good day, i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. it is the tale of the texts and phone records and emails all laying out in black and white what prosecutors believe will take a sordid but not illegal story about sex into a crime story. within the past hour or so messages between stormy daniels' manager and the "national enquirer" were read out loud in court for the first time. the text chain laying out details of the hush money deal at the heart of the case against donald trump, at one point revealing that daniels was initially pushing for a quarter of a million dollars. that testimony coming courtesy

of one of the series of fact witnesses that took the stand before the judge dismissed the jury for the day early just a short time ago. trump's one-time white house aide madeleine westerhout earlier testified about trump's reaction to the allegations callings entire situation, quote, very unpleasant. all this is setting the stage for a huge week starting monday with the last batch of witnesses for the prosecution. we now know according to multiple sources that michael cohen will be one of them, the man who once said he'd take a bullet for donald trump with the critical task of tying all the pieces together before the defense gets its shot and answers the question could trump himself take the stand? we'll dig into that coming up. i want to bring in nbc's vaughn hillyard outside the courthouse. phil rucker, msnbc political analyst and co-author of multiple books on donald trump, chuck rosenberg is a former u.s. attorney, senior fbi official and msnbc contributor, and with me here in studio, jessica roth,

former federal prosecutor for the fdny and a professor at the cardozo school of law. even though the jury is done for the day, court is not done for the day, and we just got some big news that we expect to call two more witnesses. it's entirely possible, though, that we rest, that the prosecution will rest by the end of next week. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: right, so the prosecution has two witnesses, michael cohen and somebody else, and they suggested they could be done by the end of next week. now there's no court already this upcoming friday because of memorial day weekend, so over the course of the next three days, monday, tuesday, thursday, you are looking at a lot of michael cohen testimony and the expectation that this is the individual who was there from start to finish from the first discussions of this stormy daniels sexual encounter story

in 2011 all the way up until 2018 when he severed ties with donald trump, testified against him after donald trump all but through him under the bus by saying that michael cohen was the one wholly responsible for the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels and that he was not a party to it. and so for the prosecution, of course the expectation is that he will be cross examined here. this is going to be an intense weekend of preparation as michael cohen prepares to take the stand, you could say a long time coming, six years you could say that he has been in prep for this moment here. but also currently underway, i want to note real fast, chris, is that there is current deliberation as well about an indigenous who will not be a witness, and that will be allen weisselberg, the former chief financial officer. currently they are debating as weisselberg sits in rikers jail himself for having pled guilty to perjury as part of the civil fraud trial, they're currently

in engaged in conversation about whether the prosecution can admit his severance agreement into the record in front of this jury from the trump organization because the prosecution is contending that it is important for the jury to understand that not only is he in jail. also, he is not testifying because a part of that severance agreement that left him with more than $2 million outgoing that he agreed to not make adverse statements that could damage or hurt donald trump or the trump organization. that is what is currently on judge merchan's plate here now that the jury has left for the day. chris. >> all right, emil bove, i want to go into this discussion we're having right now, emil bove who's a former sdny prosecutor but he is now on the trump reel team, saying we're not able to elicit testimony that would repeat some of the hearsay that's been offered. this form of impeachment that he entered a settlement agreement, we don't think it's relevant talking about the settlement agreement with allen

weisselberg. then they have more discussions about weisselberg. we're looking to explain from our perspective why he isn't here. there are three payments due to weisselberg in a calendar year. if you look at the agreement, the employee promises not to denigrate the company verbally or in writing or in any of its entities. conroy says he will not communicate with or cooperate with any entity, anyone with adverse claims are to take action to cause any person or entity to file a complaint or a lawsuit of any kind. the bottom line is -- and this goes to what emil bove, again, on trump's team is saying -- this agreement is not why weisselberg is not at this trial. nobody tried to invoke that agreement. how important is it to be able to enter things about weisselberg who was the cfo of trump org but not have him testify? >> yeah, this is a really intriguing development in the case. the focus on weisselberg, why

he's not there and whether any party is going to be able to talk about that and try to offer an explanation to the jury because it does look like one avenue that the trump defense team may be exploring is blaming weisselberg and cohen and essentially saying that trump had nothing to do with the agreement about how to reimburse cohen and how to record it in the records of the trump organization. if they can just leave that possibility there for the jury, that could create reasonable doubt, and if an explanation is offered that's beneficial to the prosecution for why precisely weisselberg is not here testifying, then that obviously would help the prosecution. if, in fact, the prosecution is able to say, look, the reason he's not here is because essentially trump paid him to not offer testimony that was bad for trump, well, then you can make an inference effectively that he was doing this at trump's behest and he would say nothing that would be helpful to trump. >> i want to go back into the document, chuck, for a minute, and steinglass, who's lead

prosecutor says while it is true we could subpoena him, meaning weisselberg, the agreement precludes us from talking to him against the backdrop of what jessica just laid out. how important is this decision from judge juan merchan? >> remarkable, chris, that the cfo, right, the guy who handled paper and who talked to cohen and who talked to trump and who ostensibly would know about the deal isn't testifying in a criminal trial, and jessica had it exactly right. an important development. it's a bit mysterious but it's hard to imagine as a prosecutor i wouldn't want that guy on the stand. it's really interesting to see how the judge handles this problem. my inclination as a prosecutor would be to try and force the issue, to subpoena weisselberg and put him on the stand and see what happens, but he's not cooperating, and he has, it

seems, several millions reasons not to, and so it's not a problem that should have surprised anyone. it was apparently i think from the outset that weisselberg wouldn't cooperate, didn't want to, but you know, federal prosecutors like jessica, state prosecutors like the folks trying this case have ways to force the issue. maybe less in state court than in federal court, but it's a little surprising and a little disappointing that a witness potentially as important as weisselberg may not testify. >> well, here we go. we're back into this, and mr. weisselberg says emil bove, again, for the defense has never been on the government witness list, and then to try to get around it and try to add him to the witness list, they're obviously not happy about that. juan merchan says i don't see how one thing has to do with the other. this is done with some frequency. the only way to know is to put him on the stand without the jury under oath.

emil bove, we were entitled to notice of that long before the trial started. merchan asks, you didn't think that was a possibility? not based on the witness list, no. but what is the truth here in a trial about witnesses coming in that maybe weren't or not original witness list? >> there's no rule that you can't call a witness that hasn't previously been on the witness list, if there's prejudice to the otherwise with late notice, the judge may say i'm going to give you a slight delay so you can prepare for this if necessary. it's been pretty clear to everybody involved that allen weisselbergs after critical figure in this whole story. part of the reason prosecutors have repeatedly charged weisselberg was in part because they were trying to get his cooperation and he's just resisted that again and again. they've clearly been interested in his testimony for some time, and he was put on the stand in the trump organization trial. so he has been a witness before.

i think that the issue here is what happens if, in fact, he's put on the stand? he may well invoke his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. he's already in prison. that doesn't mean he potentially couldn't have exposure for other crimes or it could increase his sentence depending on what he says. that's why the judge is saying we would do this. if he's going to invoke the 5th, that wouldn't happen in front of the jury. donald trump is walk out right now. let's listen briefly to hear what he has to say. >> it's amazing actually. was amazing. everybody can say whatever they want. they can say whatever they want. but i'm not allowed to say anything about anybody. it's a disgrace, and you see it. the media sees it. and it's really very sad, if you look at the legal experts and the legal scholars, everyone would say this trial is a scam. it's something that should have never have happened. by the way, it could have happened seven years ago, bring it right during the election.

nobody sees that. >> this is a frequent complaint of donald trump that the trial is a scam. he blames it on people that -- all of those things are completely untrue. having said that, what he did say at the beginning does speak to what happened in court right before he came out, and that is the whole issue, vaughn hillyard, of michael cohen, who is expected to take the stand as we said on monday, and the whole idea of the gag order. so todd blanche, who, as you know, is the lead defense attorney said with respect to mr. cohen stating the obvious regarding the gag order, mr. cohen continues to speak publicly about this trial and about mr. trump wearing a white shirt with president trump behind bars, we request that he be prohibited from talking the same way mr. trump is not only stop extrajudicial statements from lawyers but witnesses as well. we request cohen be prohibited, again, from talking the way

trump is now and there's a week left in this trial. this gets to the heart of what has frustrated donald trump, right, vaughn? about the fact that he feels for a long time stormy daniels could say what she wanted. michael cohen could say what he wanted and make money off of it but donald trump under the gag order is not able to respond. >> reporter: right rkts and this is exactly what we heard from todd blanche yesterday after court ended for the day, but it was about stormy daniels specifically that they wanted and believed that now that stormy daniels was off the stand that donald trump should be able to respond in kind to her, and noting that there are voters and reporters that are asking him questions about the case and that he should have the right to respond to stormy daniels' public statements. there was a new one yesterday when she put on x, quote, real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the

stand in court. oh, wait, never mind. those were the words of stormy daniels, essentially making a call to donald trump, okay, if you want to talk about me, then go and testify under oath just like i did in this court. now you're seeing with michael cohen, the attorney for donald trump also making the case that he should be able to respond to michael cohen. two weeks ago cohen posted on his social media account he would stop publicly talking about the case. he is maybe limited a little bit more, but he is not wholly stopped from talking about this case. now donald trump's attorney clearly on the behest of his client wants to be able to respond to their public attacks of what they say are attacks against them. >> one of the things we've learned in reading your books, phil, and just observing donald trump is that his mood and how he feels about the way he's being treated can often have a great impact on the way he treats the people around him. it can also have a great impact on how he tweet, what he says, now, for example, when he comes out of court, and i'm wondering

what your raeding into what you're seeing and hearing from him and the level of frustration he has about this. >> that's exactly right that his mood dictates how he behaves. the policy decisions that he made as president. what we've seen the last few days especially in this week of trial is a lot of anger coming from former president trump, and you see that in the comment he was just making a couple of minutes ago. this feeling that he's not being permitted by this judge to speak his mind to say what helps to say in a way that some of the witnesses have been. obviously this has been a tense subject of much debate throughout this trial from the beginning with this gag order and something that trump has really pushed back against both in his social media posts but also in the pleas from his defense attorney, but i assume this is a line we're going to continue to hear from trump as he uses it to really try to make the point to his political supporters that somehow this trial is rigged against him, that this isn't fair, that the

judge is not treating him fairly, that he is being persecuted by the criminal justice system. that's the argument trump's making. it's not backed up by evidence, of course, but when you see this frustration and this anger from trump, it all feeds into that broader narrative that he's trying to portray in front of his political supporters. >> but do you also see, phil, over the last couple of disa -- a kind of restraint. he does have that threat of jail hanging over him, the possibility but not likelihood he could join allen weisselberg at rikers. he has not made statements that were so directly inflammatory potentially as others he has made in the past. do you think that judge juan merchan's gag order and threat of jail is now at least now working? >> well, that is what's changed this week, the threat of jail became a possibility that the judge laid out earlier this week, and trump has been slightly more restrained than he was earlier in the trial and certainly than he was in the run up to the trial.

we're still seeing these flashes of anger and frustration, but you're right. we're not seeing the same kind of inflammatory and directly personal attacks and commentary that we're used to seeing from trump almost certainly because of that threat of jail time, which is absolutely the last place where donald trump would like to see himself end up. >> so i want to go to you, chuck, the last thing juan merchan said or at least the last thing that we have immortalized in our document is they were asking them to please control these witnesses. he said i would direct the people to communicate to mr. cohen that the judge is asking him to refrain from communicating in this case. we will do so and that came after joshua steinglass said we have repeatedly asked the witnesses not to do that, not just cohen, and we have no control over what they do. what about the prosecution and michael cohen who is set to take the stand on monday?

>> chris, the prosecutors must hate the fact that cohen is talking, and i am certain that they have asked him not to do it repeatedly, and cohen, like mr. trump seems like someone who is beyond the control of the prosecutors and beyond the control of the judge. so why would prosecutors hate the fact that their key witness is talking? because he is giving the defense team so much more fodder for cross examination. his biases, his anger, his inconsistent statements. i mean, put aside for a moment, if you will, chris, the fact that cohen is a convicted felon and a liar. i mean, he is, and that is fertile ground for cross examination. but all of the anger, all of the animus, all of the bias and all of the inconsistenies that continue to emanate from this man just makes it more difficult for the prosecutors and easier for the defense team on cross

examination. so have the prosecutors asked him to stop? assuredly and repeatedly, and he apparently is incapable of it. if i were a prosecutor in this case, i would be very upset and very angry with mr. cohen. >> is he hurting himself, jessica, as a witness who already we know and by the prosecution's own statement carries a lot of baggage. >> arguably it is. it depends on how effectively the defense uses these prior statements as they continue in their cross examination of him and whether the jury becomes aware of them. >> would you expect that they would? >> well, i think it's a double-edged sword? do they want to put before the jury more statements by michael cohen that are essentially bad for donald trump? i mean, yes, they go to his bias, but that bias is already well-established at this point. it may be just a little more -- one more drop of water in a huge bucket already. but i think the fact that he's continuing to make these statements that the prosecutors really have no control over him, really highlights that he's such a different kind of witness than we might typically see in this

situation. often we have cooperating witnesses who enter into agreements with prosecutors whereby they're seeking a lower sentence in exchange for their testimony. and because of that agreement, the prosecutors have some kind of leverage over the witnesses and can say to them, you really need to stop making these statements outside of court because it's hurting your testimony. it's hurting our case, and we're not going to honor our agreement with you if you don't honor your agreement with us. and so they don't have that kind of agreement with michael cohen here. he's already served his time. he's not facing any additional charges. he's really a free agent at this point who's not beholden to the prosecutors. so is he hurting himself? i don't know. his brand is basically anti-trump at this point, maybe on some calculus this is helpful to his brand, but i don't think he's helping the prosecutors. >> he's a big name, but chuck, of course several of the people who have testified today have no name recognition and almost surely do not want name recognition, but they were there to put certain pieces of paper,

right, certain pieces of evidence into evidence. why wouldn't the defense just stipulate to that? . >> well, i think they ought to. but it's really not up to the lawyers, it's up to their client, mr. trump. if he is refusing to allow his lawyers to stipulate, to agree to facts that are easily deduced by the prosecution, there's nothing the lawyers can do, and the judge can't force mr. trump either to stipulate. mr. trump has a right, as any criminal defendant to cross examination all of the evidence against him. is it a better tactic for them to stipulate, chris? sure in certain instances. do they have to? absolutely not. and i've tried plenty of cases -- well, i shouldn't say plenty. i've tried the occasional case where a defendant was so adamant about not agreeing or stipulating to anything that we have to call lots of individual

witnesses to authenticate documents and put them into evidence and make our record. prosecutors can to it. it just takes a little bit longer. i wanted to add one thing if i may to what jessica is saying. she's absolutely right, of course, that the government has less control over mr. cohen because he has served his sentence and there's no sort of exstant existing cooperation agreement, but if mr. cohen genuinely wants something bad to happen to mr. trump -- and he appears to want that -- he ought to heed what the prosecutors are saying, even if they can't force him to stop talking outside of court. he ought to be smart enough to understand that by continuing to talk about the case, he is making the prosecution's job harder and potentially the defense team's job easier. i want to go back to you if i can now, vaughn, because in spite of the fact that some of the witnesses may seem -- have seemed a little dry, some of the

text messages they read were not, and obviously it's getting us to the next point, which is michael cohen. again, according to joshua steinglass we expect to call two witnesses. it's possible, entirely possible we are resting by the end of next week. that doesn't mean that they're completely done, but, you know, there's going to be back and forth obviously on the other side. the trial is far from over, but this has moved fast. maybe even, vaughn, faster than we might have thought? >> reporter: right, i mean, take into account that dylan howard is not expected to testify. dylan howard, the editor and chief of the "national enquirer" who has come up almost every single day of testimony here in this trial so far and was included in those text messages that you just mentioned that were just entered into the record today between him and the manager for stormy daniels, gina rodriguez. dylan howard is not going to be

testifying because as david pecker told this jury that he is currently going through a medical condition and is in australia and would not be able to come to the u.s. and take part in this trial. that was somebody that could have taken easily a day or two of testimony as well. that is where you saw the text messages between those two individuals read into the record by a member of the d.a.'s team, a paralegal instead. those text messages revealing in so many ways about the engagement between the editor and chief of the "national enquirer" who is not even party to the $130,000 agreement but was understanding of the importance to david pecker and others to make sure that it was executed, communicating with stormy daniels manager who, again, was not keith davidson who was the one who was executing the $130,000, those text messages showed just how great of a scope of individuals there were that were following this over the course of those weeks, and that it was even noted on october 15th that the

trump deal in quotes was dead and that there was frustration oaf the lack of payment and that the daily mail was about to publish something. those text messages also showed that stormy daniels was about to go and just do the press conference because she had lost patience for the promises for michael cohen that this deal was going to be executed, so all of this was sort of being read into the record here without dylan howard here, but -- and now much of this is going to be able to be, you know, we've all been living through this testimony for three weeks now, and now michael cohen's testimony will be an opportunity to all but bring it all together from 2011 all the way to today where we find ourselves now following this testimony that came here just even this morning between madeleine westerhout answering questions from the prosecution and under cross examination. >> this is dry stuff in most of the cases, even though i think by most trial standards this has been a pretty compelling story that the prosecution is telling, but jurors are human.

they're probably tired. they probably were thrilled to hear that they were going home at 1:00, instead of 4:00 this afternoon. even if they didn't follow exactly why everything fit together, is that okay that they go home and they're like i'm not sure what all of that was about, as long as, again, the prosecution is able to use that evidence to help michael cohen tie this all up. >> yeah, there are lots of moments in a trial that are not that scintillating. it's usually when this bread and butter work is being done of introducing records into evidence, whether it's phone records or bank records or the kinds of accounts -- records that is right kept by the trump organization that came in by some of the custodian witnesses. this is critical evidence in this case, we were trying to establish communications between people as part of a scheme or the transfer of money as part of a scheme, and both are critical here. now, as chuck was saying earlier, sometimes the parties will stipulate to the

admissibility of this evidence. you won't actually have to call the custodians to introduce it. here trump didn't want to do that, some of these witnesses were necessary just to get the records into evidence. it's less what the witnesses say and more the records themselves that are critical, and what the prosecution is going to do in their closing argument is pull all of this together, right? this is where they're going to take all the pieces of evidence that they've introduced and tell the story, building the wall as we say that is their case and presenting it to the jury. and these phone records are going to be really important in corroborating michael cohen's testimony about communications that he had with donald trump about the payments to stormy daniels and how they were going to be recorded in the trump organization's books. so the records themselves don't tell us the content of those communications, but they are going to corroborate the time line for what michael cohen's going to say about his conversations with trump. >> i want to go back, if i can, chuck, to the first witness today because among the most compelling witnesses, you would say it was madeleine westerhout.

to remind people who may not have been watching yesterday, she was someone who was an assistant to donald trump. she was someone who kept his schedule, somebody who, frankly, was fired after she spoke at what she said she thought was an off the record dinner with the press and said unflattering things about some of his kids. having said that, i think one of the key parts they were trying to get to with her was whether or not he was doing this because he cared about his family or whether it was because he was trying to obviously cover this up because he thought it would hurt his presidential campaign. what do you make of her testimony because looking at it from a distance, it seems like she almost played into both of those arguments that, well, yes, he did want to protect his family, but also she never heard him say that directly. and by the way, could it not be

both? >> it could absolutely be both, chris, and often people act with dual motives. so must remember one, whether or not stormy daniels had sex with mr. trump in a nevada hotel room is somewhat beside the point. the main point here is that she was going to tell that story. true or false, she was going to tell that story, and it was that story that mr. trump was trying to kill. so, you know the folks who are around trump who handled his books and records, who saw the checks go back and forth, who made the entries are all important to sort of compiling building to use jessica's analogy, that wall. ms. westerhout was around mr. trump and may have understood his motives better than others

but, chris, it could have been dual, but in some ways it doesn't matter. motive is always nice to prove, but not typically required. if you robbed a bank, chris, you may have done it to pay off gambling debts. you may have done it because you're greedy. you may have done it because you wanted to feed your family. those are different motives. they matter to you, but they don't matter legally. the prosecutors would only need to prove that you robbed the bank. so yes, people act all the time with motive. sometimes those motives are singular. sometimes they're dual. in this case it may well be dual, but it doesn't matter all that much. >> all right, we're going to take a quick break. just so people know taking them a little bit behind the scenes what happens when someone with secret service protection like the former president is there, they will hold people in place until the protectee clears. so even though donald trump came out of the courtroom, we are waiting for him to leave the area, and we are going to have

more coverage in 90 seconds. we hope by then to have our reporters and analysts who are just getting out of the courthouse and heading right to our cameras. we'll have their observations next on "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc .next on "chris jansing reports (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. ♪

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of course is the testimony of michael cohen. on him hangs a pretty awesome responsibility for a man who at one time as we said claimed he would take a bullet for donald trump. now the case the prosecution is trying to make that donald trump committed 34 felonies in trying to -- how shall we put it -- affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential campaign, it's on him. it is now on him. back with us, phil rucker, chuck rosenberg, jessica roth. phil rucker, we often talk to you about donald trump, but let me talk to you about his one-time lawyer and now nemesis, michael cohen. do you think he feels the pressure? >> certainly, chris. this is sort of the closing act in the prosecution trying to make its case and sew this up neatly for the jury, and to leave the jury with the conclusion that there's no doubt but that donald trump committed

these felony crimes, and so a lot of pressure is going to be on cohen not only in how he answers the questions of the prosecution, but his effectiveness as a story teller, the way he's able to knit together these different shreds of evidence to portray sort of a broader narrative of criminal activity by donald trump. >> i want to bring in msnbc legal analyst and criminal defense attorney danny cevallos who was inside court this morning. so we were talking about the fact that after madeleine westerhout, i mean, you've got a series of people who are basically making sure that evidence is allowed to go in to the case. but i think one of the more interesting things that we really saw, danny, and i want to get your take on the feel and the mood inside the room, was that we can start to see the defense team looking to get allen weisselberg along with michael cohen to be the pair that really is to blame, not donald trump, for the charges

that are in this case. am i anywhere near what happened today? >> you're definitely right. i mean, allen weisselberg was a focal point at the end of the day because it turns out the defense is trying to preclude some evidence of an agreement, the separation agreement, but the theory behind it is that allen weisselberg isn't here, so the prosecution, the defense is arguing, it's a really complicated kind of quasi relevance, quasi hearsay evidence, they're trying to keep some evidence out. neither side, well the prosecution especially, has even tried to subpoena allen weisselberg. so i think we are seeing the direction the defense is going. they are going to point the finger at michael cohen, at allen weisselberg and imply that this is something they did on their own without donald trump knowing about it. and little bits of that theory emerged even during their cross examination of madeleine westerhout, which is the idea

that donald trump would often sign checks in a big group. he didn't always look at them. he didn't always review or ask questions about them. so look, the theme of the defense has started narrowing and it's been narrowing since day one. and it really can only be some version of, well, concede the fact that there were checks paid to michael cohen. concede the fact that michael cohen arranged some payment to stormy daniels, but then say, look, donald trump wasn't involved in it. this is something that michael cohen did. he went rogue. allen weisselberg did whatever he did. donald trump didn't know about it. he just signed the checks like many bosses do at businesses. that really is about the only remaining avenue for the defense. >> so you were actually in the courtroom, so i want to get a sense of the mood and i want to start with donald trump because, by our timing, when he left court today and he went to the cameras spouting many of the same things that he has said before, he was there for more than ten minutes, so you can

sense even in the tiing but also we saw a little bit of it, the frustration that he is feeling right now. tell us where you were sitting, what you observed. >> reporter: well, you all know that he was speaking for ten minutes, but i only just learned that when you said it right now, and the only way we knew it when we were in the room is that we were all held in the room waiting while donald trump apparently is out there speaking, and we just sit there in silence wondering when we're going to be released. so when you're in the main courtroom like that, donald trump leaves right out through the middle, and that's right where you see him give his speeches, and apparently i'm just learning he gave one today. donald trump, when you're in the main courtroom, you don't get a really good look at donald trump because he's a good ten yards away and the screens that do show a feed of donald trump, they're too far away to really get a look, which is why amazingly i saw firsthand many reporters actually have binoculars that they pull out during the case and watch the

monitor because even the monitor is a little too far away to see documents. so when you're sitting in the courtroom with donald trump, you don't really get a clear look at him the way people do in what's called the overflow room. they i understand get a much better look. what i thought was interesting from what i could see about donald trump is that he was more reclined today. he was kind of leaning back. he may have closed his eyes. i couldn't see that from where i was sitting. towards the end of court you got a pretty clear shot of him on the screen. obviously when evidence is up on the screen, exhibits, you're not going to see a feed, a picture of donald trump. when nothing's up, there are times when you see a feed of him. i saw him reclining, kind of leaning back, talking to his lawyers, leaning over, talking to emil bove. my view of donald trump is he was a little more involved than has been reported. i didn't see him closing his eyes. he seemed involved. he talked to his lawyers, seemed almost, dare i say, a little

reclined, maybe a little relaxed. more than your average criminal defendant is when they're on trial. >> let me ask you about the jury because that is one thing that the people who are in the overflow room cannot see. i don't think, trooes according to the reporting from people who were there, that they had a moment when stormy daniels was on the stand that they weren't paying attention, but what about today? >> i got to say, i think the jury looks like they are paying attention. i mean, i've seen a lot of juries in my day, and this is a jury that i think is mostly paying attention. i see some note taking. they seem alert, admittedly this was not a day like a stormy daniels day or even a keith davidson day. this was a day that you had some interesting testimony from madeleine westerhout in the beginning, and then you had what you would call kind of authentication witnesses. these are witnesses that are definitely not exciting. they got into the details of cell phone evidence and summary

evidence, all necessary testimony in cases involving documents and especially summaries. you had testimony by two of the paralegals for the manhattan d.a.'s office, and they had to describe the summaries of data that they prepared, and there was even a somewhat humorous exchange. one of my colleagues laughed out loud. it was a humorous moment where they were asking about summarizing all of this data and the question was, to the paralegal who was testifying, you found this tedious work, didn't you? the answer was he thought about it, and he said actually, i kind of liked it. that was a moment of levity in the courtroom, but what made it funny is that this was talking about summarizing reams and reams of data about things like cell phones and text messages and all the data that's associated with cell phones. dry testimony, but yet i really got the sense the jury is paying attention. >> all right, i also want to bring in msnbc contributor and "new york times" investigative reporter sue craig and msnbc

legal correspondent lisa rubin. lisa was inside the courtroom. sue was in the overflow room. i want to start at the end, if i can, sue, and i'm going to start with you, and i discuss this a little bit with danny just now, but it's almost like we're starting to see a little outline of a defense that involves a defendant who isn't the defendant and his name is allen weisselberg. >> right. allen weisselberg is not a defendant, and he is not here, and there doesn't seem like there's any plans by either side to call him for a number of reasons. i thought the interesting thing from this morning is the defense case seems to be emerging that they may be looking to pin this on allen weisselberg, that he was a lone actor and that he's actually the one that designed the payment scheme with michael cohen to get the money to stormy

daniels and that donald trump didn't know anything about that. we heard from donald trump's assistant at the white house this morning and there was some testimony that suggest that had she gave donald trump and allen weisselberg really didn't talk in 2017 at all. she barely -- there was one newspaper clipping that donald trump had sent to allen weisselberg from the white house and that donald trump was really busy doing a lot of other things when he was signing those checks. that he was talking to not quite heads of states but he might have been in staef meetings or he he was on phone calls. perhaps wasn't paying attention when he was signing those checks that we now know about from michael cohen to form the basis of the payments to stormy daniels. i thought that was really interesting to finally see the defense case on that that we thought was going to be coming take shape and then later in the day, there was a question about where is allen weisselberg and should he be called to testify.

the government doesn't have plans to call him. of course allen weisselberg is sitting out at rikers, and it doesn't look like the defense wants to call him either. they both have their reasons for not doing so, but the judge suggested that he might actually want allen weisselberg to come and testify outside of the jury just to see what he might say. and at issue if allen weisselberg does come in is what he will say because he's got an agreement with the trump organization, a financial agreement that the government thinks will restrict what he can say, and he may end up just taking fifth or not answering and also there's a concern because he's out at rikers for perjury that what he says isn't credible. >> it seems that there are a lot of those situations that are going on as is involved in this case. lisa rubin, you were in the courtroom as danny cevallos was and you were nodding as sue was talking about seeing the contours of this defense take shape. it was taking shape while among

the five witnesses today i'm just going to read it, there was a paralegal for the new york d.a.'s office, a paralegal in the manhattan d.a.'s office, a senior analyst in executive relations, and an at&t lead compliance analyst. not a list of people that if you were going to sign up for a day in court that you would necessarily sign up for. give me your observations both of what we learned today but how the jury was reacting to it. >> let's start with madeleine westerhout who was the only substantive witness today. i thought susan necheles did a good job on her cross exam. one by one, most of the admissions that the prosecution had gotten from her she managed to curtail or at least make a little bit more uncertain. while she said yesterday, for example, that trump did read checks before he signed them, today she was more ambiguous saying that sometimes he did it absent mindedly while he was

taking meetings, for example, with her, while people were passing through. she also said that when she was basically dealing with him that his attention diverted at times, and so they were really creating doubt about whether trump was focused in on the checks that he was signing or whether he was just doing so casually. now, remember, chris, also based on their amount and other things that the d.a. has presented, it's not entirely plausible that donald trump would have signed nine $35,000 checks absent mindedly, but madeleine westerhout proved to be a fairly good witness for the defense today in just sort of peeling back a number of admissions that i think the prosecution thought they got from her. with respect to the other four witnesses, all of them you can think about as either witnesses there to admit data or witnesses who are there to mostly compile, aggregate, and summarize data, and so in that respect, for

example, the d.a.'s office used the second paralegal to admit a summary chart that shows each and every one of the 34 documents that are alleged to have been falsified here and constitute one of the 34 felony counts. absent that chart, the jurors would have to compile dozens of pages of papers to get to that same conclusion. here it's being neatly presented to them in a summary chart that takes from other pieces of admitted evidence. that's a document that i predict if i were a juror i would go back to again and again. and of course the big looming issue is allen weisselberg. i don't think that either party wants to call him. the d.a. sort of wants to have it a little bit of both ways by submitting into evidence the severance agreement that allen weisselberg signed with the trump organization after he was sentenced and the criminal tax fraud case that was tried in 2022, he signed a severance agreement that entitled him to $2 million from them over eight installments. the trouble with that agreement

is that it also contains onerous provisions in terms of what allen weisselberg has to do to get that $2 million, that includes not only not disparaging the trump organization and any of its employers or former officers or directors, but it has a really stringent anti-cooperation clause that unless compelled by a lawful process meaning a subpoena, allen weisselberg cannot talk to or cooperate with anyone that has a civil claim or a criminal complaint against the trump organization and that same large universe of people. and so the dilemma for the d.a. is this, they could subpoena allen weisselberg, but he's not essentially allowed to talk with them about what he might say, even have their lawyer -- even have his lawyer talk to the d.a.'s office. josh steinglass was sort of presenting this to the judge like a dilemma. we could call him, but he could invoke the fifth or lie on the

stand. that's not something he said but it was sort of left hanging out there. >> implied. >> right. conversely the trump organization says if you admit this severance agreement, you are essentially being allowed to tell the jury that a person you never tried to subpoena is inherently biased against you, and if they came in here would lie because they have 2 million reasons to do so. so i think merchan is sort of leaning against you got to try and call the guy first. where i predict this will land is that the manhattan d.a. office will say the severance agreement all that important to us. they'd rather have that than a subpoena to allen weisselberg who comes and is a hostile, difficult or lying witness to them. i don't think the severance agreement otherwise gets them that much. i also don't think the trump folks want to really pin this on allen weisselberg, at least not pin it on him in the way you traditionally would. they might say that allen weisselberg was freelancing and trying to impress or make donald trump happy, but that donald trump didn't know what he was doing. they don't want to paint him as

nefarious. the last thing they want to do is poke the weisselberg beast. why? because the guy is still in jail. at any moment he could decide to forego that $2 million and cooperate with the d.a. after all. >> well, that's an interesting possibility there, kristy greenberg, this is a man who is 76 years old, who has spent most of his professional life trying to make donald trump even a richer man than he already was and who when he was asked at his sentencing that sent him to rikers whether he had anything he wanted to say, he simply said, no, your honor, and the sentence was handed down. what kind of witness would allen weisselberg be, do you think, kristy greenberg as you're coming out of the courtroom having just heard those arguments? >>. >> he's not going to be a witness. i cannot see him testifying. he has always been somebody who is in donald trump's corner.

if you remember going back to the criminal trial where allen weisselberg was the guy that everybody blamed. the defense of the trump organization, the defense of donald trump, and the defendants in this criminal tax fraud case was that allen weisselberg was the bad guy. allen weisselberg was greedy. look at what allen weisselberg and blame him, and even then allen weisselberg did not flip on trump. you know, he has now gone to jail for trump not just once but twice. he is the d.a.'s office has done everything they can to try and get allen weisselberg to flip on trump. it's not happening. don't expect him to come in and be a great witness for the state. the state knows they can't call him, and that's why they're trying to find some way to explain his absence to the jury through this severance jury. >> madeleine westerhout, you had a chance to observe today. in many ways although she didn't serve nearly as long as

weisselberg has, she is someone who is this young woman, she's trying to make her way in the world. she finds herself surrounded by some of the most powerful people in the world and arguably ultimately, the most powerful person in the world. donald trump going with him to the white house, somebody who, frankly, she clearly admired and still admires in spite of the fact that he fired her because of the non-interview she gave, the conversation she had with members of the press. tell me your observations about madeleine westerhout's testimony today. we were hearing earlier from lisa that she thought, honestly, that susan necheles did a pretty good job on cross. necheles did a pretty good job on cross. >> well, it was interesting because essentially you had yesterday she's being asked questions about was donald trump attentive to detail and did he read documents.

madeleine westerhout said, yes, he reads documents, he's attentive to details. today basically asked the same questions on cross-examination, and her responses were dramatically different. actually, he doesn't review documents and checks. he'll sign a check and not review it. he'll look at things and not review them when they're put before him. it wasn't necessarily that the question was different, it was just who was examining her and what kind of point does that person want to make. it seemed like she was just going to go with kind of the rhythm of whatever susan necheles was trying to get at. and that, then, brought home the point of, well, has she been prepared. so when the prosecution came back on redirect, it came out that, yes, she had spent an hour with trump's defense team. she had met with prosecutors and with the defense. and her lawyer had been coordinating with the defense because her lawyer had shown her some documents just this morning that the defense wanted to bring out on cross-examination. that evidence did not come out. it was not admitted.

but it's showing that there is a coordination among the lawyers for madeline westerhout and the defense team. i thought it was brilliant that the state understanding and reck anything that westerhout had reversed course on key points brought out the fact that who do you currently work for. she works for the former national security adviser robert o'brien, and i thought that was an important point. basically the prosecution was all but saying, and i assumed they would argue in summation that, yeah, she still has some bias here. she wrote a book about how much she admired donald trump and thought he was treated unfairly. talked about respecting his relationship with his wife, and also made the point multiple times and this was made on cross as well as on direct, she said, i think he really cared about his family, and these stories that stormy daniels, it bothered him because it would hurt his family. that's the key point that the

defense wants to raise as to why any hush money payments may have been made, and they got that through madeleine westerhout. >> lisa rubin, you were in the courtroom, and danny was saying earlier, he was observing donald trump. i wonder, did you observe anything during her testimony, any exchanges between her and donald trump or when she left the witness stand and he was also saying that donald trump looked maybe a little relaxed. he was leaning back at some points, although he was still engaged with his lawyers, whether that means it was just not testimony, as it was high intensity with stormy daniels or whether he's tired, i don't know, what are your observations from being in there? >> chris, of course you know that when you're in the courtroom, the one huge disadvantage is you can't really see donald trump's face. you get a much closer look at

the jury. in the overflow room, no jury at all. you get a great glance at the witness in the interplay and body language. what i didn't see was donald trump's face. he appeared to be more engaged today, particularly during the early parts of the day than he has been in recent days. lots of conferring with todd blanche, lots of whispering between the two of them. at one point i oxed the two were so close together, their shoulders were touching, and constant hand over fist whispering. todd blanche has mentioned in open court that the press is hanging on their every whisper, even going so far as to try and use binoculars in the overflow room to see what the two of them are saying to one another. they're trying not to be detected. donald trump very active with his counsel today, and particularly maybe feeling emboldened by what his lawyers have tried to convince him was a score with stormy daniels. you know from our conversations yesterday and on other days that

that's not the way that i saw it. but there are people in donald trump's echo chamber of the universe who very much saw it that way. we even had some anchors on fox saying to the extent that she blacked out, it was because it was such phenomenal sex that he's a sex god. if you're embarrassed by hearing that, imagine how millions of viewers on another network must have felt. that's the spin that donald trump is hearing in the circles in which he runs. and that might have accounted for his relaxed atmosphere today as well. >> and we only have a minute left -- >> it's interesting you say that -- >> i was just going to ask. he seemed to have the lot of papers and there were printouts of articles. maybe they related to that as well? >> yeah, he did have a lot of printouts. >> i think his printouts, chris, from what i can see are self-selected news articles that give him sort of a maga reinforcing view of what's going

on. >> our thanks to lisa rubin, sue craig, danny cevallos, and kristy greenberg. chuck, jessica, you're going to stay with me as our coverage of the hush money trial continues ahead. including both sides, how they're preparing for michael cohen's testimony on monday. keep it here on msnbc. ep it her. ♪ ♪cause you're free♪ ♪to do what you want to do♪ ♪do what you want♪ ♪do what you want♪ 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,

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