people are like, you know, it was my assistant doing it on her own. like my secretary. so you know, he could go with that defense. >> because generally in those cases, the principle has an agent that is committing it. >> i think he's made a lot of public statements that, in fact, he did this and there was nothing wrong with it. those are all admissible. i think they are going to go with there is nothing wrong with this. that's a risky defense. >> rebecca, her piece in "the new york times", i think out yesterday? >> yep. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. >> that is all in on the wednesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> you're telling me donald trump has a questionable defense? >> yes, he does. but stranger things have happened. >> very true, my friend, thank you, as always. the past 24 hours have been a flash point for pro-palestinian student protests at college campuses across the country. this was the scene this morning at the university of wisconsin

in madison where police in riot gear engaged in a standoff with demonstrators before dismantling tents that were part of a protest encampment. police then clashed with protesters who numbered between 200 and 300 and arrested roughly three dozen, according to local reports. then at fordham university near new york city earlier this evening police wearing helmets and carrying batons arrested pro-palestinian demonstrators, placing them in zip ties as they took down an encampment inside a campus building. this is all, of course, part of a larger protest movement spreading across dozens of colleges. and while the demands of each individual protest vary, they are primarily focused on drawing attention to the tens of thousands of palestinian civilians killed in gaza and calling for their colleges to financially divest from investments connected to israel. the protests have been followed by dozens of counterprotests, primarily in support of israel

and against what these supporters call rising anti-semitism. overall, more than 1,500 protesters have been arrested in just the past two weeks. many of those arrests have been brutal with protesters and even professors thrown to the ground and forcibly removed. but some of those arrests have also been peaceful. with the story this big, it is important not to paint any of this with too broad a brush. all of these protests are made up of individual actors. all of them are happening on different campuses with different responses from administrators and different responses from police. last night we saw two incredibly different examples of these protests and counterprotests and how they've been handled by local police. here's how ucla's student newspaper, the daily bruin, described what happened on its campus last night. fireworks, tear gas, and fights broke out just after 10:50 p.m.

on tuesday night, and they continued early wednesday morning as around 100 pro -israel counterprotesters attempted to storm the ongoing palestine solidarity encampment. the way the daily bruin writes that story, that group of around 100 pro-israel counterprotesters tore down the barricades around the encampment, and then once the barricades were down, they started fighting the protesters. the daily bruin says that these counterprotesters shot fireworks into the encampment, they hit protesters with stick, and they threw wooden planks and electric scooters at the protesters while chanting usa, usa. as far as the police presence was concerned, here's how the daily bruin's editorial board put it this morning. for hours ucla administration stood by and watched as the violence escalated. lapd did not arrive on the scene until slightly after 1:00 a.m. so that was last night at ucla

in los angeles. at columbia university here in new york city, it was a very different story. here is how columbia's campus newspaper, the spectator, reported it. hundreds of new york city police department officers entered campus on tuesday night and cleared hamilton hall, which demonstrators haddock pied. the sweep came after columbia university president minouche shafik authorized the nypd to clear all individuals from hamilton hall and all campus encampments. the nypd has since released footage of officers clearing the occupied building and encampment. if you recall from last night's footage, officers entered through a window on the side of the building and began clearing rooms while some officers had what appeared to be their guns drawn. in total, the nypd made 109 arrests at columbia university last night. the department's deputy commissioner of public information told the spectator that he commended the restraint

and precision of his officers. meanwhile, the spectator points out that one protester was thrown down a flight of stairs, another lay on the ground unmoving while police stood over them, and others were slammed with metal barricades and pushed to the ground. in this first batch of footage put out by the nypd, the ratio of police officers to protesters appears to be very, very uneven. it's actually kind of difficult at times to even find protesters in this sea of police. and then there is the matter of the second video put out today by the nypd. ♪ ♪ >> right now we're inside of the hamilton building in columbia university. we're on the third floor going through the building looking for

the student protesters that took over this building. as you can see, emergency services behind us. we're checking each door. as we come over here, you can see that they have set up sort of an encampment inside of the classroom. there's sleeping bags all over the place. >> we're on the campus of columbia in the tent city which you see is cleared. just a remarkable plan and execution by the nypd. >> this is not a tent city, this is new york city. it's our city. and if you're thinking about doing something like this, take a look around, see how fast we cleared it out. this could be you. >> sort of a half promotional video for the nypd, half warning shot to future protesters. there's also a soundtrack, you may have noticed, and situation room footage as officers plan the columbia sweep like it was, i don't know, the bin laden raid. it is not what you might call a tool for ede-escalation. but sit worth noting that some

colleges have actually managed to do just that, to de-escalate the tension on their campuses this week. both brown and northwestern university reached deals with student protester this is week with protesters leaving encampments and the colleges agreeing to hear them out and to vote on divestment issues. whether or not that can be replicated elsewhere at this point is totally unclear. this is happening across the country with lots of individual actors making separate decisions and that makes this story complicated. and that is important to remember because we have actors in our national discourse right now who are very much trying to exploit this tension for fairly obvious political gain. >> many of them aren't even students, you know, and many of them come from foreign countries. where do they come from? and they do come from other countries. they are paid. crooked joe is reportedly planning -- this is wonderful news for you people in wisconsin -- to bring massive numbers of

gazans from the middle east, all live to your american town, your towns and villages. joe biden seems determined to -- he's just determined to create the conditions for an october 7th-style attack right near america. it's going to happen. >> joining me now, professor, dean, thanks for joining me. first of all, dean cobb, you have been squarely in the middle of all the things that have been happen at columbia, and i want to get -- i know i talked to you on the phone last night and you described the situation as tragic. in the cold light of day, i wonder how you assess what has happened at that university, and also we heard reports that you were threatened with arrest last night. can you talk a little bit about what exactly went down? >> yeah, so -- i mean, i think that the word tragic still is probably the most apt

descripter, you know, for it. and even looking out now the campus is like eerily quiet, you know. it's completely locked down. there's very, very few people there. and so as opposed to what would typically be, you know, people at the end of the semester, you know, seniors who are like eager to graduate, it's a much more joyous environment typically. on the other side, it's technically accurate to say but not really factual, i suppose. we were in a hallway, we were in the doorway of a building, and officers said if anyone comes outside they'll get arrested. >> okay. >> they were talking to a group of our students. and so i went to the doorway to say, hey, i'm the dean, these are my students, and so on. so there was not any kind of threat of arrest that was impending or anything like that, but once that kind of got out, i got -- i mean literally like hundreds of messages from people. >> it is an incredibly emotionally pitched moment, right? >> sure. >> people who saw that unfold,

and you know, there were no casualties, but it was an extraordinary -- >> sure. >> -- picture to watch the police in riot gear go into hamilton hall and then the arrests that were made subsequently. peter, you tweeted -- and i think this is worth calling attention to -- i don't agree with the slogan of the protests on campus and elsewhere. some i really dislike. but when people look back, they will see this as a moment when the real debate began about university and government complicity in the oppression of palestinians. and the protests made it happen. if that happens, i think that's probably a good thing for our national discourse, but i do wonder, when you see the nypd video and hear donald trump spinning this into never, never land, like situations that joe biden is not inviting another october 7th attack to happen here, but it ratchets up the -- any kind of reasonable dialogue and makes it somewhat impossible, don't you think? >> yeah, but i think in progressive spaces and increasingly the democratic party, people are questioning why we have unquestionable

support for israel. before october 7th, there were only a few members who supported conditioning military aid. the national protests are now making that a mainstream democratic position. the question of divestment from colleges, what exactly that means, we don't know. there's a lot to be unpacked there, but why is it that universities should be supporting any companies that are involved in military action anywhere around the world for that matter. people are now starting to talk about that. they weren't talking about that. it may be many years before our political system changes. think about the occupy movement. it rose, then diminished, and people thought it was gone. it reappeared with bernie sanders' campaign. in '68 it was in chicago, and in '72 they nominated george mcgovern. the energy from this will change at least the democratic party's position. >> that's a really good point, the way this is not a linear thing. sometimes there are peaks and valleys before change comes. jahlani, in terms of the

conversations, it's hard to get an understanding of what exactly happened between students and administrators at columbia and where things go next. i mean, i think the president noted today that, unfortunately, the protests -- our academic leaders spent eight days engaging over serious dialogue in good faith with protest representatives, but there's not much more information about what happens now that campus is where it is. >> yeah, i can't really speak to that. i'm still dean, but i can tell you that's true. we spent a lot of time, all hours of the night, early in the morning, you know, through the day engaged in discussions in good faith on both sides. i think that the students are incredibly smart, thoughtful. they understood that issue. they were clear. and you know, there was more elasticity -- i'll be honest

with you -- there was more elasticity on the university's side than anticipated. the frustrating thing about it was we didn't get to a meeting place in the middle. and you know, we devoted a lot of time and energy trying to get there. >> do you think the outside sort of political overlay of all of this changes the contours of those discussions? >> of course. when we looked back at the congressional hearings where claudine gay and liz mcgill, the president of mit, they're academics, they're supposed to be thoughtful and they're supposed to give nuance and context and so on. that's what universities do best. you know, to actually get into this gulf of misunderstanding and provide information and data and analysis and history and all the things that we can give to help people draw firm

conclusions about something. you can't really do that in a context where there are politicians breathing down your neck and where the discourse on your campus is being dissected. not simply like a right or wrong, are these ideas useful or not useful but are these people treasonous, are these people dangerous. in that kind of sense, it makes it almost impossible for universities to fulfill our mission. >> on that note, i mean, i just -- the idea that this has -- it feels like -- and i'm par phrasing my brilliant colleague chris hayes here -- this has become less about what we should do in israel. i'm saying this nationally. than a sort of useful cudgel to beat the left with. an anti-woke -- it's law and order beating up -- not beating -- it's law and order running up against the woke liberal elites and their spoiled children. >> and you know why part of that is? because it's almost impossible

to support the war. even in israel's, people in israel's military establishment are admitting this war is not going to destroy hamas. the consequences of this war are going to be bad for israel. it's not bringing the hostages home, and it's actually going to create a generation of palestinians that are actually more radicalized against israel than we even saw before. and so this is a distraction from that whole conversation. we could say, oh, those radical college student, we didn't like them in the first place. what people should be talking about, why were all these people for months upon months after months supporting this utterly catastrophically destructive war that will make everyone less safe. >> do you think -- i mean, how do you grade the biden administration on that? they too focus on the unrest on campus without necessarily getting into the specific demands, for example, that protesters are asking of their college administrators. >> yes, and the biden administration keeps sending more weapons to fight this war, even though i don't believe for a second that they believe that this war is going to make israel safer. and they know that it is producing a catastrophe in gaza

that will haunt us for generations. i saw a u.n. study that said if the war ended tomorrow, gaza would return to the gdp that it had the day the war started in 2092. that's how long we're going to be living with this catastrophe, and the biden administration did not need to go all in on this. they made that choice. >> you know, i also have to say, some of the people who have been most vocal on the right about the anti-semitism that's happening at these liberal colleges and universities are the same people that, oh, i don't know, had din we are nick fuentes and tweeted out a bunch of decidedly anti-semitic content during the course of a presidential campaign. and by that i mine donald trump. there's no accounting for the reality of these actual battle lines that republicans have drawn. >> yeah, i mean, i think it's curious that these people seem to not notice the anti-semitism at the university of virginia in charlottesville where we saw the tiki torch brigade out there. or many of the instances that we could talk about. but this is a curious absence there.

i wonder what that could be about. >> he's going to say, do you have an answer for that? >> because they don't really care about jews. they're using jews to attack universities. and they hate the universities because they hate the idea that the universities are teaching things that are subversive to the founding myths of america that they are so invested in. it's not a coincidence that ron desantis, the first governor to ban students for justice in palestine is also banning teaching about white supremacy and jewish history. i say this as a jewish person, it is not good for us to be used by all those people to basically attack america's universities and attack people with a history of oppression in the united states who want to speak about their experience. we should not be in that business. >> yeah. that war on cancel culture is a selective war, i suppose. jelani cobb, peter, thank you for joining me tonight. really appreciate it. coming up, we will speak to the time magazine report who are sat down with donald trump to discuss what he has planned for

a potential second term. spoiler alert, it is not good. first, speaker mike johnson continues to weaponize campus protests for political gain. we'll talk about whether house democrats are making the right move in saving the speaker from the rebels in his party. that is next. e rebels in his party. that is next nothing comes close to this place in the morning. i'm so glad i can still come here. you see, i was diagnosed with obstructive hcm. and there were some days i was so short of breath. i thought i'd have to settle for never stepping foot on this trail again.

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here. and you know, we -- we're trying to speak with moral clarity. we're trying to use the responsibility of congress to address the issue in an appropriate manner. >> that was the republican speaker mike johnson talking about a bipartisan bill that passed the house today called the anti-semitism awareness act. the law would mandate that the department of education adopt the international holocaust remembrance alliances very broad definition of anti-semitism when enforcing anti-discrimination laws. that organization describes anti-semitism as certain perception of jews which may be exprezzed as hatred toward jews. opposing zionism or holding signs that call for revolution could cost a school its federal research glants and funding. now, while this bill passed the house overwhelmingly on a vote of 320-91, it made strange bedfellows among those who opposed it. republican congresswoman

marjorie taylor green voiced her opposition to the bill by deploying an antisemitic trope, because the jews killed jesus, she alleged christians might be targeted by this law. democratic congresswoman pramila jayapal criticized the legislation for being so broad that even many jewish group dos not support it. joining me now is congresswoman pramila jayapal, democrat from the great state of washington and chair of the house progressive caucus. congresswoman jayapal, thank you for joining me and helping me understand what went down in the house today. my first question is the language of this bill and why it was so broad. do you have sort of a thesis as to why the scope was so large? >> yeah, alex, i do, and that is that, unfortunately, i think republicans are trying to weaponize antisemitism. they want to bring bills to the floor that actually divide democrats, and what we really need to do if we want to tackle antisemitism, which i believe every democrat does want to do

and many republicans, we would do a -- we would bring a bipartisan bill and we would have a whole of government approach that involves educating people about what antisemitism is and what it isn't and making sure that we are all speaking with one voice. i think it's incredibly hurtful to the cause of eliminating antisemitism for republicans to weaponize it and to be hypocrites about bringing forward something that is for pure political gain, not about fighting antisemitism. so that's why i think they brought this bill because they knew that it would not get full democratic support because it doesn't get full support from the jewish community. it doesn't get full support from people who have looked at this issue and said we have to be very careful how we define this, especially how this is being tied to educational funds that go to colleges so.

it has incredibly important ramifications. >> and is a dual pronged attack on democrats and liberal institutions of higher education, but you know, speaker johnson's sort of mechanic -- he makes this sort of moral litmus test for everybody at the same time he is under threat from the far right flank of his own republican conference. i mean, it just seems intended particularly to shore up support among those sort of right wing rebels in his conference. and i just wonder, you know, democrats seem to have made a decision this week that they will save speaker johnson if a motion to vacate is put on the house floor. do you think that's the right idea? >> well, i think that this is, as leader jefferies has defined it, a very narrow, single-use, get out of jail free card for

democrats to vote, some democrats to vote, to table the motion to vacate the speaker shift. this would be a marjorie taylor green motion if it came, and then there would be a motion to table it. and i think that there will be some democrats who will agree to save the speaker this one time in part because of the need to get that ukraine funding to the floor. so i do believe that this is directly tied to the fact that the speaker finally, after five months, brought that bill to the floor and allowed us to have a vote on it. but i will say that leader jefferies has been clear, and i've been clear to him and many of our members have been clear to him, that we are not going to consistently save this speaker who is anti-choice, anti-immigrant, anti-democracy, went down to mar-a-lago to kiss donald trump's ring and talk about how, you know, all these

lies about how people are voting that shouldn't be voting, anti-lgbtq, and really using division, hatred, xenophobia to drive a political agenda. i don't think we can be part of doing that again, but i do understand that this is a one-time opportunity to make sure that we continue the work of the house. we have a little bit more work to do, and the speaker did bring that ukraine bill to the floor. i'm not going to be voting to table that motion, alex, but i know that there will be some in our party and leader jefferies has said we should feel free to vote our conscience. >> yeah, i mean, because on some level it's like, congratulations, you got ukraine funding secured. it's a republican priority. only in this strange, bizarre, upside down world where the gop, you know, is led by the likes of

marjorie taylor green is ukraine funding even an issue. in the upper chamber it's what leader mcconnell wants. to that end, marjorie taylor greene and her motion to vacate feels like the support for that is dissipating a little bit. or just the bang for her buck has lessened. do you think, you know -- do you think her brand of dysfunctional governance, if that's -- that's just an oxy moron, quite obviously, but not governing, not governance governance is out the door, given chaos that has colored the last two year? >> i think there's been so much chaos on the other side, the reps cannot govern, the american people have seen that over and over again. hakeem jefferies has essentially functioned as a shadow speaker. democrats have to give votes for republican rules, alex. that is unheard of, the number of times rules have failed on the house floor because the majority can't pass their own procedural rules so that they can bring a bill to the floor is

quite remarkable. and so i think marjorie taylor greene is trying to continue to create chaos over there, and i think that there are many republicans who don't want to go into another session of weeks and weeks on end without a speaker. and i think they're worried about that because of what happened the last time. but i want to be clear that the house is still in chaos on every major vote you and i have talked about this, it has been democrats that have had to come forward and essentially be the adults in the room to get a bill just about appropriations or about the debt ceiling, basic governance, that the republican majority has not been able to do. so i think she is losing some support here in terms of throwing the house into chaos. but let me be clear, her brand, donald trump's brand, even mike

johnson's brand of extreme maga ideas from stripping away abortion rights from women to, you know, the extreme trans bans to cutting social security and medicare, that is what the republican party, whether it's mike johnson as the speaker or marjorie taylor greene as the, you know, as the inciter of a lot of chaos over there, they all stand for that. democrats don't. and we just have to continue to make that distinction very, very clear. >> yeah, marjorie taylor greene calls congress the uni party. there's a pretty big difference between the gop and democrats. congresswoman pramila jayapal, thanks so much for your time tonight. >> thank you. still to come this evening, donald trump heads -- where does donald trump head? he goes back to court where he may face more punishment for violating a gag order.

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because of donald trump, more than 20 states have abortion bans, more than 20 trump abortion bans.

and today, this very day, at the stroke of midnight another trump abortion ban went into effect here in florida. >> that was vice president kamala harris speaking in florida today where that state's near total ban on abortion has officially gone into effect. florida has the third highest population in the country, but it is not just the millions in that state who are now affected by this ban. until today florida was among the last places in the southeastern united states where women could travel to get an abortion. depending on how advanced their pregnancy is, people seeking an abortion in the south will now have to travel as far as virginia or kansas or even illinois in order to obtain a legal abortion. in addition to a healthcare crisis, florida republicans have also created a political disaster for republicans nationwide. that same dynamic is at play in arizona where the state supreme court recently allowed a civil war-era abortion ban to go into

effect. arizona republicans have been all over the map on whether or not they support that ban. in just the past few weeks, arizona senate candidate kari lake has taken multiple opposing positions on the ban. and donald trump himself has been urging arizona republicans to repeal the law that he helped resurrect. that could be because abortion rights advocates in arizona have been mobilizing to put abortion access on the ballot in arizona this november. a move that could drive democratic turnout in a critical swing state. and so today two republicans in the arizona state senate sided with democrats to repeal the state's 1864 abortion ban. arizona's democratic governor katie hobbs is expected to sign the repeal of that law tomorrow. but arizona still has a 15-week abortion ban on its books, and abortion rights advocates are

pushing to enshrine abortion rights this november. abortion could very much be on the ballot in arizona this fall, and florida voters will also have a chance to overturn their state's extreme abortion ban come november. this week florida man donald trump was asked how he plans to vote on his state's abortion rights ballot measure in a wide ranging interview with time magazine. this is his, i guess you could say, response. i don't tell you what i'm going to vote for. i only tell you the state's going to make a determination. okay then. we have an exclusive interview with the time magazine reporter that interviewed president trump. an interview that president biden called a mandatory read. that's next. biden called a mandatory read. that's next.

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so i use nervive. nervive's clinical dose of ala reduces nerve discomfort in as little as 14 days. now i can help again. feel the difference with nervive. basically, the states decide on abortion and people are absolutely thrilled with the way that's going on. and it's been an amazing process. and it was something that was very important to get done. >> that is how donald trump views the current state of reproductive rights in this country where 21 republican-led states have either banned abortion outright or severely restricted the procedure. thrilled and amazing. as it happens, this month's time magazine cover story offers crucial insight into what trump plans to do as it relates to abortion and other key issues if he becomes president. again, joining me now is the person who conducted that interview, time staff writer

eric cortellessa. eric, it is an essential interview -- i'm not just par phrasing joe biden, but it's the first time we hear trump talking with specificity about his policies. i want to start with abortion. he has found his line here, let the states decide. i have nothing to do with it. kick it back to the states. as you were interviewing him, did you sense that he was confident in that position or did it feel like he understood his vulnerability there? >> i think donald trump understands that this is very delicate terrain for him. he doesn't want to alienate his core base and white evangelical voters who most prize the fact that he was able to install three supreme court justices who were essential to overturning roe versus wade, but he also knows that a majority of americans support abortion rights for women. and so he's trying to thread a needle by making this a state's rights issue. and you know, when i asked him,

president trump, would you be comfortable with states prosecuting women who get abortions after the ban, he said it's irrelevant whether i'm comfortable or not, i don't have to be comfortable, the states are going to decide. when i said president trump, what about states monitoring women's pregnancies to know whether they've gotten abortions after the ban, he said they might just do that. he would also say that he would allow for states to have abortion laws in the other side of the direction too. so president trump is really staking out this state's rights issue when it comes to abortion. >> yeah, i mean, but you did paint a fairly draconian picture there that states might monitor women's pregnancies. and by virtue of not opposing that, isn't that sort of a tacit acceptance of that? i mean, i do wonder whether he can get away with that, because joe biden certainly does not think that's a tenable position and has been saying as much on the campaign trail. they've made an ad to that

effect. did you get hesitation on trump's part when you gave him a handmaid's tale, end times scenario. >> i didn't get any hesitation from trump at all. i think he's decided that this is where he's going to be politically. and you know, that is basically the way in which he is going to navigate this issue. >> you also pressed him repeatedly, i might add, on the subject of immigration where he has, in the words of time magazine, described kind of the imperial presidency. i'll read an excerpt. to carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the u.s. military both at the boarder and inland. i mean, you pressed him on the constitutional implications of this, did you get the sense that he fully has grappled with the law as it stands and the potential, you know, court

battle that would ensue if he actually tried to do that? >> well, i think he understands that many of the things he wants to do on abortion will effectively engineer court battles, right? but you know, president trump, when i asked him, sir, you say you want to have a massive deportation operation that will remove as many or more than 11 million migrants, how do you plan to do that? his answer was he would rely on the national guard to conduct this operation inland to find undocumented migrants. he would be willing to use the military if he felt it necessary. he's going to try and induce state and local police departments to participate by tying federal funding to their involvement in the effort. i think president trump understands he would face lawsuits trying to challenge him, but this is one particular matter where he plans to pursue

his agenda with alacrity. >> the fact that you kept taking a bite of the apple asking him specifically how he'd execute, and it felt like you had don more thinking about the execution of these policies than he necessarily had. even on the question of tariffs. trump loves talking about trade. he agrees that he's floated a 10% tariff on all imports. he agrees he's noted -- i think it's a more than 60% tariff on chinese import, but then he's like it may be more than that, it may be derivative of that. he asserts that tariffs don't cause inflation. do you sense that he actually understands economic policy? because it felt like he was very much responding to you but did not have a sort of proposal that it was clearly outlined even in his own head. >> well, i think that donald trump operates on instinct. and i think he has a very specific kind of instinct when it comes to trade. and this is a trumpi an fixation that dates back to the dawn of his political emergence. he thinks that the united states

is getting ripped off in trade arrangements. he thinks that, you know, we are on the losing side of trade deficits, specifically with china. he thinks of it much more as a business transaction. i think he understands the issue. he may not be steeped in white papers on, you know, the implications of trade policy, understands the vast majority of economists say that tariffs will increase prices because businesses will pass along the cost of the tariff to the consumer. they won't just eat it. but president trump sees it from a very specific framework of a sort of transactional dynamic of, you know, we're on the losing end of this deal so we need a better deal. >> yeah, he sees it in black and white fashion. eric, it is a really important interview to read, especially in a year where we have so few sit-down interviews with either one of these candidates, i might add. one of these candidates, i might add. might add, and we have not had any debates.

it is one of the few times we get a window into how this candidate would approach a second term. time magazine's eric cortellessa, thank you so much e for your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. ha donald trump spent the day campaigning, but tomorrow he will be back in court for day 10 of his hush money trial. we will preview tomorrow's witness testimony after the break. type 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone. ♪ ♪ i got the power of 3. i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. i'm under 7.

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donald trump will be back in court tomorrow for day 10 of his hush money trial. the first witness on the stand will be keith davidson, the lawyer who represented karen mcdougal and stormy daniels. yesterday prosecutors revealed text messages and emails exchanged between davidson and michael cohen discussing the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels a month before the election. we spoke on friday, october 14 and you said funds would be wired today. no funds have been received as of sending this email. davidson recalled cohen replying, my guy is in five

states today. there is nothing i can do. i'm doing everything i can. davidson understood my guide to be donald trump, who was on the campaign trail as a presidential candidate and he also believed trump was behind the hush money deal. here is the prosecutor. did you ever believe michael cohen was the ultimate source of these funds? >> never, never prior to funding, no. >> prosecutor, where did you understand the money would be coming from? davidson, from donald trump or some affiliation thereof. joining me now is legal correspondent lisa rubin. i know you have a busy day tomorrow. is keith davidson's assertion that it is cohen and my guy and this all needs to happen before the election, is that sufficient to establish that trump is actually pulling the strings and that this is politically motivated? >> no, but prosecutors are not relying on keith davidson alone. they are constructing a

narrative around michael cohen, who is the one witness other than donald trump himself who could tell the story from start to finish. think about keith davidson is a piece of the puzzle, as opposed to the puzzle himself. he corroborates much of what david pecker has told us, but he also had his own interactions with dylan howard, the chief content officer of ami and was deputized by pecker to get stuff done. >> he was the action man. i do wonder how you look at each side's defense and prosecutorial argument because it seems like they are offering a lot of information. they are coming at it from a lot of angles and the defense is playing catch-up. we know that trump, reportedly, according to the new york times is asking his lawyer, todd blanche, to attack witnesses, attack what he sees as a hostile witness pool and attack the judge.

is that frustration or feeling like his defense is inadequate? >> i think it is not what i would consider an adequate or appropriate legal foundation. donald trump is not a lawyer. there is a reason why. what he considers an effective political strategy is not an effective jury strategy. attacking witnesses, attacking the judge. being more aggressive than todd blanche has been i don't think would help win the case and may alienate jurors. it is also not who he is at his strongest and i can tell that being in the room, todd blanche, pardon the pun, blanches at being that person. if you want to attack a witness and dismantle him, emil bove is your guy. >> it is a replacement for the fact that trump is gagged and the judge is having another hearing on the gag order tomorrow morning.

what is your expectation and what is the long-term game as far as judge merchan? >> let me say two things. trump wants everybody to believe he is totally gagged. he has a lot more latitude under the gag order to talk about the case than he lets on. i do think that judge merchan will find at least two or three of the alleged violations will constitute further instances of criminal contempt. because he did not warn trump until yesterday that further violations would result in incarceration, i don't think that tomorrow, which will add up to a total of at most 13 and maybe a couple fewer, will be that thing that swings the needle. i think we have to take one more crack at it or trump will have to trigger that other crack at it for prosecutors to make the argument that trump deserves incarceration. >> just the fact we are there, day 10, talking about him being

incarcerated. he is also bringing support staff if you will into the courtroom with him. can you talk about that? >> trump has adjusted his courtroom behavior around criticism that folks in the media have lobbed it him. bringing additional support to the courtroom is one more of those in the latest call and response between the media and trump about his courtrooms strategy. you will notice it yesterday. ken paxton was there and even carter page in the back of the courtroom, but eric trump was there, looking at times kind of uncomfortable to be discovering some of these documents for the first time himself. i really felt for the guy as a son and a family member, having to be the pond in that political game and the jury game that his dad appears to be playing. >> lisa rubin, good luck for the rest of this week. we will talk more soon. thank you, my friend. that is our show tonight and a reminder, you can listen to every