midnight on the east coast i am stephanie ruhle and we ar continuing our breaking news coverage of the indictment o former president donald trump. the grand jury in manhatta indicted him earlier today making trump the first forme president to ever face crimina charges in our nation history. those jurors have been hearing evidence of hush money payments, made to adult film star stormy daniels during the 201 presidential campaign. trump s current lawyers issued a statement saying he did no commit any crime and they plan to vigorously fight this political prosecution. one trump attorney tells nbc trump is expected to b arraigned on tuesday in ne york let s bring in our panel o experts to break it all down simone sanders townsend, msnbc host and former chie spokesperson for kamala harris harry lippman, former u.s. attorney and deputy assistan journey jonathan allen, senior analyst reporter for nbc news. and tim o brien, bloomberg opinion senior columnist and the man who wrote
direct questions to him. including about michael cohen. because when we are looking at the investigation here, donald trump has a, he has denied tha he directed michael cohen to make the hundred and 30,00 dollar payment to stormy daniels, despite michael cohen suggesting that he told hi when the lead up to the 2016 election, to make this transaction. but what trump has not denied, stephanie, is that he was awar of this arrangement sometime i 2017 because when you look a the personal checks that donal trump was writing to reimburse michael cohen, who is writin them all the way up until at least december of 2017 so than when i put those questions to him on the plane, he, number one, did no directly answer it and the number two, when i asked him well where does he think the money is going, e then escorte around that as well. that is the point, here fo donald trump there is still lack of questions that he ha answered and that is why he, number one declined to go unde
he is weighing that decision because there are so man candidates, the republican national committee, which is the group that will facilitate if you will these primar elections and the debates, the will have to create criteria for how people make it onto debate stage oftentimes, where you sit in the averages of a polls is a key part of that criteria and so, how you stay in the poll in a republican primary? you have to keep as th republican voters who pa attention in a republica primary paying attention to. as you are saying that, all i can think about is those oregon debates where donal trump showed up and just, th other republican candidate basically melted on the stag before our eyes. so the balancing act of let me rush out so i can show m support for donald trump, so i can potentially get on the debate stage next to him where he can potentially annihilat me if there s a split screen i the republican debates it is two images of donald trump one is leading candidate, an
is it sitting in rikers island for the devoted work that he did for the trump family for years and years. but explain to our audience ho significant the split betwee donald trump and michael cohen was? michael cohen was at trump s a true ride or die for years well, i think michael cohen was a fixed fixer. he handled front and dirty wor for trump, i do not think he was involved in deals an accounting, and some of th finer points of how the trum organization moved through the tar pit that it existed in that prosecutors are going t be interested in but michael cohen has evidence i think everyone talks about whether or not his testimony i reliable, michael cohe recorded some of his
because people think hush money, porn star, years ago, but it i serious because it is directly tied to donald trum getting elected. when you worked in the white house, was there ever talk, wa there ever mumbling s at all about stormy daniels in this case no, this was not somethin on our radar i joined the trump administration in june of 2020 so i was kind of their the las final seven or eight months of the trump administration this was not something that wa on the press team s radar, a least. what has this been like for you since you testified? we are seeing donald trump supporters, while his base has shrunk, are more passionate, o more fired up than ever. as someone who used to be an ally, and now obviously is publicly critical, what is thi