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tonight on "the reidout" -- >> mr. trump has repeatedly and consistently misrepresented and inflated the value of his assets. and 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. but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters are the facts and the numbers. and numbers, my friends, don't lie. >> and attorney general tish james was right about trump, on the wednesday stand today in his civil fraud trial, trump was belligerent, showing his usual lack of respect for the rule of law and the people who administer it. also, tonight, how trump will be using this trial and his future trials as a campaign platform. >> plus, new reporting on what trump might do on day one if he returns to the white house, including possibly invoking the insurrection act. >> and the panic amongst some democrats about president biden's sagging poll numbers now that we're just one years away from election day. i'm jason johnson in for joy reid. we begin with donald trump taking the stand in court as a defendant. the first former u.s. president to do so in more than 100 years. and i need to put this in context for you. the last time a president had to stand in court, trump's father fred had just started their family crime business, trump and sons. the former president testified today in the $250 million civil fraud case brought by new york attorney general tish james. it's the trial that could collapse his family's business and the real estate brand that built his reputation and fortune, which is why today a very angry and theatrical trump lashed out at everyone from the judge to the state attorney general seeking damages in the trial. turns out, there aren't two trumps. no social media version verses a courtroom trump. rather the one donald trump, and we all know that one too well. because he was definitely on one. sounding just as he does at his rallies or on the rants on that twitter thing, but those posts are unfurling in real time in manhattan supreme court. it was a contentious day on the witness stand. trump drew multiple warnings from the trial judge for veering off topic and criticizing the proceedings. judge engoron told trump's lawyer to control him and this isn't a political rally. after taking the stand for nearly four hours, trump addressed the cameras calling the case a disgrace. >> to think that we're being sued and spending all this time and money and you have people being killed all over the world that this country could stop, with inflation and all of the other problems that this country has, i think it's a disgrace. i think it's a very sad day for america. but anyway, this is a case that should have never been brought. and it's a case that should be immediately dismissed. >> while trump called for the case to be dismissed immediately, attorney general tish james told reporters the case will go on. >> he rambled, he hurled insults. but we expected that. at the end of the day, the documentary evidence demonstrated that in fact he falsely inflated his assets to basically enrich himself and his family. he continued to persistently engage in fraud. the numbers don't lie. and mr. trump obviously can engage in all of these distractions but i will not be bullied. i will not be harassed. >> the show, the after party, and the hotel magnate is far from over. ivanka trump is set to take the stand on wednesday. joining me now is lisa reuben, msnbc legal analyst who was in court today. david k. johnson, distinguished visiting lecturer who has been reporting on trump's financial nonsense for decades, and mary mccord, former acting assistant attorney general, msnbc legal analyst, and cohost of the podcast, prosecuting donald trump. i have some great guests today. lisa, i will start with you. you were in court today. this is the part that galls me. look, i have seen plenty of crazy court shows and i have watched all 12 versions of law and order. what was the feeling like in the courthouse as the former twice impeached president is yelling and screaming and threatening people? were folks used to at this point, nonplussed? what was it like in the courtroom? >> i wouldn't say people were nonplussed. jason, the version of trump that you showed in one of his hallway press conferences as you were talking about the case today, that was a much quieter, calmer, controlled trump than the one we saw in the courtroom. so imagine that between the vitriol of his words and the emphasis in his tone, actually think that there was a chill over much of the courtroom. nobody had ever seen a witness behave like this, much less behave that way toward a judge and an electioned official sitting in the courtroom. it was really, i hate to overuse this word because i use it every time i report on this case, unprecedented. and certainly new york supreme court and in my experience of court watching and litigating. >> mary, i want to ask you a question, also i ask it strategically, i understand that the goal of the trump campaign and trump incorporated and everything about his family is always really about drawing attention. it's like a spoiled child. whatever attention i get is good attention. but usually there's some idea that this attention is ingratiating him to someone or helping him raise money. what strategically is the value of acting up in court the way he is? does he think it's going to help him in the trial? does he think it helps him with people on the outside? what's he trying to do here, mary? >> so, i'm never sure whether things with mr. trump are actually deliberate strategy or just his attorneys trying to kind of make the best they can with an uncontrollable client. and i think maybe this is a little bit of both. clearly, he's a client that is almost impossible for a lawyer to control. we know that both from his conduct outside the courtroom as well as his conduct inside the courtroom. but also, when you have a client like that who engages in these kinds of outbursts, person attacks on the judge, personal attacks on others in the courtroom, and really kind of going on and doing speeches and et cetera, you know, sometimes part of the strategy can be to see if the judge won't crack down and end up committing reversible error. because judges are human beings. and the more annoyed and frustrated they get, the more they feel like they don't have control of their courtroom anymore, and that the defendant is taking advantage and using it for his own purposes, and disobeying the rules, not listening to the judge's rulings, sometimes judges can react and make rulings that later can be subject to reversal. so to the extent there's a strategy there, that certainly could be part of the strategy. but i also think it's just mr. trump's just almost impossible to shut up, as the judge found today. >> mary, i want to follow up with this. look, i watch basketball, i watch hockey. sometimes you have the hockey goon, a person who is supposed to go in there, anger the other team, make their star player make a mistake. but in the case of trump, everyone sort of knows that their goal, you know, they're acting in bad faith. so what would an actual mistake be? if the judge yells at him, would it be a justification for throwing everything out the window? it doesn't seem like bad behavior is going to make a bunch of professionals make equally bad choices or if i wrong? >> there's a lot of leeway, and the thing here that the judge really has the ability to do and do without much risk of this being reversible error is he can make his own credibility assessments of mr. trump. and we know from when mr. trump had to testify a week or so ago, sort of unexpectedly after he made another attack on the judge's law clerk, and the judge didn't believe him. he found him completely incredible. mr. trump tried to claim he wasn't talking about the law clerk. he was talking about michael cohen, but the context and the words made that really just unbelievable. and the judge can make those credibility determinations based on mr. trump's deflecting and his attacks and his, you know, telling the judge himself that he had called mr. trump a fraud. all of those things can be read into by the judge to contribute to him making a credibility finding. when judges make findings of facts based on judging the jedability of witnesses who appear in front of them, those are almost never reversible. the judge has a lot of discretion there. now, if he were to do some other -- and he can even draw adverse inferences. he mentioned that at one point. if mr. trump refuses to answer a question, he can draw an adverse inference, and there's case law supporting that. this judge is conscious of not wanting to do something that would be reversible, so you know, i don't think, not withstanding that lots of people want to talk about him throwing mr. trump in jail. i think that's probably unlikely, and he didn't do it today. >> david, i have to ask you this. first, i always say, i hope you're engaging in self care because you have been following this man for 30 years. i can't imagine what it's like to have been studying trump and his corrupt, terrible personal behavior for all this time. i want to talk about one of the main lies here with trump trying to explain why his 10,000 square foot trump tower apartment was listed as 30,000 square feet in a statement to financial conditions. asked why the valuation was too high, trump said a broker assessed the total area as 30,000 sdwar feet and i have access to the roof, when you add the roof, you're not far off. he said i see how it was done. they took 10,000 per floor times three. they didn't take out the elevator and other things. this is the only way i can look at this. i'm confused. this would be akin to me saying that because i'm in the lounge at the airport i actually own the jets on the tarmac, right? that's as ridiculous as this is. david, my question for you is, isn't this the kind of line that he's always engaged in? this is a guy who pretended to be other people on the phone when he did interviews. so even though we're focused on this particular thing, this is just par for the course with trump, right? >> all of this fits a pattern of donald's life. he's a child. he believes that he is special. that the rules don't apply to him. and one of the basic questions of this case is, well, if your financial statements are not to be believed, and then why did you create them? why did you go to the trouble of having them created at all if they're meaningless? donald was trying very hard today to make a campaign speech to create things that he believes will help him with the voters. and the reality is, donald has always lied, cheated, and stolen from people. he's hired illegal immigrants from poland to work for him. he has -- the only casino case in atlantic city, cheating a customer. donald trump's casino. he was in bed up to his eye balls with one of the biggest drug traffickers in the united states. he had children gambling in his casinos, 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds. so to donald, he can do no wrong. it's not possible because he is special and of course he should not just be president, he should be, as he's planned all along, to be our dictator because no one else is competent in donald's mind. >> david, i want to ask this, i want you to jump ahead. we're doing back to the future. it's november, first, second week of november in 2024. how many of these trials have resulted in a conviction for trump? let's just jump ahead. when we look at this case and look at some of the others, when you look at this past history, because usually in the past, he has been able to buy people off or threaten people or get out of cases or pay people off. how many convictions do you think he has by november 2024? >> well, the most important one and the easiest case to prove is the mar-a-lago documents case. and clearly, that will not be a trial because he's got a judge who has openly expressed her bias and said he should be treated as special. violating her oath of office. but the washington, d.c. case over the insurrection almost certainly will have come to a conclusion by then. and fani willis' case should have come to a conviction by then, to a conclusion. and the fani willis case matters because if trump gets back to the white house, he can't pardon his way out of that. he can't do anything about it. i don't think that alvin bragg's case will be done by then. he's made it clear he is sort of stepping back and letting others proceed first. >> lisa reuben, david cay johnston, and mary mccord, thank you for starting us off on the show today. up next on "the reidout," it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a trump courtroom appearance and a campaign rally. well, there's fewer confederate flags. what that could mean for the 2024 election when "the reidout" continues with jason johnson. onn let's dive in! but...what about your back? 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and that tends to happen because, hey, during the summer, during election years is not necessarily that interesting anyway. is there a belief amongst republicans, strategically, that he can turn trials that are ostensibly about his corruption and violation of the principles of this country into good press? is that even possible? or is that just a crazy theory within trump world? >> no, i think it's viable for them because donald trump has been rewarded for his bad behavior over and over again since he entered politics. the only time he was repudiated is when joe biden beat him for the presidency. why wouldn't he? he's had cover. he can use whatever platform he wants, he can try and make the courtroom a campaign rally. and regardless of whether the facts bear out against him or not, he'll have his surrogates, particularly elected officials in the republican party, continuing to spread his falsehoods and lies. you have a maga speaker of the house now, who has a platform as well. so it's not a crazy theory to those of us who live on earth two, which seems to be the normie place, because earth one is now dominated by maga crazies. but those of us who live in the real world, we look at this and go, how is this possible? he's on trial for 91 different criminal counts in a courtroom that should be disqualifying. his behavior is petulant. he looks like a child attacking a judge and spewing these lies, but his supporters and followers and his enablers in the republican party amplify this and give him cover. why wouldn't he continue to do this? >> i live on earth two, where john kerry actually won in 2004 and obama is just running for the first time now. that's the world i live in. >> for me, it's mitt romney won in 2012 and we wouldn't have donald trump. >> either one is a better option than having trump. i want to talk a little bit about some of the other people who are running. chris christie and asa hutchinson being booed in florida and get your thoughts on the other side. >> yeah. well, now it feels like home. thank you all very much. >> as someone as being in the courtroom for over 25 years as a federal prosecutor, and also in defending some of the most serious federal criminal cases, i can say that there is a significant likelihood that donald trump will be found guilty by a jury on a felony offense next year. that may or may not happen before you vote in march. >> tara, i have to say, focus first on chris christie. when he came into this race, he thought he was going to be cristly in atlanta. come in and shake things up. it didn't really work up for him. he is now the person who gets booed all the time. but he's taken that heat from a lot of other republicans who are thinking maybe i'll be the brave one too. my question for you is, is anyone else -- all the rest of these candidates are doing so poorly against trump, is someone else going to try to step in and add to the criticism that chris christie has had of trump as the presumptive nominee or are they going to be playing in the spaces of desantis thinking maybe trump will stumble on his own and i can step in? >> there have been virtually zero profiles in courage i