times. we have a rogue judge who rules that a property is a tiny infraction, and we have a racist attorney general who is a horror show on the basis that she would get trump before she knew anything about me and she used this to run for governor and failed. she had no following and came back and said, i will go back to get trump again, and this what we have. it is a scam and a sham. just so you know that my financial statements are phenomenal, and they are actually less in terms of the numbers used -- all right. you are listening to donald trump speaking, and we know for now that this is a campaign event for donald trump -- >> exactly. >> -- and yes, he is going to be looking to what appears in the courtroom may be incidental compared to what he feels he can get out of it for campaign purposes. you heard him going after the judge and the attorney general in this case, and again, this is no longer a bug of the campaign, but this is the legal operation that he is facing right now. and one thing that we should make clear that he shusing it to some extent to a success in the republican primary, he is losing the civil case already. he has already had a major ruling go against him that will cost him money, and as it stands, it has lost him control of the thing that he has held most dear until this point which is the control of the trump organization, and he could lose significant control of that. now, he may be using that for political gain, but right now, he has no choice. this is the situation that he face, and he is trying to take advantage of that situation. i suppose that we should ask as he is speaking here, elie, and he has said some inflammatory thing, and if the judge is going to watch tv and the judge will hear it. >> yes, and donald trump has put similar sentiments on the true social feed, and it is counter intuitive to attack the person who is going to be rendering the verdict in this case, and it seems to me that his strategy here is to essentially damn the or the pe torpedos, and he is not going to please this judge, and he is not going to lose, because he has lost the most important appeal, and so the lawyers are going to be setting the stage for appeal and find something that was procedurally incorrect or find some bias in the judge that will justify an appeal, but he is leaning into it for sure. >> and can we talk about the words that he used and he has done it before and every time he goes after the judge or the attorney general in saying that she is racist. they get threats. like this, is actually dangerous for them every time he does it. >> i think that we have to call it out, because we get used to it, because he does it every single time, but there are real consequences to these statements, and in my view, they are over the line. you are allowed as a defendant in the civil or criminal case to criticize the prosecutor or the other party, and the judge, and query whether it is a smart decision, but there is a line, and when you are calling the attorney general a racist, and get to the point of saying this about this a.g. or the prosecutor or the judge, and that is dangerous, and the question is whether the prosecutors in either of the cases or the judges in either of these cases do anything about it. we see it starting to happen in one of the federal cases in d.c. and the judge is considering a gag order as we speak, and the statements today are not going to be helping donald trump in arguing against it >> kristen holmes, back out to you outside of the trump tower, and what you are hearing is from his advisers, and i don't know if you have a monitor out there and you can see it, but the stage craft of this is notable in and of itself which is that donald trump stood there for a period of time, and this is not a passing commentary that he was making in to face a judge, but he stood there and waited for the cameras, i would assume to adjust and prepare and make sure that everyone's mics were prepared before he began speaking to, for a long period of time, before he made his commentary and speaks to what you said. this is part of his campaign. this is his campaign now. >> i spoke to a source of what it is going to be looking like when he is in the mid of the trials and how the run a presidential campaign and it was unclear how the plan for it. they said that legal maneuvers would help to delay the trials until after the election, but it became clear that these trials would likely go on while he was running for president. and now, it seems as though they have figured out one way to campaign while he is going on trial and that is to make the trials, themselves, a form of the campaign event. as you noted, he knew where the cameras were and what was needed for the cameras to be ready to take his remarks for the networks, and for the news outlets to say that he is going up to the podium, and he is going up to the cameras to speak and then spoke to deliver the remarks. the remarks that he says on the campaign trail everyday and we often don't report on them because they oftentimes not accurate or true. so because of thatk, now we know that they are going to be looking at the legal events, the trials as an opportunity to essentially campaign. they paraded him down there, and again, they know every single twist and turn here when it is coming to the visual optics and press. i was in michigan last week when he spoke at the non-union shop. they set up a stage that had trump on either side and signs that said union members for trump, and that not an accident but intentional and optics with a made for television event so that the cameras would show that union members, and we don't have confirmed that they were union members, but that is the show they were putting on for the camera, and one thing that donald trump and his team are very good at. it is interesting to note here, they have been talking to the team for weeks and months about how he is going to be on the trail if he is in trial every single day, and it does appear this is one strategy they will definitely try in terms of campaigning for president 2024. >> again, donald trump is speaking there. >> he is still talking. >> and kristen, among other things, he called judge arthur engoron, and he can't be more than 30 yards from where the judge is. and also, the attorney general of new york is 30 feet behind the door where donald trump is speaking right now. and i want to bring in paula reid, because he is talking, and talking and talking in front of the cameras now and making statements if they don't allow the cameras in the courtroom, to a certain extent will go unanswered on camera, paula. >> yeah. watching him address the cameras, and it is a reminder of me and having the cameras in the courtroom and for all of the cases he is facing, he has a massive platform and arguably one of the -- >> he has finished talking. >> and you can see him headed into court, and flanked by the lawyers and they were not thrilled about this, but this is what he is going to do likely throughout the cases, and likely headed into the election, but i think that there is an argument to be made that if he is able to stand in front of cameras and say pretty much whatever he wants about the judge, about the prosecutors about the case, the american people should have the right to see what exactly is happening minute-by-minute, second-by-second, and thankfully, we have freedom of the press to bring details and it is not the same as if you have cameras in there and anyone who is interested and check what he is saying could tune in and say, what is going on with this judge, and what is he like? what is the attorney general, and what is she like, and what is the office saying? and the fact that he used the cameras, and he did not do this when he came for the criminal case or the district attorney's case earlier in the year, but to see how he is using the cameras, that is one of the strongest arguments for having not just still cameras, but cameras to cover this live so that the people can see it live and not rely on the former president to see what is going on here. >> those are really good arguments and we will hear whether or not the judge is going to allow the cameras in, in hopefully the next few minutes and one of the first things that he is expected to rule on this morning. i want to go to brynn gingras, and you are there with a report on the whole setup of how donald trump just stood there waiting for everybody to get setup. clearly a political move. >> and choreographed and taking longer than when this court is to start at 10:00 a.m., and we will see what the judge has to say about that. and kara scannell and my other colleagues are there, and clearly not acknowledging letitia james, and not giving her eye contact or handshake or anything whatsoever. and then sat down with his two attorneys and keeping gaze largely down. so we are waiting to see how he acknowledges this judge, and again, someone he just politically attacked outside calling disparaging the judge just as he has done on the campaign trail for so long. so we will see how this all sort of plays out. again, as he is the reason that actually the court is beginning late, it seems at this point. we also should mention that we do expect him to testify. that is one of the reasons that he is inside of that courtroom. he wanted to defend his reputation as he has beeen saying. it may not be today or tomorrow, but it is possible he will be back here tomorrow and next week, because he is on the witness list. and also, we heard letitia james outside of the courthouse, and i want to go to the sound of what she had to say about the remarkable case thus far. >> you y seeing the setup of donald trump, and she was talk about the a.g. and she said, no one is above the law, and it is not about the amount of money you make or how much you think that you make, and it was about aggrandizing how much you think that you have, because that is very much what this suit is about. this is letitia james. >> donald trump and the other defendants have committed persistent and repeated fraud. last week, we proved that in our motion for summary judgment. today, we will prove our other claims. the message is simple, no matter how powerful you are or how much money you think that you have, no one is above the law, and it is my responsibility and my job to enforce it. the law is both powerful and fragile and today in court, we will prove our case. i thank you all for being here, and again, justice will prevail. thank you. >> short and concise statement from the a.g., and that is how she has been throughout the trial, and we did hear from trump's side outside of the courthouse which reiterated from him in front of the cameras that this is a witch hunt and he is eager to testify in this trial, and flanking me is at least 15 court-martials, and heavy security presence not only on the steps of the courthouse, but around me as well. >> brynn is outside of the court and cameras outside, and we will see if the cameras can be brought inside. we are hearing from the colleagues that the judge has entered court ahead of the civil fraud trial. and now, we are joined by caroline polizzi here. the possible range of outcomes, and what do you see happening? >> we know that tisch james has asked for $250 million in discouragement, and people are referring to this as a penalty, but it is tied to the factual basis of the amount of money that the organization is termed ill-gotten gains that they will have to discourage to new york. and there are other counts here to be charged as elie said, five or six more counts to be placed into the evidence. the judge will decide that the trial is slated to go until december 22nd. so this is a long road ahead of them, and i am shocked to hear that trump and the team will take the stand. that is a disastrous move. we have heard this bluster from him, and then he will walk it back and to the effect that i wanted to testify, and my attorneys would not let me. >> there is a big difference of i want to and i am going to. >> i will believe it when i see it, but we won't get to that until much, much later. >> caroline cringed when it was noted that donald trump caused the court to start nine minutes late today. >> yes. >> that is a small but important point here, because this is the confluence of court and political confluence, but however, it comes with consequences. >> and it is not a good look to be late to court and i have been lateb and judges do not like it, and to be holding a presser in which you are slandering judge. i can guarantee you that the judge is not watching that realtime, and he has better things to do with his time, but it is going to be getting back to him. and not a good look, and it is a piece of nobody is above the law, and you to abide by those dates, and you have to be in court on time, and things that donald trump is not really used to being at the beckon call of somebody else above him. and that is what this is. >> and donald trump is saying, if i can't beat them, i will join them. so he is joining them by taking over and doing what he does for political reasons, because he has lost a huge majority of the case. but i wanted to ask you if there is any defense here. several things have to be decided. what would the defense look like in this case? >> first of all, the initial summary judgment ruling on the one count of persistent fraud is absolutely going to be appealed, and the arguments are going to be not only substantive ones, and the procedural one that the summary judgment should haven't been ruled on in this fashion, that there is still questions of fact to be decided by the judge, and again, we know this is not a jury trial, however, there are arguments to the other counts, and things like intent, and the initial ruling that the persistent fraud did not need a finding of intent on the part of donald trump and/or his other defendants -- >> is that because it was based on the forensic accounting, and just the paperwork did not matchup, and the math did not math? >> exactly. the math did not math. and sort of in real estate norms, the numbers here are ridiculous. the valuations can slide, but square footage does not lie, right. so you cannot sort of have those types of humongous discrepancies and said that as a matter of fact and law that this is persistent fraud. >> one of the defenses, and one of the ways that donald trump has denied wrongdoing when it comes to this is saying that what he put on the financial statements didn't really matter, because there was a disclaimer that you really can't put much stock in them or they should not be trusted. >> yeah. >> just -- what? >> i don't see that being a persuasive defense. they call it the worthless clause. donald trump's team calls it the worthless clause, because when they put them together, they have a waiver. we have all seen the waiver language and by clicking on i agree to this, and the waiver there said, all of the numbers are not to be relied on. and all of the numbers are worthless, and the judge says that i find that waiver to be worthless. waivers can be relevant, but there is a tipping point when you say that you can't waive away any liability. also, when we heard the attorney general letitia james say that donald trump had engaged in persistent and consistent fraud, that is not inflammatory words, that is the name of the law that he was found guilty of. >> and to bring people up to speed -- hang on. we have pictures frs from insid the court. i wonder if the judge has ruled. >> this sun uis unusual -- do we audio -- >> in the donald trump next to his lead counsel -- >> what is happening there -- >> and nevertheless, you are seeing the pictures, and the photog -- >> this is unusually -- caroline. >> and maybe we are seeing where everyone is and nobody is speaking -- >> wouldn't that be odd that the judge would let the camera go without making a judgment beforehand? he smiled for the camera there and you saw everyone in the court. this is highly unusual. >> we have something from aaron cooper, the judge oversees trump's fraud trial has denied media requests for the camera for opening statements, and that we do know, and this is -- >> maybe he allowed a quick photo like the still photos like we saw, but a quick video, and this is the courtroom, and the judge and the a.g. and donald trump and the defense and now you can leave. >> but we don't know -- >> we won't have -- >> no, right. >> and at least at the reporting. any judge is the king or queen of his or her courtroom, and they will get to decide, and that shot is not without the judge's approval. the criminal case in manhattan down the street, the judge did allow still photos to be taken before the proceeding starts, and this is roughly the equivalent of that. >> i want to bring back paul reed in the discussion if the cameras are allowed in the courtroom, and we did get a look at where things stand, but it is going to feel as if we have entered a new phase where there is no difference of the legal and the political here. they are going on -- and from the comments that donald trump just said outside. and paula, the judges in the other cases will be watching how donald trump comports himself, and what he says crosses lines into areas that matter in those courtrooms. so i wonder if you can talk about the totality of all of this. >> yeah, absolutely. you don't have to imagine that this is something that is happening across the cases. let's talk about a little bit of what is happening in washington, d.c., where the special counsel has brought charges against the former president, and that case is happening in front of judge tanya chutkan, and she going to have a request from the special counsel's office to put a gag order on the former president based on the comments on the prosecutors and the judge and the argument being that he has made statements that are interfering with the judicial process. i was in chutkan's courtroom for the first hearing and she said that i understand that he is a candidate for the highest office of the land, but that is not going to overlook that he needs to behave in a way that overlooks the judicial process. look, he says these things, and they are inflammatory, and very few defendants would make these comments about the prosecutors and judges, because you would expect that this would come back to haunt you, but he is making a lot of to comments in the court of public opinion as an effort to try to work the public perception of what is going on here. that though is putting the judges in a difficult position, because if you do implement a gag order, and restrictions of the usual don't talk about the case beyond the usual, you are looking like you are going to restrict someone who is conducting a campaign, and it is a tricky spot to be in, and he is constantly and repeatedly testing this particularly here in washington, d.c., with judge chutkan, and she may be the first one to make a major decision on the gag order in the next few weeks. >> thank you so much. let's go to sarah matthews, a former trump deputy press secretary, and tell us how he operates, and can you give us a sense of how his mind works and how this is playing out, because he is turning this into a political campaign stop at the court using words like fake indictment, and he did mention that every time there is an indictment of him, his polling numbers go up. >> exactly. i think that he is angry that he is dealing with all of these legal troubles, but at the end of the day, he and his team know that politically this is going to benefit him in the short term, so they will do everything to capitalize on this, and that is why he is going to the courthouse, and going in front of the cameras to give his narrative to spin it into a positive and for any normal candidate, you would see the poll numbers diminish, but donald trump's poll numbers have not just remained at the top of the gop field, but they have gone up, and he has been able to fund raise off of, this so they will continue to use this to their advantage, and that way, he can control the media narrative and while we are sitting here talking about donald trump, we are not talking about his gop rivals. >> sara, you can also see that as we are playing this video from inside of the courtroom, and you can see the new york attorney general letitia james sitting there, and then as the camera pulls out, she is looking right at donald trump, and what do you see in this donald trump when you see this? >> i think that he wants to look defiant. i think that you are obviously doing to see him put on this false sense of bravado and for him to act tough in this situation that he is not scared and not going to back down, and this is why he is showing up to the courthouse and put on a brave face for the supporters and deep down, he is worried about all of the legal troubles that he is facing, and obviously, he does not want to show that, because it would show weakness, and that is something that donald trump is mindful of, and he wants to appear strong, and he does not want to seem vulnerable in any situation, and he wants to act like this is nothing and show up today, and politically, with his fund-raising and the poll numbers have gone up, and he is out thing those things, but deep down, he is worried, and especially in this case in particular, we have seen the one ruling not go his way, and he has to be worried, because it is not just obviously the criminal side that he is facing with the other indictments, but in this case, it is going to be impacting his business, his empire that he spent his entire career building. >> sara, can you talk about that more, because one more thing that he entered the courtroom and he talked, talked, and talked, and the crux of the empire, and he could not let it go, because this is touching on the cryptonite for donald trump, and he can almost take anything that is said about him, but if you are talking about how much he is worth and his businesses are worth, he loses it. he won't ever let that slide. we saw that as he was walking into the courtroom. >> exactly. that is why he prides himself in that he is a businessman. that is why he has campaigned on that and that is the differentiator of the political rivals from 2016 up to today, and for them to come after him saying that he is inflating the numbers, and obviously, that is striking to the heart of who he is believing that he is and the strong suit. i thought that it was interesting, too, in the statement that he put out on truth social that the valuation for mar-a-lago, that they put at $18 million was in his eye 50 to 100 times more than that. if it were 50 time more than that, it would mean it is nearly $1 billion. so this case is about him making fraudulent claims over him inflating the valuations of his real estate and such, and so ironic to me that even in the truth social posts, he is still doubling down on it. >> he has ran on "the art of the deal" and i'm not a politician, but i am a businessman, but what are we seeing? we are seeing a politician even in these cases, we are seeing a politician to come out to make a case to the public and even opposed to the judge. elie, he is doing this outside, and what can the judge do? in this case, the case is well into, and well past the middle of the case. >> in terms of the actual statements that trump has been making? >> yes. >> so the judges can issue a gag order, and limiting what the party can be said, and there a line of what you allow for a party can say or not say, and here is someone running for political office. i think that the prosecutors in the doj case, and the request pending is overbroad. the prosecutor say he cannot make any quote disparaging statements about anybody in the case. that is too much. you can make a disparaging statement about any party including judge, even though i don't believe it is a great idea. but when they cross the line of the first amendment expressive speech to harmful or threatening to the participants, and the two entities concerned with are the jury number one, and we don't have a civilian jury in this case, and the witnesses, especially the victims or the vulnerable witnesses we may have in this case. >> more reporting from inside of the courtroom from kara scannell, and thankfully, we have reporters in there to provide this with the ruling denying cameras in the courtroom. and opening statements have begun against trump and his sons. and now, carkara wolliston. >> and so opening statements are different because you are making a opening statement to the judge, and not a jury. you want to cut it way back, and you don't want to win the hearts of the civilians, because you want to go right to the judge. >> so you can go really technical. >> yes, i used to say, that i am trying to explain it to my mom's friend, and smart people who are interested, but they don't know the first thing about this particular case, but the judge, he wrote this 45-page ruling, and h knows this case inside and out, and so i would be looking to concise and to the point technical opening argument. another thing i misspoke. opening arguments is a misnomer, and anyone who says opening argument is wrong, because it is opening statement, and differentiating opening and closing, you cannot argue in opening, but you can and do argue in closing. >> we won't hold that against you. >> i wanted to pick up, and talk about how we are skipping ahead a little bit here, and looking at the taped footage of inside of the courtroom, and this is what it looks like there, and the judge clearly allowed this video spray to look at the lead attorney there christopher kize and opening statements here, and you said that you would not have donald trump testify, and if he is called to take the 5th. but going back to sarah matthews, that there is a cryptonite and when you are talking about donald trump and not just the worth -- >> especially mar-a-lago. >> and he can't let it slide, so if you are with the attorney general's office, and you have a guy on the offense stand, and a guy like that, he will not do anything but respond. >> if he is my client, i cannot prohibit him from taking the stand and it is ultimately the client's decision. if they go against the advice of the attorney, it is donald trump. rule of thumb, if you are calling a contentious witness and you want to know what the answers are going to be, and do it in a way to elicit one word answer. and with donald trump, that is out of the window. if you call him, you have to be ready for anything. the answers, and if you are reading the deposition, they are non sequiturs, and he does not answer the questions, and the judge can rein it in, and instruct the witness to answer the question. i would not call him, because it is not that worth it to get that diatribe out there on the stand. >> this is happening today, and it will now continue, and it will be going until december 22nd, and let me bring in paula reid in on this -- she stepped away, so we will keep it at the table. i wonder, and this is obviously not the only thing that he is facing, and four criminal indictments stacking up, and we will continue the talk about the calendar. this continues through december 22nd, and how does and will that or could it impact for the rest of the legal cases? >> i have never seen a calendar like this. we have the trial going through december, and the four different criminal cases right now. they have all scheduled between march and may of next year. that cannot happen, because he his to be physically present at those, and on top of that linking the political and the judicial, this is playing out in the primary and maybe the general election. the trials if they go as supposed two of the presidential election? >> it is the conventions and what not. >> so the parties have to work it out. >> and now, jeff zeleny, talk about the aspect or it, because we saw donald trump make a political statement going into the courtroom, and the trump kaim and this may be an advantage in a primary and if this is as advantageous in their mind. >> it is not as advantageous in a formal trial, but the reason it is an advantage in the eyes of the trump campaign right now is because we are talking about donald trump. once again, the former president is consuming all of the airwaves and not just this network, but several others, and it is squeezing out to oxygen for any of the rivals to make their case on policy, and electability. to talk about the bidenomics, and what we are seeing as a strategy. he was in iowa campaigning yesterday, and going back to iowa over the weekend. as a travel strategy, campaigning on the weekends, and at the courtroom and local, but this the short term it may work, but there are questions among republican officials and activist leaders and those voters paying attention to the race in iowa, new hampshire and south carolina and the states that open up the voting next year, what if he is convicted in these cases. do they have a bruiset nominee. and to give you one sense of how the trump campaign is trying to get and now is the time to order your "never rursurrender" coffe mug with the mug shot from fulton county jail on it. so you wonder if this appearance is going to be a burden of the political strategy, but as of now it is helping in the short term at least. >> let's get back to paula reid. she is joining us as well. paula, one thing to note that one question that i have continued to have is kind of how it all fits together, not only the calendar, but all of the -- we have talked many times how one case, and what is said in one courtroom impacts other legal troubles that he is facing. you have new reporting already on, one of the other, one of his indictments coming out of fulton county, georgia, and one of the indictments of what he is up against. >> kate, i can tell you that the court calendar does not work particularly before the election, and may only be one criminal trial that is able to go before the election next november, and that is most likely to be the washington, d.c., trial about january 6th, but the other cases continue. down in georgia, fulton county, and the former president was indicted alongside many other people, but only two in that defendants will go to trial later in the month. we have learned that one of trump's allies, bernie kaeric, the former police commissioner has been subpoenaed to testify ostensibly in that trial later in the month. and his lawyer, tim parlatore is saying that he is not going to allow his client to testify without immunity. and so we have been able to identify him as co-conspirator number 5, and so prosecutors while trump is in this courtroom, to secure key witnesses to reveal to the jury key details about what trump allies were up to in and around the election, but they are also up against some challenges, because they have indicted so many people, and named so many people as co-conspirators, those people are likely to be reluctant to testify and to cooperate unless they are granted assurances like immunity, and it is hard to believe any defense attorney who would put their client on the stand if they were one of the unindicted co-conspirators to say anything other than i'd like to invoke my fifth amendment right unless they have assurances. so we have obtained a letter that keric's lawyer sent, and in this letter, tim parlatore said, if we wanted to indict him, we would, and they have not put it in writing. so the district attorney has not gotten back to us with the new reporting, but while trump is in this courtroom with some of the lawyers who are working on the other cases, all of the criminal investigations are continuing, and the legal exposure continues to expand. >> there is so much there, and i wanted to mention again from a few minutes ago where cameras were allowed just for a few minutes into the court to show you the court. the judge did end up ruling no cameras in the court for the rest of the trial. so that is where we are right now, and the reason that you are seeing this is somehow, it appears that he allowed the cameras to take a few pictures before, and then they were promptly told to leave. so, the rest of the case is going to be done with the reporters who are in the case who will be telling us the details, but you won't be seeing it like you are seeing it right now. all right. to john miller. he is with us. you have been looking at the security, and a sense of how we got to this point, letitia james, the a.g., and brought this case, and case with questions of donald trump's worth have been swirling for years, but it came forward now. >> you know, sara, it is a long road to this courtroom. and if donald trump were to walk out the front door of the building that he is in, and look across the street, he would be facing the jacob j. javits building named for the famed senator who before senator was attorney general, the job that letitia james is in now. he had a fraud law passed, and he brought authority to investigate companies involved in repeated fraud and illegal acts. now, the trump defense going into this case was always, well, statements about financial things that we can argue about, but all of the loans were paid and there are no victims here, and letitia james countereded that there don't have to be victims for repeated fraud and acts. so how do we get to here? the courthouse two doors down looked at it for many years, and they passed on it. then the manhattan district attorney cyrus vance held back not to interfere with theirs, but once they passed on it, he took over the case, and he took on a special district attorney mark pomerantz who is an expert in financial frauds and experts in the prosecution of financial frauds and defense of financial frauds, and he spent more than a year gathering these financial documents and running up against walls. twice they went to the supreme court of the united states arguing to get not just donald trump's taxes which was an uphill battle, but also the underlying business documents that underpinned claims that he made in his taxes, and twice they prevailed. the manhattan district attorney had those records, and then something happened. cyrus vance left the d.a.'s office, and alvin brag was the new d.a., and pomerantz presented it. bragg thought that it was enormously complicated and hard for a jury to understand, and involved a lot of nuances in the law, and they could look at something simpler as they were being criticized for walking away from the case, and they picked a stormy daniels hush money case, and one allegation, one thing to prove, and one dimensional case which they indicted donald trump on. in the background of the case, letitia james, the attorney general was doing the civil version of it, but she had two assistant attorneys general working in parallel, and they took a lot of the records and a lot of what was gathered in the case, and fold it into the civil case. so we did not get here over night, and this is going on since 2018, 2019, through today. that is how we ended up in this courtroom. >> but still, a huge day it is. and donald trump is on trial, and the business empire is on trial, and he is now in court, and you can see the video from moments ago facing a judge that he is attacking feet away from the judge before he went into the courthouse all over allegations, accusations of decades' long fraud by donald trump and his business empire. we have new details coming from inside of the courtroom, and we will bring them to you after this. >> good and the control over his businesses that he will lose, and donald trump spoke at length before going into the courtroom there, and the courtroom right now, we are hearing opening statements from the state of new york right now in the case. you are looking at the photos of the donald trump walking in. it has e be gu-- begun, and we e getting the details of what is happening. these are the pictures i should note of video before the proceedings began, and now the cameras are not allowed to see what is going on, but we are getting the special details of what is going on. and brynn gingras is there and bring us up to speed. >> yeah, listen, it is a showdown there in the courtroom. they are listening to the opening statements. and letitia james is in there and trump is in there and one of his oldest sons. and this is happening where kevin waltz is laying out what is going to be expected in the trial. and essentially, he is showing the video depositions of the trump's sons, and alan weisselberg, the former ceo of the trump organization, and who is in charge of making the valuations of the properties, and remember, at the heart of the case, the judge has decided some of it that the sons and trump is liable for overvalue waiting some of the tropts sometimes multiple times over to get loans for these properties, a and, and in that part of the trial. we know that trump is there with his defense attorneys, and he is talking to them as the case is being played out in opening statements. so it is interesting inside of that courtroom as all of the people are there sort of witnessing exactly how the case is going to be laid out. the judge saying that it could go all of the way to december, of course, it is going to be dense with all of the financial statements burk at the heart of it, who isis responsibility for preparing financial statements, and so we will continue to follow the statements as they are playing out in the courtroom with our colleagues inside. >> and the judge has ruled no cameras for the rest of this case. let me just talk to you, elie, just recapping where we are. the judge initially took a sledge hammer to donald trump's arguments in the case ruling that trump the and his three adult children, the three sons were guilty of persistent and repeated fraud. i wanted to show you what he said, because it was a strong statement. all of their arguments were exacerbating the defendant ostreperous conduct from a fantasy world and the real world. what after that? >> that ruling was a big win for the state's attorney general and big loss for donald trump. there are seven allegation, seven counts. this is count one. ruled on. and that is what we call the summary judgment, and the judge is saying that i will rule on this before the trial happens. ordinarily before the jury can rule on it, but we don't have a jury here, so the judge makes the ultimate ruling, and it is not ordinary ruling here, because he got out the thesaurus in how he characterized this. now, what is left for the damages of this trial which could take months. first of all, there are six other counts relating to falsification of the business records, relating to potential insurance fraud, relating to conspiracy to do both of those things, and relating to the falsification of the financial statements. so there are six other counts here, and they are similar and relate to the same transaction hs, but harder for the a.g. to show, and they have to show a more specific level of donald trump's knowledge and intent. and the second big thing here is thege dabs. how much money is donald trump and the businesses going to have to give up, and will they lose their business certificate moving forward. >> caroline, some additional color from aaron herb, sorry, aaron cooper, and jeremy herb. the judge is saying that the more things proceed, the better. and expect to say that we will have to take a 10-minute break, and ruled and overstained. what does that set up for? >> that means no sidebars, no back and forth between the attorneys with what is the evidence that is allowed and not allowed, and as we noted before, the opening arguments can be streamlined and the judge has been sitting with this evidence and this case for many months now. one of the big questions that we don't know is the damages aspect and how this is going to affect donald trump's businesses in new york. and i have had several people asking me, but it is as the summary judgment that elie read is that the summary judgment is going to be ruled. >> and nobody has been harmed by what he put in the financial statement, and everybody has been made whole. >> two responses to that. first of all, just because of the counts left to be tried, and just because the banks were left whole, it does not work like that, and maybe it is a logical argument, but the law does not require showing that they were, and it does not make you not liable for those. >> not good. >> and so the second ruling on the summary judgment did not require a showing that there was a victim, and that is part of the statutory landscape which made the decision that much easier for the judge to move forward on. >> and if people are looking at this and why a civil case, and we have seen much lower dollar amounts charged in the criminal case of the hush money case, and i am trying to read into the prosecutor's case, this is a big reason, because it is hard to stand in front of the jury, and saying, they made these claims, but the banks got their money. so it does not rule out that you can be ruled civilly and does not rule out the criminal case, but it is less appealing for the prosecutors. >> we will button this up, and thank you, caroline, and i wanted to thank you, elie, and i know you are not going anywhere, but the a.g. is asking for $250 million in a civil fraud trial brought this past year, and now we are seeing the end of this case that is supposed to go on until december, but the judge has ruled on a huge portion of this case against donald trump and his sons. we will be right back.