you will see i touch every dog that wins. >> you have to tune in fox sports. all day long. fox nation as well. 148, baby. >> let's do it. >> let's do it. >> best in show tonight. >> we have totally gone to the dogs. >> they're so cute and so funny. >> steve: have fun. >> ainsley: have the best time. thank you. >> steve: brian will be traveling back home but you have a busy day. >> brian: right after speaker johnson gets done in court and gives me a tour of the capitol and what's going on in the world and stay within themselves and i'll be doing the radio. >> ainsley: and get dressed. have a great radio show, brian, thank you, bye, everyone. >> bill: let's get back at it. lower manhattan.

michael cohen day two for him in the criminal trial of donald trump. the former president will be there. expect him to make comments on his way in. we'll bring it to you live. big day and especially cross examination. i'm bill hemmer. tuesday. >> dana: i'm dana perino. this is "america's newsroom." >> bill: you would love it, really. it is an extraordinary -- just to see the psychology of everything that goes on around you. this is a two-story drab courtroom. >> dana: was it freezing in there? >> bill: it was warm. you can see the 18 jurors. six alternates and in addition to the 12. you sit there six, seven hours a day. i thought it was captivating and riveting. cohen's best moments was after the break. spent 11 minutes staring right at the jurors for the first time. most of the time he is looking

at the prosecutor. prosecutor wants him to talk to the jurors. for 11 minutes he was explaining what jobs were offered to him by way of rinse priebus at the white house after the election early january, pre-inauguration. the jurors were captivated. all 18 were staring right at him. then he broke from that character and went back to talking back to the prosecutor. it was rehearsed. q and a, q and a, page after page. which means when we get to the cross examination, which may happen at midday today, we'll see how trump's attorneys do it. one more thing nobody has talked about. everyone talks about him being a liar and going to jail for it. yesterday he admitted twice when he was registering for the limited liability corporation, the llc, that he would eventually use to pay stormy daniels he admitted he lied twice on the application.

you can add that to the list of perhaps what we hear later today. >> dana: i would love it. >> bill: i can keep going. stop now. where we begin today. cohen testifying that former president trump offered him to pay off stormy daniels. he said trump told him to quote just do it, end quote. >> dana: he said they bought daniels silence. her story would have been catastrophic for the 2016 campaign. >> bill: top republicans and potential vp candidates joining trump in court today. we expect to see one of his former primary opponents ramaswamy will be there. >> dana: a visit by the house speaker mike johnson will happen tomorrow or today maybe. it's today, okay. he will get a firsthand look at what the former president says is a sham trial. >> we have a corrupt judge and we have a judge who is highly conflicted and he is keeping me from campaigning. he is an appointed new york

judge. he is appointed. you know who appointed him? democrat politicians. he is appointed. a corrupt and conflicted judge and he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam. the whole world is laughing now at new york weaponized legal system. >> dana: kevin mccarthy and karl rove are with us on set. let's get to eric shawn at the courthouse. hi, eric. >> good morning, dana and bill. michael cohen will likely face a crushing cross examination later on today as todd blanch will try to rip his character, his composure and his whole story apart. as you have been saying yesterday, mr. trump's former loyal fixer and lawyer took the stand and testified against him saying it was president trump who was behind the whole scheme to falsify those business records and hide stormy daniels'

story of having sex with him all to protect his 2016 presidential bid. trump's lawyer expected to launch that savage assault on cohen tearing into his history of lying under oath, his deception and duplicity to undermine his claims that have bolstered the prosecution case. he said when stormy came forward with her story in the final days of the presidential race trump reacted by saying it's a disaster, a total disaster. women are going to hate me. this will be a disaster for the campaign. trump told him to arrange the deal with stormy with trump organization cfo allen weisselberg. he is in jail for committing perjury in the trump civil trial last fall. trump ordered them to just pay it. no reason to keep this out there. just do it. today cohen is expected to bring the jury into his meeting in the oval office with the new president. that happened in february of 2017 when trump allegedly agreed to reimburse cohen with the

trump checks, some of the checks from his own personal checking account. cohen expected to detail those conversations. he said he had with trump at the historic resolute desk not talking about affairs of state but to hide the president's alleged affair with the porn star. he said everything required mr. trump's sign-off. on top of that, i wanted my money back. here at the bill you were talking about this historic 1930s art deco courthouse. speaker mike johnson will be here, ramaswamy, doug burgum. it is true today, no matter who you are you will have to sit in the hardwood en benchs that you sat on yesterday. we expect the proceeding to kick off momentarily. >> bill: he is not wrong.

you are looking forward to the break. also byron donalds and cory mills will be there today. good morning gentlemen. let's start with you. the effect of this trial so far. >> you don't want to start with the speaker of the house? please. >> bill: usually i go this way and dana goes that way. >> we don't really know. there will be -- people have already taken most of this and taken it in and into their calculation. if you like trump, this is terrible. if you hate trump, this is wonderful. what we don't know is the effect of the small group of people who want to vote for neither biden nor trump but will end up voting and there was an ick factor last week with the discussion of stormy daniels. we won't know until the whole drama is over. if he doesn't get convicted it washes away.

if he gets convicted it impacts both ways. stirring his people to anger and having an effect on the group of people who don't like either one of their choices. >> dana: what do you hear from republicans running for office. are they affected by this at all? >> no. people made a decision on this in the last election. 100,000 people turning out in new jersey. the white house has the same strategy for president trump and president biden to keep them both off the campaign trail. and they want biden off and they want trump off. i think it's backfiring. i think trump had utilized the press well in this where he goes to the fire stations and does the other bodega and others. biden continues to fail. his press doesn't come ouchlt where they are trying this case is his second best county for president biden in the entire nation. how can anybody have a fair trial here? it seems like it's set up. you can appeal because the judge has gone so far one way.

i don't think it is what the democrats had planned the whole time that it would benefit them. there is backfiring here. as karl says we have to wait to see the outcome. i don't see it getting what the democrats planned from the beginning to do to trump. >> bill: a lot of people talk about "the new york times" poll. ripples from this thing. it is hard to find -- they have to stretch to write a good word in wisconsin. biden leads in wisconsin. pennsylvania trump is up three. arizona trump is up seven, michigan. up ten, nevada up 12. do you believe it? >> i don't believe any given poll. if you put it in the context of what we're seeing the averages of others, the two things pop out. first of all, former president leads in the sun belt states nevada, arizona, georgia. these are well outside the margin of error and he does also in the national averages. but you take this poll the states where he is outside the

margin of error, 12 points up in nevada. ten points in georgia, seven points in michigan and arizona. that gets him if he wins all the states he won last time around which everybody assumes, that gets him to 283 votes in the electoral college. if you toss in pennsylvania where he is not outside the margin of error, up by three on the edge of it. it gets him to 302. >> dana: the other thing in the poll that was interesting was the choice for senate. mr. speaker, kevin. what are we calling you now? one of the things that's interesting incumbents do always have a historic advantage and it looks like this could also be happening. early in the race even though it feels like it is not. in some of the states the senate democrat incumbent seems to be holding their own. >> you haven't had the campaign yet. people aren't paying attention. the name i.d. for the incumbent is higher than the challenger. the last time biden was on the

ticket running for president and won was first time since 1994 not one republican incumbent in congress lost. they said we would lose 15 seats. democrats lost. the map for the republicans in the senate is very good. primary tonight in west virginia. that's a pickup. you have larry hogan former governor in maryland. the smartest recruit in the nation puts that into play. there is a better advantage for republicans and easier for them to win seats in the house than the last two cycles. >> dana: the former governor of maryland. the primary is today. the republican nominee after today. >> the democrats fighting it out for whoever will win. he is a great candidate. >> he is a fantastic candidate. he puts that state in play. 68% approval rating and out of office for a year now. >> dana: did it take chuck schumer by surprise? >> absolutely did. the polls on the senate races.

think about this. nevada the incumbent democrat is running two points ahead of joe biden. arizona they're running three points behind. pennsylvania running two points ahead. wisconsin running two points ahead. so it's not like the democrats -- none of them are above 50% and all incumbents. if i were a republican senate candidate looking at these numbers i would say i'm in the hunt because none of them are as well-known as the incumbents and none of them have the advantage. >> the other thing you have to remember, when biden won, he only won by 48,918 votes. his favorability rating was plus ten. now it's minus 20. trump has been leading for 14 months in these states. i don't know why this is shocking to people. what's telling is how much closer we're getting. the interesting thing you have to look at where are independents? the whole democrat program this

is democracy on the ballot. 53% of independents believe democracy is threat if biden gets another four years. economy, it's the number one issue drawing people against. they are losing the youth. if you look at where they are with hispanic and african-american voters a big drop to where he was before. if he barely won by 49,000 votes last time and in a weaker position now, now is a unique opportunity for republicans to run on the issues of what they want to govern on and have a really big night come november. >> bill: interesting conversation. read one line from "the new york times" piece. they were tied among 18 to 29-year-old hispanic voters. even though each group gave biden more than 60% of their vote in 2020. i was talking with a leading republican governor late yesterday, will go nameless off the record. they're convinced that joe biden will not be the candidate. he is, anyway.

i asked him what do you do about harris? this clip she said yesterday. >> we have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open. sometimes they won't. and then you kick the [bleep] door down. >> bill: a little bit of language. that's not the point of this conversation. the point is do you believe that democrats will find a way around this devastating "new york times" poll and have an open convention in chicago? >> i don't. it is not just "the new york times" poll. it is everything else. the white house is in denial. if something were to happen to him, she would still be on the ticket because there is no way they can remove her without alienating further older black women and blacks in general. they are stuck. she is -- think about it. her numbers are worse than bidens. she is not a non-factor. she is a negative. she is causing people to say i like what donald trump did.

i would like to find a reason to vote against him. if something happens to that really old guy on top of the democratic ticket i don't want her to be the president. that's going on underneath the surface and cementing into donald trump's numbers some people who would like to find an excuse not to vote for him. >> everybody thinks he will get off the ticket. the only way i've ever watched an elected official get off the ticket is if they can't win. he is in denial. his whole family. he has run for this office for the last 50 years. he is not giving up. he is not getting off the ticket. there is a higher probability just because his age that that vice president, if biden was to win will become president sometime in the next four years. >> bill: gentlemen, thank you, stand by. we're not done with you, karl or kevin. thank you, mr. speaker. >> dana: day two of the federal corruption trial of bob menendez. new jersey democrat and his wife are accused of accepting

hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes including cash, gold bars an a brand-new car as a scheme to benefit the government of egypt and qatar. congressional reporter chad pergram is live outside the courthouse. hi, chad. >> good morning, dana. menendez says he was just doing constituent service in this case. his second dance with the law. he had a 2017 trial on unrelated bribery charges. he had support from fellow senators last time. not now. [shouted questions] >> none of your senators coming here to support you. the filing deadline is the 4th. are you going to run? are you going to file? >> bill: sorry about that, chad. the former president now in court about to speak to the cameras. let's drop on in.

>> speaking very beautifully. they are highly respected and they think it is the greatest scam they've ever seen. some democrats are embarrassed by what's going on. i want to start by saying that on the electric vehicles that biden is pushing down everybody's throat even though people don't want them, he wants to put a big tariff on china, which is the suggestion that i said where have you been for 3 1/2 years? they should have done it a long time ago. they will also do another vehicles on a lot of other products. china is eating our lunch right now. they are eating our lunch. they have to do it on much more than electric vehicles and they have to get going fast. it should have been done 3 1/2 years ago. i did it and started it and then they started playing games and it was very bad for the auto

industry. in michigan, jobs are starting to leave. we're losing. the electric vehicle are made in china. and also in mexico. owned by china. polls came out. the redfield and has us up six in michigan, seven in north carolina. georgia plus five, florida plus nine, arizona plus two and up in every other place, too. that just came on. on top of yesterday's "new york times" poll. i think today i might just quote somebody that frankly has been extremely respectful to me over the last few months. he is watching this scam taking place. michael avenatti. have you heard the name? he said the next time you are accused of something by someone, a co-worker, neighbor, friend,

stranger, ask yourself would it okay if they were allowed to speak but you were not allowed to respond or defend yourself in any way. if your answer is no, then you, too, should be angry by trump not being allowed to respond to the various people that are making comments. think of it. you ask me questions and i can't respond. the easiest questions i could possibly be asked. here is a couple of quotes. mark levin. great man, great legal talent. this is not a trial of donald trump, it is a case of the democrat party versus america. it also represents the greatest effort to interfere with and steal a federal election in american political history. biden is seeking to clear the field. he wants to clear the field because he can't do it himself

so he is weaponizing the department of justice. they have their people in that room. the d.o.j. is in that room because they want to try to rip me. my poll numbers have gone up significantly. this is not what they had in mind. newt gingrich. without precedent in american history. it has never occurred to president john adams or anybody else that you could jail your competitor, your primary opponent. in this case vice president thomas jefferson. this has never happened in our country before. never anything like this. andy mccarthy came out. new yorkers should be outraged at the mockery bragg is making of the state's legal system as the entire country looks on. the entire world is looking on. this is a very bad thing that's happening in new york. businesses are leaving new york because of what happened here

and what happened with another crooked judge, engoron. totally crooked and under investigation now, as he should be. he is under big investigation, i hear, right now. jonathan turley, experts are struggling not sure what the crime is being alleged. prosecutors have not explained why a legal expense was wrong. so they say it's a bookkeeping error. i paid a lawyer a certain amount of money. i have a legal expense and marked it down as a legal expense. i didn't mark it down as construction of a wall, construction of a building. i didn't mark it down as electricity cost. i took a legal expense -- the bookkeeper did it. he did it right. took a legal expense and called it a legal expense. this is their whole case. are you allowed to call a legal expense a legal expense?

i don't know what else you would call it. but he brings it up here as a legal expense. what's the problem? i never thought that as an attorney i could see a system like new york, one of the most sophisticated legal in the world debase itself so badly. this judge should not be allowed on the case and should not have allowed this case to go forward. merchan should rule in favor of a directed verdict immediately. there is an insufficient amount of evidence. no crime has been shown. no crime has been committed. there has been no crime. judge pirro talks here. she is very excited here. he is a fool. he is not an experienced judge. i will make that short. i don't want to insult anybody. gregg jarrett, brilliant guy. bragg's argument is legally flawed. the federal election commission

determined there was no campaign finance violation. the department of justice agreed. those two entities have exclusive authority over federal elections. the state has absolutely no authority and the city, bragg, has no authority. bragg never wanted to bring this case. no prosecutor such as alvin bragg should be involved in this case. the judge is totally conflicted and everybody is talking about it. an embarrassment to new york. legal analyst michael moore, cnn doesn't think the prosecution has proven its case. senator john kennedy respected gentleman, the trial says more about politics than an alleged crime. if you want to hide something from bragg you put it in the law books. it hasn't proved to be a felony.

there was no crime. everybody is saying there is no crime. but i've been here for almost four weeks in an ice box. i call it the ice box listening to a judge who is totally corrupt and conflicted. highly respected lawyer, hush money is not a crime. signing an nda is not a crime. by the way, everybody in congress have ndas. they're very common. they're not a crime. cbs morning news. no evidence that this case is about campaign election violations. there is no evidence. again we go back to the federal law. the fec, federal election commission, said there is not a problem. no case. and vivek is here now and he can speak for himself saying this is a sham trial. it is politically motivated. an assault on the leading candidate for u.s. president. i would expect he would say

something so i won't go through the rest. he is here and will talk to you. the speaker of the house is here. we have byron donalds, we have a lot of great people here to talk to you and they won't let -- they want to make it difficult for them to speak. for some reason i can speak here but i'm the only one that's allowed. the gag order has to come off. when you ask me about the people that we are talking about, i'm not allowed to answer. there has never been anything like this in the history of our country. it is a scam. it's election interference at a level that's never taken place before and now if you don't mind i will go into the ice box and sit for a long time. thank you very much. [shouted questions] >> bill: extended comments this morning here. at one point he said are you able to call a legal expense a legal expense if you are paying

your attorney? for trump's team that's the heart of the matter as he heads back inside. doug burgum and others in support of donald trump but physical presence says something as well. the other thing you touched on back with kevin mccarthy and karl rove is tariffs on china. biden will make a move on electric vehicles. biden will do it. trump wants to take it a step further and cut down the supply chain by way of beijing into mexico. so he would do it 5x in trump's language there. i think what that leads us to, karl, is the significance of the 15 electoral votes in michigan. if you know that trump lost by three points in 2020, came really close in 2016 against hillary clinton, all right, so

the attention of this entire campaign on both sides is focused on the wolverine state. >> the smart part of what he does when he comes out. he started today with an issue that the american people care about, which is china. and he basically said okay, fine, you are putting them on but you are following me. you are a day late and a dollar short and i've got more. which is useful. i think the key for him is to lay out a second term agenda and for him saying i will have tougher penalties on chain yo and i'm worried about them sending things into america via mexico and i will take care of that problem. if i had a criticism to make i would have dialed that up a lot more and dialed down the expert. let governor and others quote the experts. you focus on being the next

president of the united states. today was far more spent on his personal grievance about not being able to do this stuff and being in court. being able to lay out an agenda for the second term is what people want to hear from him that are open to voting for him. >> dana: what i think he should talk about is last week there were these articles. planted by the biden team, about how they are working very hard to entrench any sort of biden policy that didn't have to go through congress, entrench that into the system. trump would be saddled with biden policies. if i were the trump team i would have one of these days saying by the way, guess what is happening right now? they are trying to do this. don't let them happen. figuring out a way to what karl is saying to focus on what would the next four years look like if biden wins or i win? >> by the biden administration is doing what they can to trump. he has now spoken more on

policies than president biden has. and if you go back, do the contrast. when donald trump was president and he put these tariffs in against china, biden criticized him for it. what is biden doing today? he is flipping because trump wins the policy issue. everybody sits back and said they love the contrast, the policies when president trump was in office. but look, we can second guess all we want. >> bill: and the decision on israel. the vote he watched in michigan during that primary stacked against him again. now you have the arab american population and the state we're talking about, in addition to those who work in the auto industry. you are 0 for two. >> also think of this. if you think 1968 democratic convention was crazy, wait until this year. they will start talking about maybe we need to go back to do it virtually and they will try to get away from it --

>> dana: wouldn't that be something. >> bill: watch what they're doing. >> they're trying to go to the last campaign where he doesn't have to campaign and talk about the issues. here is president trump. no other human can with stand what they have thrown at him and he is taking all this in and he walks out in a gag order. who else gets a gag order that can't talk about being persecuted for what he is going through? but does take the moment to talk about the policies. it is not a hard decision to think who do you want to be president? who can sustain it? today is israel's national independence day. is president biden going out there doing anything? he has gone directly against anything we've ever stood. the moment israel became a nation, the first nation to recognize it was america. now he is backtracking picking a terrorist organization, hamas, over it because he thinks that's good politics because he is watching what's happening on college campuses. >> bill: stand by, guys, kevin and karl.

>> dana: we interrupted chad pergram. this is a bribery case of bob menendez. are you still with us, chad? >> i'm still here. bob menendez arrived for the start of trial just a few minutes ago. they will start court around 9:45. still going through jury selection. we don't know if they'll get that done today and then opening statements. menendez says he will not run for re-election as a democrat. the filing deadline is june 4th. but no verdict until july in this case. he could run as an independent. the last case for the senator ended with a hung jury. that was back in 2017. now menendez is the former chair of the senate foreign relations committee. gave up that gavel following the indictment and why the allegations of the senator getting involved with qatar and egypt are so serious. judge sidney stein dismissed 38 jurors yesterday. some jurors tried to get out of serving. one said they were going to see bruce springsteen in rome.

another cited surgery for an ingrown toe nail. after dismissing that juror stein said she would be too much trouble to serve as a juror. menendez faces 200 years behind bars if he is convicted. dana and bill. >> dana: chad pergram. lots going on and more to come. >> bill: court is in session downtown. there is another high-profile case we're watching today. pre-trial hearing in delaware of hunter biden's federal gun charges. david spunt is live outside the courthouse in wilmington for that setup today. good morning. >> a lot of high-profile court cases. here in delaware hunter biden's trial is scheduled to begin on june 3rd. we see if that actually happens. perhaps there may be a deal or something. the federal judge that works in this building disagreed with the plea deal. some critics called it a

sweetheart plea deal last summer and hunter biden pleaded not guilty to three charges of lying on a federal form related to purchasing a firearm. now the first son owned a firearm back in 2018 for 11 days. on that form federal prosecutors special counsel david weiss said he lied when he said when he was not addicted to drugs and pleaded not guilty. unclear if hunter will actually be here today. his attorney is hoping to get this trial pushed back as far as possible. last week a three-judge appeals panel declined to get involved in the case citing the fact that a jury hasn't heard the case yet. appeals court said too soon to get involved. lowell disagrees. hunter is also facing tax charges in california and that is set to go to trial on june 20th. but we expect that to be pushed back so hunter doesn't have two trials in four weeks. it is a possibility we may see a

plea deal in delaware or california or both. but hunter biden and his attorneys are taking quite a big risk putting these cases before a jury before his father even takes the stage at the democratic national convention in july. >> bill: thank you, david spunt watching that. hunter biden trial continues. thank you, sir. >> dana: we have a great legal analyst coming up right now. andy mccarthy, jonathan turley, jonna spilbor, you have been following the trump case. jonathan turley, let's get to you. your name was invoked when president trump was going through the list of commentators who said what in the world is going on at this courtroom? >> we have all been anticipating this day probably more than yesterday. while people on other networks have said they were impressed the cohen didn't lose his temper, he was being questioned by the prosecutors that brought him to this party. this is what he prepped for.

none of us expected that he would disassembly under friendly questioning. this is going to be different. the one thing about yesterday that was striking is i thought that michael cohen may have committed perjury again. in my view, one of his answers just made no sense at all. he said that he taped his client, former president trump, in order to keep david pecker, the former publisher of the "national enquirer" honest and make sure he paid. first of all, it made no sense at all why he would do that. pecker had been in communication with trump himself. but it didn't make any sense at all. but cohen seemed to try to find a reason for shattering every professional ethical standard in secretly taping his client. i didn't believe that he was

taping that to somehow benefit or affect david pecker. >> bill: so jonathan, you mentioned the audio recording. the jurors apparently had heard it earlier in the trial but played yesterday in court. we'll get it queued up. i should take note the call is cut off suddenly and explained that michael cohen had received an incoming call and therefore the recording stopped. we have it. here it was from yesterday, cohen and trump. watch. >> i spoke to allen about it. when it comes time to the financing, which will be -- >> what financing? >> we have to pay? >> cash? >> no, no, no. >> bill: pay with cash? at the end trump says check. all right. so we'll find out the significance. did you have something, professor? >> it sounds a lot like a client being told by a lawyer what they are going to do.

the lawyer is testifying against the client saying you should send him to jail for doing what i told him to do. >> bill: so the note from inside the courtroom tells us merchan took the bench. he asked if there are any matters needing discussing and they were have a side bar. yesterday there were no side bars and not many objections. i would consider them minor objections, trump either sustained or overruled and on and on they went. andy mccarthy. i'm told that under cross examination back in october, the fall of last year, when the civil trial was underway, that cohen was on the stand and habba, back in court again with eric trump today sitting in the first row behind trump's lawyers and donald trump, that cohen

threw a fit with a lot of objections to the questions and it was described to me as very contentious and i would imagine, as jonathan said, it went by script yesterday. but how will it go when trump's attorneys have their chance? >> well, it will be contentious. he has a track record, cohen does, of committing perjury as we discussed yesterday, a federal judge just a few weeks ago in the southern district of new york concluded that he committed perjury in either or both of his plea allocution when he pled guilty to over$4 million worth of tax and bank fraud, or when he testified in the civil fraud trial, or could have been both. so he is all over the map. he is hard to pin down but i

don't think that's problematic for the defense. when he speaks he usually steps in it, as jonathan just pointed out. his testimony about why he taped trump made no logical sense. i think looking at it, it made a lot of sense in that he was trying to come up with an excuse how taping trump somehow would have been to trump's benefit. what he tried to say it was assuage pecker but the reality is he was taping trump so he would have something on trump. he was like the typical guy who is tape recording somebody covertly and made a point of mentioning allen weisselberg's names and other names to have it on tape if he needed it because he was concerned, evidently, about whether trump would pay him back for that non-disclosure agreement. he was doing it for his own

joints, not trump's interest. the only reason i flush this out to jonathan's point as well, i think he is already lying and giving nonsensical answers when giving the prepared answers that he has rehearsed a million times with the prosecutor. god knows what we'll hear on cross. >> dana: jonna spilbor, jonathan turley said he was listening and thought wow, is michael cohen about to perjure himself again? he has to be careful so his testimony doesn't lead him to breaking the law again. >> this guy can't be trusted when his lips are moving he is usually lying and represented by his own attorney now. i would be concerned if i was representing him that he could perjure himself. even if he does it's likely alvin bragg won't do a thing about it because alvin bragg brought this sham of a case

using cohen as his star witness. we all sound like broken records because we keep emphasizing over and over again that there has been no evidence of a crime and so far after day one of michael cohen's testimony, there is still no evidence of a crime. so we sound like broken records because this trial is broken. i don't think day two is going to hurt donald trump any more than any of the prior 16 days of this trial have. >> bill: the note from inside the courtroom. side bar lasted a few minutes. it's over. we don't know what is talked about. cohen is entering the courtroom wearing a dark suit and blue tie. getting the jury right now. testimony resumes in a minute or two. jonathan, one thing that cohen talked about yesterday that i think no other witness has gotten to is this tie between the stormy daniels payment and looming election. he gave some quotes. he said push it out as long as

you can thinking about trump was telling him. call for seven. just get past the election. if i win, it has no relevance. if i lose i don't even care. and then later with regard to melania he says he wasn't thinking about melania, it was all about the campaign. one more, too. go back to hope hicks from two weeks ago. hope hicks was on the stand and she said he was worried about how this would be viewed at home. president trump really values mrs. trump's opinion and she doesn't weigh in all the time but when she does it is really meaningful to him. there is a clash of ideas right there. the one thing i found interesting, jonathan, is that the state has all these exhibits and yesterday they presented dozens throughout the entire afternoon. it is very small fine print and monitors all over this courtroom and the judge has one, witness has one, all the jurors have a monitor in front of them. for the 60 or so members of the

public and media you can bring in binoculars. you need them. when the exhibit goes up it is difficult to see with your plain eye. one thing that struck me that all the exhibits that were presented, phone calls and text messages and printed documents, one after the other after another, not one item talked about or said the election. is that important to you? >> it is important. it is also really par for the course in this trial. the prosecutors are making a great deal about introducing evidence and emphasizing dock also. but the documents are largely uncontested. they don't establish any crime. and what's key about cohen is that the prosecutors know he is not credible. they don't need him to be credible. they need someone, anyone, to check the box on the elements of

the crime so they can go to the judge when he looks at the motion for directed verdict and say you might not believe cohen but maybe the jury does. this becomes a credibility question. so this should go to jury. the problem they are having is cohen has testified before and that has created the four walls for his testimony. if he comes up with something new, everyone will pounce on it. the most he can say is that trump didn't want the story out before the election. that's not a crime. having an nda is not a crime. he has to say that trump intentionally misrepresented the payment, committed this bookkeeping error with the intention of hiding another crime, whatever that crime may be. he didn't come close to that yesterday. >> dana: jonna, i will get back to you as soon as we take this quick break. to let the viewers know, you have more thoughts how the jury is taking all of this. we want to get to those just as we get back. court is underway, jury is

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>> dana: we're back. court is in session. i want to bring in guy benson and mercedes coleman. great to have you both with us for more analysis. we understand from the court that right now they are still going on something that was talked about yesterday, which is allen weisselberg, the finance guy and the conversations he was having with cohen and trump. that is continuing this morning. what should we be looking for today? >> that's a very key part of the prosecution's case. why do i say that? because allen weisselberg is the connection to trump. there is no doubt that -- there should be doubt that he will

actually take the stand. president trump will unlikely take the stand. the prosecutor has to show somehow these conversations are taking place with allen as an agent of trump. we know from the testimony yesterday morning michael cohen said that allen weisselberg worked very closely with former president trump. anything to do with the finances, they worked very closely together. so a conversation that michael cohen has with allen weisselberg imputes some criminality to trump. this is direct examination. from everyone that saw the examination, he was smooth, articulate, unemotional. he did what he needed to do as a prosecutor's key witness. >> bill: what i hear from turley and mccarthy is the consistent chime of where is the crime? can you identify it yet?

>> i defer to them. they are the actual legal experts. i have been watching the program, listening to both of those gentlemen and others for days talk about this second crime that we don't even know what it is yet. i think most americans with or without law degrees sit back and say how is that even possible? you have a former president of the united states on trial with his liberty at stake and dozens of felony accounts and the jerry rigged crime hasn't been announced yet. that seems wild to most people which is why you can have conflicting legal opinions about how the case is going, how the prosecution is going. i think the two men you mentioned have rightly pointed out how this is an extremely weak case for grounds for appeal all over the place. most americans to the extent they are paying attention they

are shrugging. "the new york times" polling that came out yesterday. trump's margins have increased and the poll was in the field during this trial with near saturation coverage. it is not penetrating through in a way that's hurting him at least yet. >> dana: almost as if i'm getting the sense that many democratic operatives wish this would just go away. if you think about the boston university legal scholar who said he thought it was a mistake but now a historic debacle for the democrats and judicial system. mercedes, talk about what you think the jury is -- how the jury is reacting to michael cohen, who is a very unreliable witness. he is admitting on the stand several times he has lied before. >> and with all due respect to guy, there were three very significant admissions that thread the needle regarding the alleged criminality of president trump. one were the admissions.

as you sit as a juror they will listen to what cohen said. he said former president trump talked about the campaign. that he was concerned about the campaign. dovetail back to what hope hicks said is that when the release of the access hollywood tapes there was chaos and concern and now the jurors are back to that summer of 2016 and they are back in that place where michael cohen said this whole controversy regarding stormy daniels started to brew. what they were going to do and in conversations, at least he relayed this to the jury in conversation with former president trump. former president trump talked about the campaign. he said that women are going to hate me, men will think it's cool but this is going to be disastrous for the campaign. at the end of the day this is a flawed witness. we all know that michael cohen is a flawed witness. the prosecution did whatever they possibly could to take the

wind out of the sails for the defense. he admitted on the stand he bullied people, that he lies, that all of those things about being a liar, that he is a convicted liar, we all know that. have to see how with stands cross examination. the prosecution did what they possibly could to make michael cohen a strong witness for them. he is the alleged link to the crime against president trump. >> bill: cohen is on the stand and whether there was a formal invoice for the payback he was going to receive. they are backing up about services render. no, ma'am, it was not a service rendered or retainer, it was a repayment. stand by, back after this.

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>> dana: it's round two in lower manhattan.