while he sat slumped at the defense table. they didn't get to hear stormy daniels testimony and they didn't get to watch the judge clear the courtroom in anger as he butted heads with a truculent witness. instead americans had to rely on the words of reporters who were in the room making notes and writing down things we saw and experienced. things that a transcript cannot capture. >> that was something to behold. i could hear people gasping. i was not sure we were going to get a place where we had any guilty verdicts let alone all 34 accounts. >> todd blanche said he was writing checks from the white house.>> this was as professional a jury as you could get.>> what you've heard about it being the courtroom israel. >> his eyes have been closed most of the morning and i cannot say what's happening behind those islets.>> guilty repeated over and over. >> tonight we welcome you to this special msnbc event. prosecuting donald trump. witness to history. andrew weissmann and i will eat you through what you missed inside the courtroom. not the line by line details of witness testimony, but with the help of our colleagues, we will tell you what it was like to sit just behind donald trump as the details of the case spilled out. we will tell you what it felt like in the room when witnesses took the stand a few feet away from him. the unscripted and unpredictable moments when the former president seemed to be nodding off or muttering curse words. what people said in the line at the bathroom. and this testimony from stormy daniels. we will hear what are best legal minds saw. let's start with first impressions from inside the manhattan criminal court house. >> it is a surreal moment to go into the courtroom for the first time. and see a former president who is simultaneously the world's greatest clown. those two things at the same time as a criminal defendant just spin things in your head. and the weirdness of that alone is your first hour in the courtroom. and it's hard to take in anything other than the weirdness of donald trump. >> anticipating going into the courtroom, i was actually excited to do it. first of all, i felt like as someone who has written a trump book and has been covering him from the beginning of his presidential campaign, this felt like a crescendo moment for him and for the country. and it's the only trial he will face. it felt like a big moment and something i wanted to witness for myself. >> having worked in the mueller investigation, we could not charge a sitting president, then, donald trump, that was a doj rule and now a full-fledged criminal case it was remarkable. >> i thought they would be a lot of pro trump people there and they really were not. and then, my nbc family all the producers and camera operators and got in line and stood in line for a really long time. the thing that i learned is it's not what you are wearing that makes a difference. it's what you wear on your feet because where you get cold is through the soles of your dress shoes. but people understand you don't just walk to the courthouse and they whisk you in. you line up outside across the street because they anticipate people showing up. so you have three different lines. it's like flying on an airline where they put you in a different group of people.>> there are two courtrooms. the only difference is the judge and jury are in the overflow. >> that room holds other members of the media and members of the public. and the overflow room has a very large monitor at the front of it that shows directly councils table. you have the prosecution on one side and the defense on the other side.>> you can go to the restroom whenever you want. and there is this absence of tension in the overflow room that i did not know i was feeling in the courtroom until i was not in the courtroom. and it's almost like you're standing in the street difficult wind and then it stops. it's a very different sensation in what seems to be the same place.>> the day before tommy tuberville went to the trial and said it was the most depressing building he'd ever been in and i take that man's statements with a grain of salt. but it was nice. it was a highly functioning municipal building. it struck me how much a certain class of americans are used to very elite spaces and not used to public spaces, bureaucratic spaces. you have to spend a lot of time in those spaces. people with power and money do not. >> donald trump in that setting, he walks in and out and you see him for the first time. this is the first time i saw him in person. he was less than expected. >> the first time i was in the courtroom, donald trump was surprised to see me because it had been mostly reporters and very few anchor types showing up , and donald trump has hated me longer than anyone who is going to walk into that courtroom. he was once very fond of stormy daniels and michael cohen. but in 2011 when he started talking about president obama's birth certificate, i said he was lying and i called him a liar. and he had never been called a liar before and when he was leaving that day, he did the stupidest thing you could do. he looked right at me in this grand way that everyone in the courtroom could see and he was trying to do a face that would be the tough guy and scary and threatening and full of hate, but he's a terrible actor. it came out as just an insanely twisted face that meant nothing but madness. and i loved it. >> if there were cameras in the court, people all over america and in all 50 states would be calling in sick to stay home and watch this. is so freaking compelling in person and the drama of this particular criminal case against trump is both lurid and cogent and full of amazing characters and has just enough surprised to make every witness kind of a cliffhanger. you can't -- i don't know if trump is falling asleep or resting his eyes, but it is not boring. it is riveting. >> riveting is the perfect word to describe what it was like inside donald trump's trial. every trial is dramatic, but this is real life and was no exception. it's one thing to hear the news about it or to read the transcript. but tonight we will continue to learn from people who were inside the courtroom, day in and day out, waking up to wait in line to get one of the few ceased available to the public and the press at 100 center street here in manhattan. tonight i'm joined by special legal panel who spent many hours in the manhattan criminal court house. please welcome laura jarrett, and katie thank and lisa rubin. they are here with us along with msnbc hosts giving us impressions. lisa, some of these witnesses got a lot of attention. the most surprising witness, the last witness, bob castella. what was your impression of what they did that people might not get from reading the accounts. >> the most important part that you cannot get from reading the transcript is the entrance and the exit. they were all brought in from a side door rather than the traditional back door where you walk through the center. here each and every witness whether they were hostile or friendly, they had to walk by his first row of surrogates. and those who had counsel, they followed thereafter. in some cases trump wanted to have an interaction with them and in other cases the body language was as hostile as it could be. michael cohen looked like he wanted to vault over the doors so he could avoid being proximate to donald trump. i thought that was fascinating to watch.>> i have a question for you. someone who is spent so many years as a criminal prosecutor. people have talked about how there should've been cameras in the courtroom or at least audio. let's leave that aside for the moment. how do you think, if there had been cameras, that it may have affected witnesses and the lawyers on either side or the defendant if it had been televised. >> it would've increased the intensity of the experience for everyone involved, especially the witnesses. you ask yourself whether donald trump would've reacted more visibly than he did. maybe he would not have looked like he was asleep if he knew there was a camera on him. but when it comes to the witnesses, if they knew like we've seen in other trials that they would be on the witness stand, it would've amplified performances that we saw and i think you are more hyperaware, and i think the jurors would've been aware. even if you never saw their identity, they know what is at stake. it is a small space. it's not a huge federal courtroom. it is a small, state courtroom and people are in close proximity. and that is the jury. if you know it's not just the overflow room. it's america and the world, i think it amplifies the intensity.>> i was surprised by how close the witness stand was to the jury box. like really close. and the witness stand donald trump was much further. i don't think you get that not being there. we have much more of our legal panel coming up. the first, it was some of the most shocking testimony at the trial when stormy daniels took the stand and all the while wearing a bulletproof vest. after the break our team will take us not only inside the courtroom but the elevators and, wait for it, the bathroom lines were reporters tried to process what they heard. >> many of the journalists in the room were looking at each other and saying i can't believe this is what is being said, and by the way, how do i communicate this on television. slowing my cancer from growing and living longer are two things i want from my metastatic breast cancer treatment. and with kisqali, i can have both. kisqali is a pill that when taken with an aromatase inhibitor helps delay cancer from growing and has been proven to help people live significantly longer across three separate clinical trials. kisqali can cause lung problems or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe 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roots of our legacy. where excellence, comfort, and electricity... are forever in bloom. welcome to beyond. the mercedes-maybach eqs suv. everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new sensodyne clinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients. welcome back to prosecuting donald trump: witness to history . it is our special report on in the courtroom reporting on the first criminal trial of a president. after years of covering stormy daniels and claims that donald trump paid her to keep quiet about a sexual encounter so it would not come out before the election, what was it like to finally see her in person when she finally took the stand to testify against him? and after her dramatic, sometimes shocking testimony, what was the conversation like among the reporters and spectators at the courthouse? and what about that bulletproof vest that she wore to court? here are some more first-hand accounts. >> when she came in, all of us to be deep breath. we don't know who the witnesses are until that day. the prosecution always protects their witnesses. so we might figure out who the witness is maybe an hour before hand. and that morning donald trump posted on truth social they had been informed of who the witness was and they had not prepared and that person should not be able to take the stand. so the minute he posted that, we said it's going to be stormy. i have compared this trial to watching two movies made eight years apart. >> none of the central characters look the way you remember them in 2016. and that is as true of michael cohen as it is for stormy daniels. she came in in a jumpsuit with her hair piled on top of her head wearing glasses and not looking at all like the adult film star that we remembered. i've since come to learn, because her lawyer said this that she was wearing a bulletproof vest. and that accounted for her appearance. she was wearing an outfit that accommodated a bulletproof vest because she felt her life was at risk in coming to court and testifying. and the reaction of people in maga world who are loyal to trump about her testimony, i can tell you this by my twitter feed, reinforced why she felt she was in danger.>> there were no trump reactions to stormy daniels saying that you could see. but there is trump, known to millions of people as the orange turd, and the person doing it is his defense lawyer thinking it harms stormy daniels that she refers to him as the orange turd. there is not a juror there who cares. they are not offended by it. these are new yorkers and they've heard worse in every trip on the subway. >> we leave the courtroom and we walk out and everybody lines up to go to the bathroom like you would any public place. we are like all looking at each other. and getting onto the elevator and going down for lunch, did she just accuse the former president of this and everyone is kind of digesting what is we all just heard. >> the jurors, i think, have been admirably stonefaced. i've seen reports, i didn't see it with my own eyes, but i sought jurors involuntary reacting to some of the salacious details. i did not see anything like that. the jury was like stonehenge. there were -- they were very restrained. >> this is about falsifying business records and the defense went at her really hard about the fact that she was in the industry for years and defense counsel said you and in more than 200films. how could you be this damsel in distress. and in that moment i looked at the jurors faces to see if i could read anything and get a glimpse of what they were thinking. and they are maintaining a poker face the entire time. this is the same courtroom that harvey weinstein was tried in. it was such a moment to have the women at the center of this case basically told she could not have possibly been uncomfortable because she was in . >> she was treated so differently than other witnesses . hope hicks and david pecker were devastating witnesses. there substantive testimony is so damning for donald trump as their cross-examination was with kid gloves. but nobody's testimony is more devastating to the former president that hope hicks because of her proximity. but if you take a step back and you separate these women and forget about the accident of their respective births. hope hicks coming from grenitch, connecticut, and the epitome of poise and grace contrasted with stormy daniels who had a very rough childhood and a mother who abandoned her but the difference in how they were trusted is palpable and a toxic brew of class and misogyny. there was a judgment about her credibility and have to think that hope hicks may look the way she did, but she worked for trump twice. she left the white house and came back to work for him and stayed after he lost the election despite the fact she was privately advising him that he lost in the things that people were saying about is not losing the election were fraudulent. and she still stayed. and i thought, who lacks credibility now? >> the legal brains in the room were hyper focused on the defensive strategy to go hard after stormy daniels on cross- examination but not hope hicks or david pecker. our panel that had a front row seat is back. from your >> in the courtroom , what did you think of stormy daniels? how did she do from seeing her live? >> she did a spectacular job. her testimony did not come across as rehearsed. there was an authenticity to her. it didn't seem like she rehearsed her practiced her testimony. she had prepared. preparing with lawyers is different, but she prepared for it and did a great job, and she knew that even though, i caught a detour, the case took a detour to explore what happened between her and donald trump because you have to explore the foundation of the payment and how got to the level of the records being falsified. what was important it is everyone says it's a paper case, but it's about humanity and people's involvement with others and extramarital affairs and it's all a very human thing and she bought that humanity to the case. >> i thought in many ways she did better on cross because you got a better sense of her as a person. and she was responding to questions that she did not know what was coming up. and i thought how smart she was. and the assumptions are ones that i found myself checking myself saying, why am i so surprised. i should not have been. one the more unusual aspects of this case was how it ended. with bob costello been called by the defense. >> i did not see that coming. i thought they would not do it. >> one of the reasons i'm with you is that if you remember, he was someone who donald trump said that he wanted the grand jurors to hear from. and i thought that was stupid because it won't stop the grand jury from indicting and you just revealed something to the prosecution. as a defense lawyer, sometimes the only thing you have is surprise. it was kind of flopped out to the prosecution. obviously, the record gives some flavor to him.>> and the clearing of the courtroom and how dramatic it was when the judge was so fired up. i thought he was going to throw him behind bars. robert costello is combative and aggressive and rolling his eyes and muttering audibly. >> did you hear? >> i am in the courtroom lighting up the chat and it was going off the rails fast. >> when you wear there you are communicating to your colleagues. >> we have a bizarre pony express situation where we can use some electronics. so we cannot use our phones because there's a concern that someone will mess up and tape it , but we can use our laptops. so we can send messages by email but we cannot use our phone. so we are all sending about how things are going. often i focus on the jury. right away the jury is looking at each other like some things going to go down. everyone was feeling kind of monday and robert costello gets on the stand and we are off to the races. because he was so contemptuous of the judge and process and did not like being interrupted. he felt like he should be respected and he thoughtwas -- and most of the objections were sustained. the tension is boiling. and finally the judge sent the jury out. but then, robert costello is giving it back to the judge. and he got so upset that he cleared the courtroom. if there is a security situation, that's one thing. the judge was fired up and worried about what he might say, so he cleared the courtroom for a few minutes. we all came back in and he is still rolling his eyes for the remainder of the afternoon. >> there is a period where everyone is out of the courtroom other than the defense table and the prosecution table, but then the public and press her out of the room. >> not all of the public. it's interesting because as you mentioned the first two rows that were like friends of the bride and groom, they were still there. but this is where all of us to go. >> the media is screaming that we have a right to be here and the court officers are having none of it and so everyone is a shootout. the judge did make a record and we sought the transcript, but in the moment we were sent out and we wish that had happened.>> we will have more of our excellent discussion, that you could feel the tension in the courtroom when michael cohen took the stand and came face-to- face with his ex-boss for the first time in years. a long line of underlings flipping on their bosses. after the break we will get first-hand accounts of what that moment was like. >> the first moment when trump's lawyer, todd blanche, gets up and asks michael cohen if you called me a little crying -- and the judge asked him to approach. everyone was talking about that. oooh! i can't wait for this family getaway! shingles doesn't care. shingles is a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. ahhh, there's nothing like a day out with friends. that's 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daniels was over, we did not have to wait long before the next dramatic testimony. michael cohen, his loyal attack dog, now i star witness for the prosecution. his testimony plays the former president at the center of this alleged criminal scheme. what was it like in person? what was it like when michael cohen saw his old boss for the first time in years? and what was it like to witness the show down between michael cohen and trump's defense lawyers, and what turned out to be a brutal cross-examination. let's go back inside the courtroom with our colleagues. >> the jury has been waiting for this moment as long as we have. it is highly anticipated. they've come face-to-face before in the civil fraud trial, but this is criminal. he is the only one who can tie donald trump directly to this crime. he is the linchpin of the prosecutor's case and he has put him from trump tower to the oval office in a way that no one else can. >> there were a few moments that stood out. the first moment when todd blanche gets up and asks him, did you call me a little crying [ bleep ]. and the judge immediately instructed him to approach. everyone was talking about that and how strange it was for him to open the proceedings.>> when you prosecute cases where everyone has their hands dirty, michael cohen was working for donald trump, it always captures the interest of the jury when they hear from the henchman. when they hear from the guys that did the dirty work for the kingpin. >> i did not notice any action between the former president and michael cohen, but i noticed how closely michael cohen made eye contact with the jury, especially when he describes the more emotional parts of the story. when he describes his come to jesus moment when he chooses his family over donald trump. >> i think michael cohen was successful in maintaining his own demeanor. he did not get agitated or act out. there were times when he got a little snippy, but mostly maintained the equilibrium throughout that was helpful. >> i think he did do a good job of humanizing himself. there are many people on the jury that will never know a person whose loyalty to an accused criminal defendant was as extensive as michael cohen was by his own admission and, of course, michael cohen pled guilty on two different occasions to a panoply of crimes and what one of the judge is called a smorgasbord of crimes. i think he humanized himself? yes. i think he's relatable? not quite. >> these were some of the most stunning days in court when michael cohen took the stand. the jury seemed to have been waiting for that moment. being there in person, there were noticeable differences between michael cohen we've gotten to know on cable news or through's podcast versus who we saw testifying. his demeanor and how he sounded. i almost did a double take when the defense played a clip of him from his podcast. when you heard his voice from the podcast, and you compare that to what you heard from the stand over the last day, and that contrast is something that can play well for the defense in summation to argue that there were two different michael cohen's. i want to ask you about that issue. how you thought his very polite , unflappable, even keeled demeanor -- >> solemn. >> in many ways that's what you want a witness to be. how did it play given that they saw this other piece -- they heard his voice and he was describing the way he behaved in baleen people and acting as trump's pitbull. >> he has known this moment is coming for long time and for anyone getting up there it is rattling. he kept his cool when things he was not prepared for and things that made him look like a liar.>> he was asked about about information about his wife and his child. and i thought, okay, what is going to happen. i was waiting for fireworks. >> they did not come. he kept it calm and he came off on the stand as honest. there were times i felt he was resisting in terms of like, i really wasn't a lie. and just own this. they hurt you on the podcast talking about revenge is a dish served cold. and they won't punish you for. if the jury thinks are being authentic, even if what you said is to rent us, juries have heard drug dealers and you have to come off as authentic. i was surprised that there were times when you could feel the resistance.>> i wanted to talk to you about the judge overseeing this. full disclosure, i have a question. i think he is a spectacular judge. the first thing when i went to court the first time, i was struck by his voice and we have all been in court and we've seen judges who cannot control the courtroom and those who control a courtroom by raising the voice and through histrionics. he controlled the courtroom by being the adult in the room and had such a calm, judicial temperament. i felt like he was not going to tolerate -- i thought it was remarkable. and with that sort of my view, how did you think he did? this is the first ever trial of a current or former president. enormous pressure and enormous claims of violations of the gag order and a lot of novel legal issues to deal with. how do you think he did managing the case? >> we've been in front of judges on very high stakes cases. the one thing we know is the person who's the gatekeeper is the judge until lars point, the jury looks to the judge as a paternal figure or a maternal figure or someone who will guide us through this process, which can be confusing. but think about donald trump as he is introduced us to different judges. we've seen the confirmation hearings of brett kavanaugh and his demeanor. we've seen justice arthur gore on. we've seen judge kaplan from federal court. we've seen different judges and in terms of america not being able to know judge merchan is not being able to see in here. he's measured and calm in the face of all these complex legal issues. this man, judge merchan, came from columbia at the age of six. he's one of six children. he was washing dishes and went to school. he's the first member of his family to go to college. he lived in queens and worked at the manhattan das office and has been the judge since 2006. if there's anyone who's not a fellow new yorker, find someone else who's not more new york. i think it's an interesting theme when you think about donald trump having a jury of his peers. but having someone like judge merchan who is overseeing the personalities and to manage that, he's done a fantastic job and it's not good that we haven't been able to see that on video. >> i love your response because donald trump has attacked this judge. it's not the first time he's attacked judges because he says he's unfair because of where he comes from. and we all know what that means. in your answer tells us where this judge came from and there will be controversy on every trial one side is disappointed or not as to what happened. the fact that we were all there inside the court, we can all agree that this was such a fair trial and process because of the judge and they were good lawyers on both sides. and it's not because the process is not working and it's important that the judge is primarily responsible for that. so we're not the only ones consumed by this trial. viewers also have a lot of questions. you are watching prosecuting donald trump: witness to history liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. that's great. i know, i've bee telling everyone. baby: liberty. oh! baby: liberty. how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪ life, diabetes, there's no slowing down. each day is a unique blend of people to see and things to do. that's why you choose glucerna to help manage blood sugar response. uniquely designed with carbsteady. glucerna. bring on the day. shake up your shower with a flavor for every feeling. this dove freshens you up. this dove winds you down. this dove leaves you glowing. and this dove keeps you going. so whatever care you 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