentioned, the recording, so there is the ethical part which cuts against cohen. Then theres whats on the tape in which cuts against donald trump, like it or not, when he seems to have a type of consciousness of guilt and wanting to pay the hush money in cash. Those are trumps own words. Cohen made the tape about paying cash. This was for the model story, karen mcdougal. I spoke to aloe allen about it. When it comes time for the financing. What financing. Well have to go pay. Pay in cash. No no no. Expect that tape is bad for trump. I am not sure there is a good way to explain it away, but at trial you get to hear both sides, and i dont mean this as a diss to the trump lawyers, sometimes it creates doubt for complicated story. Its up to the jury, to decide what they think that tape means in full holistic context of all the evidence. This was interesting today. Its the first time we have heard how they will deal with this. Trumps defense lawyers, making the argument that trump didnt mean actual dollar bills, but she was distinguishing between using his own money and financing. Cohen disputes that, though he says separately the word they would in the world of real State Discussion discuss all transactions in cash. This is why everyone deserves their day in court if they are accused of a crime, because im not saying that the trump argument there is a good argument. I would weight is as unlikely to be true, based on what we know. But there, theres this reasonable doubt. Does that evidence give you 100 confidence of his consciousness of guilt. Or will jurors sit there and go if people talk about taking money out, not using financer alone, maybe it was just that. Other reporters note trump was playing very close attention, and that he has been closing his eyes at other times. So we go in the courtroom, we all take turns and rely on the Sketch Artists and the different ways we can get the information that people saw trump caring about that exchange. Because its the kind of spin, kind of wordplay, we dont know. Maybe trump was interested because he liked that defense, or had a hand in it. Whether or not he meant cash, lets hide something so bad it might be a crime, or cash, i dont need to take out a loan. Michael cohen said he had to take his real estate loan partly to keep it secret from his family and get the money, but trump would have had that money around. Now, if you are sitting through this and going okay, whats the point . There is no point today. The defense does not have to prove anything, and they dont have to have an ultimate conclusion or have a grand narrative for the end of the day. They want to make the street believe Michael Cohen a little less than they believed him yesterday and the day before. And so far they are scoring some punches and doing just that the best we can tell. Cohen returns to the stand on monday. We have our special panel kicking off our two ever coverage. We are back in just 90 seconds. 9 out of 10 people dont get enough fiber benefiber is the easy, gentle solution for every day. Its plantbased prebiotic fiber nourishes good bacteria in your gut working with your body to promote digestive health. With so many ways to enjoy, benefiber is your fiber, your way. I am providing a copy of a 35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on august 1st, 2017. When he was president of the United States pursuant to the coverup, which was the basis of my guilty plea to reimburse me. Michael cohen said at once under there at congressional testimony and was back at it. We are joined by one of our special panels. Welcome all. How are you guys doing . What you think . I agree with you, there were a number of punches i think landed, in particular, the part that stood out to me was when todd blanche asked a series of questions which said if Michael Cohen likes to blame the bank, the prosecutors, the judge, and trump, it was a series of questions, he said yes to each one, and i thought that was effective. Some of the things he has said, attacking the judge as being corrupt, calling it the most corrupt, calling the judge and the like vulgarities, and looking to blame anyone else. When you couple that with changing his story that was not a good look for him. A lot of us have been down there which gives you an extra texture to it. Do you see a jury going yeah, i knew this, or do you see a jury thats while it is hard to read, or finding this is worse . I am in the overflow room, i cant see the jury, but members of the public and members of the press, and people coming out of that break, and a number of people were focused on that testimony than obviously the testimony you talked about earlier about the phone call. Maye, same questions. And i was watching the jury today, and the level of detail and repetitions of these issues plaguing cohen seem to be more than just, thats what its like. Thats the world of trump. Yeah, it would be fascinating to see the jury, and from a lot of things i have heard from today they were very engaged and paying attention. But, i think what this will come back to, and i agree they landed punches, and they should have landed some punches. We would be having a really surprising conversation if there werent some that landed. Cohen outperformed what a lot of people thought he would do. He has been very calm. So when you add to that, the jury is going to be reminded by the prosecution, which is what david pecker said about that original meeting in trump tower, and about the fact that it was not in the interest of his Business Interests to be paying off women and concerns about things that corroborate a lot of critical points that Michael Cohen has made. When you think about the fact hope hicks reiterated there was real concern on the side of the campaign, that donald trump was concerned, when you consider the fact there has been reinforcement about it, i mean, if they believed Michael Cohen, but again, a lot of the points they landed didnt go to some of that testimony, or his demeanor. So what can be easy to forget when you have one witness on the stand, and a lot of hits landed is that when are they really going to remember about what they have heard over the past weeks and how the prosecution is going to land, reminding them of the facts of the case and how is the judge going to tell the jury what these instructions are about their burden, because all of this will be part of what this jury decides. Im going to go back to christie. My out raises the question, maya raises the question, i dont think you can trust this guy. I think they will remember, i dont know about this guy, but on the core thing that other people trump did and paid for and the checks show, i think it happened. Thats where im at watching it. I view it and say given all the corroboration we have heard so far, and the fact any theory, you believe Michael Cohen went rogue, Allen Weisselberg went rogue, it does not quite fit with the rest of the evidence. So i believe it Michael Cohen is saying. That said, again, somebody else looking at this could say look, i dont think hes been honest about everything on the stand. And if i dont believe him on this am i going to take his word to convict the former president . And i think one question is, could you put Michael Cohen aside . Do you have a case . Could you make the case without him . I think you need him. Thats what i was saying. And thats what makes it a bigger problem for the da. 100 . As a prosecutor, never put a cooperating witness on the stand where i didnt feel like they were 100 credible, and i knew that they were going to say, and i felt like that was something that i could sell to a jury. We are all accustomed to this world of trump, and this is a circus for him. In most trials you dont have witnesses, even known mobsters, giving long outofcourt rants, going on tiktok. Molly, there are college kids who have more Discipline Staying off tiktok than Michael Cohen did even during the trial. One thing i would say about Michael Cohen, im not a lawyer, but i do think that he reflects a lot of Donald Trumps aspects, right . This is Donald Trumps fixer, he behaves a lot like trump. So you do see, again, a lot of this introduces the seediness of season one of the trump show. I think some of them have been right here. Right here. But, Stormy Daniels and karen mcdougal, and these salacious checks. I think theres so much in here, and you have to remember the political component. You have the speaker of the house, and you have trump having people, who are elected republicans saying things hes not allowed to say because of the gag order. The other thing that the lawyer tried to show the jury is that cohen is dodgy. He would make these recordings, and people would sometimes say are you recording me . He would say no and lie to them. Not perjury, not illegal, but this idea of lying comes easy to him, that hes just unreliable. And that he has his own disassembly of his own case. Hes got in trouble for the public statements he made where he admitted some of this was from ego. About the fraud and alleged taxi case which became later convicted, take a look. First and foremost this whole thing about lying and my credibility, ive even said this to you, and to others on this station. What did i lie about . If you think thats going to stop alvin bragg or anybody from using that in credibility its not. Yeah [ laughter ] so, that goes back to, again, and i thought todd blanche could have done this more effectively. He said he didnt, then on this show, in the civil fraud trial, now the story is i dont dispute the underlying facts, but they should not have prosecuted me. Why not . It was five years for 4 million of not reporting income. Ive prosecuted tax cases and supervised cases. It is well within the range of normal cases that would be prosecuted, but we never got there. You have to think the jury thinks that this was just its bad enough, because you dont know how bad his conduct was. You are saying he has had at least three different stories about the tax fraud. And he is claiming the prosecutors threatened to prosecute his wife, which again, prosecutors have denied, but he kind of put that out there, and he didnt really touch on it other than i think to say this is him just being a liar. The one thing i think is interesting about that recorded call with donald trump, it also goes to the defenses point that he goes rogue. You followed donald trump, you need his approval for everything, and here you are recording your own client and he doesnt know about it. Really interesting. Special two hour edition of our Special Coverage tonight. Coming up, later. Matt gaetz in the courtroom, maga, and bringing in codefendants from other cases, which puts them back in the spotlight. Strategy from an insider. A lot of us are interested, we will get back into that as well, on how bragg might punch back on some of the issues raised today. Today. And theyre all coming . Those who are still with us, yes. Grandpa whats this . Your wings. Light em up gentlemen, its a beautiful. Day to fly. What is your response to them . Thats the defense they will try to put forward. Its going to fail miserably. There was no notifications that came to the Trump Organization about her. She was going to go public with the information. Michael cohen explaining himself on this very program today, explaining himself to the jury in crossexamination today. We are joined by duncan levin. Welcome back. Are you so biased for your former colleagues that you have to say the case is going perfectly . They have a really difficult witness. Im not biased, i come neutrally, im a Defense Attorney now. But not so biased that you have to say the case is going perfect. Its going well but not perfect. Today may be the best example of it. The defense had a day off and got to look over the testimony Michael Cohen gave on tuesday. What they did with it was they landed some blows during it, and at the end of this trial both sides will go up and make an argument about Michael Cohen. Before we get to Closing Arguments i want to zero in on you would say today you would give what kind of grade to what the defense was able to do . They dont yet have an alternative explanation to everything. They seem to raise four, six plus issues with cohen. They threw out a lot there. They have all sorts of theories, but they are trying to see what sticks. They have not come up with alternate theory about what happened here that explains it. They are doing a good job of showing alkaline to be shifty. Showing him to be a liar, and today they did a good job of showing him to be lying to this very jury, and i you think they nailed him for lying to the jury . I think it landed some blows. 2016, to Keith Schiller, trumps body