that's our show for tonight. a special edition of prosecuting donald trump: witness to history starts right now. >> after 22 witnesses and 16 days of testimony, donald trump has become the first ever american president to be convicted of a crime. this trial will go down in history. but without cameras in the courtroom, americans never got to see the evidence for themselves. they didn't get to see trump's eyes close and his mouth go slack while he sat slumped at the defense table. they didn't get to hear stormy daniels' salacious testimony first harnd. they didn't get to watch the judge clear the courtroom, seemingly in anger, as he butted heads with one particularly truculent ewitness. instead, americans had to rely on word from the few reporters who were actually in the room making note, writing down, committing to memory the things we saw and experienced. things that a transcript cannot capture. take a look. >> that was something to behold. i could hear gasps all around me. i wasn't sure we were going to get to a place where we had any guilty verdict against trump, let alone all 34 counts. >> donald trump was climbing from the oval office, even todd blanche said that donald trump was writing checks from the white house. >> this is as professional a jury as you can get. and you can never read anything from them. >> just in terms of the vibes in the room, what you have heard about it being a dingy courtroom is real. >> i was in the courtroom, his eyes have been closed for most of the morning. i can't say what's happening behind those lids. >> one simple word, guilty, repeated over and over and over. something we've never seen before. >> tonight we welcome you to this special msnbc event, prosecuting trump: witness to history. over this next hour, andrew weissmann and i will lead you through what you missed inside that courtroom. not the line by line details of witness testimony but with the help of our msnbc and msnbc colleagues we'll tell you what it was really like to sit just behind donald trump as the details of the case spilled out. we'll tell you what it felt like in the room when witnesses took the stand just a few feet away from the former president. the unscripted, unpredictable moments when the former president seemed to be nodding off or muttering curse words, what people said to each other in the line for the bathroom after that riveting controversial testimony from stormy daniels. from andrew weissmann and from some of our best legal minds we'll hear what they saw in the courtroom that the nonlawyers like the rest of us might have missed. let's start things off with our first impressions from inside the manhattan criminal courthouse. >> it's a surreal moment to go into that courtroom for the first time and see a former president of the united states who is simultaneously the world's greatest clown. those two things at the same time as a criminal defendant just spins things in your head that nothing else can. and the weirdness of that alone is your first hour in the courtroom. and it's -- in that first hour in the courtroom it's hard to take in anything other than the weirdness of donald trump. >> anticipating going into the courtroom, i was actually excited to do it. first of all, because i feel like as somebody who's written a trump book and has been covering this man, you know, from the beginning of his presidential campaign on, this kind of felt like a crescendo moment for him and for the country. and sit the only trial that he's going to face, so it definitely felt like a big moment and something that i really did want to witness for myself. >> having worked in the mueller investigation and, you know, we could not charge the sitting president, then donald trump, that was a department of justice reel. now in a full-fledged criminal case it was kind of remarkable. >> i thought there'd be a lot of people there, a lot of pro-trump people in particular, and there really weren't. and then found my nbc fam, found the spot where we do stand-up, found all the producers and camera operators and everything and then just got in line and stood in line for a really long time. i will say the thing that i learned was it is not what you are wearing that makes a difference, it is what you are wearing on your feet, because where you are going to get cold is through the soles of your dress shoes, you idiot, why didn't you wear sneakers? >> so people understand, it's not that you walk up to the courthouse and they whisk you in and it's this easy, breezy kind of thing. you line up outside across the street from center street because they anticipate people showing up. you have three different lines. it's almost like flying on an airline where they put you in a different group of people to board. >> there are two courtrooms. they look identical. the only difference being the judge and the jury, et cetera, aren't in the overflow. >> that overflow eroom holds other members of the media. it also holds members of the public. and that overflow room has a very large monitor at the front of it that shows directly counsel's table so. you have the prosecution on one side, the defense on the other, but you very clearly see donald trump. >> it was like a spa compared to the courtroom. you can go to the restroom whenever you want to. you can -- and there's this absence of tension in the overflow room that i didn't know i was feeling in the courtroom until i wasn't in the courtroom. and it's almost like, you know, you're standing in this very difficult wind all day and that -- then the wind stops. it's that kind of very different sensation in what seems to be the same place. >> the day before senator tommy tuberville of alabama had gone to the trial and said it was the most depressing building he'd eever been in and heaped scorn on it and i was -- i take that man's statements with a grain of salt, but it was perfectly nice. it was a good, highly functioning municipal building. it kind of struck me how much a certain class of americans are used to very elite spaces and they're not used to public spaces, municipal spaces, bureaucratic spaces, playly if you're poor you have to spend a lot of time in those kinds of spaces. elite people, people with power and money, they tend to be in grandeur. >> donald trump in that setting, both when he's walking past you -- you know, he walks in and out -- and you kind of see him for the first time. this is the first time i've ever seen him in person. he was less ethan expected. >> the first time i was in the courtroom, donald trump was very surprised to see me because it had been mostly reporters, you know, very few anchor types showing up there. and donald trump has hated me longer than anyone who was going to walk into that courtroom. he was once very fond of stormy daniels, and you know, very fond of michael cohen. but in 2011 when donald trump started talking about president obama's birth certificate, i said he was lying about it, and i called him a liar. and donald trump had never been called a liar before in his life, even though he'd lived a life of lying. when he was leaving that day, he just did the stupidest thing he could possibly do. he looked right at me in this grand way that everyone in the courtroom could see, and he was trying to do a face that would be tough guy and scary and threatening and full of hate, but he's a terrible actor, and so it came out as just an insanely twisted face that meant nothing but madness. and i loved it. >> if there were cameras in the court, people all over america in all 50 states would be calling in sick to work in order to stay home and watch this thing. i mean, it is so fricking compelling in person. and the drama of this particular criminal case against trump is both lurid and cogent and full of amazing characters and has just enough surprise to make every witness kind of a cliff hanger. i mean, it's -- you can't -- like i don't know if trump is falling asleep or if he's just resting his eyes, but it's not boring. it's riveting. >> riveting is the perfect word to describe what it was like inside donald trump's trial. every trial is dramatic. it's why we all get addicted to tv shows like law and order and the wire, but this is real life, and it was no exception. but it is one thing to hear the news about it or if you're a nerd like me to read the cold transcript but tonight we're going to continue to learn from people who are inside the courtroom day in and day out, waking up at the crack of dawn to wait in line to get one of the few seats available to the public and the press at 100 center street here in manhattan. so tonight i'm join bade very special legal panel who also spent many hours in the manhattan criminal courthouse. please welcome nbc senior legal correspondent and attorney laura jarrett, msnbc host, legal contributor, and like me a former criminal trial attorney, katie phang, and msnbc legal correspondent and a former big law litigator, lisa rubin. they are here with us for the whole hour along with nbc hosts giving us their impression from inside the courthouse. lisa, obviously some of these witnesses got a ton of attention. they may not have been the most important witness, but stormy daniels, michael cohen, and maybe -- maybe the most surprising witness, which was the defendant's last witness, the last witness anyone heard, bob costello, spoiler alert, i thought that was a huge bob. but big picture, what was your impression of how they did that people might not get from just reading accounts and hearing from us, you know, about what was technically said? what was the sort of demeanor and tone that people might get? >> i think most important part about the witness that you can't get from reading the transcripts or sometimes even watching our coverage is the entrance and the exit, because all of the witnesses were brought in through a side door to the courtroom instead of the traditional back door where you walk along the entirety of the gallery, you walk through the center well, and then you walk to the witness stand. here each and every witness, no matter hostile to donald trump or friendly, had to walk by his first row of surrogates on their way into the courtroom, flanked by courtroom security officer, and then those of them who had counsel, their counsel them then followed thereafter. in some cases, trump really wanted to have an interaction with them, as with his former executive assistant. in other case, the body language was as hostile as hostile can be. michael cohen looked like he wanted to vault over the courtroom little doors so that he could avoid being even proximate to donald trump so. i thought that entrance and exit was really fascinating to watch. >> so katie, had a question for you as somebody who's spent so many years as a criminal prosecutor. lots of people talked about how there should have been cameras in the courtroom or at least audio. let's leave that aside for a moment. >> sure. >> how do you think, if there had been cameras, that might have affected witnesses, the lawyers on either side, or even the defendant, donald trump, if this had been televised? >> i think it would have increased the intensity of the experience for everyone involved, especially the witnesses. you have to ask yourself whether or not donald trump himself would have maybe reacted even more visibly than he did. maybe he wouldn't have acted or looked like he was asleep if he knew there was a camera trained on him. but when it comes to the witnesses themselves, it's important because if they knew -- just like we've seen in other trials -- that they would be on the witness stand, i think it would have amplified even performances that we saw from some of the witnesses. i think you're more hyperaware. and i think the jurors would have been aware. even if you never saw their identities, i know they know it's important what is at stake, but when you're in the courtroomt a small space. this is not some huge, cavernous federal courtroom. sit a small state courtroom, and so people are within very close proximity, to lisa's point, to within feet of each other. and that is the jury. if you know, also, it's not just the people in the courtroom that are watching or the overflow room, it's america and the world, i think that amplifies the intensity. >> excellent plan. i was surprised by how close the witness stand was to the jury box. >> oh yeah, right there. >> really close. you know, and actually the witness stand from donald trump was much, much further, so that was something i think you don't get from not being there. we have much more of our super smart legal panel who are inside the courtroom coming up, but first it was some of the most shocking testimony of the trial when stormy daniels took the stand, all while apparently unbeknownst to us wearing a bullet proof vest. after the break, our team takes us not only inside the courtroom but inside the elevators and, wait for it, bathroom lines, where reporters tried to process what they had just heard. you're watching prosecuting donald trump: witness to history. >> many of the journalists in the room were looking at each other thinking, my gosh, i cannot believe this is happening. i cannot believe this is being said on a public stage. and also, by the way, how am i going to communicate this on television. going to communicate this on television so am i. because i'm at risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. come on. i already got a pneumonia vaccine, but i'm asking about the added protection of prevnar 20®. if you're 19 or older with certain chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, copd, or heart disease, or are 65 or older, you are at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. prevnar 20® is approved in adults to help prevent infections from 20 strains of the bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia. in just one dose. don't get prevnar 20® if you've had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine or its 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speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? welcome back to prosecuting donald trump: witness to history. it's our special report on in-person, in-the-courtroom reporting of the first ever criminal trial of a u.s. president. so after years of covering stormy daniels and her claims that donald trump paid her to keep quiet about a sexual encounter so it wouldn't come out before the 2016 election, what was it like to see her in person when she finally took the stand to testify against him? and after her dramatic, combative, sometimes shocking testimony, what was the conversation like among the reporters and the spectators at the courthouse? and what about about that bullet proof vest her lawyer says she wore to court. here are some more firsthand accounts from my colleagues who were inside the room. >> when she came in, all of us kind of took a deep breath. no one expected -- i mean, we don't know who the witnesses are until that day for a reason, right? the prosecution always protects their witnesses so. through sources we might figure out who the witness is maybe an hour beforehand. and that morning donald trump had posted on truth social that they had just been informed of who the witness was, and you know, they hadn't prepared and that person shouldn't be able to take the stand. and so the minute he had posted that, and then by the way, deleted it an hour later, we said, it's going to be stormy. >> i have compared this trial to watching two movies that are made eight years apart and none of the central characters look the way you remember them in 2016, and that's as true of michael cohen, for example, as it is of stormy daniels. on day one, she came in in a jumpsuit with her hair sort of like haphazardly piled on top of her head wearing glasses and not looking at all like the adult film star that we remembered. i have since come to learn, because her lawyer said this on another media outlet, she was wearing a bullet proof vest, and that accounted, i think, for her appearance as well. she was wearing an outfit that accommodated her wearing a bullet proof vest because she felt that her life was at risk in coming to court and testifying against former president trump. and the reaction of people in maga world who are loyal to president trump about her testimony, i can just tell you this by looking at my twitter feed, we enforced why she felt she was in danger. >> there were no trump reactions to the stormy daniels thing that you can see, but there's donald trump, known to millions of people as the orange turd, who has to sit there for the first time in his life and listen to himself being called the orange turd. and the person who is doing that is his dedefense lawyer thinking this somehow harms stormy daniels. that she flippantly refers to donald trump as the orange turd. there's not a juror there who cares that stormy daniels refers to him as the orange turd, not one. they're not offended by it. i mean, these are new yorkers. these are people who've heard worse in every trip in the subway. >> so we leave the courtroom. we, you know, walk out. there's like a row of bathrooms. during breaks everybody kind of lines up at the bathroom like you would at any kind of public place. we're all online looking at each other, giving eyes to each other, especially if we know each other, getting on the elevator, going down for lunch, did she just accuse the former president of this. everyone's kind of mulling over and digesting what it is we all just heard. >> the jurors, i think, have been admirably sort of stone faced. i know i've seen reports -- i didn't see it with my own eyes -- but i've seen reports of some jurors kind of involuntarily reacting to some of the more salacious details that came out, particularly durin