I do have a lot of surrogates speaking very beautifully. They come over from all Over Washington and theyre highly respected. Republican candidate for president of the United States is going through mental anguish in a courtroom thats very depressing, very depressing. Donald trump brings in his most loyal maga sycophants. Cos playing as trump to break the judges gag order for trump as his criminal trial heads towards a conclusion. Also tonight, two president ial debates come together very quickly today as President Biden challenged trump to two debates and trump accepted. But the debates will be a significant departure from what were used to. Good evening, everyone. Im jason johnson, in for joy reed. We begin tonight with Michael Cohen, the man who once said he would take a bullet for donald trump. Will be back on the Witness Stand tomorrow in day two of crossexamination by trumps defense team in his hush money election interference trial. The defenses goal, to try to poke enough holes in cohens credibility and testimony about trumps involvement in the conspiracy to falsify Business Records to cover up the 130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 president ial election. We saw some of that yesterday in trump attorney todd blanches dramatic first go at cohen where he spent hours tempting to paint cohen as a liar who was just out for revenge against his former boss, even trying to use cohens own words against him. For instance, blanche said you referred to President Trump when he left the courtroom. You said he goes right into that little cage, which is where he belongs. In an fing cage, like an animal. Do you recall saying that . To which cohen replied, i recall saying that. Following crossexamination which will likely finish before the end of the day, the prosecution is expected to rest its case following any redirect. The defense has already indicated it might not put on any defense at all. And might not call any witnesses. As of yesterday morning, the defense said they didnt know if their client was going to testify. Something trump isnt required to do but said he would absolutely do. Yeah, i would testify, absolutely. Its a scam. Its a scam. Im testifying. I tell the truth. I mean, all i can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that theres no case. They have no case. Of course, trump has made similar claims he would testify in some of his other legal matters, and he never did. This all means that the first criminal trial of a former president of the United States could come to a close as early as the beginning of next week with closing arguments. Then it will be up to the minds and hands of the 12member jury to deliberate and return a verdict. Joining me now to discuss is katherine christian, Former Manhattan assistant District Attorney and msnbc legal analyst, Jill Wine Banks former watergate Assistant Prosecutor and cohost of the sisters in law podcast and omarosa, author of unhinged. Thank you for starting us off with the show today. You know, katherine, i want to start with you on this. So, cohen is going to testify again tomorrow. The defense is saying, you know, this is probably our biggest chance, our biggest get. Where are they right now . Do they have Michael Cohen on the ropes . Does this appear to be a situation where theyre knocking down the main witness . Where do you think they stand . Where do they seem they think they stand . They dont have him on the ropes. What theyve successfully done, if you can call it that, is bring out some information about the hatred of donald trump that Michael Cohen has. And he just needs to own that. That wasnt brought out by the prosecution. And the prosecution did a very good job of bringing out Michael Cohens convictions and other information. But, they have a whole day tomorrow. What theyre trying to do is not just poke holes. Theyre trying to destroy Michael Cohens testimony. Theyre going to be charged, the jurors will be charged at the end of the summations that if they dont believe witnesses testimony in one material fact, they can disregard the entire testimony. However, the prosecution in this case did a very, very good job of providing enough corroboration for Michael Cohen, enough circumstantial evidence against donald trump for his guilt that really they can attack Michael Cohens credibility and the jury could still find that they have proven Beyond A Reasonable Doubt that donald trump is guilty. Omarosa, i want to read something to you. Theres this really interesting idea that the prosecution has talked about, accomplice liability to sort of explain their case theory, right . So basically what theyve said is lets say Hit Man Hires or a husband hires a hit man to kill his wife, and the husband may not be present when the hit man actually carries out the murder, but the husband is every bit as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger, even though he wasnt there. Can you follow that kind of logic, right . A lot of the jurors said they did. Youre the only one tonight who has actually worked with donald trump and seen how he works. Is that an effective and realistic sort of algorry for how he operates . Is he a guy who gets his fingers in the spaghetti himself . Or is he a person who often sort of sends other people out to do his dirty work so that he has plausible dnld later on. Jason, if that hypothetical scenario that you have just outlined i think you actually hit the nail on the head as to how Donald Trumps strategically operates in a way to not get his hands dirty. He will give directives. He is very careful not to use email, for instance. Hes careful not to write certain things down and have others to do that for him. In this case, he had michael carry out this really situation that was something that he wanted michael to clean up for him. This porn star, this hush money. He wanted it taken care of because he did have a woman problem. So that certainly tracks with how donald trump operates in his organization. And i want a quick followup to that. This idea that Michael Cohen doesnt like donald trump, again, lots of people who used to work for donald trump dont like him now. As someone who used to work with him, and now knows what kind of person he is, do you think that actually do you think the average person looks at that and says, well, i dont know if youre credible if you dont like your exboss, do you think theres so many people that no longer like this man, thats not necessarily as much of a problem as it used to be . Jason, to that point, lets start at the very top. His own Vice President doesnt support him and like him. Half of his cabinet doesnt like him and support him. People like myself who worked with him and saw how he jeopardized our country, our democracy, dont happen to like him. I dont believe that thats a deal breaker for the injury because many of them may be sitting there and not like him. What really this comes down to is about justice. And accountability. So, regardless of how you feel about donald trump or how Michael Cohen feels about donald trump, can donald trump be held accountable for his alleged crimes . Thats the true question here. Right. Yeah, its not just about what cohen thinks. Hes how the culture actually thinks about this guy. Yeah. Jill, i want to ask you this, so, one of the things that i also think is a key piece of evidence here, if youre ever going to have a question whether trump did this or whether he was involved is this handwritten note from Allen Weisselberg. This is amazing to me that again, you know, im thinking of the wire. I cant believe youre taking notes on a criminal conspiracy here, Bank Statement from First Republic with handwritten notes from Allen Weisselberg on how to reimburse cohen, 180,000 grossed up to 360,000 with an additional 60,000 bonus added twogt and divided by 12 amounts. The guy writes the whole thing out here and makes it clear that cohen couldnt have been operating on his own because he was expecting reimbursement. Is this the kind of thing that a jury will see and be able to Connect The Dots or do they still need to be hand held . To me this seems pretty obvious. I think you would be a great juror because it does Connect The Dots. But so does Michael Cohen. And so does all of the other witnesses that have woven a web that you can see how everything fits together. And its not just Michael Cohen who came across, i think, outperformed what everybody expected and will be believed by the jury, but hell be believed partly as you noted, because they have built a foundation around him that shows how everything hes saying is true. The additions that he makes are the only logical conclusions you could draw from the foundation thats been built. When he says, yes, he knew about it. Yes, he knew there were false records. Those are things that the foundation has made it clear, put together. I think he will be believed and there will be a jury that believes this is the case where all the elements have been satisfied, that donald trump knew about the payment, he knew it was intended to help his election and knew that the records were falsified so that he could get a tax benefit, so that it would be concealed so that no one would know he was doing an election violation. Jill, i want to stay with you for a minute. So there was a congressional hearing today on the weaponization of government that you testified in. I want to play some sound from this get your thoughts on the other side. Mr. Costello, is Michael Cohen a liar . That doesnt begin to describe him. He lies at every opportunity when its in his favor. He said i didnt want to embarrass melania trump. Thats why i decided to take care of this on my own. Went back to that several time. You did this on your own . On my own. Did donald trump have anything to do with it . No. Did you get the money from donald trump . No. From any of his organizations . No. From anybody connected to donald trump . No. Jill, first off, talk about what your testimony was in this hearing and second, what purpose what purpose did the republicans really think theyre accomplishing with this sort of, you know, cspan marathon of a hearing that nobody else is going to Pay Attention to . First, let me say, jason, youre making me relive one of the worst days of my life. Its so hard to sit there and not respond to the nonsense thats going on, the three republican witnesses, but maybe especially mr. Costello. It was painful. To me, it was so obvious that on this day they picked to assassinate the character of Michael Cohen. It was outrageous. Everything he said. My testimony related to they have called this Hearing A Law Fair Weaponization of government. And honestly other than Law Fair Blog i had to look up what law fair meant. Using the institutions of government to take down an opponent. And to me, this hearing was actually law fair. They were doing it to hurt the on going trial, to interfere in this particular trial. My testimony was more about the fact that it used to be that facts matters and that the distinctions between the Indictment Decisions of the Special Counsel for mr. Trump and for President Biden are based on not a different standard, but on different facts. And that if anyone would Pay Attention to the facts, it was justified to make the decision that you would not indictment President Trump. And it left you no decision except to indictment mr. Trump because mr. Trump not only concealed, he hid, he obstructed. Those are the reasons that the aggravating factors lead to an indictment. And so, it was my point was no one is above the law, including a former president. And that the differences in decisions have nothing to do with the department of justice, cheating or showing a bias. It has to do with the facts that apply to the standard. So the standard is the same. Theres no weaponization. And i thought that the testimony attacking Michael Cohen was completely unfair. And as usual, its probably for an audience of one of trump. Katherine, very quickly, you know, look, i always say this. Im not a lawyer. I dont play one on tv, but to me the idea that the defense is only going to rely on redirect and not put donald trump on the stand, not put any witnesses on the stand, that seems really risky to me. Is that because they dont have any credible witnesses that they can put up there . Or do they really think they can tear down Michael Cohen enough that when this jury gets together in a couple of days they can get a hung jury or get a not guilty verdict . Thats what they think. And it would be crazy. It would be insanity for donald trump to testify. Hes not. Hes going to say he would have but theres no case. So, hes not going to testify. And they probably wont call witnesses. The reality most criminal defendants dont but donald trump snot going to testify. He wouldnt necessarily be the best defense for himself. Thank you all so much for starting us out tonight on the reidout. Up next, the republican puppet the reidouted up at court today all cos playing in trumps red tie. 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Wooooo donald trump had a day off from court today, but on tuesday, the political plastic showed up still trying to make fetch happen. A collection of puppets wearing their no Strings Attached and hoping they show enough loyalty to trump to be vp, and its going to be them. The red tie gang followed the example set by other Trump Surrogates who showed up in new york this week, including House Speaker mike johnson. The judge inside his daughter is making millions of dollars running against donald trump, raising money for Donald Trumps political opponents. Im sitting here listening to a guy on the stand that they had to get out of house arrest because he lied in another court. The judges own daughter is making millions of dollars doing Online Fundraising for democrats. Youve got relatives of the judge that are benefitting financially. The only thing thats being done wrong is by this judge. His daughter is making Money Raising money for democrats . The real bookkeeping that we need accounting of is judges own Family Member collecting millions of dollars as a democratic operative. If it seems like theres a theme, there is. The attacks on juan mer chans daughter and star witness Michael Cohen fall under his expanded gag order for donald trump. Trumps already been fined 10,000 for violating it. And faces possible jail time for future violations. Also, alabama senator Tommy Tuberville admitted on right wing tv. Hopefully we have more and more senators and congressmen going up everyday to represent him and be able to go out andover come this gag order. Thats one of the reasons we went is to be abl