inside the room, along with the transcript of his testimony, donald trump on the stand sounds a lot like donald trump everywhere else. the judge will rule against me because he will always rule against me, quote. he called me a fraud, and he didn't know anything about me. quote. people don't know how good a company i've built because people like you are going around demeaning me, and i think it's hurting america. quote. you and every other democrat coming after me from 15 different sides, all haters. quote. this is a very unfair trial, very unfair. i hope the public is watching. quote. roughly half an hour into donald trump taking the stand, judge engoron repeatedly admonished the president, asking him to stop rambling and answer the questions. he's gone to trump's lawyers and told them to get a handle on their client. they declined. alina habba said she wouldn't dare violate a client's free speech. when donald trump did answer questions, our legal analysts in the courts say he did not help himself. he under cut his team owes own argument that other people are the ones responsible for signing off on valuations, instead admitting that he himself has sometimes gotten involved. let's dig into that. beyond the theatrics, this case could put the trump organization out of business in the place that made it. new york. joining us now, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard who's outside of the courthouse. and nbc news contributor and former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official, our legal friend who knows everything about everything, chuck rosenberg. good to have you. i know you don't think that, i believe that you do have a handle on those things. let's talk about this case. donald trump saying that he sometimes got involved in the valuations. is that -- how significant is that? >> it's significant, katy, in a couple of ways. it helps the state establish certain element of what they must prove. this part of the case requires that the government prove that the defendants, mr. trump, his kids, the organization acted intentionally, and so to the extent that mr. trump acknowledges his role in setting certain valuations, and his role in certain aspects of the business, i think it helps. there's an odd way in which mr. trump's rants also helped the government establish the proof it needs in this phase of the trial. when you refuse to answer a question, when you are evasive. when you obfuscate, when you do all of these things, the effect, in this case, the judge alone, there's no jury, when you do all of these things, the trier of fact, i think, properly could infer, katy, if you don't want to answer a question is because the answer doesn't help you at all. the judge has said as much, mr. trump's refusal to answer some questions directly and his long evasive rants, permit the judge to infer that the answers wouldn't be helpful. and so this is a tough place to be if you're mr. trump's lawyer, and you're actually trying to help him because he is certainly not helping himself. >> all right. so, vaughn, he's back in the courtroom now. there was a brief break. he spoke to reporters outside of the court after not speaking to them at first, during the first break. what's he saying on the stand now? >> reporter: donald trump is actually answering questions a little bit more methodically than what we saw take place here this morning, katy. one of the questions that was presented directly to the former president in the last 20 minutes was whether he was aware that the statements of financial condition were being used for the purposes of securing loans, and financial covenants, essentially assertions that, in fact, that trump had not only the cash flow, but the assets in order to protect any loans that were secured by him and the trump organization. and by acknowledging that, he's therefore acknowledging that those financial statements were, in fact, important documents, including these documents that he had himself signed. you've done many interviews through your career, i've had any hands at trying to get some questions to donald trump, you know, at campaign events, and it's often times hard to nail him down. and that is what is so distinct about this moment that we are watching unfold here in lower manhattan, katy, is because donald trump is under oath right now. this isn't a television interview. it's not a, you've got 10 minutes asking questions. instead, there are several hours. very nuanced questions that are being posed to him about multiple properties, and the extent to which he was aware or had his own hand in assessing the value of said properties, in order to secure such loans and other tax benefits. and so, for donald trump, he's going to be facing these questions for about two more hours here, and for the former president, this is his opportunity, as we saw here from this morning, to essentially make his public case to the extent that he can, at least on a public transcript, as to why he is actually valued more than even his current properties show, but also his own brand show, and for donald trump, there is so much political about this because there's a reality that the judge, that he is sitting just feet away from, is going to be the one to determine the extent to which he hows financial penalties, and also the extent to which the trump organization is able to operate here in the state of new york in the future. >> he's just called the case aid disgraced. he says he shouldn't be here all day answering these questions. he's also making the argument, and he's repeatedly made this argument and so have others on his behalf, chuck, that there's no harm done here. nobody lost any money. the banks got paid back. they weren't complaining. so if there's no harm, they argue, there should be no case. there's no fraud if there's no harm. >> wrong, as a matter of law. it may be, katy, that you and i go in and rob a bank or at least we try. but we don't get away with any money. it's still a bank robbery. here, the fact that the banks didn't lose money, that the loans were repaid is good for the banks. i'm thrilled for them. but by making financial misstatements to the banks, mr. trump obtained loans on more favorable terms. and so even if they didn't lose, he benefitted. it's the misstatement that's the offense, in some cases, in a criminal court, it was the misstatement that would be a crime. here it's a civil case, and so it's of a different nature. that defense is just wrong, as a matter of law. >> we keep hearing the word intent used. it's the most stubborn word we use regarding donald trump and his behavior and the court cases against him. it's always all been about, did he have the intent to maybe conspire with russia initially. did he have the intent to, you know, mislead volodymyr zelenskyy in that phone call. did he have the intent to overturn the election, did he have the intent to retain those classified documents, even though he knew it was wrong. did he have the intent to defraud banks here. intent, intent, intent, intent, and no one has been able so far to nail down his intent. why is that? >> that's right. by the way, i'm not sure that what we will see in the control cases will suffer that deficit because in criminal cases, katy, as you know, the prosecutors have to prove intent. so why have we not really seen much of his intent? well, he doesn't commit a lot of stuff to writing. he doesn't use e-mail or text, which is often a rich source of intent material for prosecutors. also intent is hard to prove. katy, did you intend to hit me with your car or was it an accident? if it was just an accident, you didn't commit a crime. so when we're looking to prove crimes, we're looking to establish intent, and all of the criminal cases that are forthcoming will turn, as you know, on intent. did the things that mr. trump did, that he's accused of doing, did they include his intentional acts or were they accidents and if they were done intentionally, they're crimes. >> what about what happens after all of this is over to the trump organization? judge engoron isn't just tasked with deciding how much money the organization, donald trump, owes, but tasked with deciding whether or not they can continue operating. explain that to me. >> sure. this is a civil case. no one is going to jail as a result of it, but for the trump organization and its officers, the penalties can be severe. to your point, katy, the trump organization and its various offshoots and subsidiaries could lose the opportunity and right to do business in the state of new york. that's not going to happen immediately. even if the judge so rules, it's not going to happen immediately because inevitably what comes next, an appeal, and that could take a while. it may even give the trump organization time to unwind its business in new york, and move it elsewhere. still there would be a stigma attached to losing the right to do business in new york, and the judge will consider that as part of the penalties that he will assess in addition to the monetary fines which i think are almost inevitable. >> i wonder if that's part of the reason, and i'm using wonder loosely, because i think we have an idea. why he's shown up and been so agitated and taking the stand and name calling and posting on social media during his breaks, the heart of the case doesn't get to whether he was a good president or not or whether he tried to overturn an election, stuff that maybe you could argue seem secondary to him, the idea that he's not a good businessman, that he's a fake businessman, that he's not real, and so much of that gets to the heart of who donald trump has sold himself as, who he believes himself to be, this legend that he's built up over the years, sold to voters successfully in 2016, that he's great at the job of business, and that he's great at the job of hiring. great at the job of making money. and he can do all of that for the united states of america. his voters bought into that. they believed him. they saw the apprentice, some of them, and said, i love what he did there. he seems like he really knows what he's doing. in your sense of his travels around the country. does a conviction or a ruling that says that he's a bad businessman, the business is guilty of committing fraud and that he has to pay money, and he can no longer do business in the state of new york, does that undercut his image among people who might consider voting for him again? >> reporter: i'm pes missick, -- pessimistic. trump towers will still exist before this period of time over the next year, at least up until november of 2024, and frankly, katy, to your question, out on the campaign trail, folks talk to me about the great businessman, and we need donald trump back in there because of his deal making. so i think it is so cemented, at least into his loyal base of support, it's tough. i think, though, to your point about why is he showing up in person, not only today on the actual witness stand but to hear others testify, i think it comes down to loyalty, coming down and hearing the likes of michael cohen, somebody who he has every interest in demolishing the reputation of because michael cohen was his right hand for so long. you see allen weisselberg, there's a lot of attention paid to the chief financial officer of the trump organization who served time at reicher's jail just last year for six months, who walked away with a $2 million severance back just in april here. there is jeffrey mchugh, another one of the defendants here, keeping loyalists close to him, and not flipping on him. that translates to the politics, come moore when we hear the election interference case. loyalists to donald trump, folks who have turned and also those who remain close to donald trump, being able to stare and look at these individuals in the eye is not only a real estate tycoon overlooking his current and future business operation but on the political front, a president of the united states, a potential future president of the united states, overlooking those who he could seek to do business with, not only through the trump organization but extensions of it were he to get back into washington, d.c. and the white house. >> politically that's an open question. personally for him nod to be able to do business in the state of new york. the trump organization not to be able to do business here. so many buildings branded trump properties. it would be a financial blow, even though the business does exist outside of new york, and what are finding on top of the summary judgment of fraud could severely eat into his pocketbook as well. let's bring in to talk about politics a little bit more. nbc news senior political editor, mark murray. we talked about the personal and the politics with vaughn. there's a new polling out today that suggests that president biden is, former president trump, excuse me, is in much better shape than he was even a few months ago, especially going up against president biden. one of the cross tabs is about the economy. again, a lot of voters saying that this busine who they look up to thinks he's going to be better for the economy than joe biden has been. walk us through what you have seen in this polling, and how it tracks with what we have been reporting and experiencing from voter conversations and the fact that we're talking about this polling, and there's a cross tab on democracy when donald trump is on trial, in multiple different states and facing multiple different charges, very serious charges of, for one, trying to overturn an election, two holding on to classified information on a national security charge, and then there's this case of fraud that we're talking about today. >> it's important to note that we're a year away from the november 2024 general election, but "the new york times" and sienna college ended up coming out with polls yesterday, showing donald trump with leads in five out of six key presidential battleground states. when you actually take a dive into the numbers and actually into the issues, it shows former president donald trump leading, having substantial leads over joe biden on the economy, on immigration, on national security issues. but with president biden leading on abortion, and as you mentioned, on democracy, although not a whole lot, and, you know, it comes amid the court situations, and all the legal challenges that you have been covering and talking about, katy. and i do think, though, it's important for everyone to kind of say, you know, hey, this is something that -- these are polls that are happening now, the totality of all the polls, whether national polls or state polls, suggest that the 2024 presidential race if it's between president biden and former president donald trump is going to be close, but i also ended up just having a lot of patience that we're going to see so many different twists and turns over the next 365 days that we should put those kind of poll numbers into context because we still have a year to go. >> there was also one question on this, at least "the new york times" polling, that asked about whether donald trump gets convicted in onofhese cases, what that wouldo to their decision to support him. and there are people w say th they would switch their vote to joe biden. this is among non-biden supporters. 6% say they would not vote for someone convicted of a crime, convicted felon or someone else. switching their vote to joe biden. that's significant, right, mark? >> it is significant. it is also, i think, more evidence on that we need to kind of take a deep breath, that there's going to be so many different news events, twists and turns, and we have to actually see how all of donald trump's legal dramas end up playing out. to me it's important. i'm the politics guy, and i'm looking ahead to the iowa caucuses, and new hampshire primary, all taking place in january, and then we have nevada and south carolina in february. the day right before super tuesday begins one of the federal criminal trials that donald trump is facing. that one in washington, d.c., the jack smith election interference case. we are going to be locked into all of these legal courtroom dramas, the one that you're showing right now, but also in more -- many more to come. we're going to have to see what the political world looks like, not just after iowa and new hampshire, but after the court cases in march and april, and once we end up getting to the political convention. this right now, things are going to change. i don't know in what way, but what i think promises to be a close race could be impacted by so many different things. >> we have a long time to go, many primaries before we were asked. mark murray, thank you very much. we got a note from court, donald trump is now off the stand. the new york ag's office has finished questioning him. there's no cross-examination from the defense. so he is done. donald trump is done testifying in this case. at least for now. ivanka trump will appear on wednesday. all right. so chuck, what do you make of no cross-examination from the defense? >> normally the reason there's no cross-examination in a normal case with normal people is because the other side doesn't think there was any damage done during the direct. if you don't cross it's because typically you don't believe you need to. there's nothing to prove or disprove. there's nothing to clean up. here it could be and logically so that mr. trump's lawyers wanted him off the stand because he's not helping himself by being on the stand. and that he would perform really the same way on cross-examination as he would on direct. it's hard to know precisely why they made that decision, but it strikes me as the right one because he has a very difficult time with rules and procedures. he has a very difficult time confining himself to the questions that are asked. and so maybe from their perspective, katy, and i think it's a reasonable guess, they wanted him off the stand as quickly as possible. >> vaughn, what usually happens when he's done? this is the first time he's testified but in the past, what have we seen? do you expect him to take a seat pack at the defense table or come out and address reporters? >> reporter: we should expect him to come through the doors every moment. essentially every time he has been at the court, he has taken multiple opportunities to address the cameras, and he himself said that he hoped his words inside of that courtroom here today, which were not on camera, that he hoped the american public would hear it. he posted it multiple times to his social media account during the lunch break, including a quote from judge engoron in which he made the statement during the proceedings that he did not want to hear what donald trump had to say. of course the context of that was he wanted to hear donald trump's answers, not just a political speech here. we could expect him, donald trump, to come out here and address these microphones at any minute. i think it's also worth noting in some of the final questions that our team inside were relaying to us. one of the questions that came from the new york attorney general's office was whether donald trump intended to make any changes to the trump organization as a result of this civil lawsuit by the new york ag's office, and donald trump's response was, i don't think so. this is going to come down to ivanka trump on wednesday testifying. she is not a defendant herself here. but at that point, the defense will then be able to call for their witnesses to take the stand here in the months ahead. again, this trial could last all the way through december 22nd. this afternoon was notable and pivotal point here, as donald trump, while we don't expect him to take the stand in criminal proceedings in 2024, this was donald trump under oath and on the record for multiple hours. >> we got a couple of notes. judge engoron, i rest