Do you get these calls in secret where guys go listen, i cant say it publicly but im for you and im going to vote for you. Im a republican but screw it, i cant vote for this guy . Theyre not saying theyre going to vote for me, theyre saying i agree with you. Do you say to them, why dont you Say Something publicly . Where is jeb bush, where is george bush, where are these guys . Why dont they say, hey, im interested in saving democracy for our grandchildren . I dont think the election is over yet on that score. If you notice traffic was especially snarled in New York City today, asked and answered. That was President Biden in midtown, manhattan today to be interviewed by radio legend howard stern. While former President Donald Trump was in Lower Manhattan back in a courthouse for his criminal trial. And that is where we begin tonight. At the end of the first week for a 12member Jury Empanelled in the first ever criminal trial of a former president. Today was the final day of the prosecutors first witness, david pecker. Trumps lawyers continued their crossexamination, focusing on the theme that the catch and kill agreement made between pecker, trump, and trumps former lawyer Michael Cohen was just Standard Operating Procedure for pecker and National Enquirer. They suggested peckers actions were based on Business Considerations and he would have done them anyway whether or not he had an agreement with trump. For instance, pecker admitted to trumps lawyer that the 30,000 payment to buy the rights for the former doormans false story that trump fathered an illegitimate child could have led to millions of dollars in sales for the National Enquirer if true. He asked and that is why you decided to pay mr. Sajudin 30,000, correct . Pecker answered, yes. Bovee, because you could not have him taking his story to another publication if it was true, right . Pecker, thats correct. Bove, it would be too great a loss to ami to lose control of such a story if it were true, right . Yes. They had yet to explain how this agreement was anything other than standard. Pecker admitted to having coordinated thousands of nondisclosure agreements, suppressing stories to help a friend or use as leverage with a celebrity, he was asked by prosecutor joshua steinglass, how many did you coordinate with the president ial candidate for the benefit of a campaign . Pecker, its the only one. Steinglass, prior to the arrangement with trump in august 2015, did you ever preview with a candidate positive stories about that candidate or negative stories about that candidates opponents pecker, no. Steinglass, prior to that arrangement, did you ever allow a candidate to accept or reject articles . Pecker, no. Steinglass, prior to the meeting, did ami ever agree to be eyes and ears . Pecker, no. Trumps lawyers also tried to poke holes in the arrangement made with former Playboy ModelKaren Mcdougal, claiming it was all above board because in return for payment, she provided her services to the publication. Again, the prosecution shot down that attempt by having pecker testify once more to the real reason ms. Mcdougal was paid 150,000. Steinglass, is that true, mr. Pecker, was that your purpose in locking up the Karen Mcdougal story, to influence the election . Pecker, yes. And the fact that pecker agreed to not publish a story about a Playboy Models yearlong alleged affair with a president ial candidate is only further proof this is not just about doing Good Business because pecker admitted such a story would have been, quote, National Enquirer gold. The prosecution asked, at the time you entered into the agreement, you had zero intention of publication even if it would have helped the bottom line. You killed it because it would have hurt president trump. To which pecker answered, correct. And before the court wrapped for the week, the jury heard from two other witnesses, first was trumps longtime assistant and gate keeper, rhona graff, for a brief line of questioning authenticating both Karen Mcdougal and Stormy DanielsContact Information were in trumps computer. During crossexamination, she did admit to Hearing Conversations about daniels potentially being thought of as a contestant for celebrity apprentice. The other witness is much more obscure. One of Michael Cohens former bankers, gary pharaoh, who helped set up a Home Equity Line of credit through which cohen paid daniels. His testimony will continue when court reconvenes on tuesday. Joining me now is lisa reuben, msnbc Legal Correspondent and tristan snell, former Assistant Attorney General for new york and author of taking down trump, 12 rules for prosecuting donald trump by someone who did it successfully. Lisa, im going to go to you first. Hopefully i characterized the day properly now. Tell me what stood out to you . One moment that stood out most is one you just covered. Joshua steinglass was literally right up to the lunch break when he got to that line of questions about National Enquirer gold. Bove was trying to establish through his crossexamination that many facets of the arrangement between trump, cohen, and pecker, the thing prosecutors have characterized as a conspiracy were Standard Operating Procedure. He used those three words so many times it was like his mantra. But steinglass poked holes in that by showing that the payment to Karen Mcdougal and the purpose to which it was put was in fact anything but Standard Operating Procedure because what was Standard Operating Procedure at the National Enquirer . Making lots of money, and pecker in his direct testimony and in his cross, one of the things he conveyed is his bottom line was in fact more important to him at times than donald trump. Its why that payment for dino sajudin, he said he would have published it if true. He relented at one point and said, well, i would have held it until after the election. At the end of the day, that story was so jushy, i would have published it. That was want true of the Karen Mcdougal, but he testified he believed very much that story was true, particularly based on his own private conversations with trump who asked him on a variety of occasions, how is karen . How is she doing . That sounds like it was a question about her welfare, but it was a question about is she keeping quiet, and is she satisfied with the arrangement . The other thing that stood out to me today was when bove was trying to, again, on his recross, show that Karen Mcdougals agreement had value. He said wouldnt you agree that published 65 articles from her, put her on the cover of magazines, wasnt she a celebrity in her own right . Didnt her brand have value . But the problem is, david pecker knows celebrity better than anyone. If you ask someone to draw a triangle of the hierarchy of celebrity in this country, he would draw it faster than you were in beautiful mind. He said i dont put her in the category of celebrity. In other words, no, this was not a real utility to me. This was, again, to satisfy her and her dreams of relaunching her career, but as far as i was concerned, she was no celebrity. She might be the sort of sad character in this whole thing. She really thought she was going to become famous and be on the red carpets and being a journalist and an anchor and that wasnt going to happen. A real celebrity is Arnold Schwarzenegger who became governor who also had a catch and kill deal with this same publication. But the prosecution and defense have tussled back and forth on how that was different. How is it different . Yeah, i mean, look, its not the same, it wasnt the same kind of dollar figures, the timing wasnt the same, and peckers testimony is different. There was a lot of back and forth there. The defense managed to score some points there. That was probably one of the more effective bits of the whole day for them. But at the end of the day, being able to come back on recross and confirm it was definitely not the same, it was not with the same intent. The intent is everything here. Its all about the intent. Why are we starting with pecker . Because it starts with that 2015 meeting where they had this arrangement. It was all part of a deliberate process to help trump get to the white house. Let me read just a little bit of this. This is when bove is questioning this is about peckers testimony that cohen had told him Jeff Sessions is the attorney general. Hes in Donald Trumps pocket. Bove then asked whether that incident is among those that colored his view that cohen is prone to exaggeration . Pecker said yes. During redirect, pecker is asked about average payments when they do catch and kill stories. He said you testified on cross that Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for governor and afterwards some 30 to 40 women came forward and you told mr. Bove you paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to kill those stories. Pecker, yes. What was the average of those payments . Pecker, the largest was 20,000, the others were up to 2,000. Just the doorman got 30,000. Its different degrees. Totally different degrees. Youre looking at this giant sixfigure payments to macdougal and to daniels. Its a totally different ball game. Also, he didnt admit to Campaign Finance violations although he might have committed state crimes in the Arnold Schwarzenegger case. The reason that david pecker said he was even sensitive to the Campaign Finance angle of paying mcdougal in the first place, which is what caused him to lord it up with services, he was sensitive about that because as a function of what he had done for Arnold Schwarzenegger, he had caught the attention of regulators and investigators, and he narrowly escaped. He knew that was a problem. He tried to structure the Karen Mcdougal payout agreement in a way that would evade Campaign Finance problems. The only issue is as Josh Steinglass expertly elicited from him, while they did Hire Outside Expert Counsel to review that agreement, they didnt tell that counsel about, for example, the august 2015 meeting at which they had that agreement. They didnt represent to him all of the facts that a lawyer would need to render advice. In other words, advice was meaningless because he was reviewing the agreement in isolation. He took a halfhour glance, pecker said we paid him for a halfhour of services and it passed muster, but they didnt get him all the information that a real Election Law Expert would need to say, yeah, i dont think this is kosher. Lets talk about rhona graff. What does she do for the prosecution or for The Other Side today . Rhona just for everybodys background is very interesting because we havent talked about her as much in all of these cases. But she is really up there in the inner, inner, inner circle for trump with Michael Cohen, with allen weisselberg, the people that he literally spent the most had the most communication with. Shes like a personal assistant. Personal assistant but was one of the key gate keepers. The Trump Organization really only had about 14 people working for it. Trump only had about three, four people he was talking to on a regular basis and rhona was one of them. Handled all of his communications. So why was she important . What did she do today . Its that a lot of it was to authenticate a lot of the documents, a lot of the communications that were going to be seeing later in the trial. And particularly then it was the placement of Stormy Daniels at the property, at trump tower, and critically, the outlook Contact Cards that she knew. Of daniels and mcdougal that was sitting there in trumps rolodex. Whats the significance of that, other than trump knew these women . Look, the prosecutors dont have to prove that trump actually had relationships with either Stormy Daniels or Karen Mcdougal. On the other hand, to the extent they have circumstantial evidence that there was a real relationship of some sort with both women, that increases the likelihood that jurors will believe he had the motive to cover this up and keep these people quiet. One of the things that we were talking about before we came on set is the Contact Information looks a little different. The Stormy Daniels contact literally says stormy, first name. Last name, stormy. It has a single phone number, and thats all it has. But if you look at Karen Mcdougals, hers is far more details. It had two addresses for him, an email address, and a cell phone. And notably, it has her first and last name. This is not a person donald trump didnt know. And rhona graff also testified, look, trump doesnt use email. We all know that. I set up his outlook contacts for him, basically, i was maintaining his electronic rolodex. These arent my contacts. Theyre for him. The other thing she did is shes eminently credible. She didnt give prosecutors some of the admissions they wanted. They were trying to establish trump had a Business Reason to have stormy in his rolodex, in particular, he was looking at her as a plausible candidate for the celebrity apprentice. She wouldnt necessarily go there. She said yeah, i have a vague recollection based on some Office Chatter that she was talked about as an interesting candidate. But never did she say i heard it directly from trump. I overheard trump talking about her. Rather, she saw her once in the Reception Area of the Business Offices at trump tower. Said she knew she was an adult film star, but she never had a conversation with trump about her. If she had been a plausible candidate, rhona graff would have been close enough to know that. I never watched The Apprentice so i didnt know she was on the show. Whos paying for her lawyers . That would be donald trump. Yes, so you know, but thats the thing. It actually works as lisa was saying in the prosecutions favor, because then she looks a lot more impartial. If shes saying things that help put more bricks in the foundation of prosecutions case, and you know that shes not she doesnt have some sort of ax to grind here. She still really likes donald trump. Pecker does too. Pecker does too. It was a very effective set of witnesses for the prosecution. Both of my guests are staying right here. 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