Welcome back to the weekend. Alicia menendez and michael steele. Week 14 of the election interference trial wrapped up with a new star witness and some devastating bombshells. The former Communications Director spent many hours on the stand and went into details about how they have managed these scandals that plagued the trump campaign. Joining us mal, katie phang, and susanne craig. I saw you Fact Checking. Newly you can tell that phang was still working. Katie, this was a big week in this trial. Keith davidson, how did you see this week ending up from the way that it began . I do not think that a lot of people knew the impact that hope hicks would have, so close to trump that there would be this protective veneer and she threw down some information that i think really helped the prosecutions case, how do you see this case . This week was a mixed bag, all good for the prosecution. There are a lot of us that are looking for the Marquis Maine witnesses. The custodian of records, these people, if you dont have them, you dont have text that were read to the jury, you do not get video recordings. Juries are visual creatures. This is how you keep them engaged. To end with hope hicks is perfect. It was great for the prosecution and hope hicks, she knew exactly who he was, if you did not know and she saw who donald trump was, she shouldve gotten out. She did not, she came back for more, lets be clear. You know, having that level of emotion going into her testimony made her more credible. I put on twitter today that she still put lipstick on a pig, it is not like she was all in with the testimony. She made it clear that donald trump ran it all. The idea that he was not controlling what was going on im not allowed to say this. The thing that everyone should take away from this week, it is the most reminiscent of what a trial actually feels like. Really exciting moments, some things that come out from evidence, there are also some mundane moments as well and that is the cadence of the trial. We have settled into that with a trial that we have not seen. Many are going to take the glasses off. Question for you, i want to talk about Keith Davidson. This entire trial is shrouded in people with lots of different credibility issues. You are talking about a former president and a playmate. All sorts of things. Keith davidson is not someone who is a cleancut character when you talk about somebody who had previously gotten into some trouble for trying to extort hope hogan. He provided the most contentious testimony on the stand in terms of backand forth this week. Do you think that his background in terms of him being a little bit of a shady character hurts the prosecution . Everybody here, Michael Cohen on down, it does not matter. Pigs dont marry giraffes. Its a concept. The reason why is that everyone has unclean hands. From the top down. When you prosecute mobsters, you have people that go and knock the knees and put the heads of the horses in places and people are directing them to do it, they all have unclean hands, one of the things that was fleeting in opening, in jury selection, he talked about accessory liability. The legal concept of principles, everybody, when they go to rob the bank, from the getaway car, we are all equally liable. Donald trump may not have actually signed the check. Stormy, i will pay you off, the fact that he was involved and Keith Davidson was involved leans into the concept that this was a group of people that did this. They kept it tight. I was really interested in the crossexamination of Keith Davidson. I think they should have established that they did not know donald trump. They were trying to sully him up and it had nothing to do with what his interactions were with the two women in the contracts. I was surprised a little bit that they went as far as they did. He is a scoundrel, we know that. We knew that without all of the sideshows that we got. I think they went too far. As an attorney, you have to throw whatever you can at the wall and hope that something sticks. Some of the pieces of this that might seem less interesting are about closings and having all of your ducks in a row when you get to closing. Look at the majority sitting there. A lot of it is the way that they feel about what it is that they are watching. As a Reporter Sitting in that room that you are our eyes and ears, at the end of this long week, what does that look like to you . There has been a lot of discussion about the big names that we are on. David pecker very strong. Keith davidson and hope hicks. As a reporter, there were reporter moments that stood out. This is a trial that involves a lot of dealings with the media. The national enquirer, the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post. There were some moments, one in particular, i dealt with trump and hope hicks over the campaign. Over the last eight years as a reporter covering him, that moment when david from the Washington Post sent over an email at 1 29 in the afternoon, that moment. Weeks before the election and he has the access Hollywood Tape and is asking for comment and he says that there is vulgar language in here and he puts the transcript below and hope hickss instinct, she denied, deny, deny, deny, the first instinct is to live. That is the campaign that i know. Not only was donald trump involved in every aspect, hope hicks was taking notes and learning from him. They live. That is their first instinct. To see an email like that without even running it down, i want to make sure that i get everything right, i get mad if there is a spelling mistake. You know it, but to see it, the other moment that made me laugh was when hope hicks on friday talked about this moment where she overheard a call between david pecker and donald trump and she was walking out of meetings and could hear both sides of the conversation and he was talking about the ben carson story that he had come up with and sent over and they had embellished it and it was about ben carson having left a sponge in a patients brain. And donald trump said, you should get a pulitzer for that. It was a horrifying moment, it is important to the case, this is why we heard it. It establishes the relationship between david pecker and donald trump. Now you are hearing it in another witness. What do you make of hope hicks talking about Michael Cohen inserting himself and wanting to be more relevant in trump world then maybe he is. He was not supposed to be on the campaign in any official capacity. There were things that he did in a volatile capacity because of his interest. How did you read that . There was a sense of trying to diminish the impact of what he might say in his testimony. There is a recognition not yeah, because he was so integrated into the way he projected, there is something where he was asked to do certain things for donald trump. I think what his lawyers will try and tell us is that Michael Cohen was a rogue actor and made this payment. He just took 130,000 out of his bank account . You have hope hicks saying that this person is not particularly generous or charitable. Exactly. The contrast we see with the evidence. I wanted to get your impressions on and how damaging you think this is. It came out this week that there is a january 10th note from the Wall Street Journal that Michael Cohen provided around Stormy Daniels saying that we had no sexual relationship. The semantics seem to be contradictory. They were on center stage this week. Your thoughts on how this ultimately played out, for members of the jury or did he even strike you as having an impact . This is part of the deny, deny, deny, lets break that down, it was a romantic sexual relationship and the witness that spoke to that was Keith Davidson, he put out a statement saying that there was no romantic relationship and he was asked about that, how truthful was that . There was no sexual or romantic there was no sexual relationship and it was not romantic they just had sex and once they laid out the component pieces, there are denials. The Wall Street Journal reporters were aware of that denial, denial, denial. I have dealt with his finances whenever we would have his taxes, they would say, we dont have them. They would say, we are wrong and they would send over statements. He is talking about property tax, those are the kinds of things that you deal with with these guys, your goal at the end of it, we are getting a statement from the white house saying that what we have is wrong and we are getting all of this denial stuff, it sends us back to do more work. It can be successful and it is ridiculous. Im glad it is being laid bare in court. Some of it will go directly to the end in closing statements and some of the stuff will play in. The juries, their heads are spinning thinking wow, this is how it was running. Whitewaterish. There you go. Katie, stick around. Stick around. Stick around. There is more that we have to discuss. Judge merchan Fact Checking right there in the courthouse, in the courtroom, donald trump, this is the weekend. Weekend. But with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. For one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. One pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. With absorbine pro, for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. Pain wont hold you back from your passions. Its the only solution with two maxstrength anesthetics to deliver the strongest numbing pain relief available. So, do your thing like a pro, painfree. Absorbine pro. Donald trumps words are finally catching up with him. He paid the 9000 Contempt Fine or multiple Gag Order Violations in the new trial. Judge merchan will rule next week on potential violations and during a hearing on thursday, he warned trump that he could be jailed for further infractions. Katie phang and susanne craig. It is very rich to see the system pressing up against this guy. The frustration for a lot of folks was beginning to feel or believe that might not be the case. That they would not impose the full weight on him as normal folks out here would feel. How did you see him in the courtroom in those moments when the judge is like, all right, little boy. You will get in trouble if you keep running your mouth. 9000 is not a lot, that maximum none is allowed. The moment this week that was the most Incredible Exchange between donald trump and the judge, donald trump going to sit outside the courtroom and said that because of the gag order, he will not be allowed to testify. Everyone was like, what . The judge is not letting me go to my sons graduation. Not that that came up. This one instance where he was going on about this and then the next morning, a monday later, the judge said, i have a matter that i would like to start off with this morning. He completely deadpanned zen says, it has come to my attention that there is a belief out there that what is going on with the gag orders against donald trump cannot testify. That is not true. He went through this whole thing, he has a right to testify. He did it so smoothly and calmly. Lets bring the jury in. You see how he is manipulating the narrative right . Donald trump is not going to testify. He is now creating this space where his people think that they will not let him testify. Come on. That is ridiculous. Ive always been an advocate for cameras in the courtroom. That is the moment that a camera in the courtroom will show those in america and elsewhere that the judge is explaining the law. The distortion of the law that trump uses in his rallies is a distortion of the law. Even if we did not have a camera in there, at least if we could have the Audio Recording because it is maddening that they dont. Public interest in this is huge. The complaint from so many people, we have to rely on a fifth person, lets hear it. We still have some gag orders to be dealt with. What do you expect it is going to take for donald trump do you think he has gotten the message . If we can get to the point where we will see the judge actually decide to hold him in contempt to the point that he makes good on his promise . Lest we forget, donald trump was tagged with how big of a verdict in the Defamation Cases . It was because he defamed somebody because he could not keep his mouth shut. That is historically his problem. I am the very noisy in the corner camp, you do not want to disrupt the proceedings. I am the noisy one in the corner saying, why is he getting Special Treatment . Any other defendants, any of us would be charged with 34 felonies, we would be in jail by now. If you start tallying up, 14 violations of a gag order. It is a court order and it is called Criminal Contempt and it might not be a charge or a crime in itself but if you violate a court order, you should be sanctioned and the discretion afforded to judge merchan is a 1000 fine or jail or a combo both. I have said this, put him in the pokey. Put him in that room in the back where he is sitting in the back, in jail, let them sit there, for a while. Is the Secret Service worried that someone will come through the concrete walls and hurt him . Let him sit there and be removed. Im tired of people saying, it will be more inflammatory rhetoric for his campaign. I understand, charles and i know this, we have respect for the judiciary and what they have to do. Why not actually have what i think is a completely neutral application of the law . There was a moment in hope hicks testimony that was less interesting as in the case and more interesting as a political moment. When you go to the release of the access Hollywood Tape, there is a brief moment where republicans came together to condemn, they had heard it and it felt like we were living in an alternate universe where they still had the wherewithal to come forward and it reminds us of the fact that we did not start there. That moment in some ways is what solidified his hold on the party. They came to understand there was nothing that could take them out. That is actually a very important moment, that last october where this all hit and the Political Leadership inside the party did the right thing. In any other circumstances, they would gather and go, we cannot do this, they will prepare to move. He would not want to come out and publicly say anything and be tagged in this story around the access Hollywood Tape. The Party Chairman was panicking and pushing trump to stand down and then there was a moment him where it all stopped. That moment came when donald trump pushed back up against dan said, i will not stand down and began to speak on that. Everyone in that moment got in line. All of the voices dissipated into nothingness. He made it very clear that i am going to continuing this race. You see a little bit of that playing here with some of this stuff. Your point about the Secret Service and the entrapments. Ive seen barack obama pull up at a restaurant in washington, d. C. He has half the entourage with him. The president ial entrapment, donald trump has a way of manipulating that. The important piece is the force of his personality to say, this is what i want and this is what i am going to do. We saw what he did to the gop and we will see him try and do that to the courts. In the courtroom, what is the vibe when you see him at the Table Nodding off . What is a vibe when you see his defense backed into a corner because he has run his mouth and the judge is reprimanding him . Is that a clarifying moment for trump . How does that play out inside the room . Im processing in terms of what does it mean . On a couple different levels. He has his eyes closed, you can see him nodding off and he is closing his eyes and part of that is that he is trying to moderate his behavior. He knows if he says something, he has had one incident where during jury selection, he was huffing and puffing in front of the jury and he got whacked by the judge for that. The judge, merchans line on the go to jail card is the jury. He has his eyes closed for whatever reason he is doing now for, that could be part of what i just said. He has a jury looking at him and his eyes are closed and they have to be processing that in their own way and thinking that this is nuts. When you are in the jury box youre always looking at the defendant. The defendant is a former u. S. President. I think that is interesting. His behavior in the courtroom has been flat. He goes out and you will talk to the mic and when he is in the courtroom, that is by design, there is a line that merchan has as the judge and if he crosses it, there will be consequences. Smack that hand. You continue to do you. You got it. You do you. We love you. Katie phang, always a pleasure, thank you for being here. Still ahead, one of President Bidens top campaign lieutenants, trumps revealing interview in time magazine. Mag ella fashion moves fast. Setting trends is our business. 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