sentence. it's a convoluted way of saying, you get credit for helping. >> thank you. >> is that important for this to come out during cross-examination? >> this goes toward the motive. why is he here? why is he saying what he is saying? i think what blanche is trying to get at is, you were hoping that you would get credit by saying the things you thought the government wanted to hear, that the prosecutors wanted to hear. the problem is that there is no cooperation agreement, which means he can only take the ball so far. >> thank you both so much for being with us the last couple of hours. appreciate you both. that's going to do it for us today. >> thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell and chris jansing pick up with our special trump trial coverage next. ♪♪

good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in new york alongside chris jansing for what could be the end of testimony in donald trump's criminal trial. michael cohen is on the stand for a second day of cross-examination. >> katy tur will join us in a moment. trump's attorney, todd blanche, is pressing the president's one-time loyal ally turned adversary. the defense highlighting the many times cohen admits he lied under oath. is he lying now? the only person who can counter much of what cohen is testifying about is donald trump himself. we are still waiting for a final decision on whether he will take the stand. >> with us in the studio, danny cevalos, catherine christian, and criminal defense attorney and former manhattan prosecutor

jeremy sala. catherine, very low expectation that donald trump will take the stand. one of the things we are interested in, a 19-minute sidebar before michael cohen came in. we are waiting for the transcript, which should hit during these hours. there was a provocative sidebar the other day when the cross-examination began where the judge was basically chewing out the defense lawyer for beginning with a provocative question about himself rather than about donald trump. today he seems to be more targeted going through lie after lie after lie and michael cohen acknowledging he lied under oath before. >> that was the benefit of having a day off and speaking to his co-counsel about being more direct and not giving open-ended questions.

i'm from the school of less is more. people have different styles. i think their goal -- people are waiting -- i have found that witnesses aren't shredded on cross-examination. all you need is to get nuggets of reasonable doubt. michael cohen is not a credible person. that doesn't mean that on the facts of this case he is not telling the truth, because what the prosecutor would argue is it's corroborated and there's circumstantial evidence. they want to say, don't believe a word. he is not a credible person. he is lying about the facts of the case. having him admit lie, lie, lie, lie will help them make that argument. >> i get that. we expected it. we expected lie, lie, lie, which is what todd blanche is doing. first of all, has he asked any questions about the case itself? what's at the heart of the charges. is there a risk that even with the impeaching the credibility of michael cohen, jurors say, well, that's also who donald

trump hired and kept around as his personal attorney. >> that's a fair point. that's who he hired. that's why he did the thing ez did. at some point, you need to stop. you will lose the jury. i think that you should hit all the main ones. there's plenty. if you went after every lie, you would be here another few days. what they want to do is not necessarily go after the falsifying business records itself. even though that's the core. a signature is a signature. you want to go after the vehicle and messenger. who is that? michael cohen. if you make this more about michael cohen and you hit on michael cohen to the point you don't lose the jury, then you make it about michael cohen. if you can distract, that's a win. don't trust him. don't like him. he has an agenda. >> jeremy, let me follow up on that. as a former prosecutor, you have

someone -- he is known as former fixer, michael cohen. that's not a great title. but that's the way he is known as former fixer, michael cohen. there might be sympathy for him, he was in isolation, a federal judge said he was put in solitary confinement when he was incarcerated. what do you do as a prosecutor to try to restore the credibility or sympathy fafacto? >> where blanche went too far. you said you didn't want a pardon but then they asked for a pardon. the response was, i was in a nightmare. what point did you win? you humanized michael cohen. i'm living a nightmare. i did something wrong. i've been caught. i have to deal with this. that seems -- >> what is the strategy? it's hard to imagine a juror who

doesn't understand and believe that michael cohen is a serial liar, has shown himself to be a serial liar. why go on and on about it? there's got to be a strategy. >> there's a phenomenon that happens. you start living the facts. you start losing perspective. you are so immersed in the facts. i have no doubt, like every lawyer does, when you sit down over the weeks and months preparing the cross-examination, you don't want to leave out anything. you never know what the jury is going it seize upon. it's a challenge. you want to keep everything in there. but you know you have to edit. resolve doubts in favor of leaving questions in there. look at every inconsistency. you don't want to let it go. i have to bring that. the jury might find it interesting. what happens -- i'm so guilty of this, too -- is you script out

all these questions and it's really hard to cut. you don't -- you lose objectivity when you are immersed in the facts. for us on the outside watching, we can see, well, you really -- when you ask stormy daniels 11 times, did you have dinner, are you sure you had dinner, dinner, dinner, then you start realizing as an outsider, this is too far. you will lose the jury. when you are in it, you are in there and you need to get the concession about dinner. that becomes so important. you lose sight of the mission. it happens to everyone, especially me. >> let me get back into the document, if i can. now they are talking about, i guess, motive. part of the motive. they are talking about, when asked the question about whether you wanted to work in the white house, you said, no, sir. correct. blanche, you testified you were offered jobs at the white house. i was offered a role, yes. president trump reamed out

priebus that you had not accepted a job. he was the former rnc chair who went to work in the administration. blanche, mr. cohen, you really wanted to work in the white house. no, sir. you didn't simply indulge friends and family, you really wanted to work at the white house. no, sir. you hoped would you be named white house chief of staff. no, sir. why? >> we know from a prior witness, if we believe the prior witness, how upset he was that donald trump did not bring him to the white house. one of them is not telling the truth. that why you are asking that. also in terms of the direct examination, no good defense attorney wants the witness to repeat their direct examination. one said to me, it's not about the facts. it's about reasonable doubt. >> he is bringing in another person. the fund-raiser for mr. romney. do you recall having a conversation with him? he asked you if you wanted to be attorney general or chief of

staff and you said chief of staff. yes, sir. he congratulated you and said chief of staff, that would be nice. correct, said cohen. on november 9, after the election, you told rita she was coming to the white house to be your assistant chief of staff. yes, says cohen. you told your daughter you had a chance to be chief of staff. your daughter alerted you to the fact that consideration that priebus would be chief of staff and you said he was pushing like a mad man. yes, sir, said cohen. i think i used hybrid. they are showing him an exhibit. this brings us to the point as we know from other testimony, he was made the president's personal lawyer and it was to have connections open upstairs in one of the law firms and a fancy office to tell company -- corporate people, i can get you

in touch with donald trump. >> is the point of all of this just to say, motive? this is why a big reason he hates donald trump so much and he is not to be trusted? >> yes. let me give you an example why it's dangerous every minute you keep a witness on cross-examination longer than you have to. when you script out a question, i'm sure todd blanche thought this would be an easy yes. you told people you would like to be attorney general. it's so ridiculous that michael cohen would be attorney general of the united states. it shows his ambition and he was a jilted lover. it's a decent question. i have no doubt when he was scripting that he thought, he is going to say yes. now michael cohen says, i don't recall saying that. now you have to make a choice. do i veer off into someone else said you wanted to be attorney general or do you move on? it's a difficult decision to make. you make it in the moment. in this case, with the world watching. it's a tough call. >> let's bring in our colleague,

katy tur, who has been in the courtroom for us and has come out. katy, tell us what it is like. describe the atmosphere. we are talking about this cross-examination, perhaps getting into too much detail, going too long, and whether or not the jury is bored. if you can watch the jury, tell us what you have seen. >> reporter: it's so interesting being inside. when you are reading it off the document -- i got a sense things were different in the courtroom, more forceful. todd blanche is very quiet. he is very calm in his questioning. almost serene. michael cohen is very quiet as well. he almost seems meek, deflated. sorry for the new york city noise. he has kind of -- naturally, it's right next to me. >> we can hear you. >> he has a hangdog quality to him. answering most of the time with,

yes, sir, no, sir, that's correct. he is not the michael cohen that anybody who knows him knows. there was a striking moment earlier on in the morning when -- this is after questioning between blanche and michael cohen, yes, sir, no, sir, that's correct, that sounds like me. short answers, very calm. they played michael cohen's podcast. in the podcast, he is yelling. he is screaming about how much he wants to see donald trump in prison and how it would make him feel good. the energy and the emotion and the force with which you hear his voice in this podcast is the exact opposite from the michael cohen that you are seeing on the stand. i looked over at the jury. most of them are just stone cold. no reaction whatsoever. there were a couple where you could detect a slight smirk. for the most part, the jury is paying close attention. i haven't really noticed one instance where anybody seems to

be nodding off or losing focus or attention. a couple times before the last break they looked over at the clock. it was nearing to a point where people might need water or a snack. they have been ver attentive to the proceedings. another thing that struck me, when the jury walks in, they walk right by donald trump. they walk by the table he is sitting. none of them look at him. the second they get in front of him, in his line of sight, they look down. each one of them, one after the other. they make a point not to look at him, as if there's something almost -- i'm not them, so i can't accurately say what they are feeling with any exact knowledge. but it almost seems like there's a certain intimidation quality walking by the former president of the united states. in terms of the atmospherics beyond blanche and cohen, donald trump walks in with the normal swagger that donald trump has.

you have seen it and you can imagine it accurately. we know him so well at this point. he also walks in with a big entourage. it was lauren boebert, matt gaetz, epstein is always there. there something of -- it felt like a mean girl quality to their presence. they walk in stoic. but when they sat down, they looked around the room. they noticed george conway. they started to snicker. everybody stared right at george conway and whispered among themselves. they did the same thing looking at michael cohen. you get the idea that donald trump bringing this crowd is not just a show of force for the cameras outside but a show of force for the witness inside. potentially even the jury. can you get under michael cohen's skin by not just showing him donald trump, but all of his entourage with him? the lawmakers who have yelled at him in congress, the potential vp candidates, donald trump's family, former colleagues of his, epstein there. trying to see if anybody can

knock him off his game. michael cohen, for his part, has not looked at donald trump, from what i can tell. he stayed focused. if he had gotten any coaching -- i know he has gotten a lot about how to deal with todd blanche. he is doing it. he doesn't seem like he is somebody who isn't aware of the way he should approach this testimony, isn't aware of how he should say yes. there were a couple instances where he got into it with blanche. even those were not high level intensity. in terms of the quality of the argument from the defense team, i'm not a lawyer, i haven't argued a case in front of a court. i don't know juries intimately. as a person who is steeped in this case and steeped in the events surrounding it, i find it hard to to follow. i wonder if the jury is finding it hard to follow as well. the theme for the defense is just to try and poke holes in michael cohen's credibility.

not just poke holes, to totally diminish it. paint him as somebody who never wants to take responsibility, who is always looking for someone to blame when he gets in trouble. we heard that over and over again. michael cohen, you shift responsibility. he admitted he did so. you never want to say you are wrong. hoping to convince the jury that this is a guy, when he does something wrong, is looking for somebody else to blame. in this case, he is looking right at the former president who was once his -- once the guy he looked up to and is now the guy who spurned him. >> as you know, there are different ways to deliver a knockout punch. i will let the lawyers disagree with me. but definitely when you have arguably the most important witness on the stand, you want to deliver something approximating a knockout punch. it might not be people screaming, it might not be people sitting in the courtroom who suddenly have a collective gasp because of what they just

heard. was there any moment at all in what you heard -- you have been sitting there all morning? >> i haven't heard anything like that. i don't think you will get that from this case. i haven't seen any interaction with the lawyers, with michael cohen, the lawyers between each other. even the objections are quiet. it's a very, very calm room. you could argue it's tense. but it's very calm. if there's going to be a knockout punch, i don't know if it's so apparent. at least it hasn't been to me. i have only been here for a few hours today. >> katy, you say you are not a lawyer, but you know donald trump so well and all these players so well. just the atmospherics, as you described them. danny was sharing that as a defense lawyer, he felt todd blanche was going over and over it too much and that you don't have to follow every thread. didn't you tell your daughter

you thought you could be attorney general or white house chief of staff or this or that? it seemed to me that going into his text with his daughters, those confidential texts, might make some jurors uncomfortable. it was too much. he has established that he was not telling the truth when he said he didn't want a job in the white house. at one point he is saying, i didn't want to be the deputy counsel, i wanted to be personal lawyer to the president, which is the job he did get. it seems as though that may be overkill. >> it's hard to tell how the jury is taking it. they are paying attention. i have seen some very minor reaction. mostly when the podcast was playing or names michael cohen called donald trump or brought up. other than that, there hasn't been a lot of visible reaction from the jury. a lot of them are taking notes.

they are paying close attention. i have had enough conversations now with andrew weissmann and all of our fantastic legal analysts to know that they will say that it's hard to predict how a jury -- which way a jury is going to go. they will point out one juror and there are people saying, i think that person is x or y. often, they are proven wrong by what happens in deliberations. it's just -- it's hard to tell. as somebody who is steeped in this case personally, i have done a lot of reading about it, i have done a lot of studying about it, i cover it with you ladies every day. i was there covering the campaign during the period that is at the core of this case. i know the details of what was happening at the time. a lot of these arguments can be hard for me to follow. i'm not clear what the jury is getting out of the minutia of what todd blanche is trying to argue other than just really

emphasizing that michael cohen is a man who was out for himself, michael cohen is a man who -- todd blanche is arguing who lies, and when he is caught doing something wrong, tries to shift the blame. this time, he is shifting the blame to donald trump, because donald trump didn't do right by him. this argument that you are hearing, didn't take him to the white house. >> didn't give him a bonus. come on back. the chair is here for you. we want to see you. it's great insight to have you in the courtroom. >> i packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chris jansing. i took your -- i heeded your good deed the other day. i have sustenance. i will see you up there very soon. >> that's the secret to your energy. >> thank you. she mentioned, andrew weissmann. he is joining us now. i want to pick up with what katy was talking about.

and by the way, your terrific piece you wrote for "the new york times." you talked about the connection between michael cohen and the jurors, how he is looking at them, how they were paying close attention to them. obviously, this was written based on your earlier observations. i'm wondering about todd blanche. even though you can't read the minds of jurors, you know when a lawyer is connecting. you know when a witness is connecting. you know when they are paying close attention. what's your thought today and particularly about todd blanche and the way the jury is observing him? >> well, i think the color that katy tur gave is my impression as well. there was, i agree, the striking moment when you heard the voice of michael cohen on his podcast, which was distinctly different than the in-court michael cohen. that doesn't mean michael cohen is lying on the stand. but it is useful for the jury to

see that that is not what -- he is not always in the mode that he is in the courtroom. for every day that he has been on, whether on direct or cross, he is unflappable. even on cross-examination that mentions his wife and as andrea pointed out, cross-examination with texts with his daughter, which i personally think is playing poorly. the cross there is about essentially the daughter thinking how great he is and how he deserves so much. that's what you would want your child to be thinking. i'm not sure that was the right decision. todd blanche is doing better than the last time we saw him. that's a very low bar. to danny's point, his technique is -- as a professional in the area, his technique needs some work. that's why you are hearing katy

tur say, i'm not sure i totally follow what he is getting at and how this is supposed to land. that's actually because of the techniques that todd blanche is using. >> i wonder if it would land better if they were a little tighter. he is still talking about him not getting the job that he believes he wanted, chief of staff. do you recall expressing disappointment to pastor scott that trump hadn't brought you into the administration? i don't recall. did you have communication with pastor scott about your frustration that president trump didn't bring you to the white house? i don't recall. did you have communication with pastor scott about the fact that you weren't working at white house? i don't recall that. do you recall on national prayer day expressing frustration you were not at the white house? that i wasn't invited, yes, sir.

do you recall speaking to pastor scott about that? that it would have been nice to be invited. this is the latest in a string of people that he is trying to show, here is a guy who is unhappy about not working in the white house. does it need to continue to go on and on with every person he might have expressed that to? >> i think what you are seeing is the defense trying to figure out what they're going to argue in summation. it looks like what they're going to say is, because he was only the president's personal attorney, that he was so angry with president trump for not being brought to washington, just being his personal attorney, that he has concocted this story, which the state will argue just happens to have a mountain of corroboration. they have to come up with

something. i think most lawyers might say, being the president's personal attorney is pretty darn good. it's hard to see that as a particularly compelling motive. you do have something that is a foolproof line of cross that todd blanche did deliver on, as he should, which is that michael cohen has committed perjury, he has lied under oath, he has admitted he lied to a federal judge. he said that repeatedly. they want to say that when it's in his personal interest, he is willing to lie. say now it's in his personal interest to see donald trump go down, because he is making money off of it. so he is saying this lie because he is a disgruntled former employee and because he gets to make money off it. you shouldn't believe him.

that is the line of cross. welcome to new york city where there's lots and lots of traffic and police activity. >> can i say, you are doing remarkably well for not being a professional correspondent. kudos to you. continue. >> sure. i did want to point out a couple things that i thought really fell flat and something i know personally. they tried to say michael cohen got a lower sentence for his crimes in spite of his not cooperating fully. he actually did cooperate with the special counsel mueller investigation. and that was said by our prosecutors at the time that he -- we had a representative in court for his plea and for his sentencing. the representations from the

prosecution in the special counsel office was that he had cooperated and helped the investigation. that is normally a huge reason that a judge gives somebody a lower sentence. i think todd blanche -- i'm not saying he did it intentionally. but i don't think he correctly represented to the jury the situation. he tried to make it sound like he lied to the judge in order to get a lower sentence. i'm not sure that is a full representation of the facts. the other thing that todd blanche did that was a real misstep was he asked him about michael cohen's perjury in congress where michael cohen lied about the trump tower -- the trump moscow project in russia. if you recall, that was something he pled guilty to and said basically he distanced president trump from the whole transaction and said he wasn't

involved, it was a long time ago, i didn't talk to him that much. todd blanche asked him about that. michael cohen explained those false statements were the product of his talking to a number of lawyers to craft that statement. that it didn't come just from michael cohen. he said, one of the lawyers who was involved in crafting that statement was a lawyer for president trump. that was a real misstatement -- miscue from todd blanche to bring out what i thought was pretty damaging proof as to the president's -- at least the president's counsel's role in what is represented by michael cohen today under oath was something that was misleading of congress. >> just now, he is acknowledging in questioning by blanche -- this is interesting. as a lawyer, andrew, he said he was helping his friend on

another attempt to submit papers for early termination for supervised release. he went on google, a series of queries on second circuit appeals court decisions. he it created phantom results. i provided to my counsel why it was improve. those were inaccurate. blanche said, you mean, they didn't exist? cohen says, under that specific citation, yes. blanche asked, the three cases you gave your attorney were not real cases? cohen, correct. blanche said, you testified about a phone call two days before you made a payment on the mortgage -- the moving into the llc, i'm wiring the money to davidson. correct. remember testifying about a phone call with shiller? yes, sir. do you recall saying you called him on that evening because you

wanted to speak to then mr. trump to discuss the stormy daniels matter and the resolution? that was your testimony. cohen says, that was. you were going to move forward on the deal? correct. that's as far as it's going right now. where is he going with this? does he put the phone on speaker or private? cohen says, i have seen both. as this is continuing, it seems as though the defense lawyer is trying to connect -- he is asking, which one was it on the call? cohen is -- he is saying that he doesn't know. andrew, i'm not sure -- >> it seems like it jumped from one subject to the other. is there some connection here? >> i'm reminded of something you said the other night, was that you were going through that

mortgage paper to the bank under the llc that they created, and that's how you found this thread of michael cohen and went into mr. mueller's office and you described it because it was stormy daniels and you were in the special counsel's office and all these button-down lawyers and robert mueller could not have been more buttoned-down. you have to go in and you said the slang of it, stormy daniels. they did not want their case to go off the rails and get into something like ken starr's did, which was a real estate transaction that became the intern issue. you came and you said, we have a blue dress problem when you discovered that connection in an earlier incarnation for both you and michael cohen. >> yes. a little color on that. robert mueller is literally

buttoned down. he wore button-down white shirts and only white shirts. a real true american patriot. carried himself and expected everyone else to carry themselves in that same mold, as he correctly should. we were also very aware in special counsel mueller's investigation of not having the investigation morph over and over and having it last for a long time. he felt an enormous obligation to the public to have it be speedy. we did -- i was there when -- i saw on my screen the bank reporting this $130,000 payment. we did do research and realized that it was leading to what we didn't know was a stormy daniels, which we looked up and realized, we had a problem.

that's why it's related to this case. michael cohen's investigation was split in two. the special counsel continued the michael cohen investigation related to russia and his false testimony that was just explained by michael cohen that he said the false testimony was a product of a joint defense agreement, including the president's then counsel. at least that's his testimony. then what i will call the more salacious part. we just knew the lead. that was given to the federal prosecutors here in new york. that's why in the case in new york, there were two components to it. there's the special counsel plea and there was this other district plea to more personal things and this hush money scheme that formed the second part of what michael cohen pled

to. i'm pretty sure the jury does not follow all of those details. it will be interesting to see what susan does on redirect. michael cohen is completely unflappable. he is really readily agreeing. he doesn't play games. he is not fighting on saying if he lied about something. he says, yes, that's true. it takes the wind out of the sails. unless you have a really good defense lawyer, really teeing up what the point is, there's not a lot more to do once the witness is saying -- >> does that audio -- >> you have to move on. >> does that audio of the podcast with him shouting and cursing -- does that undercut that demeanor? >> i mean, i think that was very effective.

i imagine we're going to hear that in summation from the defense that what you saw here is a performance and that the audio is the true michael cohen and all of the lies and the vengeance, that is the reality, what was happening here in court is not. i think that's going to be the theme. all of that at the end of the day is theater. the defense really has to come up with how are they going to explain all of the corroborating evidence? the more they paint michael cohen as a louse and liar, the less likely he paid $130,000 to stormy daniels out of the goodness of his heart and didn't want to get paid back. i really expect that to be -- i expect the script to be flipped. you can't have it both ways.

this was hope hicks' point. he is not a generous man. it's not consistent with the michael cohen i know that he would do this out of the goodness of his heart. i really expect that all of that cross is going to be used by the state to say, exactly. even michael cohen gave a very good reason for why he told the candidate trump about this, which is he said, it's not just i had to. the rules that he has to approve this. he is the one who is going to sign the checks and did sign the checks. but he said, i wanted to be paid back. if you want to be paid back $130,000, how on god's green earth are you going to do that if you don't tell the man you spent the money? that's going to be the debate that goes back and forth in summations, which i think we will see -- it seems like we're going to see next week. >> leads to the corroborating

evidence. we talked about it so much. i feel like we should listen to the call played in court. here is that bit that was played in front of jurors just this morning. >> it is -- everyone who has been on this side of the courtroom very different than the michael cohen they have seen on the stand. is it powerful enough, do you think, to make them look and say, this guy is faking it? >> no. you can explain that. of course he is angry. he is ticked off because of what happened to him. i would explain, he is hostile, he is angry, he hates trump.

it's understandable. stormy daniels said, i hate trump. it's understandable. that does not mean they are lying. look at all the corroboration and circumstantial evidence of guilt we have that back up mr. cohen. they're not going -- the prosecution is not going to wrap their arms around michael cohen. that's why he was the last witness and they built up to him. yes, revenge. yes, he is angry. yes, he is ticked off. you can believe him because of all of the corroborating evidence. >> jeremy, does it create sympathy that this is how he suffered and i suppose the prosecuor can say, you were in solitary confinement for two months, which a federal judge said was inappropriate? >> first of all, i don't know i would have ended with michael cohen. i would have used something strong and solid in the beginning, something strong and solid on the end. i wouldn't want to end flat.

the prosecution needs to make him an empathetic -- humanize him as a person. you better believe i'm angry. in my summation, i would channel my inner michael cohen in a more calm way to show that powerful emotion. it does not mean i'm lying. i'm the victim here. we have to make sure we get it back to falsifying business records. i would add, i saw that blanche tried to cross-examine about a failure to share something with the grand jury. one thing that they may or may not do in terms of the prosecution is make it clear that you are not testifying like at trial. it's a brief recitation of what occurred. you are not going into details. it's very, very brief. that omission is not an omission that you would think of that you would otherwise share. it's an omission because it's meant to be a brief situation. i can't say -- it has to be clear for that jury to understand that. >> let me go back to the document.

after nearly five hours of cross-examination, blanche has moved to an area of questioning related to the allegations of this case. how cohen reached trump, the phone on october 4, 2018, during which cohen testified he told trump, the stormy daniels matter was resolved, and that trump authorized his funding settlement. here is my absolutely non-lawyer look at this. we are going to not see a cross-examination that looks at things that don't help him, like the paper documents, with the notations by the cfo of the trump corporation. these are the kinds of things that rely on michael cohen's word. right? >> yes. >> i had this phone call. here is what i told him. >> right. these are all fair game. you have to challenge him on that. you have to be careful that you don't give hip the opportunity, if he sees where you are going,

to give you a yes or no answer and qualify that with something that's damaging to your case. this is where -- now that we get into the meat of this -- this is the vision they had is that they -- maybe they didn't expect five hours of this. they would open with, you have a history of being a liar. youmotive to lie. you wrote a book called "revenge." you are here for revenge. get that out of the way. now presumably we will start heading into crescendo land as they hit the meat of the case, the stuff that really matters and casting reasonable doubt. they have to be careful. cohen knows exactly where they're going. he can throw it back in their face if they don't ask the right question. that's what cross-examination -- you have to craft each question in a way that leaves minimal opportunities for a hostile witness to throw things right back in your face. i've had it happen. it's embarrassing. you can lose a case on one question. that's how scary this can be.

>> blanche is not particularly skilled at asking leading questions. he asked too many open questions. cross-examination is, isn't it true you work at msnbc? the only answer is yes. >> we made this point that you don't get a lot of chances in your career, even if you had more cases like this, to do cross-examinations. they're going into some of the details about texting back and forth with schiller, about a 14-year-old and harassing phone calls. i want to bring in mark calafano. i don't know how much you have been able to follow this. we are, after five hours, by the observation of one of our folks who has been inside the courtroom, or inside the overflow room, that five hours, which seem too largely establish that michael cohen is a liar, and, in fact, that he lied to a

federal judge, et cetera, and now getting to the meat of the case, i just wonder as a strategy how you view what you are seeing. >> in order to be effective in a cross-examination, you just heard this from a couple of your analysts, you want to be surgical. surgical approach to something like this is you lied under oath, you have an incredible bias to see the defendant get convicted and move into the key area we started talking about. the communications with schiller and people that were key to the negotiation of the deals. that's what todd blanche is trying to do. the important thing about this is, yes, there's a risk of misstep. yes, todd blanche will try to be careful not to ask the wrong question or that one question to michael cohen that he will come back on him.

todd has to be careful. >> i don't know anyone would call this surgical. do you think the prosecution is sitting back? this has to be one of the worst parts of the trial for a prosecutor. you don't know if your key witness might go off the rais under cross-examination. are they sitting back -- are not saying breathe a sigh of relief, but far from surgical so far. >> the prosecution is being very careful about here is that, one, they are looking closely at the kind of questions that go directly to the evidence about the deal. if those go sideways, that's where you are most likely to see redirect. remember, with the prosecution likely to argue, especially in closing, is that they didn't pick this witness. donald trump picked this witness. donald trump hired this witness for years to help him with difficult situations like this.

for them, it matters less that this witness comes across -- that michael cohen comes across as somebody who is egotistical, is vain, is narcissistic, because that's somebody the defendant chose. i think andrew said this really well earlier. they are not as concerned about michael as long as michael is able to answer the questions and keeps himself controlled. at the end of the day, they will say, this is the kind of person that this defendant chose to do this job. that's where they're going to go. >> there was a question -- a series of questions about the artificial intelligence, the false citations that he presented to his lawyer, and he acknowledged that. how damaging is that? >> i don't think it's as damaging. in the course of a five-hour cross-examination, the step that is damaging is the bias and credibility issues. that part is just -- i think

it's a little on the side, because at the end of the day, he is not the one who brought that in. that kind of information never affected the case. >> we want to say -- isn't everyone tired? it's closer to four and a half hours, coming up on five, before he made the turn. according to our folks inside -- they are talking about the texts between -- with keith schiller. blanche is finally showing anger. you wonder after -- clearly, you were listen to the description that all of this was almost serene, calm, quiet, had almost a hangdog quality to the defendant. is it to make jurors sit up and take notice? is that just maybe real emotion coming through? how controlled do you need to be in a situation like this as the lawyer? >> as the lawyer, you need to be in complete control.

any expression of anger or frustration is not going to come across well to the jury. the jury, for better or worse, is going to see that as todd not feeling he is making the points he wants to make. >> you can be passionate. you want to be passionate. you don't want to make the story about you, as i have said. i would note, you are not seeing many objections from the prosecution, because clearly, they are liking or at least have no issue with the answers that michael cohen is giving. when you hear michael cohen now, as opposed to when he was testifying earlier the other day, however many hours ago that was, you saw -- it sounds like me, could be me. now he is more concise. there's yes and no and i don't recall. to one of your points before, you mentioned about a knockout blow, something like that. not to be glib, but you don't need a down goes frazier moment. you need more body blows. right now, i'm not sure as of

yet that blanche is delivering body blows. talking about his daughter, who cares? >> that might be counterproductive. this line of questioning right now about the call to schiller and trying to reach trump and get him involved may pay off because it contradicts prior testimony from him about the purpose of that call and whether the purpose of the call was calling -- really calling schiller because he had been harassed by texts. if the jury is convinced cohen mixed up or purposefully misrepresented when he spoke to trump, blanche can cast doubt about a broader swath of the testimony about the substance of calls at other times. >> that seems like the key word, purposefully. how does a jury decide that someone is purposefully mixing something up from -- let me go

back to the date -- 2016 as opposed to misremembering? >> does it fit into the character, whether you believe him as a human being? >> the entire jury system is based on this idea that every one of us is hardwired with some ability to tell truth from lie. whether that actually works or not is beyond -- that's what you are trying to do on cross-examination is demonstrate in spite of the words that come out of michael cohen's mouth that under the words may be a lie. he may be being deceptive. we lie on each juror's ability to use common sense and decide whether or not the witness is telling the truth. >> right now, he is saying, you called schiller, you passed the phone to president trump, you said you were going to move forward and you said we will move forward. that was a lie, because you were talking to mr. schiller about the harassing phone calls from

the 14-year-old. cohen says, based on the records. you had time to talk about the 14-year-old. >> laura jarrett said this has connected. >> this appears to be having them interested. this trial has had plenty of interesting moments like this. ordinarily -- this is really like a white collar criminal case. these cases can be incredibly dry. we have had porn stars. we have had payoffs to models and porn stars. we have had interesting testimony, with some areas of dry testimony. this is one of those areas that the jury will sit up and pay attention to, because it is interesting. but again, as plenty of people before me, they need to be careful here. every minute you leave michael cohen on the stand without a plan, without a very sharp and concise form of question, michael cohen can hit you over

the head with a folding chair, figuratively. >> back to the document, todd blanche, you can tell is upping the ante, you said on the october 24th call was not with keith schiller. you had a recollection of a phone call on october 24th and you called and he said okay, go. that was a die, todd blanche. now, they have put this in capital letters. i'm assuming in the courtroom, he said that with some level of emphasis, and then they bolded this. you did not talk to president trump on that night. you talked to keith schiller about what we just went through. cohen, i'm not certain that is accurate. blanche, you were certain it was accurate on tuesday when you were under oath and testifying. cohen, based upon the records i reviewed and in light of everything going on, i believe i spoke to mr. trump about the stormy daniels matter. todd blanche, we are not asking for your belief.

this jury does not want to hear what you think happened. there's an objection, and it's sustained. >> there's some times under the big top showmanship for a jury, whether or not you're sustained or not, whether it gets into evidence or not, as i think danny was just saying. >> they've already heard it. >> you've got the jury perked up now listening. and by the way, a sleeping jury, a convicting jury, an acquitting jury. who the heck knows, but you've now brought them back into it, and you're winning if you're getting their attention. >> they are hungry. they haven't had lunch. they have been there for five hours. >> they're ready to be awakened. >> and they're putting up on the screens, the series of texts, they're going to show the back and forth. again, that kind of requires the jury to get engaged. and i'm wondering what you make of this, mark. >> well, i think it's kind of interesting. this is one of those situations where todd can spend a little too much time on these

discussions. because remember, what he's attacking now is one of the few areas where only cohen's testimony is likely to provide evidence of what happened in that conversation. what's happening, though, as you add additional communications and conversations is you are inadvertently establishing that there's a pattern of communication between cohen and schiller, and cohen and trump, it's more difficult, to say this one recollection is going to be key in a problematic thing. that's one of the things about any white collar criminal defense case. when you've got repeated communications over and over again about these issues, those are the things that people are going to look at and that the prosecution is going to focus on. this wasn't one call. this was many calls over a serious, intense, period of weeks in order to get this done. >> when prosecutors are going over this, then, did they say here are all the different

things we have told you for which, it's not just michael cohen's word, it's this, this, this, person after person corroborating michael cohen's story. in this case, michael cohen is telling the truth. this is michael cohen's true recollection. where is keith schiller? if they want to have someone come on and dispute this presumably, where is allen weisselberg. there are many opportunities that they could have in these cases where he may be the only person testifying about it to put somebody on to say that's not what happened, and you didn't. >> remember, though, we have a very important legal concept here which is that there is no burden of proof that the defense has. in this case, that kind of an argument is not one that anybody could make to a jury. what they can do, however, is they can say, listen, they've identified one period of testimony where michael cohen wasn't sure whether it happened

on this day or the next day. that's where we're going to end up when he finishes with redirect. to your point, the fact is we have had david pecker talk about these discussions, we have had other communications with the trump organizational employees, where these records have been developed. it's going to be very hard when you've got seven to 12 people who have testified about various aspects of these in which donald trump was involved to say that they didn't happen. so in order for this to be effective, he's got to be able to show that this was the only keel piece of conversation, and it did not occur or you cannot trust michael cohen's recollection of this if that's all you have. >> i may be right or wrong. i keep ending up, how are they going to end before lunch or at the end of the day. they're going to lunch, and according to gary grumbach, blanch was getting fired up,

right when merchan called for a lunch recess. really took the wind out of the sails. did it or did it leave the jury with that impression? >> my take is i guess, and take this with a grain of salt, maybe thinking like defense attorney. if you're a defense counsel and you're really chugging along and feeling like you're in your groove and getting your emotions up, to have the judge chime in and say it's lunchtime, and i get it, it is lunch. but if you're a defense counsel, and lawyers tend to be on trial. we tend to be a little paranoid, think everything is geared against them, i wouldn't be surprised if todd blanche is thinking that judge was trying to throw me off. i'm sure he's not. i'm sure it's my grafting my own issues on to todd blanche. >> we're not going to take a lunch break. we're going to be back. danny cevallos, catherine christian, we're here, chris and i, and katy tur is on her way back. stay with us, we're going to

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