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i give amazing sponge-baths. can i get a room? [ chuckling ] ♪ ♪ chef's kiss. i'm ari melber signing off from this special hour. keep right here on msnbc. i guess because donald trump does apparently whatever i tell him to do, he did not glare at me again in the courtroom today after i described donald trump's weird and childish and trumpian attempt to, i guess, intimidate me by throwing his angry glare at me when he was leaving the courtroom yesterday, i said right here on the program last night that it was a mistake for him to do that.

i said that his apparently useless handyman who hangs out in the front row of the courtroom boris epshteyn should have told trump not to make a big deal out of that o'donnell guy being in the courtroom yesterday. donald trump shouldn't have given me that pleasure. he shouldn't have done that in such a goofy and public way that the "new york times" felt to report it right away on the live update of the trial. no one in the courtroom had seen donald trump do anything like that. after that item made a little bit of stir on social media yesterday, we have a right to assume that donald trump, as i know he's done many times in the past, tuned into this show at 10:00 last night to see what i would say about that incident. unfortunately, he took my

advice, the advice boris should have given him yesterday. today, even though i was sitting in an even more prominent position on the aisle in the middle of the courtroom where donald trump couldn't possibly miss me every time he walked past me in and out of the courtroom today, he did everything he could possibly do to not look at me. i know he knows where i was sitting, because i was way too obvious. i was giving him my look straight up at him. i know that i was within his peripheral vision, because whenever his peripheral vision got close, he immediately twisted it away in the other direction. he made sure that his eyes never met my eyes. he just want going to give me that gift again. other reporters in the room noticed his conscious choice not to do that, especially after yesterday, because it was so

obvious that he made such ap effort yesterday to look at me that today's effort, not looking at me, was just as obvious with me sitting there looking up at him in exactly the same way i did yesterday. to him, i'm sure it looked like i was gloating. that's probably the way he interpreted it. a couple of reporters told me after today's session he was afraid to look at me today. i don't think he was afraid. i think he just got good advice right here at 10:00 p.m. last night. today's courtroom was a tale of two young women describing their work in government. one described her dedication to a difficult job done honorably in pursuit of an ideal. and the other was hope hicks.

hope hicks was preceded on the witness stand by a young woman who appeared to be about the same age hope hicks was when she started working with presidential candidate donald trump. i wish i could tell you the young woman's name that any parent or fiction writer would be proud to create, but i won't tell you her name because homicidal trump supporters are all too eager to threaten the lives of all of us who they despise. they especially like to do that on social media. and that young woman's job in the district attorney's office is study social media and prepare social media for use as evidence in criminal trials. that job became the worst job in the district attorney's office when a year and a half ago she was assigned to the investigation of donald trump and had to read as many as 10,000 social media posts,

mostly by donald trump, but also by michael cohen and others involving this case. imagine having to keep up with in realtime the poison donald trump spews on social media every day and having to reach back in time for trump tweets that are relevant to this criminal investigation as far back as 2016 and beyond. she has saved about 1500 posts on instagram, twitter, truth social and other sites for the district attorney's trump evidence file. she testified that she has analyzed about 30 social media accounts in the process. donald trump's criminal defense lawyers tried to object to her testimony, but laid the groundwork for introducing social media posts by donald trump. but her testimony was so technically flawless and so convincing to judge juan merchan that the judge overruled every

objection the trump lawyers raised to try to block her testimony and her introduction of the exhibits. she won. she beat the trump lawyers at the game of admitting evidence. she described the elaborate and exacting process she had to go through with each piece of social media to fit the complex requirements of introducing even a single tweet as an exhibit in court. and thanks to her painstaking adherence to those legal rules and requirements, the injure was shown this tweet by donald trump. >> i never said i'm a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that i'm not. i've said and done things i regret, and the words released today 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. >> october 8th, 2016, that was the one and only time donald trump has ever apologized in his life. it was immediately after the "access hollywood" tape was released in october 2016 in the last weeks of donald trump's presidential campaign. the thousands of hours work done by that young paralegal assistant in the district attorney's office to allow the introduction of exhibits like that paid off today. her dedication and professionalism was obvious to everyone in the courtroom, especially judge merchan. she is the lowest-paid person who has spoken in that courtroom. she will never be applauded, never publicly thanked. she doesn't get to fly on private jets like hope hicks did or air force one like hope hicks did. this witness was one of the unsung heros in the machinery of

american justice. that's her job, justice. that is one of the motivators for putting in those long hours. that is the ideal she gets to pursue in her work, justice. the d.a.'s office does not pay her enough. jobs like that never pay enough. but she gets to take home more than a paycheck. she gets to take home her pride. pride, the thing hope hicks sold to donald trump. at 11:23 a.m. an assistant district attorney said, the people call hope hicks. dressed in a black suit, she walked past the defense table in arm's reach of donald trump without ever looking at him, and he did not look at her as she walked by. she began her testimony with a bit of biography saying she was

a 2010 graduate of southern methodist university. she told her first lie minutes into her testimony. some people will think lie is too harsh a word for what i'm about to read to you, but it does show what a casual trumpian relationship with the truth hope hicks lives by. she described donald trump under oath as, quote, a very good multitasker and a very hard worker. he is not and never has been a hard worker. everyone knows that isn't true. but most of the press corps on the campaign trail and in the white house easily accepted those lies, lies of that size from hope hicks all the time without any of those lies diminishing their view of her in any way.

she was on the witness stand, as she has always been, the picture of privilege. she laughed out loud in the courtroom at the very idea of donald trump offering her a job. she was unqualified to be press secretary for a presidential campaign. that is what privilege looks like. she had never been a press secretary for anything. she had no idea how to be a presidential campaign press secretary. like everyone on the trump campaign, no serious campaign would hire them to do anything. hope hicks lives on donald trump's side of our politics where people rant endlessly about attributing things like the failures of boeing's manage of and maintenance of aircraft as some kind of liberal hiring campaign that gives jobs to unworthy candidates. there has never been a more

unworthy campaign for hope hicks' job in the white house than hope hicks. she didn't need either one of those jobs. she was born rich in connecticut. she could have tried to do something more worthy with her life or at least do something that wasn't harmful. but she chose to help donald trump become president of the united states. that's what she chose to do. that job came with a motto, deny, deny, deny. that's what she wrote in an e-mail when the trump campaign team of incompetents was trying to respond to the "washington post" reporting which revealed the infamous "access hollywood" video in which donald trump is shown bragging about his favorite method of sexual assault.

that was transcript of the video in that e-mail but not the video itself. question, did you read mr. trump the e-mail you received from mr. fahrenthold? did you hand him the e-mail for him to read? yes, that's my recollection. what did he say? he said that didn't sound like something he would say. so on the basis of that lie told to hope hicks by donald trump that that didn't sound like something he would say, hope hicks told the team that the strategy was deny, deny, deny, meaning lie, lie, lie.

hope hicks did a lot of that, lying in her testimony. she quoted donald trump lying to her. anyone who knows donald trump knows that what he said on the "access hollywood" video does indeed sound like something he would say. hours later the video was out there and hope hicks could watch him say it herself. so the jury heard hope hicks describe donald trump lying directly to her. quote, he said that that didn't sound like something he would say? that was very harmful line of testimony about donald trump. juries are always wondering if this witness is telling the truth, would this person lie to us. and now they know that donald trump lied to hope hicks right there in that line about that video. when that video came out proving that donald trump said every word that was in that

transcript, that was enough for john mccain. senator mccain turned against donald trump then. that was enough for republican speaker of the house paul ryan, who cancelled a campaign event with donald trump. republican congressman jason chaffetz came on this program and retracted his endorsement of donald trump in the name of his daughters that very night. republicans were rushing away from donald trump because of what they heard him say and do on that "access hollywood" video. but not hope hicks, not hope hicks. if you didn't quit then, when do you quit? hope hicks' answer was never. hope hicks was there in washington on the white house payroll on january 6th, making no attempt at all to get donald trump to do the right thing

during the attack on the capitol, to stop that attack. what did she do after january 6th? nothing. she eventually did an interview with the january 6th committee where she said as little as she possibly could and offered no significant help to the committee, very little they could even use in their public revelation of their evidence. compare that to cassidy hutchinson. they both took the same oath of office as white house employees to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. hope hicks, who had direct access to donald trump whenever she wanted it, didn't say a word to donald trump on january 6th, didn't even try to. while cassidy hutchinson was desperately trying to get her boss mark meadows, the white house chief of staff, to convince donald trump to stop the attack on the capitol. cassidy hutchinson became the january 6th committee's most

important witness. cassidy hutchinson has been trying to convince the american people not to vote for donald trump. nothing like that from hope hicks. i've never seen anyone in the white house treated the way the white house press corps treated hope hicks. talk about privilege. there is video of white house reporters social kissing her as they're greeted at white house press briefings. that doesn't happen unless you are hope hicks. she cried. that's the big news of the day out of the courtroom. no one knows why she cried at the very beginning of cross examination. i heard three different theories for the tears from reporters on the way out of the courtroom today, and you'll hear some theories during this hour from people who were in the courtroom with me today and are more perceptive about that. i don't know why she cried, and i don't care. i know she didn't cry for the

628 children who were held at the southern border in custody by donald trump, who was then unable to find their parents and reunite them. hope hicks didn't cry for them. and we can be sure that hope hicks has never cried when her motto of deny, deny, deny took hold in the supreme court deciding to deny women a right they had for 50 years in this country, longer than hope hicks has been alive. i'm sure she didn't cry for that 10-year-old girl in ohio who had to leave the state after being raped to receive abortion services in indiana. hope hicks kept working for donald trump to become the president of the united states after she knew that deny, deny, deny was a lie, a lie she told. hope hicks watched the "access hollywood" video and thought,

yes, yes, that's who i want to keep working for, that's who i want to be president of the united states. i'm going to continue to work as hard as i can to make that man on that video bragging about sexual assault become the next president of the united states. that's my mission. and that is who hope hicks wanted to be reelected as president of the united states after he recommended injecting bleach into your veins to cure covid. that's who hope hicks wanted to keep in the white house. we had a monster in the presidency not because of donald trump, but because of the people who voted for donald trump and because of the people who worked for donald trump's campaign to get him there. you get monsters like donald trump thanks to people like hope hicks. people who white house reporters social kiss in the white house press briefing room, reporters whose acceptance of donald trump is warmed by the charms of hope hicks.

witness hope hicks get off the witness stand today without being asked the most important question of her life. she wasn't asked that question, because it wasn't an important question in this trial. and that question is, why didn't you quit? why didn't you quit that presidential campaign in 2016 when it was so obvious to all of us that you were working for a pathological liar and a dangerous person? why didn't you quit is a much more important question than why did she cry. we'll review today's trial evidence for the rest of the hour with people who were in the courthouse with me this week and saw it all. they'll join us. all they'll join us.

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obviously emotional as soon as donald trump's defense attorney began cross examination. question, ms. hicks, i want to start by talking a little bit about your time at the trump organization, if that's okay. answer, nods yes. question, i think you said you started around october 2014. answer, nods yes, yes. question, sorry. answer, it's okay. question, and your initial title was the director of communications? answer, yes. and that was a position that the trump organization created to bring you in, right? answer, yes. and i think you said this morning that you focused on real estate, hospitality and entertainment, that was your portfolio there. answer, yes, crying, sorry. crying. could i just have a minute? question, of course. answer, sorry.

question, judge, maybe we could take a break. judge merchan, ms. hicks, do you need a break? answer, yes, please. crying. andrew weissmann is with us he's an msnbc legal analyst and coauthor of the book "the trump indictment." also with us adam classfeld and lisa rubin, msnbc legal analyst who was also at the courthouse today. adam, you were the first one to know the crying was happening. you detected that something was happening in those silent nods at the beginning of her answers. >> before the stage directions, as you call it, the first stage

directions was nodding in response to a question. you never see that happening very often in trials you'll see the judge instructing the witness to vocalize it because the transcript will not record it. so it was very clear that something strange was going on at that time from there. you could see the length of it through the transcript, because that was when she started getting emotional. it carried over through the length of that and it was audible. it wasn't just visible. she wiped a tear from her eye. that gives journalists permission, if you will, to say she was crying rather than getting emotional. it started the questions, why is this happening in responses to innocuous questions about her cv? >> lisa, when did you pick it up? >> i heard it first. then my eyes immediately went up

from my phone. >> you were looking down taking notes like i was? >> yes. when i sit in the overflow room where i can use a phone, i'm furiously typing about what i'm seeing. i was in the middle of capturing what she had just finished saying on direct when i heard her cry first and then looked up and saw her breaking down on the stand. i was just flummoxed by how quickly she had gone from uncomfortable and really grew relaxed under direct examination, how quickly that shifted for her. the minute that was over, it was almost like it registered for her what she had said and upset by what i eel call a collision for her between loyalty toward a man she still has affection for and the duty to tell the truth in the courtroom as best she can remember it. >> i'm sure you've seen so many

witnesses get emotional many courtrooms. sometimes it's inexplicable. sometimes it's obvious. you're talking about a tragedy that the person went through and it's incredibly obvious. and sometimes it's this weird crosscurrent of what's happening in that room. >> i had your same reaction, which is, i didn't really care why she was crying and it's two overplayed. i cared about the substance of her testimony and how her crying was kind of icing on the cake for the d.a.'s office. i'm not in any way suggesting that they sought it. but her testimony was a body blow to the defense here, because she put the guilty knowledge of the hush-money payment into donald trump's

mouth, and she recounted that testimony to the jurors. i totally understand your opening about putting her in perspective in the same way one could do with david pecker and mr. davidson. at the trial, in terms of evidence, i was thinking about what she said was devastating, and there's no question that her crying would underscore to the jury my view that she was not there because she wanted to help the government, that she had all loyalty for the trump organization. so it was going to make it impossible for the defense to actually say that she was lying to help the government and to hurt donald trump. that's not why you cry. i just thought it in some ways was an exclamation point to what had just happened in court,

which was, i think, just very much a very, very difficult witness for the defense to be able to overcome. >> we are just getting started. we're going to fit in a quick break right here and be right back with more. right here and b back with more you can't leave without cuddles. but, you also can't leave covered in hair. with bounce pet, you can cuddle and brush that hair off. bounce, it's the sheet. ♪♪ missing out on the things you love because of asthma? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma that is taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems or other eosinophilic conditions. allergic reactions may occur. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens. headache and sore throat may occur. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. step back out there with fasenra. ask your doctor if it's right for you.

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the prosecutor asked hope hicks about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels. prosecutor, did the idea that mr. cohen would have made a $130,000 payment to stormy daniels out of thekindness

after his heart, was that consistent with your interactions with him up to that point? i would say that would be out of character for michael. why would it be out of character for michael? hicks, i didn't know michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person. he's the kind of person who seeks credit. lisa, that was a pretty important moment. >> that was a really important moment. it was followed by what i think was an equally important moment when the prosecutor asked hope hicks, well, did he say anything about the timing of the news reporting? that seemed to refresh her recollection. she said, oh yes, he wanted to know how it was playing, meaning how it was playing to the larger populace. i think mr. trump's opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.

prosecutor, no further questions. that was devastating, because it showed everybody that trump had already been through the mental calculus at the time of the location of what would have happened had they not conspired together to pay off stormy daniels. >> hope hicks did a very strong delivery for the district attorney about how big a bomb went off in the trump campaign when the "access hollywood" video came out and how that affected everything else that followed, including stormy daniels. >> there was one moment where she remembered that there was a category four hurricane about to hit the u.s. mainland and then essentially said that the "access hollywood" tape drowned that out on the news. i want to pivot back to something lisa said about that line. that was the final line of the

direct examination. no further questions, the prosecutor said about that. returning to your point, lawrence, about whether or not the crying is important cosmically. it's the last image in the jurors' minds after that statement. it's a huge exclamation point and one that prosecutors, i imagine, may return to during closing arguments. if jurors have a question on their mind why did hope hicks cry, we'll never know from her. it does say that she cried in the record, and that is evidence. they will turn back to that transcript and they may see that devastating line that lisa flagged. >> yes. important point, the best view of hope hicks on that witness stand is the jury view. they are so close to her, especially the front end of the jury, so very close. every single seat has a clear, full view of the witness.

andrew weissmann, one of the issues for the prosecution is proving that donald trump did, in fact, reimburse, michael cohen for the $130,000 that michael cohen delivered to stormy daniels. no dispute that michael cohen delivered $130,000 to stormy daniels. the defense wants to create doubt about there being any payment there. but you pointed out to us today that there's a very important piece of evidence that hasn't come up yet in the trial about this. >> well, you have to remember obviously that the government has the checks signed by donald trump himself. one of the reasons hope hicks is so important is that she makes it clear that he knew that these were reimbursements of the michael cohen hush-money payments. there's more than that.

in 2018, so not that long after this, in a lawsuit brought by stormy daniels in california where she was trying to get out of the nda, donald trump repeatedly admitted in filings that he had reimbursed michael cohen and essential consulting for the hush-money payments. it's over and over again. and when the court issues its ruling, the court actually says these are admissions by donald trump and michael cohen, his codefendant. they are codefendants at this point, and they are still allies. donald trump has admitted repeatedly that this was reimbursement. i don't know exactly how the defense is going to deal with that. if you remember, todd blanch in his opening said these were not reimbursements.

i don't know highway you square -- how you square that with donald trump's own lawyers in a civil case making the exact opposite argument. those are admissible statements. those are admissions. that's going to be a piece, i suspect, of the d.a.'s case. it's very, very hard now with hope hicks' testimony to see where the defense is going to . >> we've seen todd blanch argue the impossible, especially on the gag order. here is donald trump in a lawsuit under oath in effect saying i reimbursed michael cohen $130,000. michael cohen then offers a description of how it was reimbursed, including a built-in provision for income tax and all that stuff that makes it a bigger number than $130,000. i don't see how they get around

that document. >> i'm not sure they do either. i should add that on top of the civil lawsuit that andrew was just referring to, there are a series of tweets on may 3rd, 2018, that donald trump authored where he essentially also admits to having repaid michael cohen for the nondisclosure payment with stormy daniels. he said he does it through a retainer agreement. but i think the d.a.'s office is perfectly capable of saying he was confessing not only to repaying but telling us all how he tried to disguise that repayment at the same time. i think they're going to try to say that donald trump was a big multitasker and he got confused when he was presented with checks to sign. they're going to say that michael cohen presented him with invoices for legal services, and is it his fault he signed the checks for those invoices presented by michael cohen? they might also present evidence from michael garton who said he

understood he was repaying michael cohen in his capacity for trump's personal lawyer. you've seen bits and pieces of them getting other witnesses to say it's not really that problematic not to have a retainer agreement. keith davidson said that on his cross examination. that's kind of where the defense is going, that doesn't mean i think it's good. >> hope hicks also established that every single trump tweet, every social media post, donald trump either writes himself or approved if a staff person writes it. it has to be submitted to donald trump, he approved and sends it. there's an awful lot of culpability in those tweets. >> absolutely. to that point, i think that may be the first time that has been confirmed under oath in a courtroom that the buck stopped with donald trump when it came to his tweets in 2016. everyone has his signoff and

that increases his culpability. he was a micro manager with the tweets and with the money is what this evidence is all coming to a common thread with. >> lisa, did i see you at 6:00 a.m. on "morning joe" this morning? >> you did. >> it's coming up on 11:00 p.m. >> everyone in this network who's been at the courthouse all have to be down there at 6:30 at the latest. so when you see them here at night after having done that, i am very grateful. thank you all very much for joining this discussion tonight and this week. week. after advil: let's dive in! but...what about your back? it's fineeeeeeee!

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for the best writing coming out of the courtroom, we turn to our next guest jonathan alter, who has been at the courthouse every day of the trump trial. last week he wrote through the jurors' eye about his view of the back of donald trump's head. on the upper left side of the back of his head, the meticulously coifed souffle and

industrial-strength hair spray mostly did their come-back job covering the evidence of the truth. but by peeking through the peachy strands, i could see a pink as a baby's bottom scalp beneath. we're talking cue-ball here. joining us jonathan alter. he's an msnbc political analyst who has been at the courthouse every day of the trump trial. jonathan, i have that you wrote that and i was loaned binoculars, because people are using binoculars in there to see witnesses on the screen. through the binoculars i saw exactly what you described, which is, of course, your least important observation in the courtroom, but no one would make it so perfectly. today in that courtroom we saw these two lives that had come

together for what they thought was going to be who knows what, but has turned out to be this terrible collision with the law, hope hicks and donald trump. >> yeah. it was kind of an et tu brute moment when julius cesar is being assassinated and he says, you too, brutus? he had given hope hicks her first big job. she's 26 years old and she has major responsibility. she's still in her 20s when she's communications director for a presidential campaign. she stayed loyal to him throughout everything. but when it came to choosing between the oath that she took to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and blind loyalty to her old boss, she chose the truth and those were tears of truth. you know, i think it's kind of

an inspiring day. i think if he's convicted, it will be remembered in american history. it's not just because the evidence was so overwhelming and damning that she provided. it was because her tears almost watermarked the moment, so to speak. >> there was a distinguished white-haired man sitting in the front row where some lawyers are allowed to sit right beside the secret service agent. hope hicks' attorney. in questioning, the district attorney asked, who's paying for your lawyer? and she said, i am, because there's always the possibility in this crowd that donald trump is paying for that lawyer. what are you gathering now after your fortnight in taking trial testimony in this case? what does it feel like on this friday night? >> i just think it was a very big deal for the prosecution. for the last several days they've been amassing evidence

that there was this urgency to cohen putting together this company, wiring the funds all in a 24-hour period not long before the election. why the urgency? because they needed to pay off stormy daniels before the election. then you also have all this testimony about donald trump saying the women's vote -- this is after "access hollywood" remember -- the women's vote is so important and we could lose by five or ten points because of women. well, that also goes to intent and motive for this alleged crime, this coverup of this activity. and then you have hope hicks today saying that when he says, oh, you know, michael cohen did this out of the goodness of his heart and didn't tell anybody about it. >> that's what trump tells hope

hicks. >> trump tells hope hicks in 2018. and then trump says it's better that it comes out now in 2018 than it would have been really bad if it comes out right before the election. all of these things go to this question of intent and motive. if you look at the law, which we'll hear the judge's instructions at the end of the trial, intent is extraordinarily important here. so the prosecution has done generally a good job. they had some down moments. keith davidson had some problems with testimony on cross examination. but in general, they have been building a narrative that hope hicks reenforced today. >> jonathan alter, thank you very much for guiding me through the courtroom experience this week. and congratulations on becoming a grandfather. >> thank you. >> for the second time. yesterday? >> just last night.

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