Michael cohen testifying. I watched him inside the courtroom where cohen was speaking against his former boss just a few feet away. Defense started their Cross Examination. We have been reporting on that along with our colleagues here. How it has been going. Asanother pivotal day. Michael cohen back on the stand. Trumps former fixer Michael Cohen taking the anstand. It is a whole new game this afternoon. This is the moment we have been waiting for. The crossexamination. Will cohen keep his cool when trumps lawyers begin an intense crossexamination . It has been an explosive last hour of testimony. It is getting testy. Michael cohen is about 45 minutes now into todd blanches crossexamination. Donald trumps attorneys attempted to shred the credibility of the star witness. That is some of what went down. Prosecutors have you confirmed something new. Cohen is their last witness which means they are on track to rest their case here because there will just be this Cross Examination i told you about. And then thats it. Cohen is very clear today. He continued along the lines that made yesterday such a damaging day for Defendant Trump. The testimony that says these payments at the heart of the case were made because of Trumps Campaign. He made the payment to daniels to ensure the story could not come out. They asked if not for the campaign, would you pay the money . In cohen trump said no. Prosecutors said at whos direction an on whose behalf did you commit the crime . Notice the crime. They are getting this in front of the jury. The idea that cohen was a key part and now admitting this crime with his then client donald trump. And he said on behalf of mr. Eh trump. Thats the heart of the case. Cohen bolstering the theory it was done for the campaign. Meaning there was a Business Fraud crime of lying about it. Then the Second Campaign crime. Thats the theory. I mentioned the cross and we will get to that later in the hour because there is interesting stuff in the cross. But much probably the most e important thing we have seen is what happened yesterday and the morning beginning of today which is how cohen is walking through exactly what they say is this trump crime. Cohen also addressed the issue that will come up later in cross. But he addressed it first in a more friendlier afterwhere he retracted the 2018 claims that he had made the payment all on his own. They even got air in the New York Times. Today he explained it and said he lied then because he was still in the business of trying to protect trump to stay on message to demonstrate continued loyalty. Cohen admitted trump approved st the statement. You can see it. He enapproved it in substance. He did. Cohen recounts the conversation he had with trump after the feds searched his office. This was in that 2018 period where things were changing. And he describes how trump told him dont worry. Im the president. Stay tough. You are going to be okay. That is how he recounts there. What you dont hear is donald trump says i got you, i pardon you. Ill take any public blowback for that. Because apparently trump didnt make that offer and now never made that move. Cohen also discussed the kind of messaging he was receiving. Trump also speaking in public at the time testifying trump ru wanted him to basically stay in the fold. To stay loyal. I have you. Youre a fine person, dont flip. That is what cohen stays on the stand. He understands trumps remarks to me. At first, cohen did not flip. Then he did. This is where you could see from the morning to the afternoon, both sides of the case in the argument. There was all this damning term and how he went from having this close relationship with donald trump and working for him to the things. The tangible things he went through that made the relationship sour. That is a shift this jury could understand. People have heard about warm relationships. It is sour. But there was also in the cross, a lot of questions about whether that is the whole story. Or whether in some way, Michael Cohen can even be trusted. A he credible . And there were references to what he has done in the media. To his conversations with other key individuals. This whole drama played out. We have our special coverage tonight and our guest is someone mentioned in in i see now that my ambition and the intoxication of trump power had much to be with the bad decisions i have made. To our nation, im sorry for actively working to hide from you the truth. About mr. Trump when you needed it the most. Michael cohen was testifying in congress. He struck some of the same notes. He im joined by someone who was mentioned in the Cross Examination of Michael Cohen. Welcome back. Thank you ari. Anything you want to address off top given that your name was cited by trumps lawyers and your dealings with this very investigation that das office recited . First of all, there is a diversion, distraction as a technique even mentioning my name is a distraction. There are two issues that the jury is going to decide in the jury room. I respect whatever decision they come up with. One is was this contribution politically motivated . Even if it is just primarily or in part . That makes a crime, the judge will so instruct. There has been no evidence he was worried about Melania Trump and there is substantial evidence it was motivated by the campaign so that is not a close call for me. I know there is disagreement on that. The second one is whether the circumstantial facts lead the jury to use its common sense. No, it could never be legal fees in the handwriting of mr. Weisselberger. He add up a lot of numbers and donald trump as a sitting president of the United States wrote checks for 35,000, signed from his personal checking account. An that is an issue whether he therefore has responsibility for falsely claiming when you round up all the numbers including the 130,000 of hush money to 420,000, and you divide by 12. There was no possibility that was for legal services. It was reimbursement as Rudy Giuliani called it. That was the second issue. Was there Legal Expenses and did trump know they were falsely booked. And he doesnt have to be there to write down the number. He knew that it was falsely booked because he miscalled them Legal Expenses when he knew perfectly well, you dont take a round number and divide by 12 and weisselbergers confirmed handwrites. Whatever the cross does in Attacking Michael and fellow panelists Attacking Michael as a liar, he lied for donald trump. No excuses. He said im ashamed and i was sitting behind him in that shot. That is what he said to me which convinced me to help. You and i spoke about it back in the day. That is the case. That there was encouragement and he ultimately decided to do them anyway. So im not going to talk about my advice to michael. I have since resigned as his attorney. But i can certainly tell you on the night the last time we talked was mothers day dinner. Sorry everyone. I did take a call from michael and we did talk about that subject. And he acceptly expressed recognition that it is not a great idea in the middle of a trial. Especially when there is a gag order. He is not the same as an indicted defendant attacking the jurors but he did recognize and it wont happen again in my opinion. Stay with me. This is one of the big news night. Reverend sharpton is here. Joyce vance. You and i have spent time around Michael Cohen. Im curious what you think about how up to this point he has remained not only calm, even steven. I was watching him in the cross this afternoon. I went from the courtroom up to here as many of our colleagues have. But it was the calmest i have seen him. I have been impressed how calm he is. Maintained because i have known michael a few years. I have talked to him a lot since he had this problem as you know he called me and said i want you to pray with me. Youll pray with anyone. Yeah. Im supposed to. But, he can be volatile. For him to be as calm as he has been, i think he really is serious about trying to do what he is doing. One of the things that impressed me, he asked me to stay in touch with his son. I do think and i have talked about a lot of people down through the years he is trying to redeem what he feels he did wrong. Im convinced of that. Part of the redemption is he is not going to do something to undermine. How about that . We dont mean it in sort of a furient way. Real housewives. Or is it House Husbands way. But we mean in a legal sense. Sometimes like other people in public life with stress and other things, he comes off a different way. And Lawrence Odonnell said this was a different Michael Cohen than he had ever seen. I appreciate Reverend Sharpton at this moment. And Elijah Cummings said almost the same words. Both of them are spiritual leaders and Reverend Sharpton has been a spiritual leader for me many, many decades. What does it take for a sinner to show contrition . And for that to be authentic . When Michael First talked to me about helping him, i called. I would say reverend cummings. But it was Elijah Cummings. Because i said to michael, the only way you are going to be believed is under oath, live, with republicans and in fact, there was a sign on the wall when he testified in front of Representative Cummings. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Can you be contrite, michael . Can you show remorse . Will you say the words you may recall, i am ashamed. I am sorry. And you have to mean them. That was the beginning of the representation that i tried to give to Michael All The Way through the night of mothers day dinner two nights ago where i asked him the same question. If it is not from your heart, the jury will not believe you. I think you are seeing the man speak from his heart when he says he shows remorse. And joyce, this is where the law becomes personal. Because the jury are people. And the witnesses are people. And some things are record evidence and facts. And other things. Do i believe this person. And very few people can say they have been 100 truthful 100 of the time about 100 of everything. But cohen has a different problem. You continue to lie. About trumps involvement. He said yes. And you continue to pressure other people. Davidson. Who was on the other side of these ndas to lie about the payments. Why did you do that . In order to protect trump. Explain to us what they are doing because they seem to be drawing a line in the time line. I think they are. Most importantly, what prosecutors are doing is making sure the jury hears about any blemishes from the prosecution. They dont want those to first come to light with the defense. The government has to convince the jury that even though Michael Cohen is imperfect. He is now telling the truth. And they have to give the jurors reasons to have confidence. With some witnesses it is as simple they have a deal. If they are not truthful they are going to prison. That is not the case with Michael Cohen. So to the point of the conversation, that you are having, it has to be that he is honestly contrite. That he is here to tell the truth. And he did i think a very good job of doing that today. I want to play what we learned about this in public all the way back with hannity talking to rudy. It is not campaign money. No Campaign Finance violation. They funneled it through the law firm . Funnel it through the law firm and the president repaid it. I didnt know. He did. Everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasnt. When i heard cohens retainer of 35,000. That is how, how he is repairing it with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes. That is what we learned then. And we put up the receipts now you have courtesy of the trial. Yeah. I mean look, there was anxiety about this case because of the Michael Cohen witness situation. But what the prosecutors did which was very, very smart was it started with david pecker. So Michael Cohen has just become a piece of this and it turns out he has been an excellent witness. He kept his cool. He has done what he needed to do on cross. But the case was expansive. And sort of brought in a way that made it really about more than that. And they had the documents and the people saying that this was campaign money. That this was a donation. What did you think as well as the whole exchange regarding this other lawyer costello . Whatever he was up to . What if anything do you think the jury will make of that . It definitely seemed to make the people in trumps orbit look bad. Very odd because i was there the day he came in and volunteered after the prosecution was finished with the grand jury. And he came in and said he wanted to testify before the grand jury. And the Prosecutor Team said yes and i had to come up with washington. I could use the yiddish Word Schlep Up from washington. And i did. I sat next to the grand jury room. And we waited for the testimony to be over. And when it was over, the grand jury said they were not interested in hearing the rebuttal. That is how relevant having a lawyer associated with Rudy Giuliani who agreed to the second half of this case already. Oops, he told the truth to hannity. It was reimbursements. And Everybody Knows it except maybe the crossexamer trying to push with mr. Trump says. That is really my answer. It was innocent for him to go back and rebut this individual with something that didnt ring true. No need for michael. The other thing that has come up is how much Michael Speaks out. This was even up leading into the start of the trial. We have all been hoping that Merrick Garland would actually do something and start locking these people up. That somebody would finally hold trump to task. No matter what happens. Unless trump is exonerated. He is going to of course scream partisan, partisan, partisan. Witch hunt, witch hunt, witch hunt. Nothing is new when it comes to donald trump. It is just a regurgitation. I will give you my reporting and you give us your tape. But they were trying to pull together these different strands and we have more on this later in the hour. To go at him. And they said why do you do this, michael . You dont know what kind of answer you will get. And sometimes the overcoached answer isnt the best one. And you know what he said, rev . He said partly to vent. Partly because i cant sleep. And partly just these are thoughts i have and im sharing them. Now im not saying it is a perfect answer. A lot of people in the trial have a need to vent and they find other forums but it was interesting because it felt true is. So that was what we saw as the day went on. Was sort of mining the depths of mr. Cohens experience and the jury is going to look at that and decide can they relate to that or not . Do they think he is fundamentally now telling the truth or not . No. And you know it brings to mind the conversations i have with michael. He never tried to get around that he was involved in something wrong. And i would say you know, as a minister you try to say you are not that bad. He says what i did was shameful, rev. And i think his family, he told me was the ones who said how long are you going to go along with this. When your wife and kid is saying to you, who are you . It makes you say you know what . Just put it out there. That is how i have been. And i was not surprised. It was like he wasnt making excuses for him being a participant in this kind of stuff. And the way he is trying ore deem himself is by being very open. The way you are putting it in a second. The way you are putting it makes me think of the old lyric. Im trying to write these wrongs. But funny how the wrongs help me write this song. And this could be his swan song wrongs and all. You get the last word and you can include a lyric or not. Its your choice. No lyric. But i hate to do anything beyond what the reverend just said because it is perfect. Let me just say Michael Cohen for good or bad cant fake it. He is who he is. He is a man in pain. He is a man filled with anger. Anger toward what trump did to him. Anger toward what trump is doing to the country in his opinion. But he cant fake it. With me, i recognized right away this is a very flawed human being just as i sam. Just as the reverend teaches his parishioners we are all flawed. He is authentic in his contrition. That is why this jury will believe him and why the Cross Examination liar liar liar pants on fire as jim jordan put on the wall behind him is a distraction. It is about whether he is being authentic. It is interesting. A lot of points have been raised. I didnt know we were going to get this deep. Thank you. Thank you. We did know that. That is more predictable. Joyce stays because we got you on a rebuttal to an interesting couple of points we have coming up including an experienced defense lawyer. The rest of the panel, thanks so much. Thanks for putting up with me. You get the good guests, too too. We have more. We will look at the politics of the maga republicans showing up. But fist, we have just been talking about all the good points cohen made and how he came across on the stand. There is always what i was an eyewitness to in court. A back and forth with swearing and expletives and excitement and innuendo and a lot of objections. We have all of that coming up. Stay with us. Coming up. Stay with us. Her uncles unhappy. Im sensing an underlying issue. Its tmobile. It started when we tried to get him under a new plan. But they they unexpectedly unraveled their price lock gu