Deadline white house starts right now. Hi, everyone, welcome to wednesday, a critical chapter in the trial of the expresident is coming to a close. Questions now swirl about what happens next n trump election interference trial. Todd blanche failed to land any significant blows to Michael Cohens credibility, something theyre desperate to do after he was put in the center of the scheme to catch and kill negative stories that could have hurt Donald Trumps campaign. He told the jury that the president himself signed off on the plan to hide the expenses. Todd blanche started this way, these are literally the first words out of the his mouth. You and i have never spoken or met, have we . To which cohen replied, we have not. Todd blanche, but you know who i am . Cohen answers, i do blanche asking, on april 23rd, so after the trial started in this case, you went on tiktok and called me a, quote, Crying Little cohen supplies that might be something i would say. Blanche went on to defend mr. Co
seen. roughly 80% of the victims are african americans, which is a bracing reminder who pays the highest price when crimes goes unchecked. in these circumstances, no mayor should be imposing health mandates that might reduce the number of police on the streets. your thoughts open that, sir. we know that in many of our communities, particularly african american communities innocent people are being targeted every day but those that know that they can game the judicial system. the only thing keeping our society remotely together are the brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day. when she failed to work in good faith with our police officers, she endangered the officers and willingfully endangered the communities that she claims to care about. the black and brown communities where violence is at its highest.
we talked on the show yesterday and today, about donald trump on that stage. help us understand the importance of this debut for the new prime minister of the united kingdom. this is boris johnson s first step on the world stage. ? general, president trump is putting such a positive spin on things, you have to question if he s willingfully changing the realities. there s a positive atmosphere among the leaders and that may be true. you asked about boris johnson. this morning at their breakfast, president trump suggested that none of the leaders really had any problem with his trade war with china. and he said, they respect the trade war. no one has questioned it.
than rod rosenstein today, calling out trump for not reporting this debt to cohen, who s suggesting it may have been a false filing. telling rosenstein, this could be, quote, relevant to any doj inquiry on the matter. and that ethics chief that he replaced saying tonight, this is tantamount to a criminal referral. that is a lot. i m going to begin with richard painter for a legal view of this will before we turn to mr. avenatti. mr. painter was white house ethics chief for george w. bush. number one, is it a problem if there was a failure to originally report this accurately by donald trump? if he intentionally failed to report it. he covered it up, he lied, that s a violation of the false statements statute, 18 united states code 1,001, that s a criminal offense and can be prosecuted as a felony. let s put that up for the viewers, for your analysis. if anyone knowingly and willingfully makes a materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent
on one hand, you have the solicitation aspect. trump jr. s view may be, listen, i received these direct messages, i wasn t soliciting them. there s no direct solicitation. part two is the knowingly requirement of the statute. it must be a knowing acceptance of something of value from a foreign national. so to prove a violence is to prove that trump jr. either actually knew that these came from a foreign national or that he was willingfully blind to the fact that it was probably coming from russia or some other country that would violate the election law. so trump jr. definitely has some defenses to these allegations. and as we continue to have this discussion, we continue to monitor that hearing that is underway in the house judiciary committee. the opening remarks continue. that is ranking member john