Slowed the prosecution and asked trump friendly questions about potential problems with prosecuting a president. If you listened to that argument or read about it, you may have noticed it almost sounded like that kind of trial was a futile project. While up the east coast and actual trial of an actual former president was Going Forward and the republic did not crumble. It is a contrast that hangs over all of this in america and what we are going to get into tonight in this first week of the new york trial. It seems to undercut the suppose it concern of the trump appointed justices that hypothetically, someday, somehow, in the future trials of president s are a very bad thing, when they are actually already happening. The first week of this trial shows not only that it is possible, but also gave us the first evidence backed, in court, binding version of the d. A. S story and we put together a brisk ride through what we are learning. The prosecution in Donald TrumpsHush Money Trial Drew Sharp outlines of its case against the former president. The prosecution started. They laid out a dispassionate, straightforward, very linear and blunt to prosecutors telling the jury of seven men and five women today, it was Election Fraud, pure and simple. The defense gets right up and says the story you just heard isnt true. You hear the prosecution lay out a clear load map. You have a reference to the tape recording. That is a terrible tape for donald trump. The defense was like a circus leader. It is striking there is no family. He is by himself. David pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, giving bombshell testimony. We committed a campaign violation. Cohens response, he said he wasnt worried because Jeff Sessions is the Attorney General and donald trump has him in his pocket. David pecker acknowledged that he did this catch and kill with Karen Mcdougal for the benefit of the Trump Campaign. That event spent hours trying to trip him up. Senior Vice President of the Trump Organization and Donald Trumps former longtime Executive Assistant described as the gatekeeper. His right hand. Her lawyers are being paid for by donald trump. You heard that word, gatekeeper. The problem for the defendant is these gatekeepers and allies or even friends are talking under oath and the d. A. Is getting details out of them to bolster the Opening Argument where the jury was told the cases about a criminal conspiracy and the coverup. Tabloid veteran david pecker has been admitting that. He recounts his dealings with the trump lawyer Turned Star WitnessMichael Cohen to buy and then bury stories all to protect trumps campaign. He alleges a specific cam specific agreement. The d. A. Told the jury this will also be corroborated with evidence in trump, the defendants, own words. With receipts showing an illegal conspiracy to undermine the election. The defense rebuts that by saying there isnt an actual conspiracy charge in this case. Thats true. The word conspiracy has a legal meaning and also a colloquial meaning. They are saying they conspired together. The defense also attacks the Election Theory that trump promoted the election by unlawful means and that would be needed to supersede this misdemeanor of fraud into a felony case. So the Trump Defense has said maybe the d. A. Is being alarmist about what amounts to, however dirty, politics as usual. Trumps lawyers proclaiming there is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It is called democracy. The d. A. Has put up three witnesses and testimony this week. The National Enquirer chiefly mentioned, david pecker, was clearly the hottest, unloading details and dishing on the original and sordid meeting that formed this alliance which involved defamation against all sorts of people including ted cruz and his family. Details about how the inquirer acted as an arm of the campaign, meaning it so called Media Decisions were phoned in by cohen himself and the money to silence women came from both the inquirer and cohen, who of course was reimbursed by trump. So Karen Mcdougal and Stormy Daniels, they got money from different places but it all went back, according to the d. A. , to the original campaign motivation. David pecker told on cohen for how they tried to hide contacts using a secret messaging app. How secret is it if we are all hearing about it in court . The d. A. Also showing how the trump side knew this was wrong. That david pecker got nervous and cohen claimed that trump had Jeff Sessions in his pocket at the doj. The d. A. Is arguing that that adds to the evidence that team trump knew they had criminal exposure and their thought wasnt we didnt do a crime, their thought was our appointees will protect us. We have them in our pocket. I dont know how Jeff Sessions would fit in there, but it is an analogy. Trumps doj didnt actually shield Michael Cohen. He was convicted and imprisoned by the very independent sd ny prosecutors who are federal prosecutors during the trump era. At the end of the week the prosecution turned to rhona graff, a trump employee who seems to be on better terms with him. Trump is notoriously frugal, but the defendant, his company, are still paying for his lawyers. To take this all together and what you see is a lot more evidence against trump them reasonable doubt on his behalf. That doesnt mean he is losing this case. The burden is on them. For the first week this wasnt a slow ride or a lot of accounting spreadsheets. This was a two by four swung repeatedly at donald trump as a defendant and while some of that came from the prosecutors tough talk in the opening that i read to you, as we get into this tonight you have to remember a lot of that tough talk and incriminating information came from his body, tabloid chief david pecker, who said by the end of his testimony it is not personal, he still counts donald trump as a friend, he is just telling the truth under oath about their campaign crimes. How bad is it . We have two special guests with me at the table when we are back in 90 seconds. Seconds. [] at st. Jude, the mission is just something that everyone can truly get behind. Look at our little st. Jude pin there on the fridge were just regular people donating. Yeah. And i think its cool to be able to make a difference in someones lives in a way that is meaningful. You know whats brilliant . Boring. Think about it. Boring is the unsung catalyst for bold. What straps bold to a rocket and hurtles it into space . Boring does. Boring makes vacations happen, early retirements possible, and startups start up. Because its smart, dependable, and steady. All words you want from your bank. For nearly 160 years, pnc bank has been brilliantly boring so you can be happily fulfilled. Which is pretty unboring if you think about it. Welcome back to our special, trump on trial. New york versus donald trump. We are joined by joyce vance and professor jason johnson, both analysts for us. I went through some of what we got out of this Opening Weekend i think it is fair to say if you are on the jury it feels like the d. A. Is up, in the lead. I was careful to say it doesnt mean we know the outcome. What do you think they achieved in this first weekend what do you think they have to worry about . It is a great question. If you are the prosecution and you are not up after your first witness, you are in big trouble. The prosecution really did start off with an unexpected bang. No one knew what to expect out of david pecker. We learned he had been cooperating with prosecutors and brought trump straight into the essential conspiracy, the Election Fraud conspiracy, which is necessary to turn the misdemeanor that is charged here into a felony. Important testimony. He stood up well on testimony and crossexamination. They did not seem to come after him with a lot. They tried to pick away at his credibility, question the key evidence, but he was thoroughly rehabilitated on redirect examination. The prosecution has to be feeling good. Jason, i dont want to be unkind to the defendant and he is legally presumed innocent, but the family is not there. The jury can notice that. These are his friends and allies. Some of them have gone so far they are like Michael Cohen, who is so angry at trump that it might affect his credibility. Some like i emphasized said friendly. The guy is a liar, but we are friendly. I mean he may have committed crimes, thats what i thought we did, but we are friendly and hes got a whole back story of, shall we say, really complicated allegations, but we are friendly. If these are the views of his friends, how does that hurt him not only in the jury, but the court of Public Opinion . That is why this is such a bad week, because we can go through all of the legalese and jargon, but really the average person is picking up every fifth word and they are picking up things like adult film star, payoff, family is in theory and falling asleep during the trial. The outside world is like okay, this doesnt look good. He doesnt sound alert. We are not seeing anything that makes us think he is alert and paying attention. It is the old song, friends, how many of us have them . If you heard someone say this room was filled with people who are supporting donald trump and they leave the room every day and melania is there and things like that, it gives the public the impression that these people believe in him. Even if he is guilty his family is still with him so the fact he does not have people with him, that is what the public is picking up. Are you going to tell joyce the reference you made . That is a classic. I dont think she does, no offense. I dont know. Go ahead. What im going to do, im going to let you marinate on this one. This is a classic and ill tell you at the end. I love that. In tv they call that a deep tease. When we say joyce is coming back for the Boris Epshteyn breakdown later, that is a deep tease. We will come back to that. For the public we showed this earlier in the week. Front pages. To say nothing around the world, where they dont have a vote, but it is ricocheting. What you think about the fact that it does take a level 10, the Supreme Court to say this is such a big deal and it is happening to remind people of what it is like if donald trump is in the center, whether he is in power, or the center of the story, people may have forgotten what 2019 was like. Does that hurt him, just the feeling of what this is like . Well, it adds up because people start thinking when is this guy not in court . He is in court for documents. He is in court for an affair. Everyone thinks he will be in trial the whole time and that is what makes people worried. We talked about this before. I dont carry too much weight in the polls this early, but what i can say is this. The number of americans who have said if donald trump is convicted of anything that it will affect their vote has stayed steady at 23 to 25 . So there is a risk here. This is not a situation where Trump Supporters say No Matter What happens and democrats say No Matter What. There is a core of the population and it tends to be independence that if he is convicted they will say i just dont think i can do it for this guy and that is a real consequence of this trial. I appreciate the precision of your mind. I appreciate that you dropped a second reference, gone to november. Fugees. I am reminded of we are all in the danger zone, the judge hit the hammer, my brother and coming home. That is something he has to worry about with trump. Will you now unveil your earlier reference . No, im going to wait. I want this to be g and you will know this when you come back. You know she will integrate it when she comes back. People ask sometimes, was this planned or scripted . I did not know you were going to say it, so we will all be in suspense. Joyce, i did want to include you in the legal breakdown, because these arizona charges are not only a big deal, they involve one of trumps new york defense advisors, Boris Epshteyn. So joyce will come right back as we get into that as these cases collide. We will show you Boris Epshteyn, you may remember him. We have that breakdown with joyce vance, next. Rolaids dualactive formula begins to neutralize acid on contact. Rolaids spells relief. ella fashion moves fast. Setting trends is our business. We need to scale with customer demand. In real time. jen so we partner with verizon. Their solution for us . A private 5g network. ella we now get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. marquis with a custom private 5g network. Our customers get what they want, when they want it. jen now were even smarter and ready for whats next. vo achieve enterprise intelligence. Its your vision, its your verizon. Known for nights to remember. Known for creating memories. Known for Strong Family ties. No one wants to be known for cancer, but a treatment can be. Keytruda is known to treat cancer. Fdaapproved for 17 types of cancer, including certain earlystage and advanced cancers. One of those cancers is a kind of bladder and urinary tract cancer called advanced urothelial cancer. Keytruda may be used with the medicine Enfortumab Vedotin in adults when your bladder or urinary tract cancer has spread or cannot be removed by surgery. Keytruda can cause your Immune System to attack healthy parts of your body during or after treatment. This may be severe and lead to death. See your doctor right away if you have cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, diarrhea, severe stomach pain, severe nausea or vomiting, headache, light sensitivity, eye problems, irregular heartbeat, extreme tiredness, constipation, dizziness or fainting, changes in appetite, thirst, or urine, confusion, memory problems, muscle pain or weakness, fever, rash, itching, or flushing. There may be other side effects. Tell your doctor about all your medical conditions, including Immune System problems, if youve had or plan to have an organ, tissue, or stem cell transplant, received Chest Radiation, or have a nervous system problem. Keytruda is an immunotherapy and is also being studied in hundreds of Clinical Trials exploring ways to treat even more types of cancer. Its tru. Keytruda from merck. See all the types of cancer keytruda is known for at keytruda. Com, and ask your doctor if keytruda could be right for you. Her uncles unhappy. Im sensing an underlying issue. A its tmobile. It started when we tried to get him under a new plan. But they they unexpectedly unraveled their price lock guarantee. Which has made him, a bit. Unruly. You called yourself the uncarrier. You sing about price lock on those commercials. the price lock, the price lock. so, if you could change the price, change the name its not a lock, i know a lock. So how can we undo the damage . We could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. Their connection is unreal. And we could all unexperience this whole session. Okay, thats uncalled for. Welcome back to our special, trump on trial. This month is actually the First Time Ever americans have watched a former president be put on trial. Trump at the defendants table with his lawyers including a prominent one, Boris Epshteyn. A veteran of the Trump White House and campaign who has become central to trumps activities since 2020. He was in court with trump as you see along with the lead Defense Counsel two days in a row, just as he was at the table in the first new york arraignment. His quarterbacking for trump comes after he joined and led many efforts throughout 2020, attacking those Election Results that showed trump lost. We have been reporting on those efforts for years, including how contrary to the initial impression that they involved not just mainly january 6 violence, but a host of other plots over those months and paperwork and election flow fraud. We pressed Boris Epshteyn on his role and his views which are relevant as he is involved in all of this. Now here we are in this busy week as he is there, working on his phone with the lead counsel, trying to help trump stay out of a new york prison. But what we can tell you as part of our special and with all this news you may have missed it, for the first time epshteyn joined the ranks of Trump Lawyers who need criminal lawyers of their own. Arizona prosecutors indicting him for elector fraud. Charges for a host of trump allies. Boris epshteyn continues to have a prominent role. Rudy giuliani, john eastman, mark meadows, names weaver in the past, suddenly back in the news. This is the first time hes been indicted, but also a former trump aide who remains to this day one of his closest advisors. This is obviously a big deal and like anyone else indicted he is presumed innocent. It is also, however, a big deal and a live issue in this new york case. Defendant trump using boris as a lawyer and reporting on all of these issues. We have interviewed epshteyn repeatedly including when the early subpoenas hit. When you say you will provide evidence, does that mean your intent is to cooperate . I am happy to provide evidence of the overwh