♪ ♪ good morning. 11:00 a.m. eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. i am josé diaz-balart. any moment now, testimony will resume in former president trump's hush-money trial. "the national enquirer" publisher, david pecker will be back on the stand detailing what prosecutors call a conspiracy to win the white house in 2016. trump's lawyer denied any willful violation of the judge's gag order. trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment made to an adult film actress,

stormy daniels. with us now to talk more about this, nbc news correspondent, vaughn hillyard, outside the courtroom in manhattan, and senior fbi official, gerald coleman, and a former prosecutor, and a former new york assistant attorney general who led the investigation into trump university. so as we await, vaughn, court to resume, take us what we have been seeing this morning so far? >> reporter: over the course of nearly an hour and a half, the gag order hearing that was in the works for the better part of a week came into order here. the jury was not in here for this part of the morning, but this was the opportunity for the prosecution to make their case to judge merchan that trump had

repeatedly attacked witnesses, but also not to make public statements about potential jurors, and nearly the course of the hour and a half, the prosecution went through each of the media post, and it was todd blanche, trump's attorney, that met the scorn of judge merchan. he said you are losing all credibility, you are losing all credibility with the court. i have to tell you. the words of the judge to donald trump's attorney. todd blanche was struggling to respond to two specific points in his defense of social media's social media posts. number one, for those in the words of donald trump, he was saying his client was responding to the attacks against him from the likes of stormy daniels and

michael cohen, and he was unable to give specifics, and then there were multiple reposts and todd blanche was not able to specifically answer if donald trump was endorsing those, other than saying they were not statements by donald trump. for history's sake, the prosecution said social media has boasted in the past of how many people read his posts, and he was asked in 2021, he said, yeah, i think that's right. do you want me to say no? i retweet for a reason. they are currently in break here and about to reconvene, the court, in which david pecker, excuse me, will take the stand again. as to the gag order, josé, judge

merchan said he will reserve his judgment on whether donald trump has violated it and it's not his timeline on when he will make the determination if donald trump is find and he could warn donald trump that he could serve jail time. >> unbelievable, charles, and this is in the morning before the first witness takes the stand. how would you describe the morning? >> this is not the start you want if you are donald trump, and i have been talking to a number of us on the panel, and i am surprised that todd blanche did not have a better explanation and response for some of the questions that judge merchan has thrown at him. these are not complicated things. while i understand that you are primarily focussed on donald trump and his defense at trial, you have had several days to put together a plausible arguments as to why you should be able to

win this hearing against the prosecution and their motion, and in the response that he was responding to stormy daniels, you could put together a few tweets if this was the answer that you planned to give. quite frankly, i am surprised. this is not a good thing. the fact that the judge said you are losing credibility as a defense attorney and trial attorney this early in the trial is not somewhere you want to be. >> what do you say if you are trump's attorney and the judge is asking you for specifics about a gag order that was very clearly written and specified? >> you have to have the answers. there's no excuse for walking into court unprepared. one thing i never heard in all my years as a prosecutor, from any judge, and many of whom denied my motions, is that i was losing credibility with the court, and that's a dagger for anybody in a court of law. if you lose your credibility,

josé, it's very, very hard to get it back. by the way, you may need it at the end. so i don't envy mr. blanche for a number of reasons. he should -- not just he, but anybody walking into court should be prepared and it was not that difficult to anticipate what the questions might be. there were not that many tweets, and as trump's lawyer it's your obligation to know that and explain it, and you might lose but you don't want to lose and lose your credibility. >> just the four of you that have vast experience, do you recall a time or more than once when a judge early on in a case said to one of the litigants, either the defense or prosecution, you are losing credibility with this court early on? do any of you remember that

happening? >> i have seen judges admonish attorneys, and i have seen the body language and all of that being the sentiment, but never have i heard it expressly said, you're losing credibility. i have heard this is not a plausible argument. i'm suspect -- >> that's different. that's different than a judge stating, you know, when everybody is under, you know, the judicial proceedings underway, to say you are losing credibility. what do you see there? >> that's reputationally damaging. i have never seen it happen to a colleague or opposing counsel and i am thankful i have not. it can be detrimental to one's reputation. the thing about it, too, but the comment and to say it in front of one's client is equally damaging, and the client is

trump, but, my goodness, even though todd blanche is a well-respected attorney, having your client hear you being admonished by the court, my goodness. >> what does the defense team do now and how do they overcome the clear obstacle? i mean, from the bench, the judge says you are losing credibility. >> if i were them, i would probably be trying to pull together some sort of letter to the judge, something else to basically say, look, your honor, based on the things you said in court, here are other things we brought to bear to control the damage, and it's reputation overall, fine. todd blanche made his bet that he's riding on the trump train now and that's his decision. reputationally, that opens up a

whole lot of things that are not worth talking about right now. what does it mean in the context of the case? every time he stands up to object, he has less credibility. anytime there's something that comes up with a piece of evidence, he will have less credibility. if this gets to a conviction and we are in are a sentencing phase, he will have less credibility. none of those things are good. all of those things are bad. he has to get into the damage control, quick. >> the judge said he will reserve the decision on the gag order violations and what to do about it. what do you think about that? >> it's going to be tough. if he doesn't make a decision right away it runs the risk of trump continuing to engage in potentially violating behavior. the judge is basically saying, let me digest the arguments and take time and speak to the law clerk and look at the law again,

and he is being conscientious. and he has stated to trump's counsel, hey, you are losing credibility, and he's still making a con -- conscientious decision. >> the break, and they are resuming, and they have not as of right now started the testimony of david pecker. during that time, here's what was coming out of truth social and former president trump. let's look at that together. i am going to -- highly conflicted, to put it mildly, judge juan merchan has taken away my constitutional right to free speech. everybody is allowed to talk and lie about me, but i am not allowed to defend myself.

this is a kangaroo court and the judge should recuse himself. that's an interesting tactic. >> well, it is. the gag order by itself permits mr. trump to criticize the judge, so that is probably not a violation. i am a baseball fan, josé, and i think it would be a bad strategy to stop by home plate and tell the umpire he sucks, and that doesn't make a sense and there are nine innings to play. that does not help you at trial. you have to try and right the ship. maybe you apologize -- >> apologize about what though? >> i was not clear, your honor, and i do think there's an argument to be made for mr. trump. he's running for president, and that puts him in a different

category than any other criminal defendant. i agree with you that some of these tweets and reposts are troubling, but i don't think they are violative because my client did not intent to violate your order. you try and pull it back. you don't start screaming at the umpire before you have thrown a pitch. >> when the umpire makes an aside, and you scream again and insult him again, i mean, is there logic to this? >> before the trial begins, yes, this is a strategy that we have seen donald trump employ in all of his criminal cases, and i would like to call it to further your sports analogy, and i have been using the same one, and putting pressure on the refs. donald trump is aware there's no judge that wants to be responsible for putting him in jail, and it's a logistical

nightmare for anybody to hold him in jail for contempt. he's aware of this. if a judge decides to do that, he has created an appealable issue in his mind, or one he will contest. before trial, i understand somewhat the logic. do i like it or agree with it as a strategy? no. but i get what he's trying to do. on the one hand, if he gets penalized he becomes more of a martyr as donald trump the candidate, and if he doesn't, he's donald trump the defendant. >> judge merchan said he would be back on the bench at 11:00 a.m. eastern time, and 13 minutes have passed and he yet has to re-enter the courtroom. donald trump has shown a willingness to play only one playbook and that's to attack judges and prosecutors and folks who were called just in the last

year, and it led to a defamation suit against e. jean carroll, and she fed an additional lawsuit. he since has continued to make the statements that led to the very defamation suit that cost him $87 million in the first place. the other one was if we go back to the civil fraud trial, and donald trump would recall donald trump was fined of judge engoron. after he repeatedly attacked the law clerk to the judge, he was find $10,000 and held in contempt for violating that gag order. donald trump has a history predating this trial that he's willing to attack, and as you read from the social media post, he clearly has not been punished for violating the gag order yet, and even during the recess, he

got on his phone and continued to attack the individual that could put him in jail if he is to continue to violating that gag order. >> we are not yet seeking incarceration -- >> he says this as a win-win, and this is straight from trump's playbook, and he's got -- this is really one of his main things is to attack, attack, attack, and he says it as a win-win. either he goes too far and they do stick him in detention for a night or whatever, and then he really gets to play up the martyr thing, and this is how he's raising money for his legal defenses, he's going to his supporters and passing the hat

and saying, oh, whoa is me, i need your money. or he uses the unwillingness of judges to send him to lockup, and he pushes that envelope as far as he can knowing they will probably backup and hesitate and he's working the refs, and that's where he's seeing the win-win there. it speaks to the fact he knows on the legal merits he doesn't have a great case. why does he do all these things? he can't win clean if it's on the merits, and i talk about it in my book, and he can't win clean so he has to win dirty, and that's where all of this comes from. >> what are the judge's options? i know we can talk about the legal options, but what are his real options, because -- i mean, is it possible for a gag order violation you put somebody in

prison, when, comma, it's donald trump running for president? >> i think it speaks to both points, what is the outcome? if you want to put them in jail, there's so much going into that just from a procedural integrity standpoint, security and et cetera, not withstanding supporting trump's own narrative, and you could fine him and restrict his courtroom privileges. these are all things the judge could do. what is the purpose of a gag order? it's to make sure that the integrity of the criminal proceedings are not threatened. what should probably the judge consider doing is sequestering the jury to make sure they don't see or hear these things. that's only going to fix a portion of the problem that is dealing with tainting the jury, but what can the judge do to make sure witnesses don't feel

threatened and that will take more consideration when trump is attacking some of the witnesses. >> remind us, if you would, what are the rules for sequestering a jury or not? in this case, it's suspected this will be up to a six-week trial, and the jury will be able to go home at the end of the day. could every jury be sequestered? >> as a judge, that would be one of the last things i would want to do. >> really? >> it's very hard on jurors, i mean, jury duty and service of itself is asking quite lot of ordinary citizens, and they work and may be primary caregivers in their lives, and locking them in a two-star motel for six weeks seems like a bad idea. if you have no other options, well, then, maybe, but to the other point, it doesn't take care of the other part of the equation. you are not sequestering

witnesses. judges don't issue orders for fun. they issue orders so they are abided. by preference would be to punish the wrong doer and not the jurors. >> exactly. >> and i know it sounds like a statement that sequestering is a punishment, but it's a hardship. we had jurors that needed protection and anonymity, and we have had jurors transported to the courthouse by u.s. marshals so they would be safe and secure, and sequestering the jury is going too far. >> i understand that the judge is -- we are coming up to 20 minutes past the hour, he's now back in the courtroom and the situation is now starting to get

back underway. don't have the details yet on what is the first order of business, and sorry to interrupt but wanted to let you know that's what is happening right now. >> to the point of preserving the integrity of the trial and the proceedings, and we started this conversation about talking to donald trump and todd blanche specifically not having the greatest response, and you asked chuck what do you do to show yourself as being compliant with the court and its wishes, and you come in with an answer that has a framework with how do we preserve the framework of the trial. that's an important point because regardless of the responses you have to the allegations of violating the gag order, you want to give the judge a framework he can use to move forward or borrow some idea so you don't lose everything for your client, and at the core of the framework, you make preserving the integrity of the trial your north star and use

that as a means of trying to get out of this alive because it doesn't seem that todd blanche and company has done a good job of strategically thinking, look, donald trump is not going to change who he is and it's only going to get worse as we go along because the pressure is going to build, and how do i create a threshold, because this is going to continue to get bad for me and for him. >> in a very real way, and i am going back to you and what you wrote in your book, trump has a trump reality for his supporters, and it's never defense, always offense. >> right. >> how does that, you know, benefit him or not in a criminal jury trial? >> yeah, so let's get back to

blanche. i think this is a good point. the kicker there is he does not quite fit the mold of some of the other attorneys we have seen trump use lately. branch is somebody who is a bit your accomplished and has a bit more of a track record of clients and matters pretrump. what is happening here, for people that followed blanche and people that told me about his reputation, it seems very unblanche-like, perhaps, that he came in unprepared, and it's possible, and i will throw this out there, it's because trump is basically saying, no, you are not going to defend these things. you are not going to explain. you are not going to try and apologize not even indirectly for any of my comments. you are going to say, he has a right to do this.

the arguments you want to see him making on that side, he can't make because trump is not letting him. i would propose that there. at the end of the day, being counsel for donald trump means you are the conduit for him rather than you are your own independent counsel. >> we are seeing right now that david pecker has just taken the stand, so he will begin right now a series of questions and answers, and we will, of course, as this comes through to us, we will share it with you. we are all living through this live at the same time. i wanted, kristen, your thoughts on the fact that trump's main attorney does have experience and a lot of it, but on the prosecution side. this is his first criminal case, right, as a defense lawyer. does lack of experience on this side of the judicial bench matter? >> you know, it's interesting that you say that, because

whenever somebody comes to me as an attorney and says i need a criminal defense attorney, i always say your best criminal defense attorney is a former prosecutor. why? because we have to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and that doesn't mean putting together the pieces of the puzzle to make out the elements of the crimes. it involves anticipating any potential defenses, right? and rebutting it every step of the way. just because he has not had any experience as a criminal defense attorney, his prosecutorial experience will help him excel in this case. >> so now as pecker takes the stand, what is it that the prosecution is going to try and establish when we realize that the other kind of big-name star of the prosecution is michael cohen, who has a certain amount of credibility issues? >> well, mr. pecker is important to set the context. what mr. trump wanted to do was

kill a story about an extramarital affair, and mr. pecker helped him do that, not just with stormy daniels but also with karen mcdougal. you start these tales in the beginning, josé, and the beginning here was the attempt to kill the story. then you had to pay to kill the story, and once you paid to kill the story you had to reflect the payments on your books, and when you reflected them in a fraudulent matter, you committed a crime, and when you committed that crime with the goal of committing another crime, that misdemeanor became a felony. where do you start when you are a prosecute? at the beginning. that's what mr. pecker is, the beginning. >> i remember when we just started covering this part of trump's many different legal crisis, there was a question about how strong this case was because of the differences and the mismeaner to felony county,

one, whether time had passed -- what is it you, as a prosecution today, are starting to establish on that issue, the difficulties or maybe the weakest parts? >> i still think it's not necessarily a straightforward case as some of the others. it had challenges in terms of communicating to the jury why they are exactly here. before you get to the complexities, there are a few things you need to do. to chuck's point, you have to give the jury a flavor of the case in a 30,000-foot view of the story itself. tell the story, and then begin to explain why in the story donald trump broke the law. before you can get to the complex nuances about how this case is put together, you need to get the jury's credibility on your side. you need to present to them different accounts that are going to corroborate the story

itself that you believe from anyone particular witness. so if you have, for example, michael cohen, who has credibility challenges or you think stormy daniels's motives will be challenged by the defense, you rely on the testimony of the other witnesses like david pecker to bolster the credibility of your story in front of jury, so if they choose not to believe one or more of the witnesses, they still buy into the case. you have to delve into the details and explain how you get from misdemeanor to felony and what they have done, but that's complicated. >> and further down the road. >> yes. next, as we track the historic nature of the trial, we are going to talk to an attorney that represented three white house employees during the clinton administration and get his take on what he has seen so far. plus, more on the testimony from publishing -- former publishing director, david

pecker. you are watching "josé diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. r. [music playing] tiffany: my daughter is mila.

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hush-money trial resumes. trump has plead not guilty to all 34 counts. he denies the affairs ever happened. back with us, vaughn hillyard, live from outside the courthouse. and joining us, a trial attorney that represented white house employees during the clinton scandals. vaughn, what has been going on in the courtroom as of right now? >> reporter: this is the second day for david pecker on the stand. yesterday he was only able to testify for about 30 minutes. we are about five minutes into his testimony here today with the jury back in the jury box. i can tell you that the prosecution is currently going through the early meetings of donald trump and david pecker. of course, the former publisher of "the national enquirer," who is a crucial witness to the prosecution dating back to the

meeting between michael cohen and donald trump and david pecker, when they concocted the catch and kill scheme. what the prosecution is doing in real time is asking david pecker when he first met donald trump. he's now telling the story of back in the 1980s at mar-a-lago when he met mr. trump, and he pointed to defendant trump in the courtroom, and notably he said their relationship became closer in the 2000s, naming donald trump's "the apprentice," when he was on air with the popular television show, the two struck up a mutually beneficial relationship, and it was quite

clear according to david pecker, "the national enquirer" loves trump as a celebrity and followed him religiously, and i would add all the content on the show, i would get the information from mr. trump first so it was beneficial for my magazine, and that was dating from 2004 to 2014. and then in 2015, donald trump announced his running for president. >> they asked mr. pecker how often he did speak with trump, and he said after he announced his run for the president see, i spoke to him every couple of weeks, and if he called me or my office, very frequently.

what is all your reaction to this with the full day of testimony from one of the key witnesses for the prosecution in this case? >> josé, i think the prosecution will be very meticulous for this witness. it's clear pecker and trump have a history. it's not clear at this point what will come out about that history, but it's interesting that pecker was paying trump money, and it shows trump trusts pecker, so when trump goes to pecker, and this testimony will come out, about covering up various sorted issues that he thinks will interfere with the election, pecker is somebody he could count on. we will see what will develop in the testimony. i cannot imagine it will end today and will probably go on until tomorrow. >> what about this whole gag order and the issues that have been brought up to the court this morning, the judge apparently has not ruled on that, but how do you see that?

>> it's interesting, josé. every judge that i have spoken to has said they would not lock trump up. judges are very reluctant to do that, but he will reach a point where if trump continues to violate the gag order and it certainly appears he did violate the gag order, he will have to do something. as chuck rosenberg said earlier, sequestering the jury is a difficult thing because it's harmful to a juror. sometimes it facilitates a quicker verdict because the jurors just want to go home. so marchand will have to do something, and it's something he could try and use in his campaign, but there has to be a resolution. >> do you think between trump's demeanor inside and outside of the courtroom, is he helping or hurting himself? i guess the question is, there

may be two different audiences, the legal audience and then his political audience. >> well, it's -- it's not clear he's hurting himself inside the courtroom other than alienating the judge, because the jurors are not supposed to be watching media or reading magazines or newspapers, so allegedly they have not heard any of this. what he's doing is, alienating the judge, and if you are playing umpire here, umpires can throw players out of the game and here they cannot do that because he has to allow trump to appear for trial, and there are people that have been held in contempt and banned from the courtroom, and it would be tough for that to happen here. >> soccer, there's the possibility of a judge to use a yellow card or a red card, but

those are kinds of two different instances that have far different repercussions. >> right, because a judge in soccer could throw a player out of the game, and so can an umpire in baseball and so can a referee in basketball, and frequently, you know, if we are going to use the sport analogy, players try to get calls along the way, that will not happen with the judge, and it's clear he said trump's attorneys have lost credibility with him and he will not be biassed in any fashion by trump playing, you know, any sports analogy we have been using. >> thank you both so very much. really appreciate it. up next, we're keeping an eye on what is continuing to happen inside that courtroom in donald trump's criminal trial. you are watching "josé diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. we will try and cut back on the sports analogies just a little bit. at?

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♪ ♪ 44 past the hour. we are following breaking news out of new york city right now, david pecker is on the stand for former president trump's criminal trial. rehema, what has been going on

right now? >> reporter: an interesting part of the questioning by the prosecution of david pecker, he's been asked how well do you know -- what do you know about donald trump? describe him as a businessman. he says i would describe mr. trump of very knowledgeable and very detailed oriented. i would describe him as almost micromanaging looking at all aspects of whatever the issue is. i thought his approach to money was very cautious, he says. then the prosecution turns to start asking him about michael cohen, who you know was a former attorney for donald trump, and he says he met cohen at a bar mitzvah. he said he was introduced in 2007, and he said that donald trump told him that michael cohen was hired and that he could do a lot of great things for him, and above all the

contacts he had with trump should go through michael cohen, and if there were rumors or stories coming out or anything i heard or overheard, i would call michael cohen directly, and that was in 2007. he seems -- the prosecution is setting up the prosecution here of where cohen was having direct contact with david pecker, and donald trump let pecker know this, if he heard from michael cohen, he was hearing from trump, and that what seems to be in the line of questioning right now, josé. >> so interesting. and pecker is now talking about the popularity of trump for his magazine, previous to 2015, and certainly up to the election, but it's interesting, he's saying when mr. trump launched the "celebrity apprentice," basically "the national

enquirer" skyrocketed and we did research on proper covers and which celebrity, and all the time, every time we did this mr. trump would be the top choice. this is a guy who had a lot of celebrity as his commodity which helped him get to the white house. >> absolutely. that's really the great power that trump has is his ability to marshal media attention and get it to shine on him. that's always been the biggest thing. it's not managing businesses, necessarily, and having them turn a profit. but i want to get back what we were just talking about a moment ago, them hearing about trump as a manager, and this was part of our investigation into trump university was understanding how decisions got made because we did sue donald trump individually in that case, and we needed to prove he was culpable for the fraud in the

trump university matter, and we were able to establish that he did, in fact, have final and direct say over all of the marketing materials, which is where the fraudulent claims were being made in that case. >> remind us, if you would, about that. >> sure, the trump university case it was a sham and illegal school unlicensed, and among what it could not deliver is donald trump supposedly handpicked all of the instructors for trump university, and it was a selling point to be saying you are going to learn real estate from donald's own people, and they never met them and did not know who they were, et cetera, and et cetera, and we needed to establish when ads were in the newspaper and on the radio, and trump had a video where he was saying i handpicked these people, did he know, did he know that he was doing those things? did he have control over it? we were able to establish that.

i think trump's control over these decisions is going to be a critical aspect of this case that the prosecution has to prove, and they are starting it already from the first witness. >> this issue of how much control he had over it or not is key for this case. >> absolutely, because the underlying issue is the business records falsification. right, so if they can't prove trump was aware of falsified business of records, or the check was written out for this or that, he doesn't know why certain ledgers were made, then the case does fall apart. but this testimony really establishes that trump was an integral part of any and all monies going in and out, and wa for legal services. >> and so if all of this can be established without a reasonable doubt, it doesn't necessarily mean that what he did was illegal. >> it doesn't, but i think --

>> that's like a secondary. >> it gets the prosecution a lot closer to where they want to be. the second part of what we learned from rehema in terms of the testimony, listening from david pecker around the relationship with michael cohen is also critically important because what it shows is for as much as you're about to attack donald trump's relationship with michael cohen or his credibility for that matter, he really trusted this man. so he's going to show that this was someone who was intimately involved and who does know, so when the defense ultimately does cross-examine michael cohen and try to attack his credibility, you have laid the foundation for whatever you're saying now, there was a very long time, you're talking about 2007, i believe they said, up to 2016 or whatever this happened, there was a very long time where you really, really trusted this guy as your right-hand man. regardless of what you're saying now in terms of his credibility, he was your guy. >> relevance is key. >> always. >> and charles used a very

important phrase. lay the foundation. we do it when we introduce documents. we show the person we have called to introduce the document through is familiar with the records of the company and recognizes the documents that you want to introduce to theiary. what they're doing with mr. pecker is laying the foundation for the argument that tristan articulated, that mr. trump was intimately involved with the operation of his business and false records don't get made unless mr. trump has some knowledge. you're doing not just through mr. pecker, i assume it will be done through other witnesses, too. but with mr. pecker, he's testifying i have known this man a long time. he's detail oriented. he cares a lot about his money and the money of hes company, and stuff doesn't happen in the trump organization without mr. trump signing off on it. that's key. and it's relevant. >> and actually trump's attorney said that, part of that, yesterday as well. chuck rosenberg, rehema ellis,

charles coleman, kristen gibbons, tristan snell, i can't thank you enough for being with me this hour. it's really flown by because of the information you all are able to put into perspective. i thank you so very much and i thank you for the privilege of your time. we're going to take a short break. when we come back, the impact the trial could have at the ballot box. you're watching jose diaz-balart reports on msnbc. when you put in the effort, but it starts to frizz... you skipped a step. tresemmé silk serum. use before styling for three days of weightlessly smooth hair that frizz can't beat. new tresemmé keratin smooth collection. i was born with a fire inside. but psoriasis doused my flame.

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54 past the hour. in new york, former president donald trump is back in court for his first criminal trial. you are seeing these pictures from just outside the courthouse. it comes as a split screen moment in the 2024 race for the white house with president biden set to travel to florida this afternoon to discuss abortion rights. major focal point of his re-election bid. joining us now, susan del percio, republican strategist

and msnbc political analyst, and christina greer, so susan, how impactful do you think this split screen moment is, specifically today? this is a split screen moment we're going to be seeing for weeks. >> absolutely. it is really important, especially today with biden in florida, but more importantly, talking about abortion rights. which is something that trump knows he's in trouble with, especially with suburban women. so he knows abortion is an issue for him. now he has to do it from the criminal courthouse. so i think at the end of the day, when people are starting to look at the split screen, you see biden who is doing his thing as a candidate, and then you have donald trump who is bringing the chaos back to the country. in real time, through his discussions and, you know, on the courthouse steps, and he's reminding everyone of the chaos. so he's got a horrible issue he has to deal with, with biden,

and he's got to deal with the fact that he's bringing chaos back to everyone, and people are tired of it. >> interesting because christina, prosecutors' arguments could also have an impact on voters, right? what they say and what they say and what the defense is saying certainly is coming across for the rest of the country. how do you think what's going on in the courtroom could have an impact on voters outside? >> right. it's whether or not the prosecutors can really establish a pattern of deceit and corruption. and as susan was saying, a pattern of chaos. this is a man where everywhere he goes and what the prosecutors will hopefully say, not just for the past five years, ten years but essentially for the past four decades, this is what donald trump has done, this is what he did we was in the white house the first time, and that's what he's promised to do the second time. that's the political side, that if the prosecutors can establish a much longer arc, then donald trump has a problem, especially

when the split screen is joe biden and his party defending an issue such as abortion which is incredibly popular, which is a woman's right to choose, with women and men across the country when you look at the polling. >> christina, the other side, right, the trump side would be this is something, this split screen is something that has been imposed upon me because i am the candidate for presidency of the united states. >> right. as much as donald trump wants to say this is a witch hunt and this is just the far right democrats going after him, the question still remains, did you or did you not pay hush money? did you or did you not tell electors in georgia to find you 11,000 plus votes? did you or did you not defraud the citizens of new york by not paying taxes and having illegal companies? did you or did you not abuse the office of the presidency. these are the facts and the questions. a long as democrats can sort of remain on track and not let donald trump take the narrative and create the frame, as long as

they sort of remain clear as to what the problems are and how much chaos and trouble and mayhem this man has brought and will continue to bring if given a second term and knowing what he figures out the first time, he won't work with republicans. he will be a lot more extremist and it will be much worse than the smash and grab presidency in the first team. it will be a lot more meticulous with the theft and grift that he and his family and friends are accustomed to. >> susan, who do you think is going to be best at creating a narrative for their side? >> that's a great question. i think that the biden campaign is very disciplined. and you know, their narrative, it's important to remember, it's not playing out nationally. it's being a targeted narrative. so they're going to the hispanic community. they're going to young people. they're doing it in a very targeted social media posts and other things. whereas donald trump's narrative is in fact being told by

himself, but it's his craziness that he's talking about, and witch hunts and god help us when he gets on the campaign trail and what he will say. his last rally was canceled because they didn't want to get his hair wet in north carolina. i think the biggest thing to come out of this trial politically is donald trump's temperament, especially when one or both of the women who have claimed to have had an affair with donald trump are in the courtroom with him. how will he be able to contain himself? i don't think he will. >> susan and christina, thank you both very much. great conversation. i appreciate your time. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. you can reach me on social media. you can watch clips from our show at youtube at msnbc.com/jdb. thank you for the privilege of your time. up next, andrea mitchell talks with stephen breyer about thursday's oral arguments in the trump immunity case and a whole lot more. and that starts now.