that's a primary source of news. they're sort of a captive audience in the checkout line. >> joyce vance, it's great to have you here in person. thank you so much. thanks to all of our teams covering the court case. it is very complicated and of course our teams, our producers in new york and here in washington and around the world actually on all of the foreign policy we've been covering. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show on social media @mitchellreports. go to msnbc.com/andrea. "chris jansing reports" starts right now. good day, i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. trying to catch the witness in a mistake. you'd never know it was the end of a long week at donald trump's hush money trial. the defense lawyer described as sharp, combative, trying to trip

up witness david pecker who is at times combative, and jurors largely avoiding looking at trump, but according to those inside the room, giving pecker their rapt attention. for a day filled with details and inside baseball legalese, no small feat. we have a panel of experts standing by to explain it all. plus, nothing matters more than how the jury is interpreting the witness testimony we've seen so far. how are attorneys on both sides analyzing what jurors are taking away from the questioning. we'll ask a jury consultant. and for the political stakes of this trial, the campaign. the former president announcing new campaign events when he's not in the courtroom while president biden just made a promise that could have a major impact on november's race. so a lot to get to. we begin with that redirect questioning of key witness david pecker, which began just a short time ago. prosecutors jumping straight into rebutting some key threats

from the defense. one key, for example, steinglass, is that true, mr. pecker? was that your purpose in locking up the karen mcdougal story, to influence the election? to which pecker replied yes. that came after trump's defense team in cross examination tried painting the picture that what the "national enquirer" did for trump in 2016 was just business. nbc's vaughn hillyard is reporting from outside the courthouse in new york city. also with us, paul butler, former federal prosecutor, georgetown school of law professor and an msnbc legal analyst, and tristan snell former assistant to attorney general for new york who led the trump university investigation. he is also the author of "taking down trump: 12 rules for prosecuting donald trump by someone who did it successfully." so vaughn, catch us up on the big moments so far and how trump has been reacting to what's unfolding. >> reporter: right, chris, the cross examination from donald

trump's defense team ended after nearly four hours, and over the course of those four hours, this morning here you have the prosecution -- or i should say you have the defense team for donald trump repeatedly trying to muddy the waters. calling into question, past statements, recollection of david pecker over his conversations with donald trump in 2015, 2016. his conversations with federal prosecutors back in 2018, even american media's letter to the fec as recently as 2021, and over the course of this, they called into question michael cohen's credibility through david pecker's own testimony, and now what we saw over the last half hour from this redirect from the prosecution was an attempt for the jury to refocus in on what david pecker testified to their initial questions. and that was the fact that this was done in an effort to influence the 2016 election. you have them focusing on the

fact that this was an unusual relationship. folks will recall that yesterday under cross examination he referenced arnold schwarzenegger and the fact that they had a similar relationship with the former california governor during his campaign in the early 2000s in california, but the distinction that the prosecution is now making through david pecker is that there is no more than $20,000 ever spent on sourcing to quash any negative stories about schwarzenegger and there's no previous candidate ever including schwarzenegger in which david pecker or the "national enquirer" had agreed to be the eyes and ears in work with such direct cahoots with a candidate or with the campaign, and they once again just had david pecker acknowledge that by buying the rights to karen mcdougal's story that there was, quote, zero intention to ever publish her story, that it was all an effort to, quote, help candidate donald trump. the prosecution wants this

afternoon in finishing its redirect to hone in for this jury. again, the focus that david pecker is here to tell the story that, number one, they used david pecker and the "national enquirer" to influence the 2016 election and that, number two, that they sought after these negative stories alleging extramarital affairs with donald trump in order to keep them from the american public before november of 2016, chris. >> okay. paul, trump's defense drilled in again today into the words standard in questioning pecker, they drew that running negative stories like one on trump's opponents was standard because it was good for business, but in redirect, steinglass also now honed in on that term. he asked is it standard to be negotiating with a presidential candidate's fixer on an agreement and is a $1 million liquidated damages clause on a $30,000 source agreement standard operating procedure. who's being more effective on

the use of the word standard and why does it matter so much? >> so i think they were both making decent points. this trial is about trump's motive in arranging this hush money payment, hush money payments aren't illegal unless you're disguising business records or falsifying business records, which is what the prosecution is alleging, and so trump's defense is, well, a lot of people did these deals where they tried to protect their private information. it wasn't about the campaign. it's about people's reputation or trump's case, it was about protecting his family. but again, if you're going to do a deal like that, do you really pay all this money that trump was willing to pay both karen mcdougal and stormy daniels. that hasn't been the practice in other cases. and mr. pecker's key concession

both on direct and now in response to the redirect was that trump knew that this was about the campaign. that's what alvin bragg has to prove and i think on that point he's proving it. >> so this, tristan is exactly why i was surprised to hear, we're following our blog, other blogs from people who are in the room. they talk about jurors being rapt. they are leaning in. they are taking copious notes. a lot of this is testimony is pretty inside baseball. who's doing a better job here? from your reading of it? >> yeah, look, i think they're both doing a pretty good job, but i think the prosecution is scoring more points right now. when the jury is leaning in, and they're paying attention, look, a lot of this is inside baseball, but a lot of this is pretty direct and clear. like, what was the purpose of all of this. i think that there's a certain amount of common sense here that i think the jurors are going to bring to bear.

what was the purpose of paying this money. that's really what this whole thing comes down to. the fact that the money was paid is not really in question. the fact -- >> and it's not illegal, keep pointing that out. >> and then we're going to get to the part where it's clear that michael cohen invoiced it and it was papered as legal expenses to him when it wasn't. that's going to be clear too. the question is why did they do it? and i think the fact that the jury is leaning in and the fact that you're seeing some really great stuff here on redirect, i think that the prosecution scored a lot of points today. >> so when you're talking with these kinds of things, and again, i'm not hearing it. i'm only reading what can be typed very quickly, is this something that you don't necessarily need the jury to follow in every detail right now? if it's that important you'll bring it back this closing or with a later witness. >> of course, exactly. >> you're laying the groundwork. >> you're laying the groundwork. a lot of these exchanges here,

these are very simple questions and very simple answers. some of them aren't. some of them are much more involved. some of them are actually very, very cut and dry. the purpose of it was to influence the election. pecker saying, yes, we've put that up on the screen a number of times now. that's a key thing. the jury heard that. like a lot of those sort of big moments in there, the jury was dialed in. from all reports, they were paying attention. they got those key moments in it, and, yes, if the prosecutors do their job right, and i trust they will, they're going to keep coming back to these key points as the trial progresses. >> let me ask you about one of those moments that will seem, i think, pretty straightforward to most people, but i want your interpretation of it. trump's lawyer pressed pecker on his efforts to sell the "national enquirer" during talks for that non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in new york. bove asked pecker, you knew that to consummate that deal, you had to clear up the investigation, to which pecker replied, yes. what's the significance there?

>> so, chris, at the end of the trial, the judge is going to instruct the jury that the defense does not have to prove anything. it's the prosecution that has the heavy burden of proof, so mr. bove's shot is to plant reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. so his cross examination is trying to suggest to the jury that the prosecution's first witness is compromised, and thus, he's not credible. if he admits to wrongdoing, then he's going to lose money from this deal with trying to sell the "national enquirer" and that's also why mr. bove is focused on pecker's non-prosecution deal. he wants the jury to think that pecker is basically marching to alvin bragg's orders because pecker doesn't want to go to jail himself. so that's also why he told the jury that trump thanked -- that trump had thanked mr. pecker a

few days before the inauguration even though mr. pecker earlier told the fbi that trump had not thanked him. so chris, for an effective cross examination, mr. bove doesn't need a perry mason moment where pecker breaks down on the stand. all he has to do is kind of chip away at mr. pecker's testimony, and i think he's done a decent job of that. >> yeah, there are points at which, again, reporting from inside, they talk about the way bove was approaching this, the description of david pecker is that he's a smaller man, fairly slight, that he has a kind of a soft demeanor, which belies, right, the jobs that he actually did, but that's the way he's coming across on the stand, and at one point, bove got pretty pointed and raised his voice a little bit. are you very careful when you're doing a cross examination about

how you come across in contrast to however the witness presents? >> right, because there's two things you're trying to do there. one of them is to get the witness to say things that help your case. that's actually what you're trying to get them to do. you're trying to get that opposing witness to say things that help your case. the other thing you're trying to do at all times is to be likable and relatable with the jury. if the jury doesn't like you, you're toast. so yeah, i don't think it's great for bove to then be striking too much of a contrast. you've got a witness that's being nice and courteous and so forth and so on, and then you've got a defense counsel who's ripping them apart, that's not a good combo. that's a bad contrast. it's not going to make the jury really like bove very much. i think, look, they managed to find some little things in there to make people question pecker's credibility. but i think the one thing that a lot of people have is common

sense, and this will get carried into the jury room, is that if you've got an alleged criminal on trial and the other witnesses are other people who did bad things, well, that's just how it works. like to catch a criminal you're probably going to have other people that engaged in criminal activity up on the stand. that's just the way these things go. and the prosecution will probably point that out at different points here. a lot of these people, their hands aren't clean either, but they came clean, they cooperated with us, and they're now telling the truth, and that's exactly how -- you're not going to get that person's criminal culpability examined unless you look at the other people that engaged in criminal activity with them. >> i should say, paul, that they've just broken for lunch. the expectation is that they maybe have another half hour or less and then re-cross but they're out until 12:15. i want to go back to this idea about even though the questions get asked multiple times, and

sometimes they can get asked in a very convoluted way. at the heart of this, right, to some extent is intent. why did catch and kill happen? did it happen for business reasons? did it happen because this was standard operating procedure, or did it happen because they were trying to protect the campaign. and in one of the very last exchanges that just happened in the last couple of minutes, here's what david pecker said. those stories that came up -- and he means the negative stories that would appear, i would speak to michael cohen and tell him that these are the stories that are going to be for sale. if we don't buy them, someone else would. how important is that for the case the prosecution is trying to make and that bove was trying to disprove? >> yeah, it's huge, so every one of the government's witnesses who has knowledge will say that this catch and kill deal and the hush money payments were all

about trying to install donald trump in the white house. and trump isn't going to present one witness who will contradict that based on what we know because everybody who was involved in this, hope hicks, mr. pecker, donald trump, and michael cohen all say that it was about the camcampaign, and i think that the direct -- on direct examination, mr. pecker did say that michael cohen was kind of full of himself. he was trying to put his fingers in everything, and he was acting like he was a campaign lawyer, but that wasn't his job. so that will support trump's defense that it wasn't his intent to try to win the election by shutting up stormy daniels and karen mcdougal, maybe that's something that michael cohen was trying to do, but trump will try to get the

jury to think he didn't have anything to do with that, that michael cohen was a lone wolf. >> for the first time our team that has been inside the courthouse can join us live to talk about what they saw. i want to bring in msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin, msnbc contributor and "new york times" investigative correspondent sue craig, and legal analyst kristy greenberg as i always do, i want to get, first of all, lisa, just your big takeaways from the morning because, again, we're reading the document. we're not in there. but for the last day of what's been a long week, it sounds like there was some real moments in that courtroom. >> there definitely were. i would say today was less successful for emil bove who is the lawyer who is questioning david pecker from trump's side, and in particular, he was trying to exploit perceived inconsistencies in pecker's testimony. not only his testimony here but

contrasting it with things that he has said over the years to state and federal prosecutors. chris, you might be asking yourself, how does trump's team know what david pecker said to state and federal prosecutors, and that's because it's discoverable. and in particular, the notes that the fbi took during david pecker's meeting with federal prosecutors were discoverable in this court, and usable for impeachment purposes. that doesn't always happen in federal court. i thought that was not as successful as bove wanted it to be because he was sort of fixated on small details. he was also trying to elicit from pecker inconsistencies between what pecker himself had said and things that his lawyers had represented to state and federal prosecutors. largely that was shut down. the one thing that i thought bove had some success at was planting in the jurors' mind the idea that david pecker confessed to certain conduct not because he actually did it but because at the time that the sdny came

knocking, the manhattan bureau of the department of justice, david pecker and ami were trying to close a $100 million transaction with the hudson news group, and his insinuation was if you didn't resolve this investigation, that transaction would have fallen apart. it turns out it did fall apart, although i'm not sure exactly why. but i thought that sort of might have created an impression in the jurors' minds, this guy had a motivation not to tell the truth, and it was beyond saving his own hide. it was for the thing that he has told us throughout motivated him programs more than anything, which is the financial bottom line. and then of course josh steinglass got to start his redirect, and the thing that i thought he was great at doing was dismantling the trump's team standard operating procedure theme. they tried yesterday a million times to get pecker to explain that various facets of the trump arrangement were actually just standard operating procedure at ami.

they had source agreements all the time. the source agreements had nondisclosure provisions and exclusivity provisions. it was standard to pay sources and on and on and on, and steinglass was great at separating out what made the trump agreement unique and also pointing pecker to provisions in his non-prosecution agreement and the settlement agreement with the fec that bove had purposely not shown to the jury to show in actuality he did admit to conduct that while not flat out admission of a legal violation, was tantamount to the same, chris. >> was there a moment for you, sue? >> yeah, there absolutely was. i have to say for me the morning, there was a lot of trying to discredit david pecker and poke holes in the testimony, but for me, i think the morning back and forth both with the government and donald trump's lawyers was donald trump's team trying to muddy up that payment to karen mcdougal. david pecker has said it was a

payment to silence her in essence, that there was no services provided, but donald trump's lawyers spent the morning saying, well, hang on. there were services provided. she got the cover of a magazine. she got a column. there actually was, you know, services provided for that money. david pecker, of course, is saying that those were just sort of dressing on it to make it look legal. that the real intent of it was to buy karen mcdougal's silence. that is really important because this trial will come down to was there a crime concealed, and that's what we're all looking for, and they were trying to say, well, hang on, that wasn't a crime what happened, she did some stuff, and she got paid. i thought that, to me, was really important and on redirect, the government's lawyers came back in and kept asking pecker about it, and he kept saying over and over, sure, she did some stuff, but the real purpose of that was to silence her, and in fact, he ended up paying a fine to the federal election commission for that

payment for -- because a corporation got involved in an election when they shouldn't have. >> one point when bove, kristy greenberg, was really it seemed again -- i'm reading the document. that's why i'm asking you folks who were actually in there, when bove was talking to pecker and challenging his interpretation of some of the things that happened, it ended essentially with pecker saying, you know, i'm trying to tell the truth or tried to tell the truth here, and i wonder how that played? >> i don't think it played very well because he really did come across as someone who was trying to tell the truth, who was looking at documents when they were brought to him, trying to refresh his recollection, and so when you continue to say to someone, you know, there was one moment in particular where david pecker is being shown documents

that were not his own notes but notes that were drafted from the fbi. these were not notes that he reviewed at the time. he never looked at them for accuracy, and he's being cross examined on inconsistencies between his testimony and what's in the notes. and david pecker quite rightly said, i didn't write these notes. i didn't -- you know, i didn't review these notes. these aren't mine. they may be wrong. maybe there's a mistake in them. i know what i testified to. i know that i am telling you the truth, and it was just -- bove wanted this to be a got cha moment, and it was not. it fell completely flat. pecker came across as minnesota who was earnestly trying to tell the truth. >> what was your impression, sue, of donald trump today? >> well, two things that i just want to start a little bit with that moment that kristy was talking about because they really -- that was their gotcha moment, and i do think it fell flat. they thought that they could discredit him, and they said, well, this -- you know, your recollection doesn't match these notes, but they were notes.

there was no transcript, and i think the jury, they were hammering on it. we don't obviously know how it fell with the jury, but i think it fell pretty flat in the courtroom of the people who were watching. donald trump came in this morning and he looked tired. i think we all were tired. he particularly looked tired, and he did have his eyes closed for most of the day. i can't say he was sleeping. sometimes he is listening when he has his eyes closed, but he looked fatigued when he came in. i have to say i think we're all feeling fatigued, the courtroom itself, there was a feeling a fatigue in the courtroom. he looked very tired this morning. >> chris, can i add two things to amplify things that kristy and sue have just said? >> please. >> okay. i want to talk about these fbi notes because, as emil bove should have known -- and kristy knows well -- fbi 302s, which are the reports that are created after a witness interview are not transcriptions. in fact, that's one of the reasons that jack smith's team recorded the all of their interviews of witnesses and

provided actual transcripts in the mar-a-lago documents investigation because they didn't want to be confused of having incomplete fbi 302s, so bove should have known going in there that that is a criticism that can be lobbed at any fbi 302. the other thing i wanted to say about sue's observation that trump is tired. there have been days trump has been alone. they have seen the criticism in the press about him falling asleep and/or how small he seems when he's solitary, so he is always accompanied by one of his lawyers directly adjacent to him now when they go to these long side bars. >> they actually shuffled over to make sure there's someone sitting next to him. >> so they actually change seats? i just want to -- i just want to clarify that point, a lawyer will actually change seats to be sitting next to donald trump when the others may have gone up to the bench?

>> that's absolutely true, and it seems like the strategy is twofold. one, to make sure he always has company and doesn't seem sort of diminished by his solitariness, and the second goal is to keep him awake, right? and they are trying other strategies to do that as well. trump walks in every day with a big stack of papers that appear to be news articles carefully culled for his own reading. reading his good press is keeping him at least more energized than he might ordinarily be. he seems to be flipping through them with a goal of sort of taking the best and adding them to his truth social account. you can sometimes see -- although we can't see what's in his stack, you can imagine sort of that some of those things that he's been handed and in his social media posts and/or even in campaign emails later in the day. so there is a political purpose there as well as a legal purpose in keeping him awake for at least the jurors' benefit. >> how much do you think that plays, kristy greenberg to the

jury? again, i'm just reading the notes that i see, but it seems like jurors have not spent a lot of time looking directly at donald trump. >> well, i think that the jurors are really trying to focus on the questioning and the witness. it seems like they are engaged. they are paying attention. they are taking notes, and that is what they should be doing, so donald trump falling asleep or resting his eyes, whichever it may be, you know, i'm sure that's something a jury would notice and maybe chuckle at, but you know, it does seem like they're engaged and focused on the evidence. >> let me ask you finally, lisa rubin, you said -- andthese are notes you sent to us internally, if he could manage it steinglass would be wise to end redirect before lunch, and was otherwise credible and informative. where do we go from here?

>> well, he didn't succeed in ending his redirect as i think even kristy -- he has had a half an hour left. however, the ending point that he, you know, ended on right before we came to the lunch break was -- i'm going to borrow his phrase, was prosecute gold because what he was trying to do was get david pecker to admit that, yes, it was mutually beneficial for he and trump to agree to publish positive stories about donald trump, particularly given donald trump's popularity with the "enquirer's" readership. on the other hand, agreeing to suppress karen mcdougal's story was not at all in the pecuniary interests of pecker or ami. why? agreeing not to publish it or having the interest not to publish it not only helped donald trump, but more importantly running that story as steinglass got pecker to admit would have been "enquirer" gold, and that is literally where we stopped. that's the impression the jurors were left with before their long

lunch break. he'll get an opportunity to continue with pecker before they get to call their next witness. so there's sort of no harm lost with respect to preparation. they're not giving the defense an advantage because the next witness is their own. they know who they're going to call. apparently the defense knows who they're going to call too. susan necklace who's one of trump's lawyers and susan hoffinger, one of the prosecutors had -- they're talking about who the next witness is and indeed, when they asked, mr. blanche asked for a public disclosure who the next witness is, susan hoffinger said i discussed that with ms. necklace this morning. it remains to be seen who that witness is. chris, you know we'll bring it to you as soon as we can. >> just to punctuate your point because anybody who has watched a legal procedural, knows you want to end before you go to a break at lunch or at the end of the day with something, here's how we memorialized it in our blog. mr. steinglass, at the time you entered into the agreement, you had zero intention of publication, even if it would have helped the bottom line, you

killed it because it would have hurt president trump. a one-word answer from david pecker. correct. lisa rubin, sue craig, kristy greenberg, we could not do this without you. paul butler, now you are sticking around for more analysis. coming up, as most eyes are on the witnesses during their testimony, there are a select few people in the courtroom who zero in on the jurors, and for good reason. we're going to dive into the world of jury consultants and the role they're playing in trump's hush money trial next. . i was born to live in the limelight. but psoriasis kept me in the shadows. until i got clearer skin with bimzelx. most people got 100% clear skin. some after the first dose. serious side effects, including suicidal thoughts and behavior,

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there have been some pretty interesting observations from people in court about the jurors today at donald trump's hush money trial t. has been a long week. we've said that, but our folks say they do seem at times, seem enthralled at this fourth day of testimony from david pecker. they've been seen taking notes while their eyes are bouncing back and forth between pecker and defense attorney bove. one juror has been seen chewing on the end of a pen while eyes are focused on pecker. these are the kinds of details that jury consultants may be looking at closely during the trial because, remember, the defense only needs to convince one juror if they want to keep this case from having a conviction. joining me now, msnbc's katie phang. jury consultant and founder of trial methods, alan tuerkheimer,

tristan snell is back with me. what do we know about jury consultants? >> we do are reporting that the trump defense team in this particular trial has been using a jury consulting firm out of philadelphia. interestingly, chris, that jury consulting firm was used in the second defamation trial that was brought by writer e. jean carroll against donald trump, and we all know that the verdict in that was a whopping multimillion dollar one. but the jury consultants in this case depending on their retention agreement with their client can start from the very beginning meaning before the jurors are even brought in in terms of the potential veneer ray, meaning from day one of their retention, they sit down and consider what would be the profile for the perfect juror in this case considering all the issues, considering their personalities, considering all the parties, considering all the lawyers. i mean, it's a perfectly choreographed information and a deep dive into what the issues are in the case to be able to find the right juror to sit on

this trial. it doesn't end sometimes for a jury consultant there. sometimes they stay all the way through the verdict. you want to be able to look at the jurors during the course of a trial to see whether or not you can pick up on cues and certain things like body language that they're buying what you're selling or they're not. >> katie, correct me if i'm wrong, but as far as i know and what i've read, and not just from sources within nbc, we don't know if there have been any jury consultants actually in the courtroom, right, on either side? >> well, we do know -- we do know that trump's team had jury consultants. whether or not they were physically located inside the courtroom was not a requirement. they could be communicating with the defense team from outside the courtroom. more importantly we don't know if the prosecution has one. sometimes it's an expense that just cannot be afforded by the government or even more importantly a state agency like the d.a.'s office in manhattan. we don't know if the prosecution has been doing it. you know, chris, very quickly, you don't necessarily need a jury consultant to be able to do this. alan's amazing and does his job impeccably well, but if you don't have the resources you can

do your own research in terms of the social media history e et cetera, in terms of the background of these jurors. >> alan, i'm going to make an assumption that going into this, going back to the idea, you only need one juror to hang this thing, right? only one to say they have questions, they don't know that this has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. they know going in, the defense knows going in, who the likely juror or jurors might be? >> that's what they hope to do, and that's how they try to structure the questioning and reviewing the process and determiing personalities of the jurors and what it is about their backgrounds, what they do for a living. there's a whole wide variety of considerations that come into play when you're helping not really select a jury but deselect a jury because your job as a jury consultant, or at least one of them early on is to make sure that if jurors are going to be biased against your client, you need to make sure that they're given the opportunity to express that

bias, and then you try to get rid of that juror for cause or ultimately you might have to use a preemptory challenge on that juror. you are looking for jurors who are negatively disposed to your client and your case at that early stage of jury selection. >> that part's done. there's nothing you can do about it. the jury's seated. tell me, alan, assuming that they've kept on a jury consultant, what are they listening for, and if they're not in the courtroom, can they watch? how important is it for someone to be in the courtroom to actually see the jurors, how they're reacting, sort of what -- how much attention, for example, they pay to donald trump? >> right, and it's important to dispel the notion that jury consultants think that they can read minds or we stalk jurors. none of that happens. we have to rely on reporting from what goes on transcripts are certainly valuable, but if you can be in the courtroom, it's certainly an important factor. once a jury is seated, litigation, jury consultants, they bridge the gap between

lawyer and jury, in a sense, most of the jury consultants have a background in psychological, persuasion. and so the key is to understand how the lawyers' arguments are going to be received, what words should be used, what themes should be put forward. lawyers are so immersed in their case they often overlook these are lay people. lay people are going to be deciding the key questions in a case, so jury consultants have to empower the lawyers to make the right arguments and then during the questioning of witnesses, they want to make sure that certain questions might get asked, and also if jury consultants can be in the courtroom, yes, they will try to see -- pick up on things, what's going on with the jurors. it's a difficult task to try to know exactly what they're thinking, but i think with experience, you can understand how certain testimony is received by jurors in a case. >> we hear often, tristan that prosecutors -- and katie mentioned this -- that prosecutors don't have the money that a defense team has to have a jury consultant.

does that put them often at a disadvantage? >> maybe yes, maybe no. i think that the prosecutors, you know, good prosecutors have been doing it for long enough that a lot of them have a good sense. they're in a whole office with a lot of other people who do those kinds of cases all the time. you know, put it this way, a prosecutor's office does go to trial. defense lawyers, even a good defense firm, they try never to go to trial, so they may actually not have as many trials as we might think that they would have. they're trying to get people to plead. they're trying to get some kind of settlement or some kind of other arrangement to get their client off the hook, like a really good white collar criminal defense attorney, they're not necessarily going to trial all the time if they can help it. somebody in the prosecutor's office is always going to trial, so you've got a wealth of trial experience there. so i would not say that just because they can't hire a jury consultants, they don't have folks that are veterans of the jury process and veterans of being in trial and being able to

suss that out. >> i want to read something, we have people who are just sort of putting in color, alan, and it was about specifically what happened today, bove's cross has been sharp, tight, and to the point. whether or not he has poked sufficient holes in pecker's story is yet to be seen, but again, he is looking to convince just one juror. if you're there, again, not a mind reader, but can you tell when something has connected generally? >> listening to the answers and watching the witness, i think a lot of us can have a good sense of how it's being received by the jury. and i think what the -- what the questioning is intended to do is they're trying to drive a wedge between, yes, there's some sordid behavior and underhanded antics on the part of this -- the trump world, but it's completely different than what the legal question is in the case. so that's what the defense has

to do on cross examination. it questions mr. pecker about other clients that he did this for before trump, and that he even did this with trump before the election, so that's just what they have tad, and i think it's also crucial from a defense perspective and from a jury perspective that you want to make sure that the demeanor -- this is from -- if the demeanor changes from direct to cross, then the jurors are going to think, well, then there's something that maybe makes me think that he was coached in the beginning or he has an agenda, so that's something that we would keep an eye on and we would wonder how the jury would react to this testimony. >> alan tuerkheimer, katie phang, thank you both. tristan, you're sticking around. appreciate that. up next, david pecker may have been first out of the gate, but there is a long list of witnesses who are to come and who are, no doubt, keeping a close eye on how he is attempting to balance his long-standing friendship with donald trump and telling the truth.

and hours ago, president biden agreeing to something trump has been asking for that could have a major impact on the race for president, we'll explain after a quick break. k b.

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david pecker is just the fist in what is expected to be a long line of witnesses who on the surface at least might seem conflicted. pecker has described donald trump has a mentor and a friend, but for the prosecution, he is a

key part of the story they hope will lead to trump's conviction, and under oath, pecker and those who follow him are compelled to tell the truth, even if it hurts trump's case, of course, and even if they consider themselves to be loyal to him. joining us now, david jolly, former republican congressman from florida and an msnbc political analyst. vaughn and tristan are still here with us. vaughn, you've covered donald trump for a very long time, and for every michael cohen who i guess you could say has turned, there is a david pecker who says basically i think he's a great guy. what is it about the people in trump world that make them so devoted to donald trump or what is it about donald trump? >> reporter: what is it about donald trump is a good question, chris. donald trump has staying power in so many ways. well, you may lose an election like the one in 2020, you also continue to have a following

that is indignant upon any efforts to undermine him or the prestige of the trump organization or the political following, one that did garner more than 80 million votes in 2020, and folks are not naive to that, so even when donald trump loses an election or endorses candidates in 2022 who do lose, he continues to hold power to a great extent and also financial power, and that is what michael cohen for all those years had a full understanding of. hope hicks is going to take the stand here as a witness, and she has never met the ire of donald trump. those individuals who have caught his frustration are those who have attempted to sustain away from him, and when those individuals do step away from him, donald trump like bill barr, you are all but gone from his orbit here, and that's where folks like allen weisselberg who's not been attacked by donald trump, but look where allen weisselberg is, he's

serving time at rikers jail because he never testified against him. perjured himself under his own guilty plea as part of his civil fraud trial just last year. so despite being in the late 70s now serving time in jail, this is for donald trump and his orbit a clear line that no matter how many years pass, those who are in his orbit now are those ones who i would contend are the greatest of loyalists. they know what they are a part of. they've seen what's happened to those who worked in his previous campaigns, in his previous white house, and those that are making the commitment to him now have a clear understanding that to cross him would be the end of their political relevance to donald trump. >> including one who's in court with him now, we are told, who just yesterday was indicted in arizona, but that's another story for another day. so david, coming out of court yesterday, this was donald trump's review of the trial again yesterday. >> today was breathtaking that

this room you saw what went on, it was breathtaking and amazing testimony. this is a trial that should not have ever happened. this is a case that should never have been filed, and it was really an incredible -- an incredible day. >> amazing testimony. the only testimony was david pecker's, and given that most analysts believe it set up the prosecution's case well, you wonder what he was so pleased about. is it just that david pecker said at the very end of the day in direct testimony that he was a mentor and a friend? >> yeah, chris, i see that differently. i see trump always the showman reaching for a narrative that he's trying narrative that he's trying to sell, but he even realizes in that moment, he doesn't have anything to sell. for people who have said trump looks weak and feeble and hollow, that's what i see in this moment. he is always going to try to project a counter narrative, alternative facts. tell you that it's great when

it's really not. it's not going great for donald trump, and that was a man trying to convince himself and convince america it is. look, we are one week into this. the longer this goes and the more the other trials begin to pop up, i think there's some hard questions to ask. what does donald trump look like going into a republican convention after months and months of facing legal scrutiny and trials like this. america could be looking at a very different former president. >> david pecker, one of the things he testified about was this highly unusual meeting at trump tower in 2017 when trump was president-elect. his future secretary of state, his chief of staff, the fbi director james comey, all in the same room with the publisher of the "national enquirer" and trump is thanking pecker for bearing the mcdougal story, and apparently made a joke about him knowing all of his secrets. even as a breaker of enormous that trump is understating it, what do you make of that?

david? >> well, what i make of it is a bit of vanities, right? donald trump himself always finds the silver lining and thinks that pecker might be doing his bidding even though he's sinking his legal case in this environment. it's also clear, as you were talking with vaughn, the people who were closest with donald trump who are either breaking with them or staying with him as they're telling the real truth. to me, it is affirming that the number of people of voters who just accept donald trump for who he is. someone who aggrandizes his own self-worth or somebody they recognize for his failures. many of trump's relationships are relationships of convenience and mutual benefit. you see that in the business world. you see it in the political world and a number of voters across the country who have never met him say i like what i

get from this guy, and i might vote for him to return to the white house. >> david jolly, vaughn hillyard, thank you both. this morning, donald trump complained about being stuck in a courtroom for his criminal trial. at the same time he's planning to hit the campaign trail next week. he will spend his day off wednesday holding back-to-back rallies in wisconsin and michigan. he may be getting closer to something he's saying he wants, a debate with president joe biden. here's the president as he talked to howard stern just a couple of hours ago. >> i don't know if you're going to debate your opponent. >> i am somewhere. i don't know when. i'm happy to debate him. >> joining us now, nbc's dasha burns, two interesting stories there, trump on the campaign trail, and joe biden says, yep, bring it on, we'll debate. >> interesting and related stories, chris, because while trump is in the courtroom and he's been using this, of course, to get media attention. he's very good at capitalizing on those moments, it is extremely limiting. he hasn't been able to go out and campaign. he hasn't been on the

fundraising circuit, and this will be the first time next wednesday when he heads to michigan and wisconsin that he has used that middle of weekday off to actually go and hit those battleground states. this is an attempt for him to be able to finally talk to voters, to contrast his records with that of president biden who has been out on the campaign trail, who has been doing that counter programming and saying, hey, i'm out here talking to the people while my opponent is in court. so this is his opportunity to talk about the economy, to talk about immigration, according to the campaign. those are topics he'll spend time on. when it comes to a debate with joe biden, this is something the trump campaign has been pushing for. they want it. they feel like the contrast of the two of them on the stage will be beneficial to former president trump. remember, even though trump is not that much younger than joe biden, our polling has consistently showed that voters aren't as concerned about the impacts of trump's age as they

are that of president biden, and so we'll see when that actually happens. but the trump campaign for right now thinks that's a win for them. we'll see whether or not that's the case if and when we see the two of them debate, chris. >> dasha burns, thank you. in the next hour of "chris jansing reports," we'll speak to someone who has known the trump hush money judge for 15 years. we'll talk about how judge merchan could approach the upcoming gag order, among other things. stay close. more "chris jansing reports" right after this. more "chris jansing reports" right after this my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. yay - woo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals,

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it is good to be back with you for this second hour of "chris jansing reports." shoring up testimony after the defense tried to pick it apart with a lunch break in donald trump's hush money trial. almost over, and the jury is set to get back in roughly 15 minutes. the prosecution will continue its redirect with the witness who has laid the ground work for the entire prosecution case. former "national enquirer" ceo david pecker. the defense spent hours trying to trip him up, catch him in contradictions, even introducing several instances where they say pecker's recollection of key events had changed over time. but the prosecution got the last word before lunch, getting pecker