hello and welcome to our special, "new york versus donald trump." i'm ari melber. we have breakdowns on this riveting testimony. including friday's moment for hope hicks. this is one of the weeks where prosecutors are putting together stormy daniels and karen mcdougall's lawyer, keith davidson. a damning story will come from michael cohen but they've done it to confirm it for the jury before they hear from cohen. corroborating all of that, with what we've told you about, the receipts, the checks, the contracts, and then ending this week with a rare view inside donald trump's upper most senior aides and brain trust. long-time trump aide hope hicks taking the stand and bringing jurors into these meetings. as the "access hollywood" tape broke as trump and aides

assessed its damage. hope hicks you see there with donald trump. that is a coveted post in any campaign and especially in his, someone who is up on the stage and in his ear and on the plane. that is the role she had. so this was important testimony including the deals to silence these women. it matters because this is reliable testimony from a long-time trump loyalist. that is hard for the jury to ignore. it is also from a person as a witness who is clearly decided to cooperate with these folks, to testify under oath. that's the better course for miss hicks. i want to mention she did that today but we had some context leading up to friday's testimony because she did that in testifying about january 6th. she could operated. she discussed what she knew under oath. she talked to investigators. she even discussed her own private texts on that day,

january 6th where she told others she was so upset, quote, everything we worked for wiped away. what you see on the screen is the way we experienced different probes. january 6th they had the cameras on and we saw her talking. under new york law it's transparent, we have the sketches but we don't have video cameras in court. but both times to be clear hicks was a key witness. she's cooperating and that itself has led to this reported falling out with trump, now the defendant. she said she was nervous today from the stand. she answered the questions confirming she's under subpoena, she's paying for her own lawyer and in a moment that does matter for a jury, this is still a human exercise, hope hicks broke down crying on the stand at one point. she was seen there crying as was reported and discussed. it was apparently best we could tell and from the reporters in the room and the wider context we have a genuine display of

emotion, she saw this moment and her long-time boss who stood, sat, stood by or physically literally sat through her entire testimony and maybe the details were tough for her to share in this manner. remember, hicks went from a close aide to the position of campaign press secretary, key post for a candidate obsessed with press. while trump has had his famous falling outs with many aides, she kept his trust. she eventually became the white house communications director. she witnessed every trump scandal. she said he had his hand in everything. he was very involved. we were all just following his lead. she discussed the priorities of the campaign and communications. why does that matter? the point isn't whether he's some apprentice style boss or not. it undercuts one of the trump defenses i've told you about. one of them is, hey, i was out of the loop.

i'm busy. other people are getting this stuff done. this is hope hicks. this is not just nobody. she's saying pretty much the opposite. he was hands on, he set the lead, they followed. she also confirmed about what we heard from another witness this week, rhona graff was crucial. that was corroboration. who's this, who's that, the jury's got hope hicks, they've got the evidence, they see how senior position they held and she's corroborating these others. another blow to find some sort of distance from enquirer, hicks confirmed with her own eye witness account that she had seen and heard trump talking to the enquirer chief, david pecker, who was the witness earlier. trump congratulating him on a phone call after the tabloid went after then trump rival ben carson. here's what's interesting about that. at the time in the room she knows more than most people but she might have still thought

that trump was working the press like usual. know, however, the jury is hearing this wider testimony and understanding this is a potential confirmation of how the tabloid was carrying out the campaign edicts. this wasn't like calling someone and discussing them doing their independent reporting where you might share independent facts and a quote and see what they report. this was like a da more like him calling someone who was operating publicly, commercially, financially as an arm of the campaign but off the books. that's why the hicks testimony is so significant. there's more. she took the jury inside the world. in the very private panic moments when the campaign was rocked by the video you see on the screen. the bombshell "access hollywood" tape. nobody knew this thing existed

at the upper echelon of the campaign except donald trump might or might not remember what he said. hicks was the first person to bring the news of this impending video bombshell inside the campaign to the campaign manager to trump and, again, you and i might remember hope hicks, part of the jury might not. not everyone memorizes every aide on every white house campaign staff but boy are you going to think she's important if you determine that when the washington post had this bombshell, the person they went to who they knew was a top aide who would get right to trump and the other leaders wasn't the campaign manager, wasn't some other friend or family member, they went to hope hicks. the washington post reporter contacting hicks with this impending bombshell scooch and a deadline. there was a palpable panic and she testifies how the initial

response was, well, you need to hear the tape to be sure but, quote, deny, deny, deny. she recounted how candidate trump knew this was going to be a massive story, she said. this was a crisis. now fake that in. are we doing campaign memories, going back, looking at an old campaign? no. the point is not that hope hicks has fascinating and sometimes never before heard details about that pivotal campaign moment, although she does have those, the point is that she was eye witness to donald trump's apparent motivation, which the prosecutors say is now part of the criminal intent in what they have indicted as this cover up and campaign felony. hicks testifying that trump saw all of this as chiefly a problem for the campaign. i'm going to read for you this key passage. sometimes the key passages are

someone saying yes or no. prosecutor says trump was concerned these reports could hurt his standing with voters? hope hicks says, quote, yes. that's some of the strong testimony the jury heard to end this week. and a lot of folks probably remember where you were when you first heard about this tape and its raw admission of grabbing women by the -- and you might remember the fallout. hicks recounting that very intense period describing to the jury how it dominated coverage leading up to the next big moment which is the presidential debate. this was back with clinton and trump when a lot of people thought trump was already down. this was a body blow like no other. this is legally relevant to whether donald trump was, as his lawyers have suggested, either not involved, didn't know what was going on or to the extent he was going on it was a personal thing or was it a campaign thing? so we put together in the context of our reporting beyond

what miss hicks said today some of that explosive period in the campaign home stretch. >> donald trump's presidential campaign in turmoil tonight facing withering political fallout. >> pal ryan canceled trump's event. i am sickened by what i heard today. >> former republican nominee john mccain pulled his endorsement. >> when the tape comes out he drops from 41 to 38. after the week end he falls through the floor. >> that's why they are driving the republican party and donald trump off a cliff into the political abyss. >> mitch mcconnell called the remarks repugnant and unacceptable. >> this election ended. all he can say is, i'm sorry. >> now it didn't end but that was the mood. republicans did turn on trump in that 2016 home stretch. that kind of reaction might be politically unrecognizable today. in the last few years we've seen entire crimes and convicted sedition and insurrection

dismissed. remember how that did change. this all matters in the trial because it speaks to the campaign motivations that i keep mentioning to you. hicks was damning on that point telling the jury republicans had particularly sharply worded statements against trump over this issue, over what he said on the tape. she mentioned romney, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell. prosecutors viewed hicks' accounting as key to what they're still trying to prove to the jury, why donald trump would in october take such extreme, they allege criminal, acts in the campaign's waning weeks. he was losing the party leader. his whole campaign was panicked. his own top loyal aides saw the problem. he was losing the narrative. he was losing the press, a lot

of the mainstream press. while trump still thought -- and by the way, let's be clear, politically this was clear, he thought at the time he did have a narrow path left to the electoral college and to winning, he also perceived that one more story or allegation that linked up with this tape scandal would certainly do him in. a guy who has all this bluster in public. according to his own aids under oath might be a different guy. got to remember when you're dealing with someone like this, they do play different roles. in private he thought, yeah, i'm losing for sure and i'm toast if one of these stories comes out. that, prosecutors say, is how he and his campaign leadership viewed the stormy daniels and karen mcdougall stories. confirming that michael cohen and the enquirer had to bury both those stories and do it as a campaign plot for trump to

keep that narrow path even possibly open. hicks asking michael cohen, for example, to get the tabloid publisher's number on november 5th. remember i told you about the receipts? doesn't matter what the jury thinks of either of the two people in this communication or what they're doing, what matters is whether they think the people have told the truth and what they've said what happens matches the other documentation. this is bad news for trump because these are in the evidence from the jury. this is as good a confirmation as you can get in writing for key people who were both trump loyalists at the time going back to the tabloid chief david pecker. hicks testified she asked because trump wanted to speak with him and so she connected the two of them. but she did more than that, she also connected the dots. if this sounds like it's bad and damning evidence against donald

trump, it is. i would remind you because it sounds bad it doesn't mean it's over. there is a high bar. if they convince 10 or 11 people that everything you heard really did happen and it amounts to this crime and it was this coverup, that's not good enough. they need all 12. i say that to say that when we follow this case as we do in ou follow this case as we do in our specials, we're not looking at it as a jump ball, is it more likely than not? we are looking at is the da carrying this burden and how this evidence may play with this jury? but they certainly seem to have moved the ball this week? we have melissa and andrew weissman leading us off in 90 seconds. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions

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he had amazing energy. he was a completely different dog. it's a no-brainer that (remi) should have the most nutritious and delicious food possible. i'm investing in my dog's health and happiness. i was becoming increasingly concerned that we were damaging -- we were damaging his legacy. >> what did the president say in response to what you just described? >> he said something along the lines of, you know, nobody will care about my legacy if i lose. >> trump aide hope hicks, that's what she looks like testifying under oath. that was in a different proceeding where we had cameras,

the jan 6 probe. we are joined by two experts. i know both of you watched this closely today. what did you think of ms. hicks testimony? >> i think your description of her testimony being a body blow is totally accurate. this, i think, took a sledge hammer to a major defense. prior to her testimony a big gap in the da's arsenal was did donald trump know about the payments to stormy daniels as hush money payments? the da had conceded he did not sign the actual agreement between -- that michael cohen and stormy daniels and her lawyer signed but there was a blank for this signature block for the president. also michael cohen had said with respect to the president, maybe i'm just going to have to pay on

my own. donald trump is not going to pay in advance. so there was a lot of concern of certainly how are they going to link donald trump to the actual hush money payments with respect to stormy daniels. david pecker had given a link with respect to karen mcdougall and the door man, but the case is really about the stormy daniels payments. hope hicks, a reluctant witness, who tearfully said, this is from within the trump campaign, said he -- donald trump told her that he was aware that michael cohen had made these hush money payments. he tried to say he only learned after the fact, which by the way doesn't matter. as long as he learned it and knew it before he was making all of these reimbursement payments, that's good enough. >> right. >> hope hicks not only said did he know it -- >> if you reimburse someone for buying you crack, you're still on the hook.

>> yup. and so she gave that -- she also suggested she didn't believe donald trump's story that this was something that michael cohen did out of the goodness of his heart. she said, you know, that's not who he is and he likes to take credit for things. she also said i don't really believe that story in words or substance. it doesn't matter. you are going to hear from the da. doesn't matter whether she believes him or not, because as long as you actually now have donald trump knowing about the hush money payments to stormy daniels, that's the predicate for the false business records. the major gap the defense seemed to want to exemployed has been completely closed by a witness who i think is going to be just impossible for the defense to say was lying and misremembered this because it was so palpable in court that she did not want

to be there and did not want to give this testimony. >> melissa, your view on the strongest testimony this past week? >> well, i think i'm a little less sanguine and hope hicks did close the loop for the prosecution and she closed loops for the defense as well. she emphasized donald trump was very, very cognizant of his wife's own view of the things that had happened certainly in the wake of the "access hollywood" tape. he was very concerned about her, that he respected her a great deal and had instructed hope hicks not to deliver certain newspapers that would cover the story to their residence so she wouldn't see them. that's going to be a big part of the defense here. they only have to establish reasonable doubt for a single jury to hang the story. they can make the point this was never about the election, this was always about his wife. ton fair though, as andrew says, she does link donald trump to all of this and his concern about the election.

there's a lot of testimony there when the stormy daniels situation does come out in the press in 2018 where he muses that it's probably better for this to have come out now rather than before the election. i think that goes right to the prosecution's case. it's also the case that hope hicks herself may have opened the door for some probable impeachment of her character by the defense. she notes she didn't even see the "access hollywood" tape but her immediate response was to deny, deny, deny, a classic thing a pr flak would do. it does suggest she was making the case for donald trump without knowing what had transpired on that tape. >> yeah. we're talking about alternative facts land so that's sort of become, you know, common. i guess the question is which hat did they have on. i think she has some potential standing with the jury and she came through unless she's the most incredible actor, most people can't cry on command. most people aren't able to do that. part of what jurors do as you

both know so well, use their eyes and ears to assess whether the current version is true or not or whether someone is actually lying on the stand. i want to draw your attention to how different a world it is. we all know what things have been like in the last few years, how cynical people feel about politics, particularly the republican party. i mentioned that in our reporting in the top of the program. to go back and look briefly at how donald trump sounded in one of the only public statements that could have been made could be called a partial apology. it was a problem in october. take a look. >> i never said i'm a perfect person nor pretended to be someone i'm not. i've said and done things i regret and the words released on this more than a decade old video are one of them. anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who i am. i said it. i was wrong. and i apologize.

>> i was wrong and i apologize, quote, unquote. not a deep fake, melissa, an actual statement under duress. how does that work in the story that the prosecutors are trying to tell? >> that goes to the point the prosecutors make, hope hicks does say that, he was concerned. what does it mean if the news came out especially hot on the heels of the "access hollywood" tape. so, again though, it's a long time since this happened. we've had a pandemic. we've had a coup. we've had all kinds of things. are the jurors going to remember that in october of 2016 this is all anyone could talk about and it seemed like literally the worst thing that he could do? we've been somewhat inured to

what he can and will do. it's likely to seem this might seem quaint to the jurors and piecing all of this together as a campaign to get elected and to silence some of these facts that could come out and be really damaging to him. that may be harder to piece together. i think she's right. she did a lot of good work for the prosecutors. i think emile above was tentative. i think he would have bloodied her up more if she hadn't been in distress. >> that's the human side of this i just mentioned. 30 seconds, andrew. any mention of that on cross? >> well, i just -- i just want to take up something melissa said, which is it's right to anticipate that the defense is going to be saying this is about melania. it is important, i think obviously as they note, there's contrary evidence in the record, but the jury i think is going to

be respected you can have a dual motive. the state does not have to prove that the 100% intent be in his head was the election. if there was a dual motive he was concerned about the election and his wife, he is still guilty. so the state will be, you know, certainly wrapping themselves around that jury instruction to say, you know, the hope hicks testimony should be believed, including the part about the concern about, you know, what melania's reaction will be, but that doesn't mean he wasn't concerned first and foremost or even in part about getting elected. so they can sort of embrace -- >> yeah. >> -- that part of the testimony and still win. >> right. and that speaks to the -- again, how people understand other people's motives, talk about criminal intent and why jury instructions can matter. sometimes i might go running to get fresh air but also hope to lose weight, right?

and you can't just say oh, i only went running for fresh air, that was the only reason. the criminal motive has to be substantiated enough that it carries the day even if there's other stuff in the mix. andrew, melissa, thanks to both of you. appreciate it. >> thanks, ari. coming up, we have what the judge said to his face about this, a real rebuke. we do more with these specials. i'm thrilled to tell you douglas brinkley is here as we make sense about how all of this will live on for years and years, the first ever trial of a president. first, the tapes. that's next. the wayfair vibe at our place is western. my thing, darling? shine. gardening. some of us go for the dramatic. how didn't i know wayfair had vanities in tile? [ gasps ] this. wow! do you have any ottomans without legs. sure. you'll flip for the poof cart. in the wayborhood, there's a place for all of us.

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visit xfinitymobile.com today. our special continues as we track the star witness's damning evidence and the judge letting donald trump know what the rules are. this has been the third full week of a bruising period for defendant trump. >> the ex-president's election

interference scheme was blown wide open. >> prosecutors called daniels former lawyer keith davidson. >> talking about how deals came together for karen mcdougall with ami. >> one of the most significant patches of testimony. >> trump's legal team tried to paint davidson as an extorsionist. >> donald trump has never been closer to spending a night in jail. >> they are threatening to throw the republican nominee for president in jail for talking, harris. >> city prosecutors have now called hope hicks to the stand. >> i think the jurors will not only be listening very carefully to everything that hope hicks is saying, they're going to be looking over at how mr. trump responds. >> that is just some of what we lived through in one week. the judge also held donald trump in contempt for the first time. everyone waiting on that. he was fined and warned he could go to jail if he doesn't shape

up. keith davidson, the former lawyer for mcdougall and daniels said trump was worried about the campaign which hope hicks has backed up. national enquirer payments were about helping the candidacy. they played the audio of cohen discussing trump's feelings about, and therefore his knowledge of, his own reimbursed payments that went to daniels. >> i can't even tell you how many times he said to me, you know, i hate the fact that we did it, and my comment to him was, but every person that you've spoken to told you it was the right move. >> and our special continues with a special guest. it is a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney. welcome back. >> thank you. >> what stood out to you in this very -- >> oh, my gosh. >> -- dramatic week. >> so you know white collar criminal cases are usually pretty boring. testimony can be a drag. very document heavy. very complex.

that is certainly not the case in this trial with donald trump. what stood out to me was keith davidson. you know, this -- this -- this strategy that the defense has in really distancing trump from davidson, from these payments in that they established that davidson only communicated with cohen. never trump. they brought out this fact that the only time that davidson had ever been in the same room as trump was in that manhattan courtroom. he had never spoken to him about this. so i think that was a slam dunk for the defense. for the prosecution he served one person and that was to establish that there was a transaction, that cohen did, in fact, pay stormy daniels, that he facilitated this whole thing, $130,000 in exchange for her silence. so for me i think that keith davidson did what he was supposed to do for the prosecution, but i certainly think that he helped the defense. and hope hicks's testimony today corroborated what he said. what he did say after the payments were done, cohen called

davidson and complained because he was expecting a job at the white house. i did so much for this guy and i have been left out. then you have hope hicks saying, yeah, i don't know cohen to do things out of the goodness of his own heart. he does it because he wants credit. cohen made these payments on his own because he had other incentives to really bury the story. >> let's dig in on the point you're raising, which is important. we talked about how much ground was made by the prosecution. again, i reminded everyone, you know this quite well, it's not like picking between two stories. it's not like oh, either trump did it, does that sound likely or does cohen do that and does that sound likely. it's a much lower bar. it's if the jury has reasonable doubt as to whether cohen did it. if you are watching this as a viewer, i think this story is more likely. i would say based on the evidence, the trial is not over, based on the current evidence, i

do think that other story is more likely? but is there reasonable doubt cohen went rogue? >> you just have to get one person to really think about this in the way the defense is painting this out to be. that is trump had other things in mind, cohen does go rogue. hope hicks said this. he has self-interests. he wanted a job. he wanted to protect the big guy, right? his boss. and so the defense, i think, is scoring points enough to at least change one person's mind. >> right. let me show you. then you have what earlier andrew weissman referred to, you still paid it back. even if you say oh, maybe this popped up in a different way, take a look at cohen describing trump, then president trump paying him back. >> okay. >> i'm visiting president trump in the oval office for the first time. he says to me something to the effect of, don't worry, michael, your january and february reimbursement checks are coming.

>> that's if the jury believes cohen because what the defense is doing is maligning and attacking his story. >> do you have the zmeks do the checks exist? >> right. yes. cohen -- cohen is a convicted personal remember, okay? that clip isn't necessarily as convining for me. it's up to the jury in whether they find cohen to be credible on the stand. >> are you surprised or does it make sense to you the da delayed cohen? >> yeah. >> we heard about star witnesses and he hasn't come up yet. >> i'm not surprised. they have to tell the story and they have to go in a particular order. they started with the first witness, david pecker, to establish and lay the foundation on how all of this even came about, right? this catch and kill deal with trump and cohen. so the order that they're going in i'm not surprised. they're telling a story and they're building up to cohen being, you know, obviously their

star witness. he's got to be watching this. he's got to be hearing what's being said. >> he's been doing live tiktoks, i know he's watching it. >> i want to say the prosecution is warning him against that and he's just not taking -- but that is something that he also can be cross examined on. >> yes. >> he's just not being cautious. i'm not surprised by the strategy in the prosecution. >> really interesting point especially getting some of your expertise on how these criminal defense lawyers work. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. up next as mentioned, the historian, douglas brinkley as we live through history together. i'm excited about this one, and that's when we come back. good, real food is simple. it looks like food, it smells like food, it's what dogs are supposed to be eating. no living being should ever eat processed food for every single meal of their life. it's amazing to me how many people write in about their dogs changing for the better.

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this first ever trial of a former president matters. it matters to the people involved. it could matter to the defendant if he's convicted of a felony before the election, and it matters in many other ways in our history, life and rule of the law. but is it breaking through as the saying goes? are people hearing about it? you're following it if you're listening to my voice right now. for example, it is making headlines all around the world because this is something the united states has never done before. and if you check around the country, on local papers where a lot of people still get their news it still makes the front pages, including, say, one of

the developments this week, those cohen tapes. the phone calls recorded by the former trump fixer, well, those are not only newsworthy but for many americans they, of course, have echos in past presidential style scandals and tapes of a president. what can we learn from history as we live through it? well, i mentioned we're very excited about our next guest. douglas brinkley, the author of many books including "the nixon tapes." welcome. i'm very thrilled to have you on the special as we make sense of this week, sir. >> i'm glad to be here. just a riveting week. it seems to me trump has himself now really painted in the corner. i think today was a kicker for a

long week. i do know that it's like a spider's web. you've got to follow all these tentacles and some people may be bored with it. they can be forgiven for not knowing certain lawyers or who's on deck tomorrow kind of forecasting, but we all know and feel trump did this. if he is found guilty, it's going to be a shocking moment, that a president, the leader of the party of abraham lincoln, is ostensibly facing jail time or house arrest? he may not meet his come up pance, appeal, appeal, appeal, but it takes your breath away that we'd allowed our political theater to get to this sort of decadent bottom ground line. >> yeah. i think that makes a lot of sense. as with anything in a society, right? it matters what other people think. what are our common understandings? those of us in the news, which is of course, they say, the old

hack is the first draft is history, right, the whole point in the news we're doing it hour by hour. you guys are doing it allegedly at a higher -- a little bit higher pay grade, more sophisticated, looking at all of the trends. people are following this more than some other things in the last years of chaos. here's a poll that we pulled for your view. 45% of people say they're either following this closely or very closely. that's certainly more, as you know, douglas, than, say, a congressional bill battle or other assorted legal issues that we might say are important but don't captivate the country and that's not at the high water mark of watergate, nixon. how do you make sense of that if it's broadly 40, 50% of the country following this trial? >> well, with nixon in june of 1972, june 23rd, you had that tape, the smoking gun, where you hear that nixon's asking the cia

to get the fbi to call off an investigation. all these things start unraveling for nixon. trump's going to meet his comeuppance if he is found guilty, if the jurors say you're guilty. he's going july 15th to milwaukee. wherever he goes people are going to realize he's been convicted. he can pretend to wear it as a badge of honor like he did when he was impeached twice. the truth of the matter is, this cuts close to home. we're talking about melania trump, his wife, former first lady having to endure the mcdougall, daniels, seediness of it. anybody having dinner with pecker's got issues to start with because it's been a junk paper from its inception, but this is the kind of can of worms that trump revels in. he gets good speeches. if he goes to the convention he might be able to hold his base,

i'm sure he will, but it's nibbling away at him in wisconsin, michigan, some of those swing states. there's no way this trial, particularly if he is found guilty, will be seen as an asset for the re-election campaign. >> no. that's what's so funny about all of the ridiculous propaganda, i use that word deliberately, everybody knows that it's bad if you are indicted and worse if you are convicted, that's true if you want to run a company, run a country, be in the local community club, golf club, whatever your sport. it's certainly bad in today's politics because so much devolves into these exchanged accusations of krim y nalt at this. he was impeached over trying to create a fake ukrainian investigation of the bidens. you don't need to be a news buff to know that he thinks this is bad and it's going to hurt him. i wonder how do you perceive how

do we make sense of history in real time is this like nixon? is it like vietnam? is it like the civil rights movement in the sense they become saturated common experiences? covid would be another experience, we all lived through it together. or is this the other half of the country tuning it out doesn't want to deal with it? >> i think it's still divided. i bet if you went to fox news they're covering campus protests, they're not covering a lot of what's going on in this trial. >> why would you go to fox news right now? >> you know -- >> i'm kidding. people can watch what they want. i'm kidding. >> we are divided that way but it comes together come the summer and fall. people have to look at trump with scrutiny. i think the mistake we made is book ending trump with the elevator ride, real beginning in politics and ending it with january 6th when it was really we should be looking at it as election corruption on both

ends, meaning the "access hollywood" tape followed by the hush money coverup showing he would do anything to not lose are election corruption at the outset and then an election riot, insurrection. those are the book ends in my mind of what the trump presidency is really about. and -- >> can i add a book? you're the author of it. the can i add a book? you have the 16 issues indicted as campaign crimes. you have the 20 -- what you just said, 2020. but you also have two impeachments. no other president twice impeached. both of those were about election crime, abuse of power. while i've been very careful to tell folks, we haven't passed the criminal line yet in terms of conviction, that's a heck of a lot of evidence of election crimes. i'll let you have the last word. >> i know you love quoting from hip-hop artists.

bob dylan said you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows in subterrainian blues. none of us need to know if someone is part of the hush money payments. of course he is. this is not a rogue cohen. this is cohen who's a poodle, a lap dog for trump doing the dirty business. trump was probably pleased he bought them off for something cheap, 130. thought he would go up to a quarter of a million and saved himself money but we do have to give trump credit for what a dire threat it was because he couldn't have survived "access hollywood" on top of stormy daniels and models in the white house. >> which we've shown. i appreciate the dylan reference. he also said bello and bellow , they both probably lied. the newspapers, they all went along for the ride. in this case, the tabloids. good to see you, douglas. >> good to see you.

>> absolutely. as we look at how this is all playing out, we're going to show the memes and the internet also following the trial when we come back. back ohhh crap. now we gotta get france something. wait! we can use etsy's new gift mode! alright. done. ♪♪ plateau de fromage! oh la la! don't panic. gift easy with gift mode, new on etsy.

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times. trump was like, but i get the tenth one free, right? >> comics roasting this trial, but as we continue to keep an eye on how this is playing out, we have noticed on one of the most popular platforms in the country, tiktok, the trial is also breaking through with folks watching, reacting, and debating it. >> oh, my gosh. do we need to talk about the trump criminal trial? >> hope hicks is now testifying, and she's spilling the beans on her former boss, donald trump. >> speaking of punches, trump's attorneys got a number of them in in cross-examination and we got to get a look at how bad things will be for michael cohen. >> he can absolutely testify in his own defense. >> these folks care about nothing but donald trump. >> this man is known for pulling his -- talking big, and then using the back door to bail out.

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