welcome to our continued coverage. the new york criminal trial of former president donald trump. i m rachel maddow joined by my colleagues. also, lawrence o donnell is with us pick we are going to be joined by the star witness for the prosecution in this trial, michael cohen. he will speak to us exclusively. his first reaction to this verdict tonight. michael cohen will be joining us in one moment live. 4:20 p.m. p.m. and it is we, the jury have reached a verdict. 45 minutes later at 5:05 p.m. the jury was back in the courtroom and is seated. the defendant donald trump was seated as well. the judge addressed the four people. and the judge. without telling me the verdict, how s the jury? and yes, they have reached a verdict. take the verdict, please. with the foreperson please rise to the members of the jury agreed upon a verdict? yes. and how say you to the first count of the indictment, charging donald j trump with the crime of falsifying business records in the first degre
a very important friday. we will reconvene the courthouse gang for this hour to go over what we have all been through and, alex, just a word about a banana republic. i despise the term and have despised it for so long now because it carries the assumption that countries that grow bananas, and we know where they are, somehow inherently have inferior governments to ours. which we have proven many times before is not true and nothing proves that better than the trump years and, oh, by the way, we grow bananas in hawaii. agriculturally and ethically, great points, lawrence, as always. thanks, alex. have a great show. thanks. well, it was a one word sentence that changed donald trump s life. he wasn t expecting to hear that word yesterday. at 4:15 p.m., judge merchan told defendant donald trump and his lawyers, the prosecutors in the courtroom, quote, i m going to excuse the jury about 4:30. we will give them a few more minutes and then we will excuse them. donald trum
, the better it is for the defense and so, donald trump and todd blanche were nearly giddy that the jury was going to go home for a second day. without reaching a verdict. donald trump that he was going home without a verdict today. he just had about 15 minutes to kill, and what we saw was a donald trump at that defense table we ve never seen before. he was joking, laughing, smiling with todd blanche. they were chatting and laughing almost incessantly. todd blanche laughing so hard at one point doubling over so that his four head almost touch the table in front of him. they thought they were going home today without a verdict. it was almost a jubilant, giddy donald trump but that changed very quickly when the judge merchan came back to inform the parties that the jury had reached verdict. the jury had a verdict after only nine hours of deliberation, which is not a long deliberation for a 34 count indictment and so donald trump watched his jury under the courtroom for what
continued special coverage of today s unanimous guilty on all counts verdict in the new york criminal trial of former president donald trump. i am rachel maddow joined by nicole wallace and joy reid and katie phang and chris hayes. also lawrence o donnell is with us. we re 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 to this verdict tonight. michael cohen will be joining us here in just one moment. he ll be with us live here on set. the jury sent a note to judge juan merchan, it said, quote, we, the jury, have reached a verdict. 45 minutes later at 5:05 p.m. the jury was back in the courtroom and seated. defendant donald trump was there and seated as well. judge merchan then addressed the foreperson of the jury. it went like this. the judge, mr. foreperson, without telling me the verdict, has the jury, in fact, reached a verdict. juror number one, yes, they have. the
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 tim