fraud trial against him, the penalty part. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. we begin with breaking news in manhattan where donald trump is already inside the courtroom about to take the stand in his $250 million new york civil fraud trial. these proceedings are just getting under way this morning. nbc's vaughn hillyard is standing by outside the courthouse. also with us, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and senior fbi attorney and former investigative council for the january 6th house committee. we saw those live images inside the courtroom. we aren't allowed to have cameras inside the courtroom during the actual testimony. i understand, vaughn, trump spoke moments ago before he walked into the courthouse. start us off there in mann with what the president, former president is saying this morning and what we can expect today. >> reporter: good morning, ana. i'm watching the same feeds you guys are inside the courthouse. donald trump just walked into the courtroom ahead of what will be several hours of him facing questions on the stand. letitia james is here in person. whether she asks any questions to donald trump directly is outstanding. so far she's left it up to other prosecutors in her office to ask the questions of witnesses on the stand. i want you to listen to letitia james before she headed into the courtroom. >> before he takes the stand, i am certain that he will engage in name calling and taunts and race-baiting and call this a witch hunt. at the end of the day, the only thing that matters are the facts and the numbers. >> reporter: for donald trump, this follows testimony from his two adult sons, don jr. and eric just this last week. his daughter, ivanka trump, who is not a defendant like her two brothers is set to testify here on wednesday. upon the conclusion of ivanka trump's testimony, we then expect the defense team for donald trump to call its witnesses to the stand for questioning. but for donald trump, he has sat for two depositions already with the new york attorney general's office in 2022. he pleaded the fifth more than 400 times before earlier this spring, after the guilty deal, plea deem that was struck by allen weisselberg, unrelated charges, ultimately donald trump answered a series of questions in which he suggested that the valuation of his properties were in his words guestimates and his guess that his own personal brand was worth more than $20 billion, directly taking on the assertions by the new york attorney general and the prosecutors' indictment against him that he overstated the value of his properties. >> we have reporting from inside the courtroom that donald j. trump has officially been called to testify in this fraud trial. chuck, as vaughn mentioned, trump had a deposition in this case last year in which he pleaded the fifth more than 400 times. take a look. >> i decline to answer the question. >> i decline to answer the question. >> i decline to answer the question. >> same answer. >> same answer. >> same answer. >> same answer. >> same answer. >> same answer. >> same answer. >> same answer. >> chuck, do you see him changing his strategy today? >> quite possibly. we'll know in a few minutes. remember, ana, when he invoked his fifth amendment privilege, and it's absolutely his right to do so, the leland scape was a bit less settled than it is today. he had not yet been charged in various jurisdictions with various crimes, and now that that has settled a bit, the risk to him is probably somewhat less. so he was deposed the second time in this civil case. he did answer questions during that second deposition. my sense is that he will answer questions today. it's always possible that he'll invoke his fifth amendment privilege. he could do so selectively, choosing to answer some questions and not others. if he does answer, there's always a risk that some prosecutor somewhere will get an idea about another charge that they could bring. but again, the landscape today is more settled. it's better known to mr. trump, and my guess, and we'll soon see if i'm right, is that he will answer questions on the stand under oath. >> i think so many people are curious about how he answers questions in terms of the tone, demeanor. peter, as the associated press points out, trump has testified in court at least eight trials since 19786. he has sat for more than 100 depositions over his long career in real estate. so this really isn't a new arena for m. do you think we'll see the bombastic trump, the guy we see outside the courthouse, or a more subdued version? >> that's the question. he actually is a very practiced witness. the irony is probably more than any other president in our history, any politician in our history perhaps. he has more experience answering questions under oath in depositions at least and in some trials than anybody we've ever seen. we have seen time and timed again that he has moderated and modulated his answers to questions when it actually matters. when lying is actually a chargeable offense. he seems to have understood in the past that there are things you can say on the campaign trail that you simply cannot say when you've taken an oath to tell the truth, and you face the penalty of perjury if you don't. he's obviously shown a great deal of hostility towards this judge. he's made it very personal about the judge's clerk. the judge has had none of it, to quote what you just said. i think we'll see an interesting moment where he has to decide how aggressive he wants to be given that this judge has already determined that he has been found liable for fraud, and the question here is about the penalty. >> already the a.g.'s office has dived right into questioning. kevin wallace is representing the attorney general's office on behalf of the prosecutor here. first question, you're the owner of the trump organization. is that right? he answered yes. if you are the prosecution, howe did you prepare for today's testimony? >> i think the first thing, you want to go over all the words of the person examining. you have to know everything they said. you're going to go overall your documents. the name of the game here is going to be trump's credibility. that's what all of this is about. when he gets on the stand, is the judge going to believe him or the prosecutor's case. that also means documents. documents can be really important. any time they're able to catch a former president not being truthful, the way you're going to prove that up in realtime is going to be with a document. he says something and he doesn't agree with you. well, you signed this dock. what two you say to this. they're really going to be pushing the credibility. this case has a little bit of an exciting nature because it's a former president. it's actual li going to be a lot more simple. the prosecutors are playing to one person, the judge. what this case is about to them is what is the opinion he's going to write when all this is done. that's all that matters to them. they're providing him a record by which he can find the former president credible, can find the former president liable. substance ating the fine coming down is what it's about for them. for the former president, the question for him is he playing to the audience of one to the judge or many, the american public, the media, the future electorate. i think that's where you'll see those two come into competition. >> i wonder if what trump wants is what his attorneys want in terms of who he's playing to in his testimony. if you're trump's team, what are you hoping to accomplish in his testimony? >> i think it really depends what they consider victory here. you've seen his lawyers adopt an approach more like his approach, more than i would if i were trying to limit my client's civil exposure here. i think for them, if your client doesn't walk into criminal exposure, doesn't provide affirmative evidence against him. best case scenario i think he comes out with a neutral kind of outcome. i think it's incredibly unlikely that he gets off the stand and the judge looks at his testimony and says, i believe the former president or says, after hearing him, i think he did not intend for any fraud to happen. i think that's unlikely based on the judge's former findings and based on former president trump's inability to tell the truth proven over many, many years. if i'm his lawyers, what i want to do is limit the damage. that's the name of the game here. >> chuck, do you agree? >> i do agree. i think limiting the damage is perhaps the best they can hope for. in this phase of the case, it's mostly about damages, how much money the trump organization may have to pay, whether they can continue to do business. but there are a few lingering counts against the defendants, the trump children, mr. trump himself, and unlike the first findings that the judge made that the company had vastly overvalued its assets, here the state, the attorney general is going to have to prove intent. so one other thing that the lawyers for the trump family can hope to achieve today and tomorrow the balance of the week is to show that any misstatements, any overvaluations were not done intentionally. i think, given the judge's previous findings, that's going to be a hard thing for them to do. i completely agree with tell die i don't that you don't want to walk mr. trump into further criminal charges in the event he perjures himself and he's not well acquainted with the truth. that's always a possibility when mr. trump testifies. limiting damages and perhaps trying to rebut the remainder of the state's case, that the overvaluations weren't done intentionally, that's probably the best that the trump team can hope for. >> let's go back to vaughn at the courthouse who has been monitoring the reporting from our producer. what are we learning about this questioning so far, vaughn? >> reporter: ana, so far, the shots you're seeing of donald trump inside the courtroom, just so everybody is aware, are the shots when the photographer is allowed in for about a minute to shoot some footage. we don't have a camera inside the courtroom at this time. our producers are following along and sending notes to us in realtime. so far donald trump is answering very pointed, specific questions. for example, did you appoint don jr., his son, as well as allen weisselberg, the chief financial officer, to their positions. donald trump saying yes. as we're going through here, he's being asked about what happened in july of 2021 for instance here. he is beginning to answer some of those questions. i think this is important as we're getting this in realtime, that donald trump is already beginning to go on the attack and suggesting that there is a weaponization from the new york attorney general's office as well as u.s. attorneys around the country who he calls trump haters. for donald trump the question is to what extent do prosetors allow him to meander with his answers over the course of these hours here? there's several logic points to this here. for donald trump he could reveal more than even the prosecutors are seeking to get out of him. but at the same time donald trump is very much trying to make the case, albeit without a jury and only a judge to make the determination, that this is letitia james, the democratic and new york attorney general who is unfairly going after him and he -- that the company had paid back all of their debts, that they were always on sound financial standing with the bank's insurers that provided them the loans that they're now being essentially addressed from the new york attorney general for having received on beneficial terms for overvaluing his assets here. for donald trump, i think there's going to be a lot of tangs jenningsal answering here. >> do you just let it rip, temidayo, if you're there, or do you trito get him back on track? >> if i'm the prosecutor, i think i let him talk. there's not a universe where the former president speaks and you leave thinking that he's credible in my view. i think especially in a case where he's on the defensive, he's emotional, he's trying to rebut this kind of crumbling of his image as this titan of industry. i think i do let him talk. if i'm seeking specific omissions. if i want him to say how many square feet is your apartment? that's the kind of point where i would ask the judge to direct him to answer that question. is it 10,000 square feet or is it 30,000 square feet? you want him to be very clearly saying which one he believes it is. to the extent he's going on a rant that has to do with the substance of what we're talking about, ranting about his net worth and his business acumen, that could be relevant. if he's going on and talking about joe biden and the 2024 election, i think i would ask the judge to cut him off right there because it has nothing to do with what the judge is trying to decide him. >> i'm remembering a related case in 2006, chuck, where "the new york times" highlights this, when trump sued a journalist who had actually written a book poking holes into trump's wealt and what he claimed was his net worth. "ttimes" writes in deposition mr. trump made maging omissions including admitting that his net worth can vary from day to day, and he determined it by gauging my general attitude at the time. have you efr over exaggerated your properties? i think everyone does, mr. trump replied. could statements like that be used against him in this trial? >> sure. to temidayo's point -- by the way, i agree i would let him ramble on. remember this is being tried only to a judge and not to a jury. so normal objections based on relevance might be less important here. the judge can make his own determinations about mr. trump's truthfulness, about his answers. but, yeah, it may be that he in rambling, continue diblths himself. it may be in rambling that he makes admissions. you don't really have tv show moments in real courtrooms. liars don't tend to suddenly tell the truth or to confess their sins. i wouldn't ek expect that to happen, ana. but in rambling, could he trip himself up and say a few things that are helpful to the government's case? certainly. >> vaughn, you have reporting about how the judge is handling this. what can you tell us? >> reporter: again, this is coming in realtime, ana. drum went on the attack the new york attorney general, the u.s. attorney general's office, to the point -- taking this on a non-tangential argument that donald trump was making to the judge that he is being unfairly targeted in this lawsuit. that let the judge, judge engoron here to push back against the attorney for donald trump, chris kise, who suggested these were open-ended questions to donald trump and donald trump may answer how he best sees fit because it's part of, in his words, a narrative that donald trump is painting as part of his testimony here. but judge engoron in response said that the prosecutor for the new york attorney general's office, in the judge's words, was being patient with his rambling answers and that donald trump, the witness on the stand here, needed to be more concise with his answers. donald trump is only expected to take the stand here today to answer the new york attorney general's questions. there's only so many hours here to work with. the judge directly here within the first half of donald trump here taking the stand already telling the defendant here to keep his answers more concise and pushing back against donald trump's attorney, chris kise's suggestion, that donald trump, this is a key part of his ability to build out his own narrative in his own defense. >> peter, we have seen trump's two eldest sons testify. ivanka is set to take the witness stand on wednesday, and all this reportedly has really enraged trump, the fact that his family has been brought into this trial. we heard from eric i think at the end of his testimony last week say that he and his siblings are collateral damage. do you think this is really the family legacy on the line in this trial? >> well, you can see that the former president takes this more personally in a lot of ways than some of the other legal issues he's had. this goes to the heart of his identity that he has spent a lifetime creating, the idea that he is some sort of mega successful businessman, the singular force in new york real estate over the course of decades and what's at stake is whether he even continues to be in business in new york, whether, in fact, his business is dismantled effectively after decades of work. i think that he is angry. he is, of course, angry his family had been brought into it. really he's angry the stabs at his own mythology that he's created. i think he's using this -- one of the reasons he's tflg, he wants to get his side across. we talked about what audience he's had. the audience is the judge we've been talking about. there's of course the outside audience. they've already sent out his office an email attacking letitia james. this reminds us, of course, this is not one of the criminal trials we're still anticipating next year. this is still a civil trial. many more days to come. >> temidayo, from what we've learned from the testimony from eric and don jr. last week, was there anything that stood out to you? >> i think there was a lot of finger pointed. not that it stood out. it was expected. you're likely to see the former president say the same thing, whether pointing to the accountants and saying i relied on these folks, i just signed documents, i didn't read them and do my own analysis. i think that's what you'll see the former president likely do. while he was president, he wasn't in charge of his assets. he may point to his sons and say these were the folks in charge go ask them. they point to the accountant and they say they were the experts, we relied on them. there's going to be a lot of avoiding responsibility while trying to get on the offensive and undercut the intentions of the attorney general here. >> vaughn, can you talk to us about, also, some of the confrontations weave now seen before trump's lawyer, chris kise, and this judge? >> reporter: right. this is only developing now. for several minutes they've gone back and forth, donald trump's attorney chris kise with the judge, because democrat, who is on the witness stand, started talking about the weaponization of the justice system here in the united states. the judge cut in and was explicit to donald trump's attorney, chris kise, that this is not a platform for speeches to be made and donald trump needs to keep his answers concise -- chris kise pushed back suggesting he is the front-runner for the president of the united states per new polling that came out over the weekend and, therefore, it's important for donald trump to be able under oath to make the case and build out his own narrative to the american public how he's being politically targeted by the new york attorney general. judge engoron pushed back on chris kise suggesting that the speech that donald trump was giving in the courtroom was not actually answering the question from the new york attorney general's prosecutor here. the new york attorney general is allowed to call witnesses they see fit. the defense team can call their own witnesses forward. there's a truncated period of time in which the new york attorney general's office is able to ask donald trump questions here. already for the last several minutes now there's been a back and forth, contentious back and forth between donald trump's attorney and the judge over how donald trump can answer these questions. so far about a half hour into this there's been actual little substance from donald trump answering the new york attorney general's prosecutor's questions. >> it sounds like it's