Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in new york alongside Chris Jansing for what could be the end of testimony in Donald Trumps criminal trial. Michael cohen is on the stand for a second day of crossexamination. Katy tur will join us in a moment. Trumps attorney, todd blanche, is pressing the president s onetime loyal ally turned adversary. The defense highlighting the many times cohen admits he lied under oath. Is he lying now . The only person who can counter much of what cohen is testifying about is donald trump himself. We are still waiting for a final decision on whether he will take the stand. With us in the studio, danny cevalos, catherine christian, and Criminal Defense Attorney and former manhattan prosecutor jeremy sala. Catherine, very low expectation that donald trump will take the stand. One of the things we are interested in, a 19minute sidebar before Michael Cohen came in. We are waiting for the transcript, which should hit during these hours. There was a provocative sidebar the other day when the crossexamination began where the judge was basically chewing out the Defense Lawyer for beginning with a provocative question about himself rather than about donald trump. Today he seems to be more targeted going through lie after lie after lie and Michael Cohen acknowledging he lied under oath before. That was the benefit of having a day off and speaking to his cocounsel about being more direct and not giving openended questions. Im from the school of less is more. People have different styles. I think their goal people are waiting i have found that witnesses arent shredded on crossexamination. All you need is to get nuggets of reasonable doubt. Michael cohen is not a credible person. That doesnt mean that on the facts of this case he is not telling the truth, because what the prosecutor would argue is its corroborated and theres Circumstantial Evidence. They want to say, dont believe a word. He is not a credible person. He is lying about the facts of the case. Having him admit lie, lie, lie, lie will help them make that argument. I get that. We expected it. We expected lie, lie, lie, which is what todd blanche is doing. First of all, has he asked any questions about the case itself . Whats at the heart of the charges. Is there a risk that even with the impeaching the credibility of Michael Cohen, jurors say, well, thats also who donald trump hired and kept around as his personal attorney. Thats a fair point. Thats who he hired. Thats why he did the thing ez did. At some point, you need to stop. You will lose the jury. I think that you should hit all the main ones. Theres plenty. If you went after every lie, you would be here another few days. What they want to do is not necessarily go after the falsifying Business Records itself. Even though thats the core. A signature is a signature. You want to go after the vehicle and messenger. Who is that . Michael cohen. If you make this more about Michael Cohen and you hit on Michael Cohen to the point you dont lose the jury, then you make it about Michael Cohen. If you can distract, thats a win. Dont trust him. Dont like him. He has an agenda. Jeremy, let me follow up on that. As a former prosecutor, you have someone he is known as former fixer, Michael Cohen. Thats not a great title. But thats the way he is known as former fixer, Michael Cohen. There might be sympathy for him, he was in isolation, a federal judge said he was put in Solitary Confinement when he was incarcerated. What do you do as a prosecutor to try to restore the credibility or sympathy fafacto . Where blanche went too far. You said you didnt want a pardon but then they asked for a pardon. The response was, i was in a nightmare. What point did you win . You humanized Michael Cohen. Im living a nightmare. I did something wrong. Ive been caught. I have to deal with this. That seems what is the strategy . Its hard to imagine a juror who doesnt understand and believe that Michael Cohen is a serial liar, has shown himself to be a serial liar. Why go on and on about it . Theres got to be a strategy. Theres a phenomenon that happens. You start living the facts. You start losing perspective. You are so immersed in the facts. I have no doubt, like every lawyer does, when you sit down over the weeks and months preparing the crossexamination, you dont want to leave out anything. You never know what the jury is going it seize upon. Its a challenge. You want to keep everything in there. But you know you have to edit. Resolve doubts in favor of leaving questions in there. Look at every inconsistency. You dont want to let it go. I have to bring that. The jury might find it interesting. What happens im so guilty of this, too is you script out all these questions and its really hard to cut. You dont you lose objectivity when you are immersed in the facts. For us on the outside watching, we can see, well, you really when you ask Stormy Daniels 11 times, did you have dinner, are you sure you had dinner, dinner, dinner, then you start realizing as an outsider, this is too far. You will lose the jury. When you are in it, you are in there and you need to get the concession about dinner. That becomes so important. You lose sight of the mission. It happens to everyone, especially me. Let me get back into the document, if i can. Now they are talking about, i guess, motive. Part of the motive. They are talking about, when asked the question about whether you wanted to work in the white house, you said, no, sir. Correct. Blanche, you testified you were offered jobs at the white house. I was offered a role, yes. President Trump Reamed Out Priebus that you had not accepted a job. He was the former rnc chair who went to work in the administration. Blanche, mr. Cohen, you really wanted to work in the white house. No, sir. You didnt simply indulge friends and family, you really wanted to work at the white house. No, sir. You hoped would you be named white house Chief Of Staff. No, sir. Why . We know from a prior witness, if we believe the prior witness, how upset he was that donald trump did not bring him to the white house. One of them is not telling the truth. That why you are asking that. Also in terms of the direct examination, no good Defense Attorney wants the witness to repeat their direct examination. One said to me, its not about the facts. Its about reasonable doubt. He is bringing in another person. The fundraiser for mr. Romney. Do you recall having a conversation with him . He asked you if you wanted to be Attorney General or Chief Of Staff and you said Chief Of Staff. Yes, sir. He congratulated you and said Chief Of Staff, that would be nice. Correct, said cohen. On november 9, after the election, you told rita she was coming to the white house to be your assistant Chief Of Staff. Yes, says cohen. You told your daughter you had a chance to be Chief Of Staff. Your daughter alerted you to the fact that consideration that priebus would be Chief Of Staff and you said he was pushing like a mad man. Yes, sir, said cohen. I think i used hybrid. They are showing him an exhibit. This brings us to the point as we know from other testimony, he was made the president s personal lawyer and it was to have connections open upstairs in one of the law firms and a fancy office to tell Company Corporate people, i can get you in touch with donald trump. Is the point of all of this just to say, motive . This is why a big reason he hates donald trump so much and he is not to be trusted . Yes. Let me give you an example why its dangerous every minute you keep a witness on crossexamination longer than you have to. When you script out a question, im sure todd blanche thought this would be an easy yes. You told people you would like to be Attorney General. Its so ridiculous that Michael Cohen would be Attorney General of the united states. It shows his ambition and he was a jilted lover. Its a decent question. I have no doubt when he was scripting that he thought, he is going to say yes. Now Michael Cohen says, i dont recall saying that. Now you have to make a choice. Do i veer off into someone else said you wanted to be Attorney General or do you move on . Its a difficult decision to make. You make it in the moment. In this case, with the world watching. Its a tough call. Lets bring in our colleague, katy tur, who has been in the courtroom for us and has come out. Katy, tell us what it is like. Describe the atmosphere. We are talking about this crossexamination, perhaps getting into too much detail, going too long, and whether or not the jury is bored. If you can watch the jury, tell us what you have seen. Reporter its so interesting being inside. When you are reading it off the document i got a sense things were different in the courtroom, more forceful. Todd blanche is very quiet. He is very calm in his questioning. Almost serene. Michael cohen is very quiet as well. He almost seems meek, deflated. Sorry for the new york city noise. He has kind of naturally, its right next to me. We can hear you. He has a hangdog quality to him. Answering most of the time with, yes, sir, no, sir, thats correct. He is not the Michael Cohen that anybody who knows him knows. There was a striking moment earlier on in the morning when this is after questioning between blanche and Michael Cohen, yes, sir, no, sir, thats correct, that sounds like me. Short answers, very calm. They played Michael Cohens podcast. In the podcast, he is yelling. He is screaming about how much he wants to see donald trump in prison and how it would make him feel good. The energy and the emotion and the force with which you hear his voice in this podcast is the exact opposite from the Michael Cohen that you are seeing on the stand. I looked over at the jury. Most of them are just stone cold. No reaction whatsoever. There were a couple where you could detect a slight smirk. For the most part, the jury is paying close attention. I havent really noticed one instance where anybody seems to be nodding off or losing focus or attention. A couple times before the last break they looked over at the clock. It was nearing to a point where people might need water or a snack. They have been ver attentive to the proceedings. Another thing that struck me, when the jury walks in, they walk right by donald trump. They walk by the table he is sitting. None of them look at him. The second they get in front of him, in his line of sight, they look down. Each one of them, one after the other. They make a point not to look at him, as if theres something almost im not them, so i cant accurately say what they are feeling with any exact knowledge. But it almost seems like theres a certain intimidation quality walking by the former president of the united states. In terms of the Atmospherics Beyond Blanche and cohen, donald trump walks in with the normal swagger that donald trump has. You have seen it and you can imagine it accurately. We know him so well at this point. He also walks in with a big entourage. It was lauren boebert, matt gaetz, epstein is always there. There something of it felt like a mean girl quality to their presence. They walk in stoic. But when they sat down, they looked around the room. They noticed George Conway. They started to snicker. Everybody stared right at George Conway and whispered among themselves. They did the same thing looking at Michael Cohen. You get the idea that donald trump bringing this crowd is not just a show of force for the cameras outside but a show of force for the witness inside. Potentially even the jury. Can you get under Michael Cohens skin by not just showing him donald trump, but all of his entourage with him . The lawmakers who have yelled at him in congress, the potential vp candidates, Donald Trumps family, former colleagues of his, epstein there. Trying to see if anybody can knock him off his game. Michael cohen, for his part, has not looked at donald trump, from what i can tell. He stayed focused. If he had gotten any coaching i know he has gotten a lot about how to deal with todd blanche. He is doing it. He doesnt seem like he is somebody who isnt aware of the way he should approach this testimony, isnt aware of how he should say yes. There were a Couple Instances where he got into it with blanche. Even those were not high level intensity. In terms of the quality of the argument from the defense team, im not a lawyer, i havent argued a case in front of a court. I dont know juries intimately. As a person who is steeped in this case and steeped in the events surrounding it, i find it hard to to follow. I wonder if the jury is finding it hard to follow as well. The theme for the defense is just to try and poke holes in Michael Cohens credibility. Not just poke holes, to totally diminish it. Paint him as somebody who never wants to take responsibility, who is always looking for someone to blame when he gets in trouble. We heard that over and over again. Michael cohen, you shift responsibility. He admitted he did so. You never want to say you are wrong. Hoping to convince the jury that this is a guy, when he does something wrong, is looking for somebody else to blame. In this case, he is looking right at the former president who was once his once the guy he looked up to and is now the guy who spurned him. As you know, there are different ways to deliver a knockout punch. I will let the lawyers disagree with me. But definitely when you have arguably the most important witness on the stand, you want to deliver something approximating a knockout punch. It might not be people screaming, it might not be people sitting in the courtroom who suddenly have a collective gasp because of what they just heard. Was there any moment at all in what you heard you have been sitting there all morning . I havent heard anything like that. I dont think you will get that from this case. I havent seen any interaction with the lawyers, with Michael Cohen, the lawyers between each other. Even the objections are quiet. Its a very, very calm room. You could argue its tense. But its very calm. If theres going to be a knockout punch, i dont know if its so apparent. At least it hasnt been to me. I have only been here for a few hours today. Katy, you say you are not a lawyer, but you know donald trump so well and all these players so well. Just the atmospherics, as you described them. Danny was sharing that as a Defense Lawyer, he felt todd blanche was going over and over it too much and that you dont have to follow every thread. Didnt you tell your daughter you thought you could be Attorney General or white house Chief Of Staff or this or that . It seemed to me that going into his text with his daughters, those confidential texts, might make some jurors uncomfortable. It was too much. He has established that he was not telling the truth when he said he didnt want a job in the white house. At one point he is saying, i didnt want to be the deputy counsel, i wanted to be personal lawyer to the president , which is the job he did get. It seems as though that may be overkill. Its hard to tell how the jury is taking it. They are paying attention. I have seen some very minor reaction. Mostly when the podcast was playing or names Michael Cohen called donald trump or brought up. Other than that, there hasnt been a lot of visible reaction from the jury. A lot of them are taking notes. They are paying close attention. I have had enough conversations now with Andrew Weissmann and all of our fantastic legal analysts to know that they will say that its hard to predict how a jury which way a jury is going to go. They will point out one juror and there are people saying, i think that person is x or y. Often, they are proven wrong by what happens in deliberations. Its just its hard to tell. As somebody who is steeped in this case personally, i have done a lot of reading about it, i have done a lot of studying about it, i cover it with you ladies every day. I was there covering the campaign during the period that is at the core of this case. I know the details of what was happening at the time. A lot of these arguments can be hard for me to follow. Im not clear what the jury is getting out of the Minutia Of What Todd Blanche is trying to argue other than just really emphasizing that Michael Cohen is a man who was out for himself, Michael Cohen is a man who todd blanche is arguing who lies, and when he is caught doing something wrong, tries to shift the blame. This time, he is shifting the blame to donald trump, because donald trump didnt do right by him. This argument that you are hearing, didnt take him to the white house. Didnt give him a bonus. Come on ba