12 new yorkers have affirmed the principle that no one in america, not even a former president, is above the law. a jury unanimously found donald trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. the criminal case hinged on the testimony and evidence of the trials narrator, trumps fixer turned foe, michael cohen. he joins us here now. he is the author of disloyal, the true story of a former personal attorney to president donald j trump and how trump weaponized the u.s. department of justice against his critics. is also the host of the mea pope and political podcast. >> i am so busy. >> i want to get some context here. when this all began for you in many respects, at that time trump is in the white house, you had gotten caught up in this thing on your way to prison , how, having this, full-circle and watching what occurred this week, do you appreciate that role? that narration? i thought it was very interesting and important for you to frame this chapter in this context. you knew how everyone else was going to come at it. for you, it was like it is time to tell my story and tell it the way it occurred, the things that happened, what i saw and what i heard and did for donald trump. >> i have been trying to tell the same story for six years. i could not get the story out against the trump mega microphone machine with all of the crazy gop members of congress. i wrote a "new york times" best- selling book and it still did not work. i wrote a second "new york times" best-selling book and it still did not work. now, at least i have the platform at a trial. the first in u.s. history of a former president to be held accountable for the things that i have been talking about for six years. remember, the das case did not start when i was released from otis phil, it started while i was in otis phil. three times, three times the manhattan da team came to visit me there. that is where began. >> that's what really began. that is where the saga began. >> prior to the start of the trial, you were very careful, i think, not to discuss anything that the manhattan das office discussed with you. you wanted to protect the integrity of the trial. now that the verdict has come down and that these of the trial is over and we move on to sentencing. initial conversation that you had with the manhattan da office when you found out they were going to bring this case forward, what was that conversation? >> there were two separate das involved in this case first it was side vents. when i was in otis phil it was cy vance's team, then i met with mark when i was ultimately released from otis phil as a result of covid. the nutcase went away and we all remember that story and alvin brandt became the district attorney, he was looking at a different set of charges than what cy vance was looking at. a lot of people, myself included, were very disappointed because they believed there was more than enough in the other set of charges to come against trump and hold him accountable for those crimes. i guess we were all wrong and i am the first one to admit i was wrong. alvin braggs certainly brought the right case, 12 jurors unanimously decided on 34 counts of guilt. >> tom branch was on the today show talking about the prospects of an appeal, take a listen. >> you are confident on appeal? >> yes. >> what is the main issue? do not give me a legal brief. >> i think the statute of limitations, the way in the background this case was brought is meaningful. i do not think michael cohen should ever be somebody who could be relied upon to convict somebody. >> you are part of the case and now you are part of the appeal. >> thank you very much for it i have a name for, it is called slope, stupidest lawyer of all time. i'm sure he is watching like everyone else great ratings. he is the stupidest lawyer of all times. why? you do not make the defense of all-time great let's just credit one of the witnesses, let's discredit the narrator. there are 19 other people that were called by the manhattan district attorney prosecutors like susan often stir, josh stein glass, obviously alvin bragg leading the charge, 19 people testified which all corroborated, again, the narrative of my story, what i had been saying for six years. corroborated by 19 independent people, who by the way work for trump and still remain loyal to him. >> is that your instinct that donald trump was calling the shots and such as go after cohen? >> combination of both. guaranteed it is all predicated around donald trump calling the shots. i have seen him do it going back to 2007 when i started working for him. he calls the shots, it is the wrong thing to do, you do not allow your client to dictate to you the terms of your defense, especially when you're talking about something as important as this case. u-turn and you let them create the defense. you can participate as a client, you do not dictate the terms of the defense. it is, again, stupid which is why i call him a sloat . >> there is a paper trail, there are documents here that cooperate and held up everything that you said, it was not just you, there was david pecker and hope hicks -- >> what is your sense why did they not come for david pecker the way that they came for you or the way they came for stormy daniels, why were they not critical of hope hicks? >> hope hicks is sort of the poster child, she is young, she is attractive, she is intelligent, and she is very soft spoken. she is like a prosecutors dream poster child, despite the fact she was involved in so many aspects of what was going on. me, new yorker, raisin, trash, easy to attack me. why the southern district of new york did what they did, why they gave david pecker and allen weisselberg immunity in order to testify against me, to this day nobody can give me that answer, it does not make sense. >> how will you process, we raised the point about appeals in the next level up and be level of involvement that you will have. you have these other narratives that are out there around you and around others in terms of donald trump is the victim here. the one thing you are narrative makes very clear and i think will be be very important on the appeal is, donald trump was the architect. he is a micromanager of micromanagers. he is not one of these guys or ceos who sits back and every quarter gets a debriefing of what happened in the last three months, he is involved day in and day out. you think that narrative reinforces the argument as it gets in front of an appeals court? in other words, this is less about michael cohen despite what trump's lawyers are saying and it really is, as the 12 jurors decided, all about trump. >> donald has put this in many of his books, if you come at him, he will come at you 10 times harder. i seem to be the only one who has stood up, i should not say the only one, stormy daniels has, e. jean carroll has, we are talking about in this specific narrative, i am certainly front and center. his feeling is not only do i need to knock michael down, i also need to set an example for others that you do not want to be michael cohen, you do not want to take the blows that i and members of congress that are supporting this are going to be coming at you. this is a mafia message. >> what is the difference between you and weisselberg? weisselberg is like, don't know not staying. >> weisselberg is still in the camp and still in the cold and he will not testify against donald trump. he has the right not to testify to plead the fifth. that is what he did. as a direct result he is spending more time at rikers island. >> he is at rikers. y'all have not been to rikers -- . i am struck by the fact, you went to jail, you did not have the sexual encounter with the young lady, it was not even you, you, at this point were the one person held accountable for everything that went on and that was an inflection point. why do you think that was an inflection point for someone like allen weisselberg? >> there is no way to explain why he refuses to provide the testimony that we all know that he has. as you stated earlier, it is in his handwriting. it has his initials next to it. it has two checks with his name written on the bottom. why he refuses to do it, nobody -- he is also under an agreement, he gets a severance of light $2 million if he does not testify. >> that was something that did not come up in court. they were not able to reference it. >> we will just talk about it here on the weekend. another thing we should talk about that no one else is talking about is yesterday's wacko doodle press conference. >> we will talk about that. we will take a break and then talk about that. >> it was a show. >> i appreciate that. right after this, stay with us. sometimes your work shirt needs to be for more than just work. like when it needs to be a big, soft shoulder to cry on. which is why downy does more to make clothes softer, fresher, and better. downy. breathe life into your laundry. if you're living with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis or active psoriatic arthritis, symptoms can sometimes take you out of the moment. now there's skyrizi, so you can show up with clearer skin... ...and show it off. ♪ nothing is everything ♪ with skyrizi, you could take each step with 90% clearer skin. and if you have psoriatic arthritis, skyrizi can help you get moving with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. thanks to skyrizi, there's nothing like clearer skin and less joint pain, and that means everything. ♪ nothing is everything ♪ ask your doctor about how skyrizi could help with your skin or joint symptoms. learn how abbvie could help you save. (bell ringing) someone needs to customize and save hundreds with liberty mutual! (inaudible sounds) (elevator doors opening) wait, there's an elevator? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, ♪ ♪ liberty. ♪ ♪ music ♪ ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ ♪ unnecessary. ♪ was that necessary? no. neither is missing your daughter's competition to do payroll. with paycom, employees do their own payroll so you don't have to miss your daughter's big day. time to shine. get paycom and make the unnecessary unnecessary. try killing bugs the worry-free way. not the other way. zevo traps use light to attract and trap flying insects with no odor and no mess. they work continuously, so you don't have to. zevo. people-friendly. bug-deadly. centrum! it's scientifically formulated to help you take charge of your health. centrum gives every body a healthy foundation. supporting your - oops - energy, immunity and metabolism. and yours too! you did it! plus try centrum silver, now clinically proven to support memory in older adults. we are back with michael cohen. before we went to break, you were talking about the press conference, let's be clear, it was not a press conference, it was a statement. with a press conference you take questions. >> it was filled with a bunch of people who work in the building. as i was watching it, i decided i would have to put something on my twitter account. i wrote, trump's press conference is nothing shy of a bad crazy avalanche of broken brained manure. that's what it was. it was a rambling series of nonsense. here is something that is interesting that no one is talking about, he is not even allowed to do that press conference in trump tower. >> why not? >> he does not own the public space. if you look outside the door it says open to the public. he gave away that space years ago in order to build the residential portion. that is how he obtained the fa are, the air rights in order to go as high as he did for that property. he does not own it, therefore you need a permit. he was warned of this in 2016 during the campaign. does donald trump care about the law? no. the same way he put up the clock on fifth avenue without permits. he just does things. the law does not apply to him the way it applies to the rest of us. >> that is an important point and part of the psychology of trump that i have always been fascinated by. in my encounters with him early on at 13 and whatever, it is very clear he is a man who believes i will do it unless you stop me. he does not believe that you can stop him. there is truth to that. if you look at how our system, our judicial system, our political system, our media has capitulated to his brand, his level of pugnacious offensive behavior, treating it as entertainment, treating it as politically press it in terms of how republicans look at it. what is it about him that allows him, to your point, do the thing that he is not allowed by law, or by principal to do? yet everything around him just kind of goes, okay. >> we are having this conversation with the fact that he was convicted of 34 counts -- >> and 500 million in the new york attorney general -- >> we are eight years into this. now we are at that point. look at all of the terrain that has been disrupted and burned to the ground before we got to that point. that is what i'm talking about. this accountability is important . along the way it was not there. what was it about him that made people feel? the lawyers did not get paid. the banks had defaults. they would give him alone the next time. what is it? >> it is unexplainable. i truly do not understand it. is donald trump entertaining? absolutely. first of all, the look that goes on, how many people have made fun of the orange tan and cotton candy hair? he actually embraces the attacks. he believes anything they could've said about him is a positive. that is a narcissistic sociopath by design. what he does is he makes everything about him. for whatever the reason -- he brings out the worst in people. >> and they seem to like it. >> not only do they like it, they embrace it and run with it. >> true question for you, one, having gone through this presentencing hearing, i want to hear from you what the expenses like. i also heard you say you don't think you should go to prison and i underwent and i want to understand why. >> yes, i did go through that process, thanks for bringing up a bad memory. it is a horrible process. you sit down with an individual and you basically have to open up your entire life to them whether it is financial, medical, they need to know everything. it is based upon that document that gets submitted to the judge for review and the judge uses that in determining the sentence. here, we see, to mike's point, donald is a bombastic. they wanted to call me bombastic, they thought i would come on with the nine iron and start swinging it, donald trump is the only one who went went out and attack everybody. >> again, he had a whole slew of members of congress sitting behind him doing the same thing. that is going to determine the sentence including violations of the gag order, which i believe he did again yesterday. i still think the gag order is in place in his behavior, his 10 minute rambling about me he is violating the gag order. do i think he will be convicted? absolutely, 100%. do i think the judge is going to sentence him to prison or jail? the answer is no. >> you also said you do not think he should be sentenced to jail >> announcer: i'm afraid for him to go to jail. >> why? >> not for him, not for safety. i am more concerned for you and for all of us and for the american people. this clown had four years of being debriefed on national security issues. on top of that, if he becomes the republican nominee he gets debriefed again think about this, america, think about this. you now have a republican leading candidate who is a felon who is going to be debriefed on national security issues knowing how loose lipped he is, how he is willing to give away america's secrets to vladimir putin, or to anybody for money. or simply for bragging rights but he did it with the australian billionaire at mar-a-lago. he sat there in helsinki with vladimir putin talking about national security issues but no one else was around except for vladimir putin's translator. these are not normal things. you do not allow somebody like donald trump to be declassified especially now as a felon. my concern is in a prison situation, he is willing to give away these secrets for a bag of tuna or a book of stamps. he will do it because he does not care. if america turns against him, he would rather see america burned to the ground. that is who he is. >> that part i believe. >> will you stay for a little longer? >> for you, absolutely. >> michael cohen is going to be here. you are watching the weekend. ♪ trains that use the power of dell ai and intel. clearing the way, [rumble] [whoosh] so you arrive exactly where you belong. when was the last time you checked in on your heart? with kardiamobile, the personal ekg device, you can check it from home using your smartphone. i use kardiamobile every day. sometimes twice a day. every morning i check, make sure i'm in good shape. and it makes me feel pretty good about my heart condition. it's a complete game-changer. i mean, you might as well be in a doctor's office. there's a way i can communicate with patients now in a way i never could before. they have their own ekg in their pocket. with kardiamobile, you can take a medical-grade ekg in just 30 seconds from anywhere. kardiamobile is proven to detect atrial fibrillation, one of the leading causes of stroke. and it's the only personal ekg that's fda-cleared to detect normal heart rhythm, bradycardia and tachycardia. having kardiamobile, it's a peace of mind for me. because you can't see your cardiologist every day, but you can see your kardiamobile every day. checking your heart anytime, anywhere has never been easier. don't wait. get kardiamobile today for just $79 at kardia.com or amazon. wanna know a secret? more than just my armpits stink. that's why i use secret whole body deodorant... everywhere. 4 out of 5 gynecologists would recommend whole body deodorant, which gives you 72 hour odor protection from your pits to your- (sfx: deoderant being sprayed) secret whole body deodorant. (vo) if you have graves' disease, your eye symptoms could mean something more. (sfx: deoderant being sprayed) that gritty feeling can't be brushed away. even a little blurry vision can distort things. and something serious may be behind those itchy eyes. up to 50% of people with graves' could develop a different condition called thyroid eye disease, which should be treated by a different doctor. see an expert. find a t-e-d eye specialist at isitted.com ♪ ♪ [sfx] water lapping. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [sfx] water splashing. ♪ ♪ [sfx] ambient / laughing. ♪ ♪ whoa! how'd you get your teeth so white? you gotta use the right toothpaste! dr. c?! ♪♪ not all toothpastes whiten the same. crest 3d white removes 100% more stains for a noticeably whiter smile. new personal best. crest. we are back with michael cohen. thank you for sticking around. >> it's not like i had a choice. >> you kind have locked him into the chair. >> a couple things i want to check on but i want to finish up with the prison portion. here is where i come from. i get the whole formal president thing. i am looking at all of the former presidents before trump and none of them did any of this, none of them wound up in the court system, been adjudicated rapong someone. for me, all of the entrapments of the presidency kind of go away. as a former lieutenant governor if i go in do a crime like trump , i am not going to rely on that i was once an elected official. we have countless elected officials that have come before donald trump before the u.s. senate governors, et cetera, who do not have the benefit of their former office to protect them and everyone bent over backward