welcome to our continued coverage. the new york criminal trial of former president donald trump. i m rachel maddow joined by my colleagues. also, lawrence o donnell is with us pick we are going to be joined by the star witness for the prosecution in this trial, michael cohen. he will speak to us exclusively. his first reaction to this verdict tonight. michael cohen will be joining us in one moment live. 4:20 p.m. p.m. and it is we, the jury have reached a verdict. 45 minutes later at 5:05 p.m. the jury was back in the courtroom and is seated. the defendant donald trump was seated as well. the judge addressed the four people. and the judge. without telling me the verdict, how s the jury? and yes, they have reached a verdict. take the verdict, please. with the foreperson please rise to the members of the jury agreed upon a verdict? yes. and how say you to the first count of the indictment, charging donald j trump with the crime of falsifying business records in the first degre
for some of us. but i want to ask you about your pain. you were able to talk about it that most humans are not able to talk about it. to bring the jury into your journey of reverence. you describe your time with trump and had some incredible experiences. you were able to be multidimensional in a way that nobody in the press gives you credit for. the entire framework around you is no credibility. and it was literally like a nano second went todd lynch was not bailing. people thought that you shot your credibility. i wonder how you were able to be that vulnerable. and in a criminal trial watched around the world and share. and i know that you see a lot of coverage how did that feel? difficult. one of the things during prep sessions with danya perry and her office was to not quibble over an answer.
we don t know if it is a warm hand shik liake like the bill cn style or an arm wrestle. that is what people are first going to judge. the hand shake that the world is watching. that will set a lot of the tone. i want to go back to something that colonel jack reported. reports of china and its role with brokering some sort of deal with north korea. if china hasn t done it yet, are they unwilling or unable to assist us with north korea? yet? i m sorry to interrupt. yet. it s been six months and a president that has a dramatically different agenda. six months in the operations of the chinese government is like a nano second. they take a long view and donald trump expects everything to happen now, now, now. that is part of his issue in how he s approaching these foreign leaders. things take time.
look at the scene from election night just two years ago, as you said, it is stunning to look at the dissent of not the obama presidency. that will play out over the next two years and have to do with events both economic and foreign policy wise. but to see the dissent of his popularity in terms of the appeal that he had in 2008 to voters and now increasingly, you bump into people who voted for him and they are worried about him and wondering about him and it has happened in a nano second, at least in terms of the way you measure history. you know, listening to your interview with today and mike right now, john heilemann, i wonder if we re getting caught up in the media thoughts of the moment as opposed to looking at at the big picture. you are the one during the election who predicted some things he needed to learn along the way and perhaps he wasn t completely ready and he was
stiffing the pollster on the bill which invites the question. could this whole thing be as dumb a dispute as paying a bill? it very well could be. that is what jumped out at me when i read the complaint. first of all, if it were my client i would tell my mouth shut or keep his fingers from typing. he is not listening to his lawyer or he is not talking to a lawyer. another thing, i read the complaint. horse races, key political races are not subject to this case, it s only weekly polling things. of the 15 democratic candidates that the kos gave over $500,000. all 15 of them lost. i m not so sure what it is their beef is other than it looks like a payment problem. gregg: the lawyer who filed this thing, i check out the lawyers. he s been a lawyer for a nano