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the people call stormy daniels. those five words kicking off an almost unreal scene and some detailed and salacious testimony that's been unfolding today in a manhattan courtroom. the trial now on lunch break with the former adult film actress on the stand. stormy daniels face-to-face with donald trump describing their alleged sexual encounter, a story so explosive she said she felt it put her life in danger appearing nervous and speaking so quickly the judge at multiple points asked her to slow down. daniels gave a detailed borderline graphic account of what happened saying that after it was over, quote, i left as fast as i could. just like so much of this trial, it's the stuff of tabloids, it's embarrassing, potentially even humiliating for the former president and according to our team in court, it kept the jury happening on every word but does any of it prove he broke the law? i'm chris jansing live at msnbc

headquarters in new york city. back with me is duncan levin, former senior staff at the manhattan d.a.'s office, andrea mitchell is co-anchoring with me from washington. >> thanks, chris. joining us here is jonathan allen. he's been in the courtroom earlier this week and vaughn hillyard who is outside the courtroom. kimberly is a lawyer and political analyst and renato mar attie is a former federal prosecutor. so, jonathan, donald trump did everything he could to avoid this moment. again, objected to her testifying today. that was overruled by judge merchan. she's now sitting in the witness stand, you were in the courtroom. it's been described to us as 15 feet away from the defendant. you've been covering him for years. what must this be like for donald trump, past president, future -- well, current

candidate, potentially future president? >> it's an amazingly tight space. you've got donald trump sitting so close to the witness box. this person is telling these prurient details about their alleged sexual relationship from many years ago. you have the jury, you know, almost right on top of all the action. it's almost as if you were watching a cartoon or something and the jury's head is going back and forth during the moments. i was in the courthouse in the courtroom earlier in this trial and just the tension in the air during some of the testimony we've seen already certainly from what we're hearing from our colleagues today, this is a moment that donald trump to your point absolutely wanted to avoid. nobody wants to hear the details of their sex life, you know, aired in a courtroom and i think the prosecution's got to walk a tightrope here between, you know, these sort of details that lend credibility to the story stormy daniels is telling without making donald trump seem more sympathetic to the jury

because this is a difficult moment for anybody, and no doubt that includes him. >> and not just having your sex life exposed but your extramarital sex life exposed when you are a candidate for president. >> one of the important pieces is not just the details of what they're tieing to prove here but if you broaden the scope out, what she's saying basically is donald trump was hanging this lure of appearing on "the apprentice" out in front of her as he was trying to date her beyond their one sexual encounter, he continued to call her so when you think about it in terms of power dynamics, here's this very powerful man saying, i might give you a career. i might get you out of the trailer park, you know, in her words, if you're willing to date me. >> the age differential. the power differential as you point out. >> huge. >> she was in her 20s. he was in his 60s.

chris. >> vaughn, that moment where he said she was the age of her father was one of the many dramatic moments, but, you know, there's -- when you say nobody wants to have their sex lives exposed, but, again, particularly when you are running for president of the united states as he was back then and as he is now, but the difference now is she is a witness, and under the gag order, he cannot respond to her, so as much as she says she didn't want to be here, as much as she couldn't have imagined back then when she met donald trump that this is where she would end up, donald trump almost certainly never imagined he would ever come face-to-face again with stormy daniels, let alone as andrea points out 15 feet away, so he can't say anything, but are we hearing anything from trump world? >> the son of the former president, who is inside of the courtroom today, eric trump, the

one family member, chris, who is here today, he put out a social media post with all caps with exclamation points extortion. those were the words of eric trump here on behalf of the former president of the united states and his father, donald trump. notably melania trump is not here. she's not been here for a single day of what is now the fourth week of this criminal trial and, frankly, donald trump does have the opportunity to refute the allegations that are being levied against him by stormy daniels two way, number one, through his attorneys inside of this courtroom, they will have the chance to cross-examine stormy daniels, potentially as soon as this afternoon, but also he could choose to take the stand himself. he has said repeatedly he would be keen to do so so that opportunity would be presented to him but what is being detailed by stormy daniels over the course of the three hours of her testimony this morning is more than just a one-night stand, but it was the idea that for more than a year she could

potentially be on "the apprentice" and "celebrity apprentice" and that's why she maintained a relationship with him. having multiple phone calls a week and even going to an event in 2017 going to a hotel lobby one night to meet up with donald trump and quarterback ben roethlisberger. it was not just the one quick moment in time but something donald trump did not want to get out there potentially publicly when he was running for the white house and ultimately concluded at least the first half of today's testimony being asked by the prosecutors very specifically who did you understand was the beneficiary of that nda, the nondisclosure agreement and stormy daniels in her own words responded, donald trump and who was representing him at the time? michael cohen. we heard today from stormy daniels and the jury did for many of them, they may not have been wholly affair of the stormy daniels story but now they heard

in very explicit terms about the sexual intercourse that she alleged with donald trump, the idea that she was had spanked donald trump on the butt with a magazine but also the extent to which she thought she was going to dinner with donald trump but instead was led to his hotel room and engaged in conversation for two hours with him before she left the rest room and found him in his boxers and t-shirt. for the jury today, the story from stormy daniels' side was very -- painted out in clear details and now it's a matter of whether donald trump and his attorneys will effectively cross-examine or whether donald trump will take the stand to refute the story of hers himself. >> i want to bring in carol leonnig, "the washington post" national reporter and co-author of multiple books about donald trump so, carol, as i'm listening or, rather, reading what stormy daniels has to say, a lot of it is, i think you could interpret it as very

unflattering to donald trump, just one example of an exchange, stormy daniels said she asked donald trump during their dinner, this is the very first time they ever met, are you always this rude? are you always this arrogant and pompous, like you don't even know how to have a conversation? this is a man that you know as well or better than anyone cares about his image. this is a man who cares so much about having control of that image. what must it be like, carol, for him to have to sit in that room, not react, not speak and essentially just listen to what she has to say? >> chris, i think you asked that question so well right down to the heart of it. there is no question in my mind that donald trump is grinding off a layer of enamel from his teeth as he sits in this courtroom because it must be so galling for him to hear these

things said that he can't shut down, silence, or repaint. the three probably most painful things for him to hear said aloud that he's not able to shut down are that she did not want to have sex with him and he thought it was great. we are great together. that's maybe first and foremost. the second would be that she wanted to get as far away from him as she could, but he kept luring her back with the offer of some television time on "the apprentice" and, indeed, he offered to sort of help cheat so she could address her concerns of not being perhaps tv ready and he could help her by giving her the challenges or the inside scoop on the questions ahead of time which is interesting too, about the way donald trump really runs things behind the scenes, everything is a little bit gamed and prepped for the best possible pr. the third thing that must be

really painful for him to hear as he sits here is that she very much knew the details of why she was being paid this hush money, she understood what this was about, and it doesn't bring into question whether or not michael cohen is a credible witness. it's her testimony of what she was told, what she was provided by her attorney and what she was given as a way to stay quiet as he, donald trump, sought election to the presidency. >> carol leonnig, thank you so much. and right now we're hearing for the first time from our reporting team who were inside the courthouse watching all this. i'll bring in msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin who has been in the court overflow room all morning where members of the press can listen to what's going on due to the limited space inside the courtroom. so, first of all, lisa, the impact of this and the anticipated testimony and also want to ask you something i've

just been handed because at his regular in-person media briefing today, the new york city mayor, mayor adams was asked if he and the law enforcement of new york are prepared for the possibility of rikers island having to deal with the former president of the united states, and he said, this is mayor adams now saying the department is prepared for whatever comes their way. he cited the latest with harvey weinstein and that they have had discussions about the possibility of that. so a lot of speculation about how if judge merchan ends up carrying out that threat of jailing a former president and a current candidate, it would not be to rikers island. the secret service, they would find some other way to accommodate it but the fact that the mayor has even had conversations about how they would handle such a situation, if you could speak to that as well as to the impact of the testimony of this incredible, important witness to the prosecution. >> well, you're right.

andrea, let's start with the first thing. it's absolutely extraordinary that the mayor of america's largest city at a press availability today is being asked to comment on the possibility that a former president of the united states and the presumptive gop nominee might do some time in his city's corrections department by virtue of being held in criminal contempt for what would be an 11th time. there have already been ten findings or violations of the existing gag order, those are all findings of criminal contempt and as you know yesterday judge merchan very soberly warned donald trump that the last thing he wants to do is put donald trump in jail, but that it's become clear to him that a thousand dollar fine per violation which is the maximum that the statute allows is not significant enough as a deterrent so if he has to for the sanctity of these proceedings and the fair and just administration of this trial put trump into jail even

for a limited period of time judge merchan made clear he won't hesitate to do so so not surprising those conversations have been taking place among the city's department of corrections with the secret service and even involving mayor adams' office because essentially as the chief law enforcement officer of new york city overseeing the department of corrections and nypd he would want to understand what that might look like. it's also not a surprise to me that wouldn't be at rikers island. that wouldn't be an appropriate place, i think, to put a former president and his security detail through the united states secret service. it's generally understood among people covering the trial that if that time were to come to pass, there is a holding facility adjacent to the courthouse and that would probably be the place that former president trump would be do whatever incarceral penalty is appropriate. when and if that time comes, again. he could have come close to dancing on that edge this morning. he made a post about who the

next witness was without naming her and said that the notice that his team had been given had been unfair and yet that post came down almost as quickly as it went up. when i'm sure people around donald trump notified him, hey, the next violation, you've already been warned where you're going. so despite the fact that for political purposes donald trump is definitely tempting judge merchan, i think it's also understood given how hard his lawyers are working to prevent further violations and how hard they've worked in court to convince judge merchan their client hasn't violated the gag order, he doesn't actually want to be here, and he doesn't want to be there and the department of corrections either, so i think we're not quite there yet and hopefully the threat of jail will prevent that from happening for all involved. in terms of this morning, i want to share with you my view from the overflow room, which has some advantages and has some disadvantages. the disadvantages, as you know, i can't see the jurors from the

over flow room. on the other hand i get to experience the trial not only with members of the press corps but with members of the public who wait in a very long line to see if they might get an extra seat there. and there are -- there's a looser feeling to the overflow room having sat in both places. there were moments today where the overflow room even erupted into laughter because it was pretty clear that stormy daniels thought donald trump was a little bit of a joke. he was arrogant. he was rude. he was abrupt and she felt that he was disrespectful to her and so throughout her initial description of that first encounter, there was some laughter and yet things became very serious, stormy daniels was blocked from testifying to a number of the details about their sexual encounter. judge merchan found it was not relevant and could be quite prejudicial to donald trump. at one point she was looking up to the ceiling thinking to herself what did i do wrong? how did i so badly misjudge the situation that i ended up here?

and, andrea, as you well know, i covered both e. jean carroll trials and couldn't help think even though stormy daniels was steadfast is saying i never felt threatened physically, i never felt threatened verbally it was also clear she didn't quite imagine the situation as a consensual one and that testimony about, how did i get here? how did i misjudge the situation so desperately almost was echoed verbatim in e. jean carroll's testimony last may that i attended. the parallels between the two were really striking to me in that this is a man who was always felt entitled to have his way with women and has approached those sorts of situations with women in a similar way. e. jean carroll obviously would say she felt cornered physically and unable to do anything in that moment and yet stormy daniels, a person who comes from a very different walk of life in all respects described that encounter with donald trump and not dissimilar terms from e.

jean carroll who successfully sued the former president. >> let's bring in harry litman. while we saw lisa describe what she saw from the overflow room, you were inside the courtroom, and so much of what you saw and experienced are things being processed potentially even now by members of the jury and so we want you to take us inside that room. what you saw, what you felt and any interaction between the president and stormy daniels, stormy daniels and that jury. >> i can speak to the first, there wasn't any but there was a lot to see especially with the jury. we're talking about a very, very colorful witness who detailed kinds of events and just, you know, efforts and ways of being that i think for the jury was -- were fairly foreign and spoke very quickly, nervously and told

a lot of jokes and not all of them landed. as lisa said, merchan was quick to sustain objections and clearly thought there was too much detail being given to the jury. i watched the jury very carefully, and i thought in particular there were three or four who were maybe not with her and others who were. all the basics of michael cohen's story, everything we've heard so far she sub stantsz yates but she does this in a very wild sort of super colorful way that i think for some of the jurorsmaybe made their heads spin a bit and there's this question she almost seems to have experienced sex itself as sort of surreal yet a year ensues where she continues to be in touch with him and she says the ultimate nda she wanted to enter into because she was afraid based on an encounter in a parking lot that trump was trying to actually silence her

and she wanted him out of the picture as well. she disclaimed money having anything to do with it. my basic feeling is like, wow, this is a colorful maybe hyper colorful witness. >> but how much was the jury also watching donald trump and maybe his reaction to some of those very just let's say details of that sexual encounter. >> right. so i looked for that pretty carefully. it was mainly on stormy. they were taking her in. i was looking at trump and he had a general kind of impassiveness, not glowering but not happy but the basic dynamic was jury to stormy and then again i haven't seen merchan in this trial be so sort of irritated and it came across, i

think, as being irritated with her level of detail, that is something if you're the d.a. you're worried about because you don't want them to think that he, the judge, is actually displeased in any way with the witness. >> so, harry, what's your bottom line as an experienced prosecutor? is this witness too colorful and not sympathetic to many people on this jury or is it too early to tell because of how explicit her testimony was and, you know, the money that's involved and all of that which is clearly going to be the focus of the cross-examination. >> yeah, so my bottom line, andrea, she does what she needs to do by substantiating everything, but i do think there will be at least a few jurors who are not crazy about her or just don't know what to make of her and that itself isn't good but when you think of the basic story they've been painting she doesn't undermine it at all. it is going to be a bruising

cross-examination. they have a lot to work with. my bottom line is it went fine but there were eyebrows raised in the jury and i'm sure still in the jury room now. >> harry litman, thank you so much for your unique perspective to be in the courtroom on such a draw matic day. >> thank you. >> lisa, in watching this and having followed the trial so closely, every aspect of it, talk about the women on the jury. i know you couldn't see them. but this is really a story that has a big impact on women. pros and cons. and we're living in the political context of an election year when the women's vote is critical. those suburban voters, the swing voters donald trump has to appeal to. >> andrea, that's why stormy daniels is here is really to reinforce for the jurors that at the moment in time where her manager gina rodriguez came

forward and was trying to come to a settlement with people close to former president trump, the reason that it was so important to michael cohen and according to prosecutors to donald trump to purchase her story and bury it is because they were having problems with women voters and so putting stormy's story in the context of other information that we've seen, that is something that the prosecutors are going to have to weave together in their closing argument. if they do that successfully, i think she's give everybody them a lot to work with, because we know from hope hicks how quickly the "access hollywood" storm descended upon them and how impossible it was in the ensuing days for the campaign to dig themselves out from under it. "access hollywood," the story breaks and by october 8th hope hicks is confronted with a rumor of another tape that she's trying to figure out whether it's true or not. on october 9th there's a debate, first question out of the gate from anderson cooper and martha

raddatz is about the "access hollywood" tape. on the 10th "the new york times" publishes a story about other women coming forward with other allegations, so they just could not get out from under these things and it's no accident that the first version of the nondisclosure agreement that stormy daniels signs, she signed on october 10th, 2016. i also found it really interesting that stormy daniels' remembrance of the nondisclosure agreement she signed is that it was a two-way street. basically she and donald trump would be put in a situation where neither one of them could acknowledge they had ever met one another much less had a sexual encounter but if you read the language of the nondisclosure agreement that was ultimately agreed to, that's not how it came out. it was a one-way street. donald trump in exchange for purchasing the rights to her story had a right to her silence. she did not have an equivalent right and i think if prosecutors are able to elicit that as well there might be some more

sympathy for stormy daniels who really understood that she in turn was getting his silence and yet was not entitled to it at all. she is giving prosecutors something to work with and if they can weave it together with other testimony and evidence i think they will be able to convince the entire jury and not just the women that the trump campaign was under siege particularly with women voters, they had a massive problem and they were rushing to take care of it including by purchasing stormy daniels' silence in those last days of the '16 campaign, andrea. >> joining us now is kristy greenberg. she was also in the court overflow room today so harry litman made a point that was in some of the blogs i was following, which is that she spoke very, very fast. that stormy daniels gave a lot of details to the point where there were a lot of objections and also that she seemed at least certainly in the beginning very nervous, and i wonder if

when you go into a break like this, if you think that she's saying too much and we all know that at least in watching television, you're always telling your witness, just answer the question, you know, don't go into too many details, do her attorneys have a conversation with her? do prosecutors have a conversation with her, or the fact that she's nervous, just let it go? >> i think at this point she's largely towards the end of her testimony so i don't think there's any need to go back and try to pull back anything she said and ultimately a lot of those details do lend her credibility. why? because the defense in their opening has said that stormy daniels made this all up. that there was no sexual encounter and so the amount of detail that she was able to go into really lends her some credibility. she talked about how when she went into his hotel suite donald trump shows up in his satin pajamas and makes a comment to

him about, you know, that he's essentially trying to mimic hugh hefner and tells him to go change. she talked to him about melania and looked at a photograph and he said don't worry about her. you know, it doesn't matter. we don't even sleep in the same bedrooms and then when he was trying to essentially cajole her to have sex with him, he's talking to her about "the apprentice," "celebrity apprentice" and how you remind me of my daughter in a cringeworthy moment, you're smart, you're blond, and you know, she also gets underestimated just like you have been and you can do more and part of that was to entice her, i think, to do what he wanted which was to sleep with her. those kinds of details really bring her story to life. if she had just said we had sex, then they could just say, okay, she's lying, but she went into so much detail there that i thought it really leapt her credibility. the other point she made that i thought was very important for the prosecution was to keep saying at any point did anybody

tell you not to tell your story, to keep this from melania or the family and she repeatedly said no and this was over the years when she was looking at one point to sell her story in 2011 and then in 2016 before the "access hollywood" tape, nobody was saying anything to her to stop her from selling her story and that really undermines the defense's argument which was this really wasn't about the campaign, this was really about protecting his family. really puts the lie to that so i thought she had important and significant testimony today. >> and, kristy, talk about the fact that eric trump was able to post something, you know, nasty about her so the gag order only applies, of course, to the defendant, but she may have the whole array of the trump machine going up against her after this testimony to the point of how specific she was in some instances embarrassingly so and the judge seemed annoyed according to some of the other

observers. do you think the prosecution went too far in litting her be that specific or encouraging the kind of testimony that they got so that perhaps it offended members of the jury if not the judge himself? >> so, i think the parts where the judge was getting annoyed were parts where it seemed as though she was veering into territory that is not at all relevant to the case and that's not about the actual effect they had set, but about the fact she seemed to suggest almost at a point she didn't -- >> i think we've got -- >> we seem to have lost her for a moment. lisa, do you want to pick up on that? >> i'm sorry, kris, i'm having some trouble hearing you as well. >> there's probably so many people down there now that stormy daniels is testifying that i'm guessing there's only so much bandwidth down there but asking the question about whether prosecutors

pro-tensionally went too far or allowed her to go too far was andrea's question. >> yeah, so kristy and i maybe come at this from different perspectives. kristy as you know was a longtime prosecutor in the southern district of new york. that's 9 manhattan outpost of the justice department. i was a criminal defense lawyer. sometimes it's helpful to let witnesses be their authentic selves so the jury gets a sense of the real person and not a coached witness. stormy daniels definitely wants to talk and i think susan hoffinger who is leading her examination is struggling a little bit to corral her, to cabin her. there are times where she appears to be leading the witness and is drawing, in fact, that exact objection, that's because she is sort of walking a tightrope between wanting stormy to be very specific and not pose open-ended questions to her that provoke a rambling response but also stay on the right side of what's permissible in terms of

how a direct examination is supposed to go. i think so far we're okay. i do want to say one other thing about that, though, judge merchan has as andrea noted on a couple of occasions said to the witness, miss daniels, please just answer the questions that have been posed to you and i watched a similar dynamic occur not only across one trial but across two trials with e. jean carroll. most of the time where jurors have an understanding a witness is just a layperson and someone experienced, something very personal to them, they tend to be a little bit more forgiving of that than they might be with somebody else that they have antipathy toward and might be impatient about. i don't think we're on the wrong side of that line yet. on the other hand her direct examination is continuing. if stormy daniels continues to provoke objections based on leading questions and/or from merchan she's just going far beyond the scope of the question we could get there but i don't think we're there yet so long as jurors believe that this is real and authentic for her and as

kristy said, the details are part of what adds to her authenticity as a witness and her credibility, and that for the manhattan d.a.'s office is the most important part because they're trying to drive home the point that if stormy daniels had talked in the fall of 2016, if her interview, for example, with anderson cooper had been there as opposed to march of 2018 it would have been catastrophic for the trump campaign and so in part jurors need to hear as much detail as merchan will allow to believe not only she's credible but that it would have damaged the campaign in a meaningful way that motivated trump, cohen and others to do something about it. >> lisa rubin, thanks so much for you, for your insight from the courthouse and more of our special coverage of former president trump's hush money trial when chris jansing and i are back. you're looking for in a pad, that is always discreet. look at how it absorbs all the liquid.

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what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. welcome back. in about 24 minutes stormy daniels is expected to resume testimony in the trump hush money trial. back with me, duncan levin, renato mar attie and chris jansing. we have to remember, donald trump has denied that this sexual encounter ever happened so when stormy daniels describes all of those details and the room, the furniture, the pajamas, where they were sitting, and telling the story

consistently from a dozen years from different venues how difficult is for the defense to argue she's lying? >> i think it's going to be challenging, and candidly, i think that the defense made a bit of a mistake here by not admitting this took place. their defense is not that this didn't take place. i don't know that it matters whether it took place. the bottom line they wanted to pay a lot of money to keep this account out of the media, keep this out of the public eye. that's really donald trump's pride and hubris getting in the way of a proper defense of this case and i really think that is what gave the prosecution the leeway from the judge to get into some of these details, which i think it's obvious are embarrassing, damaging, and it's a really difficult line for the defense to cross when they try to go after stormy daniels because if they go too hard at her, she can be a very

sympathetic person. there's a power dynamic not just between trump and herself but also between these fancy new york lawyers and her, and so if they attack her, they could potentially create sympathy for her amongst the jury so they're going to have to proceed very carefully. >> duncan, i want to ask about a couple of words re national know used, embarrassing and damaging which are two different things, embarrassing, i think we can all agree you're in a very public space and someone is talking about an alleged sexual encounter, nobody wants to have that description, but before this even happened, there was apparently an argument with the judge that the defense didn't want to hear these details at all. they thought they could be prejudicial which goes to, i think, the second word that renato used which is damaging. do you think that this has been damaging or is that really not relevant, whatever they think of donald trump and whether or not as a married man he should have had an alleged sexual encounter, it's all irrelevant.

>> the thing is you're seeing some arguments that are aimed at the jury. you're seeing some arguments aimed at their own client and the politics of the situation. you saw that in earlier arguments about the gag order. it could have been that the most effective way to deal with that with the judge, we're sorry, it won't happen again and there won't be any more violations but instead you got this whole song and dance to the judge about the gag order is ambiguous, that we have to speak, that these -- and it was a different kind of argument and wound up losing at the end of the day. you're seeing that a lot with this testimony as well. extortion, that it was false, it doesn't really matter. so for the politics of it it matters a lot. this is his one opportunity to have his lawyers cross-examine stormy daniels to say this isn't true. she's a liar. she was extorting me. as for the case itself, none of it matters. it doesn't matter whether it's true or false. all that matters is that this is the story that was going to come

out right before the election. this is the story that donald trump sought to cover up and he sought to cover it up by paying her money in violation of the federal campaign finance laws. >> in that sense it bolsters the prosecution -- >> all of this helps the prosecution in every way. there's nothing to this to any of the noise around whether she's lying or extorting him that really matters at the end of the day and, frankly, the harder they go at it, the better it is for the prosecution, because they're really proving the point, trump cares a lot about this story, trump cares about these allegations. he wants to show they're false and embarrassing and getting under his skin and that is precisely why he wanted to cover it up by paying her the money in the first place. >> jon allen, as you cover politics, the president, the former president, i should say has managed so far to portray himself with all of these four trial, all of the indictments as a victim and his fund-raising and his popularity grew after

the initial alvin bragg prosecution and continuously grew. is there any way to game how this kind of testimony is going to impact the campaign, because we've been saying, well, we'll see what happens if there is a conviction or an acquittal but now you've got a witness like stormy daniels, what impact does this have beyond the jury? >> so, certainly he benefited from the prosecution against him during the primary, republicans, you know, bound themselves to him. i'm not sure that's necessarily going to be the case in the general election but in terms of stormy daniels' testimony it is certainly another -- it's stronger than just the suggestion that was out there before to have her on a witness stand. now what we don't have in judge merchan's courtroom is cameras, there's not video of this, right, so it's not the thing that plays on a loop but i do think that there's a dynamic at play. i want to go back to the politics and something renato said earlier. he was talking about the defense and why the defense wouldn't just concede that trump had an

affair with stormy daniels or that it's not an issue that matters, and even if trump did have this alleged affair, for him, he wants his base. he wants the people who support him to be able to go out there and believe and say and convince others that he's the right guy to run for president and show them strength. he's somebody that believes apologizing or conceding things is a weakness not a strength so to go out there and defend himself against the allegation of this extramarital affair is politically important to him even though it's at odds with his best legal case. >> renato, let's talk about this witness. she's known as -- across the country as a porn star, stormy daniels, she says that's the name she prefers. we saw the prosecution asking her to recount her childhood. she got a scholarship from texas a&m. how important was it to humanize her and to show the considerable work that she did, the work

ethic and, you know, how she was building a career. >> yeah, it was really important for the prosecution to do it for two reasons, one is as i alluded to earlier, they want to make it painful for the defense if they're going to attack her very viciously. they want the defense to pay a price if they go after her really hard and are cruel to her. if the jury likes her as a person and she is somebody who a lot of jurors are going to like, that is going to create a situation where the defense is going to be pulling punches and will have to pay a price if they go after her hard as trump probably wants her to do for political or personal reasons but, secondly, trump took advantage of her desire to become more than what she was, her ambition, her desire to try to improve herself, at least according to her testimony, and they want to show that this is not just a, quote, porn star where you're essentially have

negative stereotype the jury might have, this is a human being who is -- who was promising and intelligent and had ambitions and desires just like everybody else and according to the prosecution and the testimony of stormy daniels, donald trump wanted to take advantage of that to get what he wanted out of her. >> and you've got a jury here of seven men and five women. how much does gender play a role in, you know, well past jury selection but how jurors can react to this? >> well, i will just say that i think there's definitely more of a danger of men stereotyping her and i think that's precisely why they're trying to humanize her, but i really think that trump has to be concerned about women identifying themselves with stormy daniels, not everybody, of course, is an adult entertainment artist, but

everybody and particularly women have experiences with power dynamics, people, whoever you are, have the experience of being taken advantage of somebody by somebody who is more powerful than you, of being in a situation where you're uncomfortable and feel like you have to go along and do something you would prefer not to do but you feel like that's the right thing to do in the moment or your only choice in the moment. that is what the prosecutors are trying to do, to make her a human being, to make her someone that everyone can identify with particularly women who often, unfortunately, are put in situations and dynamics where men can take advantage of them. >> apparently she's trying to have some kind of connection with the jury, at least based on people who are in the room and say she was looking at them at times. i want to give you one example. the day they met, donald trump asked her to dinner, ultimately she goes to his room as we know and describes it as three times the size of her apartment,

just -- this is not the hotel room that we are used to being in, looking at the jury, not what we are used to, motioning to them like she's almost having a conversation with them. is that -- whether it's a strategy or whether it's just who she is, whether she's just talking to them, does it help? >> well, sure, it helps a lot obviously to have a good rapport with a jury, sometimes it's more important than others, so, for example, we heard earlier from the corporate controller for trump, former, and he got in some documents and there are other witnesses who get documents and their rapport with the jury doesn't matter as much because they're really just being called to get some testimony in, get some documents in and the prosecution is going to argue that this case is a jigsaw puzzle, all of those pieces corroborate every other piece. with a witness like stormy daniels it matters a lot more because she's not testifying about documents.

she's testified about her firsthand experiences and so the fact is that it's very important to the prosecution that the jury likes her, that they find her to be believable and in a way she's really allowing trump's own words into this jury, trump may or may not testify. i think it's largely assumed he's not going to testify more many reasons. stormy daniels is a witness who can get in some of the horrible things that donald trump has said and done, much like those tapes come in. she can get those in through her own words so her credibility matters a lot here. there's an old saying from prosecution offices you can rush your way into an acquittal. well, in a way she's an unnecessary witness. the prosecution has made out its case already at this point. they've made out false business records. they've shown that these numbers were grossed up that they were not real, they've shown the intent to defraud the voters. they've shown the conspiracy between pecker of "the national enquirer," michael cohen, donald trump to violate the federal

campaign finance laws, they've shown all that. you say, why did they need stormy daniels in the first place? i think not only to illustrate the bombshell horrible news but also to show donald trump's own just terrible sordid, ugly actions and let that come in front of the jury. a way of poisoning them so her credibility matters a lot. >> they are going to go after her credibility, for example, she initially denied the affair with trump in multiple statement, in fact, that went to the media and then there was this report about, you know, she had signed this statement and she goes on "jimmy kimmel" and he asks her about it so let's play a little clip of that. >> did you sign this letter that was released today? >> i don't know. did i? >> wait a minute. that you can say, right? >> it doesn't look like my signature, does it? >> it doesn't look like my signature. you're saying perhaps this letter was written and released without your approval. >> hmm. [ laughter ]

>> you know where it came from. >> i do not know it came from the internet. >> you deny having anything to do -- >> i also work for the fbi and i'm a man according to the internet. >> i should say that was january 30th, 2018. i know that because that's my birthday so i remember that date, but she can argue and her lawyers would certainly argue because her lawyers have said, her lawyer at the time said he very carefully worded that statement which we later learned that she absolutely did sign by calling it a romantic affair. it was not romantic. it was a single encounter. it was not an affair. it was a single encounter. can jurors get into her mindset of den they can attack her all they want. at thehe end of the day, witness come in sometimes and lie at the beginning.at

witnesses sometimes correct things. she has some baggage to her. these types of things clearly are going to be brought out by the defense trying to show she's a liar. that she's changed her story. but at the end of the day, the question for the jurors really is not whether she's telling the truth or lying. it's that this was the story that was going toas come out. again, their entire line of questioning against her really is not going to get her, get them very far at the end of the day. they're going to attack her credibility because frankly, they're going to attack all of the witness' credibility. trump found the witnesses. they were brought here because trump made them the witnesses. daniels is a witness because of trump. at the end of the day, that's who the prosecution gets. they don't get to pick and choose who they bring as witnesses. they are handed their witnesses. they're left with stormy daniels and i think at the end of the day, she'll be found to be credible by the jury.

>> the defense team is going to try to portray here and cohen as extortionists trying to shake down donald trump. that's certainly the one word used in his post. how do they accomplish that? >> i think these witnesses are very different. michael cohen at the time of course was on trump's team, right? he was trump's fixer. his lawyer of sorts. so he was on trump's team but since then, of course, he's made many negative statements about trump. he's sort of made a living off of his former relationship with trump. there's a lot to workor with there. he's also somebody who is a convicted liar fraudster, et cetera. stormy daniels is different. somebody the jury's going to be more sympathetic towards. arguably taken advantage of by donald trump. she was paid to stay silent during that period of time. but i think there was

embarrassment on her own end about that encounter and really since that time, she has been the, not the perpetrator, she's a victim of fraud. defrauded byau her own attorney. she's actually somebody i think a lot of jurors are going to be sympathetic towards. a light touch would be ideal against daniels. i doubt they'll have the self-control to do that, but i think they're going to have to do very hard against cohen, who is, you've got a lot to, he's giving them a lot to work with, but w he's much more crucial fr a legal perspective for the prosecution. >> thank you both. duncan, you are sticking around and andrea mitchell, thank you very much for co-hosting with me. you'll be back at noon tomorrow for "andrea mitchell reports" and so we'll see you then. stay right here because we are just moments away from trump's hush money trial resuming after the lunch break in just a few minutes. stormy daniels back on the witness stand. our special coverage of former

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at this moment, donald trump has just returned to the courtroom for his hush money trial after a lunch break after what can only be described as an unprecedented, extraordinary, detailed and salacious morning of testimony from stormy

daniels. and today, a critical question to daniels as she testified under oath and often with a lot of detail about the alleged encounter with donald trump that she was paid to stay silent about. the question came from the prosecution. did trump express any concern at that point about his wife finding out? the answer from the adult film star, no. it could speak directly to motive and may serve to undercut the argument the defense wants to make. that trump's goal in paying hush money was to protect his family. not his presidential campaign. again, stormy daniels due back on the stand any moment now as court is just starting to return from the break. already she has recounted what happened inside trump's hotel room and later, trump introducing her to his friend, karen. that is karen mcdougal.

hello, i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city alongside my coanchor. >> also with us, vaughn hillyard reporting from outside the courthouse. peter baker, chief white house correspondent for the "new york times" and msnbc political analyst. duncan levin, criminal defense attorney and senior staff at the manhattan d.a.'s office and shan wu. just remind us where her testimony left off. >> reporter: right. we were getting into the nitty-gritty of the actual nondisclosure agreement between stormy daniels and michael cohen and she testified just before the jury went out on lunch break that she understood that the nda was being signed by donald trump. that he was party to this agreement here, but that michael cohen was representing him with this agreement here.