that 12 ordinary manhattanites believed and convicted him on. the other thing i am really thinking about tonight's -- go ahead, nicole, i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry, lisa. we had a switcheroo involving a lot of audiovisual conduits and i appreciate you going with us on it like it was a flume ride. lisa rubin, thank you very much at the courthouse in lower manhattan. thank you. it is just after 8:00 p.m. eastern time and here we are. hello and welcome to our continued special coverage of today's unanimous, guilty on all counts verdict in the new york criminal trial of former president trump. i am rachel maddow. i am joined by my colleagues nicolle wallace and joy reid and katie phang and chris hayes. also lawrence o'donnell is with us. we are about to be joined by the star witness for the prosecution in this trial. michael cohen is going to speak with us exclusively, giving us his first reaction. michael cohen will be joining us in one moment, live onset. it was 4:20 p.m. eastern time this afternoon when the jury sent a note to the judge that said, quote, we the jury have reached a verdict. at 5:05 p.m. the jury was back in the courtroom and seated. defendant donald trump was there and seated. judge merchan then addressed the foreperson of the jury. it went like this. without telling me the verdict, has the jury in fact reached a verdict? juror number one, yes they have. the judge, take the verdict, please. the clerk, will the foreperson please arise. have the members of the jury agreed upon a verdict? juror 1, yes we have. the clerk, how say you to the first count of the indictment charging donald j. trump with the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree, guilty or not guilty? juror number one, guilty. the clerk, how say you to count two? juror number one, guilty. how say you take out three? >> guilty. the clerk, how say you to count for? juror number one, guilty. and so on and so on. the clerk proceeded to ask the same question for each of the 34 felony counts and each time the foreperson replied, guilty. a unanimous verdict on all 34 felonies. that is how donald trump became the first american president ever convicted of a crime. he became the first president convicted of a felony and seconds later, the first president convicted of two felonies. every few seconds for minutes thereafter he kept breaking his own brand-new, old record for the most crimes any american president has been convicted of. here is the signed verdict sheet filled in by the jury. 34 handwritten checkmarks all in the guilty column, signed at the bottom by the prosecutor and defense attorney and by the foreperson. the foreperson is identified only by a number, not by his name. here was manhattan district attorney alvin bragg. >> first and foremost i want to thank the jury for its service. jurors perform a fundamental civic duty. their service is literally the cornerstone of our judicial system. we should all be thankful for the careful attention that this jury paid to the evidence and the law and the time and commitment over the past several weeks. the 12, every day jurors vowed to make a decision based on the evidence and the law and the evidence and the law alone. deliberations led them to a unanimous conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, donald j. trump, is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election. >> live press conference this evening from new york district attorney alvin bragg whose office brought and supervised the prosecution of this case. here is a look at how news outlets are covering the historic news this evening. this is the new york times. trump guilty on all counts. this is the washington post. trump guilty on all counts. this is usa today. trump guilty on all counts. this is the wall street journal. donald trump convicted in all counts and hush money case. here is the tampa bay times. guilty. trump becomes first former u.s. president convicted of felony crimes. here is the l.a. times. trump found guilty on all charges. there is politico, trump guilty, all capital letters. the boston globe, trump guilty. all capital letters. here is donald trump's hometown paper, the queens daily eagle. queens man convicted. and here is the cover of the next issue of the new yorker magazine. the title is a man of conviction. big handcuffs. you and i were here as the verdicts were handed over, were handed in by the jury and had that first reaction to it. i wonder in these few hours we've had since receiving this information, as we see the republican party and trump and his supporters reacting by declaring this an illegitimate verdict by an illegitimate court. i wonder if you have a sense of what this night will mean for us? >> to me the trump story has always been about asymmetry. our coverage would have been the same if he were acquitted, right? it would have been respect and reverence for judge merchan. it would've been respect and reverence for the jurors who say pick me, i will do it. and i think if there was criticism it might have been that the process did not yield a result for our eyes. they had the paper and the emails. the republicans, trumps enablers, would have celebrated and they are only condemning the decision because they don't like the result. i think what is important is to not look away from what is broken, and what is broken is one of the two parties does not respect the rule of law. not because they saw something different, but because they don't like the result and it is a flashing red light for our country. >> chris. >> i keep thinking about the immunity case before the supreme court. >> still pending. >> still pending. one of the things that really got to me during the oral arguments which i felt was shameful was multiple conservative justices basically saying come on, you can indict a ham sandwich. isn't the rule of law used as a tool? here you had, i thought, a process that was run with incredible integrity. basically i think the kind of liberal democratic order we are trying to hold onto rises or falls to our ability to agree to neutral processes we are subject to. >> that is democracy. you're not guaranteed any outcome, you are guaranteed a fair process. >> that is true in courts and true in elections. what we have seen is basically rejecting that notion and that if you are convicted the system is no longer legitimate, it is rigged. this is a deeply hard day steeply held part of donald trump's view of the world. it goes all the way back. it is authentically held, i think, in his own strange way, but it has now metastasized to take over the party. in some ways when that is the party ethos we are seeing you are removing yourself from the collaborative enterprise we are all engaged in -- in the liberal democratic enterprise. >> thinking about that from both of our points, thinking about our own comfort and all the people we talked to. legal experts, observers, pundits. i don't think, you can go through it with a fine tooth comb, but i don't think there was a moment in our coverage when all of us covering the daily trial, looking at the transcripts, looking at people in the courtroom, getting reporters updates, i don't think there was a moment when we were like, something went wrong there. there is something that has been decided in a way that seems suspect or that is going to get appealed. there is never a moment like that and that was us not knowing what the result would be. that is to have a non-results driven, honest, fair take on what is going on means you believe in the system. you are willing to accept it regardless of the outcome. >> i will say one more thing. there are times when public officials are convicted of crimes and people rush to their defense. i saw this in providence, rhode island. i've seen it in chicago, providence, and sometimes elected officials will do it. it is the unanimity. if you are a city council member and your neighboring city councilmember gets convicted and you thought they had a raw deal and you show up to support them, that happens in politics. it is the down the line, complete partyline unanimity that has been expressed and imposed today about this. from the moment it is announced, this is an illegitimate process that i find unnerving and distinguishing from normal politics around prosecution. >> i just wanted to say that what we heard alvin bragg say, what we said at this table and shows and on this network is we are doing, we are reporting, we are doing what we are doing without fear or favor. that is what alvin bragg said. that has been a redefinition of courage, would -- which i think is interesting. courage used to have a different definition, but now things we took for granted in terms of people believing in the rule of law, we had to redefine what that means. if you think about what alvin bragg did, he took a case with a team of prosecutors. i have empathy for the lawyers, because having been a trial lawyer the amount of work it took to get this across the finish line, it is an incredible amount of time and energy. it is a without fear or favor approach they took. they did not let themselves be skewed by the following analysis. even if you have all of the elements of the crime, even if you have probable cause, even if you can meet all of those elements, sometimes you stop yourself and consider what the jury nullification could be. do you have enough to get the jury to care? i sat here at this table while we talked about opening statements and i said for so long. the first indictment, the first to go to trial, but what they did during the prosecution opening as they made you care. they made the jury care about this case when maybe they didn't care and i think that was the critical moment. >> on the issue of fear or favor, the fear factor for the people involved in this process at every level, the jurors, obviously, family members, the judge, the judges family members, the prosecutors, their family members and witnesses. we will be speaking in just a moment with michael cohen, the prosecution's star witness. michael cohen's saga is shakespearian. part of the fear in terms of him being a witness is having come to this point in his journey with his former boss and mentor, a man by some accounts the way michael cohen tells it, he basically worshiped for a long time while he worked for him for a decade. the confrontation with trump himself. the confrontation with trump supporters and what he has been willing to bring to bear. it is something that a witness like michael cohen has been contending with and is now an order of magnitude different now that this unanimous, all counts guilty verdict has been pronounced by the jury. we will be speaking with michael cohen in a moment. i do want to talk to our friend, lawrence o'donnell. you were in the courtroom for most of the trial, including for mr. cohen's testimony. before we speak with michael cohen live, is there a key moment from the witness testimony? from the way this court proceeding proceeded, that led it to this verdict today or did you think to the very end it could go either way? >> i did think it could go either way. look, we now know and we can say definitively that todd blanche was defending a guilty client. defending a guilty client is really hard. it is a really hard thing to do and it is a very hard thing when defending a guilty client to get 12 jurors to unanimously agree to find that defendant not guilty, which todd blanche asked them to do many times in his closing statement and many times used the phrase, reasonable doubt. you always wonder what that phrase means to every jury and it is very common for a jury to want to hear the instruction on reasonable doubt read to them again, but this jury was clearly unified and they had to be unified most of the way. there could not have been a lot of hard work to get through in that jury room given that they basically got this verdict in nine hours over 34 counts. they were being very respectful, i think, of the size of the indictment. i think, rachel, as this day has been wearing on that the key moment was alvin bragg, alone in a room with his own thinking. after all of this had been presented to him. after more than one team of prosecutors looked at this defendant and suggested ways this defendant could be prosecuted. while some prosecutors in that office were opposing some of the ideas about the way this defendant could be prosecuted. alvin bragg had a decision to make. his decision and his decision alone to make that decision to go forward with this case. as i was sitting in the courtroom and watching this evidence unfold, i could see why alvin bragg made the decision to do this. when he looked at all of the evidence his conclusion had to be, i can't possibly not bring this case. this evidence can't emerge later and the world can't see this evidence later and ask me why i didn't bring this prosecution. at the very same time, especially when michael cohen was testifying, i could see why the southern district of new york federal prosecutors didn't bring this case. because they were worried about how michael cohen would perform as a witness. what alvin bragg had to do when he decided to bring this case, he had to do one simple thing that is the hardest thing in the world. he had to bring a perfect case. he had to assemble the perfect team, including, by the way, the paralegals who were standing up there with him tonight at that press conference. it wasn't lawyers only. he had the paralegal assistance with him, too. he had to assemble the perfect team and they had to present the perfect case. there were plenty of moments we wandered -- we wandered about. now we know. the prosecution did exactly what they had to do. they had to present a perfect case and for a case like this you have to think of it as an airplane engine and what doubts you might have about an airplane engine and an airplane engine has to work flawlessly. the prosecution's job is to build a flawless airplane engine and the defense's job is to try to convince you somewhere that engine is leaking a drop of oil. that is all the defense has to do. that is all they have to do. so it is perfection verses, there might be a flaw, there might be a loose bolt. perfection has to win and that is what alvin bragg saw at the outset, which is there was a way to do this case, a way to try it perfectly. he tried it perfectly. not calling allen weisselberg was the right call, we now know. he had to know it was the right call after the fact. we have to sit here knowing everything that was the right call by alvin bragg in this case. he had to know ahead of time. he could have said to josh steinglass, a 4 1/2 hour closing is too much. i need you to cut two hours. he didn't do that. he built his team, trusted his team and knew his team was capable of doing the perfect job they had to do to get to all counts guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and this is the story and in that room was the story of these two kids who grew up in new york. one, maybe the most spoiled brat in the history of american spoiled brats, donald trump. across the aisle from him is alvin bragg. alvin bragg grew up on a block in harlem that is called strivers road. his mother and father met in a small town in virginia in the eighth grade. they went to separate colleges. alvin bragg senior went to syracuse university. they came to new york and worked as professionals and they all have high hopes for the kids and on strivers road, the kids learned if you work really hard in school, really hard, really hard, you will be able to do work that you are proud of. so alvin bragg has been named at this point and for reasons that will never make sense in my memoirs, i decided today to spend the day at alvin bragg's alma mater. events surrounding graduation week at harvard. when alvin bragg graduated from harvard college, the school newspaper, the harvard crimson, ran a profile of him and the title of the profile in his last week of college was, the anointed one. and the article gives you what you think is the most hyperbolic title you can imagine for a college senior, then lays out for you who this kid is who is graduating from harvard college. and on his way to harvard law school. did you finish that article as i did a year ago, thinking that is the right title. that is who this guy is and when he was in this week of his life, that final week at harvard college, that is what people saw here and that is what people saw. the people of manhattan who elected him, that is what they saw. they saw someone who is dedicated to doing this job and doing it flawlessly and so profoundly modestly. in a country in the trump era that desperately needs lessons in modesty, alvin bragg is that lesson. >> you know, lawrence, it is such a good point that in this moment, when it is remembered in history, yes the crimes will be part of the history. criminals will be part of the history, absolutely. people who are brave enough to take this through the criminal justice system against all the threat they had to face in order to do it and against all of the odds and against the most powerful people in the country, some of the most powerful people in the world to do it. those are the people, a few generations from now i don't know that we will still have movies, but they will be the ones having blockbuster holograms made about them. thank you, my friend. i know we will be back with you in a moment. joining us on set for his first interview since tonight's verdict was announced as the prosecution's primary witness from this case, michael cohen. he is joined by his attorney. we are thankful to you both for being here. >> it is good to see you all. >> how are you? >> i guess the word is relieved. this has been six years in the making. remember the very first time i met with the district attorney's office, we talked about it when i was on your show. after putting out "disloyal." the first time i met was when i was an inmate in otisville. they came up to see me on three separate occasions, so this is a six-year process for accountability to finally be had. >> were you surprised by the verdict? >> no, i was not. i have spoken. i've been on so many of the shows and i've told you all along that the facts speak for themselves. the documents speak for themselves. i have listened to so many pundits come on the shows including the host talking about x, y, and the. they couldn't be further from the truth. i would have a conversation with my lawyer and say i don't understand it. how come they don't see the same things we are seeing? i understand that it makes great headlines and so on, but the facts are the facts and at the end of the day the facts are what prevailed here. >> you mentioned the timeframe, what it has been for you, before tonight there was this criminal scheme described by prosecutors. this illegal conspiracy to influence the election. payments to benefit the campaign. booked falsely as funds for something else. it has been described by multiple prosecutors, but tonight there was one person who got in trouble for this scheme. you are not the beneficiary, but the only person who had been in trouble for it. >> as did allen weisselberg. >> trump's attorney general bill barr told st y to stop the investigation after you were in prison. after you got the sharp end of that stick and to get trump's name out of it. it has been eight years down the road. i have to ask you, you said what you feel about the verdict, but that is justice delayed. is justice delayed is justice denied? >> clearly not in this case. 34 counts, one after another, after another, of guilty. it is accountability. it is exactly what america needs right now. we need for accountability to be had by all those who break the law. because as we like to continuously state, no one is above the law and today's verdict demonstrat