hi, everyone, it is 4:00 in new york. i m in for nicolle wallace. the potential indictment of donald trump which would be unprecedented for this country is a story that is playing out in both new york where a grand jury could issue an indictment any day now and in washington where republicans are quickly mounting a political defense of the former president, let s begin with the developments in the case itself at this hour. on monday team trump dispatched a last-minute witness to testify before the grand jury investigating hush money payments made to porn star stormy daniels back in 2016. attorney and former confidant to michael cohen robert costello, now after his testimony he previewed a likely defense for donald trump. that this then attorney michael cohen paid the hush money payments on his own terms, take a listen to what he told reporters. michael cohen told us that he was approached by stormy daniels lawyer and stormy daniels had negative information that she wa
or in the media.e1 that swáá)r g you deal with in court. what do you make of that defense there? we re hearing husband attorneys are going to echo their client s argument that it nd he client s argument that it did nothing wrong. we can hear he was clearly pressuring the secretary of state and an investigator from the of&ree1 and another recordig and ;r p+e evidence of a third recording. grand jurors heard donald trump callq the late house speaker an session of the georgia legislature to potentially t( overturn his election defeat. i think that all builds a narrative. the third recording could be important for prosecutors because it helps build the narrative by what donald trump was doing was not ane1 isolated incident. it was happening throughout the upperk reallyq quickly, the fact tht there are three recordings that suggest there s a concert issed
access hollywood tape that was released weeks before the presidential election. both carolt(fá and trump arewnk expected to testify at the trial. that is scheduled to start on april 25th. we re back to discuss çóthis. there are two casesxd here bein brought in regardsjfçó tordtrum. the civil case as well as a defamation case filed when trump was president. yesterday lawyers had agreed de in a separate lawsuit could ber tried along with the rape claim, but thee1 judge rejected that proposal saying the+■ defamatio lawsuit could beq tried separately or not at all if5a■ justice department successfully replaces trump as a defendant with the united states. explain for ouru difference between these two decided to proceed with just one in court yeste+lpvñ really interesting question
is the one spreading the accusation or the lie, it you w3 will, that the machines were invovv!d in this election fraud1 fox can be held responsible in that situation. i ll give you a comparison. a caseqxd i workñied on many ye ago, i m about to give up how old i am, there wast( a lawsuit involve ing a presidential candidate named lyndon laruse who sued overe1fáw3 comments th post reported on. it wasj1/5eiápight up reporting. andçónn■ there was an effort t washington post speedometer in that case. soxd the notion is that a platform, we witnessed that platform back in those days that brings those comments xdforward. andjf although technical if all the elements can be proven, they can be held responsible.
obviously the former president said he would be arrested today. doesn t look like it s going to happen today is a safe bet. any sense in the trump camp that we are on the verge of something unprecedented, that donald trump could become the first ex-president to be indicted? are they still sticking by his post? look, they re not running away, eamon, from the potential indictment. if you go through the social media feeds or text with them, the indictment is front and center and when we expect the former president to go to waco, texas, for his first rally of this 2024 campaign on saturday, you should bet for him to try to take political advantage of this moment here. one ally told me this afternoon, donald trump does not want to be indicted. there is nobody who believes that going and getting arrested and then having a criminal proceeding potentially in the heart of either the republican nomination battle or the general election is advantageous. at the same time if you re