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Happy Friday! A fab four o'clock

0:34

in New York. We are monitoring

0:36

the ongoing criminal trial of Donald

0:38

Trump or on Day eight and

0:40

this election interference hush money trial

0:42

today brought the introduction of witnesses

0:45

number two and three for the

0:47

prosecution. Right this moment the prosecution

0:49

is questioning Gary Pharaoh. He's a

0:51

man who with Michael Collins banker

0:53

at First Republic Banking help set

0:55

up that Home Equity line of

0:57

credit. For. Which Michael Cohen paid,

1:00

stormy and will reimbursed. Stand By Donald

1:02

Trump. It's the financial transaction that's at

1:04

the heart of all of this. The

1:06

second witness was a woman by the

1:08

name of run out graph. You may

1:10

not know the name, but she was

1:12

in the room for just about everything.

1:15

She's Donald Trump's long time assistant. Graph

1:17

noted that she worked at the Trump

1:19

Organization for thirty four years. She also

1:21

noted that she was on the stand

1:23

because she had been subpoenaed and that

1:25

the Trump Organisation is paying for her

1:27

attorneys in a very. Brief line of

1:30

questioning from the prosecution Album Brags

1:32

team had graph authenticate emails, documents,

1:34

and email contacts for Stormy Mcdaniels

1:36

and Karen Mcdougall. Graph even said

1:39

that she had a big recollect

1:41

recollection of seeing Stormy Daniels in

1:43

the reception area of her up

1:45

this before Donald Trump was running

1:48

for President in cross examination from

1:50

Donald Tom Sawyer. Crap also said

1:52

she recalled hearing about how Stormy

1:55

Daniels, who she knew at the

1:57

time was a porn star. was

1:59

under can consideration to be a contestant

2:02

on the Celebrity Apprentice. Now,

2:04

today's day in court began with

2:06

the former National Enquirer CEO David

2:09

Pecker finishing his testimony. Trump's

2:11

team continued its cross-examination of

2:14

Pecker. At times, it

2:16

was contentious. Pecker reiterated at

2:18

the end of that cross-examination that he

2:20

was being truthful to the best of

2:22

his recollection. When questioned

2:24

again by the prosecution, it's

2:26

called a redirect, Pecker confirmed

2:29

that while he coordinated hundreds

2:31

of thousands of nondisclosure agreements,

2:33

NDAs, during his tenure at AMI,

2:35

he indicated that, quote, the only

2:38

one he did for a

2:40

presidential candidates campaign was the one he

2:42

did for Donald J. Trump. And

2:45

he repeated that he bought the story

2:47

of Karen McDougal's affair with Donald Trump

2:50

for the purpose of influencing the outcome of

2:52

the 2016 election. Let's

2:55

very start today with some of our favorite

2:57

reporters and friends. We have a full table

2:59

today. We expect Halman to come screeching in

3:01

at any moment. But for now, MSNBC,

3:04

he's not here yet, but he will be

3:06

here. Also joining us, former top

3:08

official of the Department of Justice and MSNBC

3:10

legal analyst Andrew Weissman is back with us.

3:13

And a special treat for both of us

3:15

at the table, special correspondent for The Hollywood

3:17

Reporter, Lachlan Cartwright is here. He's a former

3:20

executive editor with American Media Inc.,

3:22

AMI, who works with David Pecker

3:25

at the courthouse for us, my friend

3:27

and colleague, NBC News correspondent, Von Hilliard.

3:29

We start with you. And I heard

3:31

you tell the story to my colleague,

3:33

Joy Reed, last night. But

3:35

take me inside this Wall Street Journal

3:37

story. Remind us

3:39

why it was so important and tell us the role you

3:41

had in it. It came up for a second time today

3:43

in this trial. It did, Nicole, another

3:45

surreal moment where I'm reliving this past

3:48

life of mine, where I was the

3:50

executive editor of the Inquirer and writer

3:52

online. And it was flashed up to

3:55

the jury today. And this

3:57

story, the Wall Street Journal, broke just on the eve

3:59

of the election. I had a phone call

4:01

from a reporter I used to work with

4:03

at the post, Lucas Elpin. He

4:05

said, someone from the investigative team has come across

4:07

and we need your help. Do

4:10

you know anything about a woman named

4:12

Karen McDougall? Dylan Howard, whose name keeps

4:14

coming up in the matters, he was

4:16

the former editor-in-chief of the Inquirer in

4:18

chief content office. He was only sitting

4:20

a little away from me. So I said, Lucas, I'll

4:22

call you back. And I went down out of the

4:25

elevators, walked away from the building and I called him

4:27

back and I said, I'm going to risk everything if

4:29

I'm helping you. And

4:31

just so you know, David Packer and Dylan Howard

4:33

will absolutely ruin me and my visas at stake.

4:35

And then I knew if I used an old

4:37

school tabloid term, Nicole, and words, words or phrase

4:39

I don't use, it would give me some cover.

4:42

And I said to Lucas, this was a catch

4:44

and kill. And he said to me, what's a

4:46

catch and kill? And I went on

4:48

to describe this practice. It's been detailed and

4:50

caught this week of buying a story off

4:52

the market and bearing it to benefit someone.

4:54

And in this case, it was Donald Trump.

4:57

And I went back to my office and

4:59

was sweating and Dylan Howard raced in

5:01

a short time later and he said, the

5:03

Wall Street Journal's got a story coming and

5:05

he blamed two former employees. And

5:08

then I went to a favorite sushi place of

5:10

mine in the village and I sat back and

5:12

just waited at about 9pm. They

5:14

broke that yarn. And in the third

5:16

graph was the phrase catch and

5:18

kill and describing it as an old tabloid

5:21

practice. Why did you do that? I

5:23

had a moment where I felt

5:25

this was the right thing to do. And

5:28

I had over the several months

5:30

leading up to this crisis

5:32

of conscience about what was going on and

5:35

what I was a part of as I

5:37

detailed in this York Times magazine piece. And

5:39

this just seemed like the moment to get the

5:42

story out into the public domain. It just, as

5:44

a journalist, the kind of story I'd want to

5:46

break. And it seemed like a matter of public

5:48

interest. It seemed consequential. I

5:51

thought if I use this term it might give me

5:53

some cover and it thankfully did. But it

5:55

just in that moment felt I need

5:57

to help get this across the line.

6:00

It's so central to what what

6:03

Trump's legal team has tried to do,

6:05

right? They tried to sort of malign

6:07

Pekka and the entire industry, but your

6:09

crisis of conscience

6:11

and the behaviors and the pattern of practice

6:14

with Trump and Pekka was different. I

6:16

mean that that's what Pekka finally got

6:18

through today when he had a chance

6:20

to be questioned again by prosecutors that

6:22

this is different because one, the transactions

6:24

were different. There were huge huge sums.

6:26

He says dramatically, I am not a

6:28

bank and that's where the financial transaction

6:30

comes from until he reiterated this again

6:32

today. This is for the purpose of

6:34

impacting the election. Well, that's key here.

6:36

That is absolutely crucial to what the

6:38

prosecutors are lining up here, which is

6:40

this conspiracy, this election

6:42

interference, which I've been stressing this

6:45

since I wrote the piece about

6:47

there's a bigger picture here than just 34

6:50

counts of falsifying business records and the Arnold Schwarzenegger

6:52

situation came up and the defense were trying to

6:54

make out that this was sort of random, you

6:57

know, usual practice with celebrities and it was. There

6:59

were other catch and kills and we can talk

7:01

about that at another juncture. But

7:03

in this case, it was clear what was

7:05

going on here was to help get Donald

7:08

Trump, what has become clear, what was happening

7:10

here was to help get Donald Trump elected.

7:12

What was it like to watch Pekka

7:15

cross-examine? I mean, to me

7:17

it felt like, well,

7:20

we can't get you on the facts because you

7:22

still claim to be his friend. We'll try to

7:24

just embarrass you personally. Yeah, embarrass you

7:26

and try and undermine your recollection. You know,

7:28

they were really kind of going in on

7:30

the meeting that happened in August of 2015

7:34

and if Hope Hicks was there or wasn't there

7:36

and they were trying to just sort of pick

7:38

away at him. But I

7:40

watched him for the last four or five

7:42

days. He did a pretty good job. And

7:45

I think that he was very convincing. You

7:47

obviously know the story very well and I'm

7:49

invested in ways that others aren't. But I

7:51

looked over to that jury several times when

7:53

the defense were really going for him and

7:55

they didn't seem that sway. So yeah. about

8:00

sort of the what bothered

8:02

you because when Nicole and I were

8:04

talking about it with others yesterday, we were

8:07

reacting to the defense cross-examination which

8:10

tried to as Nicole said be

8:12

this is usual practice this catching

8:14

kill that's going on with celebrities

8:16

and this is just everyone

8:18

does it, it happens all the time and

8:21

it seemed to me that what was

8:23

different here is you know because I'm a

8:26

lawyer I look at this from a legal perspective is

8:28

like it may be heinous

8:30

to have a catching kill but that's not

8:32

in and of itself illegal but this was

8:35

about violating election laws

8:37

because you either are giving money,

8:39

actual money or you're giving in

8:41

kind help that is prohibited by

8:43

the outset New York

8:45

State law and with that

8:47

in terms of your explanation of call

8:50

like what bothered you was it that

8:52

piece of it? That was the corruption

8:54

of a newsroom that you know the

8:56

fact that we went from running you

8:58

know tabloid fair your celebrity scandal into

9:00

becoming a propaganda machine I mean this

9:02

they turned this newsroom David Pekka and

9:05

Dylan Howe let's be very clear turned

9:07

this newsroom into a criminal enterprise to

9:09

get Donald Trump elected and I didn't

9:11

sign up for that I didn't come

9:13

you know leave the New York Daily

9:15

News to be part of it and

9:17

as we you know went further into

9:19

just an absolute you know crazy town

9:21

of these covers which we've seen highlighted

9:23

Ted Cruz's dad and every other hit piece

9:25

we were running about Hillary and her health

9:28

I was sitting back going this is not

9:31

journalism this is not what I got into

9:33

this this case before so you know there

9:35

were a multitude of reasons that you know

9:37

I made the decision to help but you

9:39

know that was key. Von

9:41

Hilliard you down there where all of this

9:43

is going down still just jump in on

9:45

this idea of what the

9:48

prosecution was able to sort

9:50

of carve out in terms of David Pekka as

9:52

a narrator of the ways it was extraordinary because

9:54

it and if you had a different read on

9:56

this it seems that a lot of what the

9:58

defense has been doing It's talking about how

10:01

this was just so ordinary. Everybody did it. Jump

10:03

in on that. Right,

10:07

and that is where ultimately when

10:09

they were able to redirect after

10:12

the defense had their four hours

10:14

of cross-examination and they were able

10:16

to pretty effectively muddy some waters

10:18

around why, back in 2018, when

10:23

federal investigators were looking into this

10:25

year, FBI agents had seized, come

10:27

to his home and seized his

10:29

phone all at the same time

10:31

that American media was trying to sell off

10:33

the National Enquirer and other publications. They were

10:35

trying to imply to the jury that

10:37

David Pecker had motivations to give federal

10:40

investigators whatever they wanted and ultimately agreed

10:42

to that immunity deal in order to

10:44

be not prosecuted so that they could

10:47

effectively sell off the National Enquirer and

10:49

he would not be the target. And

10:51

that is what they tried to paint

10:53

here over the course of the jury,

10:56

but then this afternoon, when David Pecker

10:58

took the stand and answered under that

11:00

redirect, again, the prosecutors were able to

11:02

hone in and get him to affirm

11:05

some very crucial points. Number

11:07

one being that he testified to

11:09

the fact that yes, the reason

11:11

that American media purchased the rights

11:13

to Karen McDougall's story was to

11:15

influence the 2016 election. That

11:18

was the reason. They also got him to

11:21

testify that the January of 2017 meeting

11:24

at Trump Tower between David Pecker

11:27

and Donald Trump, that Trump had in

11:29

fact thanked him for purchasing the rights

11:31

to not only the Karen McDougall story,

11:33

but also the Dino the doorman story,

11:36

really setting up the point that Donald Trump's intention

11:38

before the 2016 election was to

11:40

subvert having these stories get out into

11:43

the public in order to influence the

11:45

election. Another part that he was able

11:47

to affirm was the fact

11:49

here this afternoon that Michael Cohen

11:51

was himself furious and told him

11:53

that the boss would be angry

11:55

when he reported back to him

11:57

that American media would not purchase.

12:00

is that third story, the Stormy Daniels

12:02

story. So this afternoon, effectively, the prosecution

12:04

was able to lay out to the

12:06

jury that David Pecker, despite all of

12:09

the testimony around questions and whether this

12:11

is normal or not, the federal non-disclosure,

12:13

non-prosecution agreement, all of that aside, ultimately,

12:16

the crux of this is that Donald

12:18

Trump wanted to keep these stories silent

12:20

because of the 2016 election. Vaughan,

12:24

after Pecker finished, they called Ronograph. And

12:27

right now, I believe Gary Farrow is

12:29

still on the stand. Tell us the

12:31

significance of those two witnesses for

12:33

the prosecution. Right,

12:36

Ronograph, for 34 years, served

12:39

as Donald Trump's assistant right outside of

12:41

his office there. And she was the

12:43

one, Donald Trump is known not to

12:45

have engaged in text messages into emails

12:47

himself or even keep his

12:49

own phone book. But that is what

12:51

Ronograph did. And she was able to

12:53

authenticate for the jury not only physical

12:56

addresses and phone numbers that she had

12:58

cataloged for Karen McDougall, but also the

13:00

fact that she had a contact under,

13:02

quote, Stormy with a phone number. She

13:04

also testified that she could vaguely recall

13:07

the fact that Stormy Daniels had even

13:09

visited Trump Tower and that there was

13:11

chatter that she could potentially be a

13:14

celebrity apprentice on

13:16

the celebrity apprentice herself, which matches up

13:18

with Stormy Daniels' own public statements in

13:20

the past that Donald Trump, the night

13:22

that they allegedly had sex, told her

13:24

that he would follow up about her

13:26

potentially appearing on Celebrity Apprentice. And as

13:29

for Gary Farrow, Gary Farrow was a

13:31

banker who worked with Michael Cohen, and

13:33

he is currently on the stand right

13:35

now. He worked for First Republic. There

13:37

was a particular email back in 2016, two

13:40

weeks before the election, where he acknowledged

13:43

transferring money into an account that was

13:45

operated by Michael Cohen. And he is

13:47

able, for the prosecution, to verify some

13:49

of these documents and these emails and

13:51

these accounts that have been set up

13:53

to allegedly have transferred this $130,000 ultimately

13:57

to the attorney who had been representing Stormy Daniels.

14:01

I want to bring

14:03

you in. I want to talk about all

14:06

of your new titles and roles in assignments.

14:08

But I first want to show you what

14:10

Omarosa said to Chris Matthews about who Rona

14:13

Graf is. Who

14:16

do you think Trump fears most when we brought in? One

14:19

name Rona Graf. Rona Graf

14:21

is the personal secretary. She knows

14:23

everyone. She knows the role they

14:25

play. She knows who said what

14:27

when. She said up the meetings. If she

14:29

is called to testify, that will be the

14:31

end of day. Did he worry about her? Is she safe for him?

14:35

I wouldn't be surprised if she pled to FIFTH. It

14:37

wouldn't surprise me at all because she's been fiercely

14:39

loyal to the president. She's

14:42

there under subpoena. Now who at this

14:44

table doesn't know the power

14:46

of a long time assistant? Right.

14:49

Like the last person you ever want to testify against you

14:52

is one of your long time assistants.

14:54

And it can be interesting, probably as

14:56

interesting as David Becker's testimony. I

14:59

came in though and every time in the

15:01

course of this part of the trial you

15:04

get people who are kind of like, what

15:06

did you expect from the National Enquirer? This is what

15:08

the defense is playing to, was this sort of sense

15:10

of like, well of course the catch and kills

15:12

are all over the place and there's all kinds of corruption and stories

15:14

are bought and sold and all this kind of stuff. And

15:17

you hear Lachlan talking about his

15:19

outrage at the fact that the

15:22

newsroom had been turned, the newsroom of the National

15:24

Enquirer had been turned into a criminal enterprise to

15:26

advance the president's political interest. And I think there

15:28

are people, some people who roll their eyes when

15:30

they hear that sort of thinking this is totally

15:32

a corrupt business. I will say that

15:34

among political journalists, Nicole, I think you know this is true,

15:37

that over the years up to

15:39

2016 all of us

15:41

who are savvy about this looked at the National

15:43

Enquirer and thought, we took those

15:45

stories seriously. And there was a lot of reasons

15:47

why because one of the things about the National

15:50

Enquirer, unlike having any kind of ideological bias, for

15:52

a long time their attitude was there's two things

15:54

that we care about. We care about selling papers

15:56

and we care about getting big

15:58

stories, big stories, right? John

16:00

Edwards. You came back in 2008 and the

16:02

best example of that, where the Edwards

16:04

campaign, not just because they knew

16:06

that a lot of what was in the Inquirer was

16:09

right, but there were a lot of political journalists who

16:11

and others in the public were like, oh, this is

16:13

like they're saying Bill

16:15

Clinton had six babies with an alien. And we

16:17

were all looking at those stories going, they

16:20

have something. And I can tell you

16:22

that if it weren't for this arrangement, these

16:24

stories, the Story of Daniel stories, the Carrie McDouill

16:27

stories, the Acts of Hollywood, they would have been

16:29

the things that David Pecker was

16:32

all over like a dog on a bone. These are

16:34

natural, these are right down the middle of the plate,

16:36

election year stories for the National Inquirer. Whether you want

16:38

to roll your eyes at it and hold

16:40

your nose and tisk, tisk, and tuck,

16:42

tuck, the bottom line is the National

16:44

Inquirer and every other presidential election that

16:47

I know of was always like, go

16:49

went for the jugular and devoted resources,

16:51

time, and attention to seedy, seamy, unseemly

16:53

stories that often turned out to be true.

16:55

The Edwards example is only one, but there are

16:57

others. And every political communications person that you know

17:01

lived in fear of a call from the National

17:03

Inquirer. You couldn't wave that off like it's the

17:05

weekly world news or something. You'd be like, uh-oh.

17:08

Uh-oh. And it may

17:10

be other arms of a campaign that

17:12

looks down their nose at it. I mean, I think the first

17:14

time we talked, I grew up, and this

17:16

dates me, but standing in line at the grocery store with

17:18

my mother, I knew when the

17:21

covers changed. That's how often I stared

17:23

at the cover of the National Inquirer.

17:25

I mean, do you think that some

17:27

of the underestimating the

17:29

power of these facts and these

17:31

fact witnesses was

17:33

part of this myopic view about Trump, where people

17:35

just didn't understand where all of power came from?

17:37

It was a very powerful tool to

17:40

have the National Inquirer. It wasn't just to John's

17:42

point, just for a sec. That's the reason I

17:44

went there. He was to break the next John

17:46

Edwards. That was Dylan Howard's pitch for me to

17:48

go there. And I'm sitting in court the last

17:50

few days, and as they're going through the stormy

17:52

yarn in the the Cameron Dougal story, and even

17:55

the Dorman, if we

17:57

had have broken some of these stories, we would

17:59

have dominated. the election, it would

18:01

have sold, you know, thousands of

18:04

copies of magazines and we wouldn't be

18:06

in this position. David Pecker and Dylan

18:08

Howard and Donald Trump wouldn't be in

18:10

this situation. But yet Nicole, that publication,

18:12

it was weaponized. It's on newsstands in

18:14

every Susan Market, in every Walmart, in

18:16

every airport. And that cover, even if

18:18

someone doesn't pick it up to see

18:20

Hillary six months to live, Hillary Hooman

18:23

going to jail, Ted Cruz, like, you

18:25

know, that real estate is absolutely priceless.

18:27

And, you know, people at this table

18:29

have been around politics long enough.

18:32

Campaigns do favors for candidates, you

18:34

know, as do media organizations do

18:37

favors for candidates. But no, a

18:39

media organization, as far

18:41

as I've seen, has it twisted itself into a

18:43

criminal enterprise, into a propaganda machine to get a

18:45

candidate elected like what happened here with the National

18:47

Enquirer. And we're still in Howard. And just to

18:50

add that point about the newsstand, I think, is

18:52

important because in a world now, like newsstands, we

18:54

don't have newsstands anymore. We have very little media

18:56

that everyone shares. The grocery store is a thing.

18:59

And you know, you see that it's across the

19:01

country, a lot of swing states where people walk

19:03

by those counters even again. I

19:05

mean, that came up this week at Walmart.

19:07

David Pekka, where is Dylan Howard? That's a

19:09

very good question. And it has a lot

19:12

of people asking and wondering. We

19:15

were in court on Monday and it was

19:17

introduced very strangely via David Pekka, who even

19:19

said he hasn't spoken to Dylan Howard for

19:21

some time, but then said Dylan Howard has

19:24

a spinal injury and is in

19:26

Australia. My understanding is he is in

19:28

Melbourne. I know there's a lot of

19:30

journos chasing him right now, which is

19:32

kind of a twist on Dylan Howard's

19:35

career when he's been sort of chasing

19:37

and hunting down people. Goose, goner, goner,

19:40

goose. And so we've given the benefit of

19:42

that, that there is this final issue, but that is why he

19:45

is not here and appearing, although

19:47

his attorney is issuing these very

19:49

long window statements to people. Well,

19:52

we wish him the best. This is the final

19:54

challenges. No one's going anywhere for the whole hour

19:56

and beyond. Maybe we'll sneak in a quick break

19:58

when we come back. on exactly

20:00

what went down in court today.

20:03

And how hope Hicks factored into

20:05

David Pecker's cross-examination? Was it a

20:08

effort to cast a version

20:10

on her testimony before it even happened?

20:12

We'll ask that question. A lot more

20:14

news coming up as the first criminal

20:16

trial of an American ex-president continues here

20:18

in New York City on day eight.

20:20

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made to travel. We're

21:11

all back. Andrew Weissman, I want to ask you to

21:13

pick up on something Bond's reporting about the bank,

21:16

Michael Collins Banker is on the stand

21:18

now. Just talk about the financial transaction

21:20

being introduced. So the

21:22

big picture when you have

21:25

people like Rennograph and Gary

21:28

Farrow from a financial institution,

21:30

this is how trials get

21:32

made. You know you have big witnesses

21:34

like David Pecker and then you have

21:37

a lot of this sort of connective tissue and

21:40

it seems kind of dull and you know

21:43

this isn't made for TV. This is made

21:45

for a jury and it's how you build

21:47

a case piece by piece. So you know

21:49

as you mentioned with respect to an

21:51

executive secretary, I'm sure there's lots she

21:53

knows but she was there to basically

21:56

prove up that there was a Karen

21:58

McDougal story Daniels. It's in

22:00

his fun book. It's like, you

22:03

can't deny it. There it

22:05

is from a witness, you know, who's

22:07

close to another witness close to Donald

22:09

Trump. For this piece, the

22:11

Pharaoh piece, that has to do with

22:13

the opening up of the central consulting.

22:15

And it really fits with what you

22:17

heard from David Pecker, which is David

22:20

Pecker's like, okay, the National Enquire, we're

22:22

the bank for the doorman. We're the

22:24

bank for Karen McDougall. But you know

22:26

what? At that point, there's actually a

22:28

lawyer who gets involved and they're like,

22:30

we're out, and we're no longer the bank. And

22:32

that means they had a problem. So if

22:34

you're Donald Trump, you're like, okay, how do

22:37

we silence this next person because we just got from

22:39

the National Enquire, the bank is

22:41

closed. So who's the new

22:43

bank? You have your lawyer taking

22:45

out a loan, a

22:47

personal loan. Not something that I think, you know,

22:49

you have a lot of lawyers on the show.

22:51

I'm one of them. Not something we

22:54

do. To quote Katie

22:56

Fang, she was like, this is abnormal. And

22:58

that's where having lawyers on the jury, that

23:00

will help. Because they're gonna be

23:02

like, never done that. And so

23:04

this is gonna be about the creation of

23:07

the essential consulting LLC,

23:10

the timing of the creation, what Michael

23:12

Cohen says about it. And remind people

23:15

the timing. And the timing is right

23:17

after the Access Hollywood tape comes

23:20

out, the

23:23

actual wire, according to

23:25

the opening, the wire of

23:27

the money from Michael Cohen through

23:29

essential consulting happens on October 26,

23:32

right after two phone calls between Michael

23:34

Cohen and Donald Trump. And

23:37

so that's again, that will be a boring

23:39

part of the case where you hear about

23:41

a wire, you hear about phone records, you

23:43

have all of this connective tissue, it's gonna

23:45

come back in closing. Von, let

23:47

me read you some of this questioning. These are

23:50

from notes. It's not technically a transcript, but this

23:52

is what we understand have happened inside in this

23:54

line of questioning. A series of

23:56

emails, and we're trying to get these as soon

23:58

as we can to show. our

24:00

viewers what the jury saw, we don't have

24:02

those yet, but the jury saw a series

24:04

of emails dated Thursday, October

24:07

13, 2016 from Farrow to his

24:09

team, quote, he needs an account

24:11

opened immediately and he wants no

24:13

address on the checks. I

24:16

guess that's also not normal. The question,

24:18

was it unusual for Michael Cohen to

24:21

want something done immediately? No. Was

24:23

it unusual to ask for no address on the

24:25

checks? Not really. And

24:27

then he explains that folks who open LLCs

24:29

sometimes don't want their address used. Then

24:32

they show an IRS document

24:35

showing resolution consultants, LLC and

24:37

Michael Cohen, sole member.

24:41

After much back and forth, they describe how

24:43

the consultant's account was never opened and never

24:45

funded. Then, as Andrew just indicated, on October

24:47

26, 2016, Farrow, the witness on the stand

24:53

right now received an email from his

24:55

assistant. Saying Michael Cohen needed him

24:57

to call him. Michael Cohen stated

24:59

he was changing course. He didn't want to open

25:01

resolutions consultant anymore. He wanted to open a new

25:04

account. Was there any sense

25:06

of urgency conveyed on that call? Question, answer.

25:08

Every time Michael Cohen spoke to me, he conveyed

25:10

a sense of urgency. Question

25:13

was this one of those times? Answer, this is

25:15

one of those times. This seems

25:17

like in addition to the documents entered

25:20

in, this is also just like

25:23

the January 6th select committee did

25:25

layer upon layer of

25:27

the motive. The motive was, as

25:29

you know better than anyone, Bond, the

25:31

political fallout after the Access Hollywood tape

25:33

came out. Right.

25:37

October 13th is when that first LLC

25:40

was created. We were talking about less

25:42

than a week after the Access Hollywood

25:44

tape was released and became public. And

25:46

then October 26th, two weeks before the

25:49

election. And I was just talking with the

25:51

team here. I know you've

25:53

been a part of presidential campaigns. I've covered

25:55

a litany of them now and usually the

25:58

focus two weeks out of a presidential confidential

26:00

campaign, just standard is usually not setting

26:02

up quickly LLCs and running across the

26:04

street to meet up with your banker

26:07

for to set up accounts and

26:10

get checks for, that do not include addresses

26:12

and claim to be for real estate, but

26:15

obviously we're not intended for actual real estate

26:17

purposes here. This is just not normal,

26:19

but now this is essentially being able to be

26:21

entered into the records here. And

26:23

of course Gary Farrow coming in from

26:26

this banking aspect here is clearly a

26:29

credible individual in the eyes likely

26:31

of the jury here. We should note Nicole

26:33

that we just also got word from Judge Merson

26:35

that court is ended officially here for the week.

26:37

This is going to be the first weekend

26:39

that these 18 jurors, including those

26:41

six alternates are going to be going home to

26:44

family and friends. And they've been given the instruction

26:46

to not talk about this case at all, despite

26:48

them having quite a heck of a week here

26:50

inside of the courtroom in lower Manhattan. This

26:52

is the understatement of the century. Tell

26:56

me, you know, what you can, I know you're right about

26:58

it, but just bring us inside. This

27:00

day, this time period of October

27:02

26th, you know,

27:05

we're heading into the election.

27:07

So it is incredibly chaotic

27:09

and we are continuing to

27:11

produce these covers.

27:14

And the attention is really by this stage, we're

27:16

kind of done with the

27:19

bulk of the hit pieces, but we've

27:21

got sort of one or two still

27:23

left and a hit man was

27:25

brought in. But let's just back up a

27:27

second. A person who

27:30

alleged that they were Hillary's bag

27:32

man was brought into the newsroom and a

27:34

cover was done up as Hillary's hit man

27:37

tells all. And

27:39

so that story was one that was sort

27:41

of produced it around that timeline. And

27:43

then subsequent to that, right on the

27:45

eve of the election, Dylan Howard comes

27:47

to me and says David Becker has

27:49

purchased some some adosia, adosia. He spent

27:52

thousands of dollars to a private

27:54

investigator who had done bug sweeps in the

27:56

office and these emails are in Italian. I

27:58

need you to help. get them translated

28:00

and where this is going to be the

28:03

cover for the last edition of the acquire

28:05

which will go out just as the election

28:07

is happening. And I remember thinking why these

28:10

emails in Italian if they're with Humer and

28:12

Hillary, well that was what they reported to

28:14

me between Hillary and Humer and their emails

28:16

are in Italian and we are now having

28:19

to get these two NYU students to come

28:21

in and translate them. And

28:23

the way that Dylan Howard told it to

28:25

me is this private investigator who had connections

28:27

with Italian intelligence had got them

28:30

from his contacts there. So we had to

28:32

madly get them translated and then David Becker

28:34

decreed that would be the last sort of

28:36

cover as the election is happening. It was

28:38

that type of just chaotic,

28:41

just one just

28:44

bizarre incident after another. We've

28:48

talked so much about what

28:50

was buried for Trump, but we haven't talked

28:52

as much. I mean, I remember the Hillary

28:55

covers reaching a crescendo after the 9-11

28:57

event that she went to. And

29:00

I think the National Enquirer, correct me if I'm

29:02

wrong, went crazy with her health. I

29:04

think that was sort of the... We

29:07

used that cover, we used that photo as

29:09

a device to again then play out the

29:11

fact that there were the, sorry, the thought

29:13

that there were some issues with her with

29:15

her health. So the election

29:17

interference, and again, I don't know that this is

29:19

a legal point, but the election interference, if you

29:21

look back from sort of what we spent our

29:24

careers doing, it's not just

29:26

what was suppressed, what was bought and suppressed

29:28

to not embarrass Trump. It's what was amplified

29:30

about Hillary Clinton that you never really get

29:32

back. Well, there's also, if you

29:35

follow the... Not too

29:37

much if you follow the money, but if

29:39

you follow the headlines, the photos, the memes.

29:44

What we know later is that a

29:46

lot of these ideas, post-9, after the

29:49

September 11th thing, when she collapsed, there

29:51

were all these stories. There was a spike around

29:54

the Hillary health stories. And I mean, not unreasonable,

29:56

you would have thought. If you looked at the

29:58

actual data on media mentioned... people focused

30:00

on that. What happened then was those stories went

30:02

away for a long time. And I'm not talking

30:04

about in the Inquirer, I'm talking about around the

30:06

country. And then in the last couple weeks, pegged

30:09

to nothing, not to any, she

30:11

didn't have another health incident. All of a sudden

30:13

in Michigan and in Wisconsin

30:16

and in Pennsylvania and a lot

30:18

of swing districts, suddenly on Facebook,

30:21

Russian disinformation that was borrowing ideas that

30:23

had been put in the bloodstream by

30:25

the Inquirer and others, suddenly came back.

30:27

Hillary has Parkinson's. Hillary has this, she's got

30:30

the Epi pin that

30:33

she was constantly supposedly taking. They had pictures

30:35

of this, all made up. All

30:37

of that Russian disinformation, I

30:39

mean, in the same way that people would laugh about the fact

30:42

that Paul Manafort gave the Russians

30:44

the names of donors that anybody here could

30:46

find out. These ideas get into the bloodstream

30:48

and part of what happened was she collapses

30:50

on 9-11, places like the

30:52

Inquirer blow that up into a massive

30:54

health crisis. She's dying. And

30:56

Hillary's dying two months later

30:58

comes back in a really targeted

31:01

way in critical cities, counties,

31:03

districts in the swing states. And

31:05

so you can trace that back.

31:07

Is that all the National Inquirer's

31:10

falls? Is that all David Dowdy, David Becker? No,

31:12

but there's a conveyor belt of ideas that

31:16

end up being really pivotal to the

31:18

outcome of the election when

31:21

Donald Trump ends up winning a lot of those states and a

31:23

lot of people who came, a lot of

31:25

swing voters came out with like, well, Hillary's dying, of

31:27

course. You all know that. And my

31:29

right about legal issue, it's just for

31:31

those of us who sort of studied elections and

31:33

what ends up in the water, it's

31:36

just something to reckon with. Well,

31:38

history is what it is. It's

31:40

a legal issue when the

31:42

news outlet is doing it. For

31:45

money. In fact, for

31:47

money and in coordination, I

31:49

suppose not on their own.

31:51

If you are in coordination

31:54

saying, okay, we are going to

31:56

give in-kind Contributions and the

31:58

National Inquirer case, Interesting times, I'm

32:00

in terms of negative information about adversaries,

32:03

but we're going to pay money that's

32:05

nerve to get to inclined to pass.

32:07

Yeah, that actually was spent. You've got

32:10

us that and that. You're going to

32:12

hear the Da's say this evidence when

32:14

David Packers sat on the stand. If

32:16

you believe it is a state election

32:19

crime, they will also say it's a

32:21

federal election Crimes They only need one

32:23

with there's com and there and missing.

32:25

That's when it isn't that know how

32:28

to zoom least some corroborating evidence. From

32:30

what same packers say. I

32:33

had. No one's going anywhere much more.

32:35

We come back will continue to. I'm

32:37

talk about what happened on the witness

32:39

stand today and what it tells us

32:42

about how seem tomato after when it

32:44

comes closest adviser someone he told other

32:46

Wessing staffers to dye their hair so

32:49

that they can emulate her for of

32:51

course talking about health. Heck how can.

33:04

I we all back on. My colleague

33:07

been hired just reporting that Trump's criminal

33:09

election interference hush money child has wrapped

33:11

for the week and will pick up

33:13

again Tuesday at nine thirty or bad

33:15

with on John Andrew and Laughlin on

33:18

been Let me just bring you an

33:20

on what happened in court today which

33:22

seems like a free bottle or an

33:24

effort to pre impeach the testimony on

33:27

the record from Davis Hacker about how

33:29

Texas presence in and participation and he

33:31

will test ride to presence in and

33:33

out of the two thousand. And sixteen

33:35

Trump Tower meeting. Talk about the significance of

33:38

that. Right?

33:41

The defense team for Donald Trump wins

33:44

in Specifically was asked about that August

33:46

twenty fifth Team meeting between Michael Cohen,

33:48

Donald Trump and Packers. after Pecker had

33:51

testified this week that Hope Hicks was

33:53

in on the meeting and they got

33:55

Packard to acknowledge that she did not

33:57

directly contribute or during the first. The

34:00

meeting but made her way in and out

34:02

in. This is sort of. I think it

34:04

is a good encompassing picture of Hope hits

34:06

in what role she played and twenty best

34:09

hands when he succeeds. but I think we

34:11

have to look at her in that way

34:13

ahead of her. Expected testimony before this very

34:15

during the shoes Twenty Seven, Twenty Eight Years

34:17

Old and Twenty Fifteen Twenty sixteen I was

34:19

covering the juppe race of the time. Living

34:22

in I Will whenever the campaign would come

34:24

to I was it was pretty much as

34:26

Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks who would fly

34:28

with Donald Trump in for. those campaign events

34:30

and throughout twenty six team even when the

34:33

lights of kelly and or see bad and

34:35

came under the team hope hicks was still

34:37

that one constant on what was a very

34:39

small team of confidence in hope hicks was

34:42

a political novice right she was who you

34:44

an email for apartments and usually she would

34:46

email back with either a short statement or

34:48

not a are no comment but it'll unlike

34:50

most cons directors for campaigns that i had

34:53

a history of dealing with you'd be able

34:55

to pick up the phone and have of

34:57

it's a little conversation with them back and

34:59

forth for she was a political novice brought

35:02

on it's a former model he would work

35:04

for donald trump previously and this was the

35:06

person who was at the heart of these

35:08

conversations right in the heart of these meetings

35:10

being omnipresent at all times with donald trump

35:13

all the way up to the points that

35:15

in you know during the transition period after

35:17

the surprise victory november twenty sixth in i

35:19

was covering that transition at trump tower when

35:22

folks would come and go and she would

35:24

help shepherd people up and down the elevators

35:26

to come meet with donald trump and i

35:28

remember going downstairs there's a little cafe at

35:30

the bottom of trump tower there but as

35:33

i was checking out she was working and

35:35

very cordial very kind but she's also very

35:37

professional and she was protective of donald trump

35:39

she was somebody who would not in an

35:42

off the record fast go you know talking

35:44

about what was happening on the inside and

35:46

said she was somebody who is very much

35:48

of a confidant looked after him as a

35:50

protector and she continued to serve in that

35:53

capacity well into the white house years the

35:55

accent the david packer testified this week that

35:57

she was the end and twenty eight seen

36:00

still involved in conversations, along with

36:02

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, about how to

36:04

extend Karen McDougal's contract so that

36:06

she would not talk publicly about

36:08

her relations with Donald Trump. I

36:11

think this is Trump's biggest trigger. I mean,

36:13

Cassidy Hutchins is in the fat where you're

36:15

sitting and said she was told to dye

36:17

her hair to look like hopes. Hope was,

36:19

you know, a daughter figure to him. She

36:21

was all those things and more

36:24

to Trump. And she is on the likely

36:26

witness list. There are, I,

36:29

in that period of time, 25, 15, 2016, I

36:32

was in Donald Trump's presence

36:34

decent. I've like a fair amount. Unfortunately,

36:37

a fair amount. What's your favorite verse? But

36:41

if you asked just as a statement

36:43

of fact, who are

36:45

the names that came out of Donald

36:48

Trump's mouth more often in private

36:50

settings, casual settings, not on the stump, but

36:52

like when he was like in his office

36:55

backstage at a political event, the two names were

36:57

Hope and Rona. Like you didn't hear him talk

36:59

about the Paul Manafort's name earlier. I mean, he,

37:02

I'm not saying he never mentioned

37:04

Paul Manafort, but Paul Manafort,

37:06

Corey Lydowski, ultimately Steve Bannon. Those names

37:08

did not tumble out of Trump's mouth.

37:10

He would invoke Rona and

37:12

Hope dozens

37:15

of times a day, often in the

37:17

same breath. They were the people who

37:19

had the most access to him,

37:21

the most traffic to him, the ones who

37:23

mattered the most to him, the ones who

37:25

ran his life in different respects, one more

37:27

administrative, one more as the interface to politics.

37:30

But yes, I think, you know, she will

37:32

be a fascinating witness and she has, um,

37:36

she has, she occupies a occupied

37:38

and may still, but certainly then

37:41

occupied the incredibly important place

37:43

psychically for him, uh, and

37:46

had an access to things that even

37:48

Rona, who was more mechanically involved in, where is

37:50

he going? What is he doing? Where are things?

37:52

Who does he have to answer? Who's up on

37:54

glass to return? Hope

37:56

was more at that nexus where,

37:59

where politics skips. scandal, law,

38:02

staff, internal politics, external

38:04

politics, where it all came together

38:06

and communications. I mean,

38:08

she knows the inside of his head, I would

38:11

say better than literally anybody. And

38:14

it seemed that the defense team spent

38:16

a lot of time today trying to

38:18

impugn David Pecker's memory when it came

38:20

to host presidents in that meeting. Memory

38:23

and it was a not so subtle and he's a

38:25

liar. They didn't quite come

38:28

out and say it. I mean, both. I

38:30

mean, by the way, that's, defense is

38:32

entitled to try and do that to

38:34

say, you know what, here's a, choose

38:37

from column A, he doesn't remember well, or choose from

38:39

column B, he's a liar, maybe you want to think

38:42

both. That's defense job is to

38:44

do that. You have to

38:46

remember, they also know very much what she's going

38:48

to say. It's

38:50

really important. This is in

38:52

some ways a little bit of

38:54

Kabuki theater in that the parties

38:56

have full statements from

38:58

everyone. They've been in the

39:01

grand jury. They've got what are called

39:03

302s from the, they've been interviewed by

39:05

the FBI. That's the form they fill

39:07

out. They have interview notes of state

39:09

investigators. So both sides are operating with

39:12

a sort of a full picture. So

39:14

they know how much she

39:16

is going to either corroborate David Pecker

39:18

or where she doesn't back

39:20

him up. I find one thing

39:22

that's really interesting is the

39:25

defense correctly as witnesses are on tries to

39:27

say, you know, didn't you think Donald Trump was a

39:29

great boss? They did that with, with Ron and Graff

39:31

and just like, yes, for 34 years. And

39:34

they try and get good information. In fact, you

39:36

saw the prosecution, do that with David Pecker, because

39:38

it was useful to say this guy who is

39:40

such a liar, he loves this guy. Right?

39:44

Still. It'll be interesting where

39:46

Hope Hicks is on that because there was

39:48

both, there was both a deep loyalty and

39:51

then there was a very rocky end. And

39:55

so it'll be interesting who asked

39:58

those questions about. about, you

40:01

know, the sort of, is he really

40:03

a good guy? And so I

40:05

think that will be a bit of a tell as

40:07

to what each

40:10

side is thinking about where her loyalties are

40:12

and also how much she's just decided, I

40:15

better just tell the truth. I think he called

40:17

her Hopi. But

40:20

Hope, I'd say Hopi was in on

40:22

information you didn't have access to. That's

40:25

correct. And it was someone

40:27

that was in the orbit of the

40:29

characters that, you know, I'm sitting next

40:31

to John Howard's office and Michael Cohen

40:33

is on the phone as we're doing

40:35

this operation with Dino the doorman. And

40:37

I'm sort of thinking to myself, why

40:39

is Michael Cohen constantly calling? You know

40:41

what, we haven't even gone for comment

40:43

yet. And we had,

40:45

you know, in place a reporter, you know,

40:47

trying to stake out the woman involved in

40:49

the the the Laudatoire, as I was calling

40:51

her at that time, which she was in

40:53

her mid 20s. We

40:55

hadn't got to a situation where anyone

40:58

from the Trump organization should have been

41:00

alerted to the story or engaged. But

41:02

yet Dylan Howard was talking to Michael

41:04

Cohen and I assumed was

41:06

asking for updates, which further goes

41:08

to the scheme and the people

41:10

in place that were that were talking to the

41:13

acquirer at the time. Tell me

41:15

when you figure out, tell me sort

41:17

of between which stories and which parts

41:19

you touch that you figured out

41:21

that something smells. So the doorman

41:23

happens and and where

41:27

where he sits with a polygraph, he passes,

41:29

but yet he's passing through something he's heard

41:31

second hand. So, you know, I'm still in

41:33

the mind that the story is probably not

41:35

true, but we haven't gone through all the

41:38

all the reporting yet. But yet then the

41:40

decision is the word comes to stand down.

41:43

And David Peck has decided we're going to pay

41:45

him 30K, which again is highly unusual. A

41:50

very large sum of money. Plus, then there

41:52

is a clause that is later installed a

41:54

million dollars rate clause that both of those

41:56

I can't stress were unusual. So on the

41:59

norm was. Those are thousands of dollars.

42:01

So, yeah, thousands of dollars to

42:04

sign a source up or to buy someone's story,

42:06

not $30,000. And

42:09

the million dollar penalty clause.

42:11

That's incredibly unusual to put

42:13

that in place. Most

42:17

contracts don't have a break clause like

42:19

that. And the other thing

42:22

is highly unusual is that all

42:24

sources are paid post publication. They're

42:27

paid when the story had run in

42:29

the magazine and David Pekka watched

42:31

every dollar. There was a 10K limit that

42:33

we had to spend on stories. Anything

42:36

more had to go to David Pekka's office

42:38

and Dylan Howard had to go and get

42:40

that approval. So that situation happens and I'm

42:42

thinking, okay, this is kind

42:44

of bizarre, but then we're moving on

42:47

to other stories. It gets more and

42:49

more chaotic as we're generating more and

42:51

more of these hit pieces. And I

42:53

cannot stress again how much time is

42:55

going in to these covers because

42:58

then David Pekka then has to critique them. We're

43:00

now learning that they were going off to

43:02

the campaign for Michael Cohen, who was then

43:04

coming back with suggestions and additions. But for

43:06

me, in

43:08

August of 2016, Dylan

43:11

Howard tells me about a woman by the

43:13

name of Karen McDougal that he's gone out

43:16

to Los Angeles. He's interviewed and

43:18

he finds her story credible. And I'm thinking they're

43:20

going, great. When are we breaking this? What do

43:22

you need me to do? Like, how can we

43:24

get this up? And

43:27

then he says, no, we're not running it. And

43:29

David Pekka has made the decision to

43:31

buy it for 150K to

43:34

protect Donald Trump. And I think that was one

43:36

of those moments where I was just like, where

43:38

am I? This is going to absolutely take me

43:40

down with it. I

43:43

thought my career is basically going to

43:45

be over because of all of this.

43:47

And my

43:49

working relationship with Dylan Howard, that was

43:51

the beginning, really, of the end. We're

43:55

just taking a break. But I do want to get

43:57

your thoughts on how explicitly.

44:00

I'm grateful Trump was to David Pecker, the

44:02

White House. Friend-a-mental. Friend-a-mental

44:04

recall. I want to bring all that back

44:06

as the week comes to an end. The panel sticks around. We will

44:08

all be right back. Hey,

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somewhere. We're all back. So,

44:58

as the weekend's, Halman, I was thinking,

45:00

what's in this jury here? And

45:03

at the end of the day, whatever

45:05

happened on cross-examination happened, and the jury

45:07

will take all that under consideration. But

45:10

the Pecker story is about

45:13

great affection, great

45:15

intimacy in terms of friendship

45:17

among men. And I just

45:19

keep thinking of, you know, presidents have dinners sometimes

45:21

for veterans or historians

45:23

or has a state Trump had dinner

45:25

for David Pecker. Well,

45:27

yeah, I mean, look, Trump

45:29

declared all of the rest of the press, all

45:32

of us, enemies of the people. Right.

45:35

You know, in a first kind of a maybe glib,

45:38

cheap way, but later in ways that kind

45:40

of put targets on people's backs, you know,

45:42

right? I mean, that's his attitude towards the

45:44

press. We know that in periods

45:46

of time, he's also really craved the establishment presses

45:49

in from out to where he sucked up to

45:51

the New York Times in various ways. He,

45:53

you know, when Obama was talking about that 27 period, 2017 period, right when

45:55

that transition,

45:58

the thing that I most. Remember, it was him going

46:01

to the office of the Vanity Fair and going to, going

46:03

down to Conde Nast to try to see if finally

46:05

they would like him. And then when everyone had,

46:07

in his view, rejected him, he called us all

46:09

enemy of the people. Who's the

46:11

one person in the press that he's ever

46:14

done anything with this kind of affection, with

46:16

this kind of loyalty? Is David

46:18

Becker? There's no one else. There's

46:20

no one else. And I

46:22

think there's a, that that's telling. And

46:25

it's, it isn't, does the jury, does that

46:27

get you a guilty verdict? Probably not. And

46:30

it comes out of this understanding that this is

46:32

not a normal relationship between a presidential

46:34

candidate slash president and the head of

46:36

a tabloid. There's, there's something deep here.

46:39

And it's not even a crime, right? To have that kind of friendship. No,

46:41

no. But it's a person that

46:43

he was that close to that detailed the criminal enterprise.

46:45

Yes. I think the credibility of David

46:47

Becker came through. If you didn't, if you thought, ah, this

46:49

is just some sleazy dude before you, well, listen to this,

46:52

the detail of it and the emotional bond that was laid

46:54

bare, I think makes you think he

46:56

may be a scoundrel, but he's probably telling the truth.

46:58

The truth telling scandal. So, so

47:01

you know, it's too early to say, oh,

47:03

this is where the jury will be. They're

47:05

going to, they will, I think definitely take

47:07

the judge's instructions, which is, you know, you

47:09

do not deliberate until the end. However,

47:13

trials are about narratives and

47:15

there was a very clear narrative

47:17

from the state here as to

47:19

what happened. And

47:21

it sort of hangs together. It makes sense.

47:23

They will see and the state's job is

47:26

to put in the corroborative details. But this

47:28

is like a very clear story. And

47:30

if I asked you what was the clear narrative

47:33

of the defense cross, there

47:36

was no story. I mean, this

47:38

was just there were some shots of, but it

47:40

doesn't, if you are, as we were talking about

47:42

yesterday, if you're smart, it doesn't hang together as

47:45

a story. It's like, oh, he misremembered

47:47

on this day a name. I mean,

47:49

that that's not a story. You need

47:51

a counter narrative. So exactly what you

47:53

really was, the defense was a counter

47:55

narrative and there was no counter narrative.

47:58

You're like, oh, it's not this, it's this. And

48:01

that's because I guess by the end of it, the jury

48:03

will have heard a lot of witnesses. And without something that

48:05

holds it all together. But we'll

48:08

see. As we keep saying every day, the jury will

48:10

decide. John Helman, thank you for

48:12

spending the hour with us. And congratulations on

48:14

your new jobs at Puck. Thank

48:16

you. Yes. Your podcast is moving over

48:18

to Puck. You're all Puck. I'm going to be writing

48:20

about all of you. No, no, no. You'll all be.

48:22

I guess my question is, can we still swear on

48:24

the podcast? Everybody was like, hey,

48:26

you're restarting the podcast. You got to get the coal on

48:28

there and get her to say drop F-bombs. I'm like, done.

48:31

Done. Done. Done.

48:34

John Helman, thank you for being here. Von Hilliard, thank you

48:36

so much for your brilliant reporting and for spending the hour

48:38

with me again. Andrew and Lachlan stick around a little bit

48:40

longer. They'll be joined by two friends who were in court

48:43

for us today. Sue Craig will be back with

48:45

her open notebook and all those stars. Harry Litman

48:47

will also make a rare appearance at the table.

48:50

Plus, also joining us in the next hour,

48:52

one of the officers on the front lines

48:54

on January 6th, Officer Michael Fanon will be

48:56

here on his continued quest for accountability. A

48:58

very quick break for us today. We'll be

49:00

right back. Hi, everybody. It's

49:10

half five o'clock in New York, where

49:13

a moment ago Donald Trump's historic second

49:15

week on trial came to a close

49:17

with a bit of a punctuation mark

49:20

in the form of not one, but

49:22

two new witnesses. In the last hour,

49:24

the jury heard from Gary Farrow, who

49:26

was in 2016 a senior managing director

49:30

at the First Republic Bank. He

49:33

allegedly helped set up that home

49:35

equity line of credit through which

49:37

Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels. And

49:40

just before Farrow testified, Rona Graff

49:42

was on the stand. She's Trump's

49:44

former executive assistant. She worked for

49:46

him for decades. She finished her

49:49

testimony. Graff's inside knowledge, her duties,

49:51

her access to Trump made her

49:53

a central figure in Donald Trump's

49:56

inner circle and a nexus in

49:58

his most private match. Her

50:01

testimony followed a busy morning

50:03

with Donald Trump's attorneys seeking to

50:05

discredit parts of ex-tabloid publisher David

50:07

Packer's testimony in the eyes of

50:09

the jury by trying to poke

50:12

holes in his credibility and or

50:14

memory. After they wrapped

50:16

up their cross-examination though, the prosecution

50:18

got to question him again in

50:20

a redirect. It's another opportunity to

50:22

ask questions of the same witness.

50:25

And Alvin Bragg's team cut to the heart

50:28

of the case in their questioning of

50:30

David Packer. Simple question

50:32

from that prosecutor Joshua Steinglass

50:34

quote, is that true Mr.

50:36

Packer? Was that your purpose

50:38

in locking up the Karen McDougall

50:41

story to influence the election? The

50:44

answer from David Packer quote, yes.

50:47

He added the actual purpose was

50:49

to acquire lifetime rights. So the

50:51

story was not published by any

50:54

news organization. While Packer

50:57

said it was standard to suppress stories

50:59

to help a friend or to use

51:01

as leverage with a celebrity, this

51:03

was catching kill in order

51:05

to influence a presidential election.

51:08

Now with court adjourned for the weekend,

51:10

it's all systems go if we head into

51:12

next week with key testimony still ahead.

51:14

This is where we start the hour

51:16

with some of our most favorite reporters and

51:19

friends, two people with us who were

51:21

inside the courtroom today, New York Times

51:23

investigative reporter Suzanne Craig and former US

51:25

attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general

51:27

Harry Lippmann. Lucky for us, Lachlan is

51:29

learning what Andrew already knows. You can

51:31

check out, but you can never leave.

51:33

Andrew is still here as is Lachlan.

51:36

Sue Craig, I start with you and

51:38

your wonderful number. Well,

51:41

I have to say, I think the

51:43

most interesting part of today was just

51:45

the continuation of that agreement

51:47

that Karen McDougal had and

51:50

Donald Trump's lawyers really tried to muddy the

51:52

water on it, just to, I think put

51:54

some poison in the jury's ear that Karen

51:56

McDougal got something for the money that she

51:59

was paid. She got a cover of

52:01

a magazine, she wrote some articles, and

52:04

that it really was payment for

52:06

service. And

52:08

on redirect when the government's lawyers

52:11

got back up, they really went,

52:13

you read the testimony

52:15

just full stop.

52:17

David Pekker was calm,

52:20

cool, and just said, nope, she may

52:22

have got something, but this was a

52:24

payment to silence her to keep

52:26

her off the market. Can her main

52:29

service be the story? In other

52:31

words, if you're in the business of a

52:33

huge story, I mean, we have this between

52:35

the two of you, it's like the perfect

52:37

group, but I mean, wouldn't that be the

52:39

main way if there wasn't this private agreement?

52:42

Wouldn't the main reason that somebody

52:44

would want this is not because

52:47

somebody who used to work for Playboy is

52:49

going to write a story, but rather the

52:52

story that she has to say about a

52:54

relationship for 10 months with

52:56

a candidate? And there was actually a great moment

52:58

because that is one point. Then there was another

53:00

point where Donald Trump's lawyers got up and

53:02

David Pekker was asked about

53:04

Karen McDougall and they said, is she

53:07

a celebrity? And there was a long

53:09

pause because she's not. And

53:12

they kept going along that it was really funny

53:15

because she's not somebody that you would put on

53:17

the cover of the National Aquarium, but you would

53:19

know who she is, even though she

53:21

was famous in some circles, but not

53:24

David Pekker's. I think worth

53:26

mentioning is when Dylan House first told me about

53:28

this in August of 2016, there's

53:31

no mention of, oh, we've just

53:33

hired this fitness columnist, we're going

53:35

to move magazines. This is Karen

53:37

McDougall. You guys are a great

53:39

new artwork out. I know you're

53:41

instructed to get those columns going after the

53:44

election, after they've told the Wall Street Journal

53:46

and then spot it as it is in

53:48

the contract that we now need to actually

53:50

produce these columns. And that's when I get

53:52

the ghostwriter in. And that's when

53:55

we actually have to start running the columns.

53:57

So, you know, there is no suggestion that

53:59

we. We've got, we've paid current government to 150K

54:02

because she's going to be the cover star. I'm going to

54:04

be giving you the best. Here's the answer. He's a great

54:07

actor. Exactly. I

54:10

mean, there's a contractual suggestion that, that that's

54:12

what it is. And that was one of

54:14

the things that were so effective on redirect,

54:17

which is that Pekka, who

54:19

was oddly credible as John just said, he's

54:21

a scoundrel, but they put the fear of

54:23

God in him or whatever. He was just

54:25

an affable scoundrel, given it all up. And

54:28

he made it very clear. In fact, this

54:31

would have been, for the reasons Andrew says,

54:33

a valuable article for the Inquirer to run

54:35

in its own rights. But they weren't going

54:37

to do it because they had one reason

54:39

and one reason only. That was the most

54:41

effective part, I think, of the whole week

54:44

is the bridge they built to stormy Daniels,

54:46

who's coming pretty soon. I mean, what was

54:48

the story of it? I've seen her interview with

54:50

Anderson Cooper a couple of times. I have a little

54:52

bit more of it. I'll play in a second. But

54:54

she talks about her love

54:56

for him and his love for her. What

54:59

kind of story was that event? Well,

55:01

that's the difference between the stormy Daniels

55:03

situation and the Karen McDougal matter. It's

55:05

for me was a one night effect,

55:07

one night interest. Karen McDougal

55:09

actually had a months-long relationship.

55:12

And yes, it was in a

55:15

love with Donald Trump. And so, when Dylan Howell

55:17

told me about it, he said, his story is

55:19

credible. And that's when I

55:22

thought, well, we'll break this. And this will

55:24

be the biggest scoop of the election. It

55:26

would have been, we had the sit down

55:28

interview with a playboy, Playmai, telling about her

55:30

love for Donald Trump while he

55:32

was a married man. And what she

55:35

believed was his love for her.

55:37

Here's how she described, and I want to ask you

55:39

how this figured into the article, their logistics,

55:42

if you will. When

55:44

you say you would arrange to go someplace, how

55:46

would it be arranged? I

55:49

would pay for the flight. I would book it myself. I

55:52

would book the hotel room if I wasn't staying with him.

55:54

Usually I stayed with him, but there's been a couple times

55:56

where I didn't. And then

55:58

he would reimburse me. that the flight

56:00

was, I don't know, most of us throw out

56:03

a number. If the flight was $500, he'd give me $500 and

56:05

say here's, you know, take care of the flight

56:07

and things like that, so. Why would he have

56:09

you book all the travel and the hotel rooms?

56:13

Well, there's no paper trail. And

56:16

did you realize that at the time? Yes, I

56:18

did. Because

56:21

he was concerned about it being revealed at some point

56:23

and there being a paper trail. Oh,

56:27

I was told there's no paper trail. I

56:29

can't say what his reasons were, but I

56:32

would assume that's the case, yes. Just

56:35

back to your point, I mean, this was a long-term

56:38

relationship that she

56:40

would have told and

56:43

lots of, you know, meats and

56:47

just maybe the person's table, his rhythm is

56:49

the National Choir that seems just like the

56:51

bread and butter of the kind of stories

56:54

the Inquirer broke. That is, that is manna

56:56

from heaven. That is the type of cover

56:59

that we would have sold,

57:01

you know, millions of potentially

57:03

and would have owned the

57:06

news agenda for weeks. And

57:09

that was already made for us. If

57:11

it wasn't for this deal that we are hearing

57:13

about that occurred in August of 2015 to

57:16

purchase these negative stories off the market. The

57:19

reason I went there was to break big

57:21

stories like this in the lead up to

57:23

the election and not have them nobbled

57:25

from the market. Can you quantify

57:28

how much it would have been worth to

57:31

the National Inquirer to have that cover story

57:33

that arguably seems like the kind of story

57:36

that every new detail might've been another story?

57:38

I mean, we would have been running this

57:40

for weeks and weeks and weeks and not

57:42

just in the magazine. We would have rolled

57:44

it out on our digital properties. It's hard

57:46

for me to give an exact figure, but

57:49

it would have been the biggest story that

57:51

the International Inquirer has broken since the John

57:53

Edwards matter, which had an impact on that

57:55

election. So it would have been the biggest

57:57

story to the Inquirer in several years. DA

58:00

called it inquire gold and here it

58:02

is. And this is why I think the

58:04

numbers that we have to work with because

58:07

it's a fraud trial are misleading because when

58:09

I come from the world of politics, in

58:11

the world of politics, this was an invaluable

58:14

contribution to Trump's efforts to win

58:16

after acts of television. To a company that was in

58:18

trouble by the way, AMI was going through huge financial

58:20

problems. I'm wondering what Dylan Howard said

58:22

to you when he got back and he says, I

58:24

have this incredible story about Karen MacDowell

58:26

and this affair. How did he explain that now it

58:28

wasn't going to be fair? That

58:31

was something that I was mentioning earlier. In

58:35

fact, he said, I've gone out to Los

58:37

Angeles, I've interviewed this woman, I find her

58:39

story credible, it's Karen MacDowell, she's a playboy

58:41

playmate and I'm waiting for her to say,

58:43

alright, well I'm waiting for him to say,

58:45

okay, this is what I need your help

58:47

with to help break this story. And

58:49

instead he said, David Pekka

58:52

has made a decision to pay her 150K and that

58:54

story's never going to

58:56

save a lot of day. We were on the subway for

58:58

that. And I'm sitting there going, in what world would we

59:00

not run that story? What

59:08

is actually going on? What am I a part of

59:10

here? It was just this moment where

59:13

I just thought, this is going to end my career.

59:16

I want to bring the layers in. Let me just show you, keep

59:20

Davidson describing some of these interactions with

59:22

Pekka and Kaun. And

59:26

so when she believed that AMI

59:28

was not fulfilling the terms of that

59:30

deal, she was upset and we scheduled

59:32

a meeting with AMI. We

59:34

went and met with David Pekka

59:37

and it was an

59:39

incredible meeting and there were

59:41

even further

59:43

promises that were made to her at

59:46

that meeting. So the situation actually became

59:49

worse, not better. And that

59:51

was really a

59:53

great source of frustration for everyone involved

59:56

on our side. David

1:00:00

Pekker allegedly admitted to with

1:00:02

prosecutors in the Southern District working with Cohen

1:00:04

to protect the president. There was a phrase

1:00:06

he used and something he's told Karen at

1:00:08

that lunch that you said in our interview.

1:00:10

And what was that? They said, I thank

1:00:12

you, thank you very much. I thank you,

1:00:14

I wanted to, out of respect to you

1:00:16

Karen, get you here in New York. I wanted

1:00:18

to look in the eye and have a face-to-face

1:00:21

meeting and I wanna thank you very much and

1:00:23

I wanna thank you for your loyalty. I

1:00:25

mean, thank you for your loyalty. They couldn't come up with

1:00:27

another way of saying it. Look, they have a problem

1:00:30

if you're in the defense. There's no

1:00:32

way that you can argue there was

1:00:34

no sort of catch and kill agreement,

1:00:36

right? It's just too documented and so

1:00:38

you have to argue it had nothing

1:00:40

to do with the election. And

1:00:43

that's one where it's like good luck with that. Cohen

1:00:45

went to jail because it had everything to do

1:00:47

with the election. And the timing of

1:00:49

it is, I mean, this is one where,

1:00:52

this is where you're going to hear, use

1:00:54

your common sense. A timeline is going to

1:00:56

be put together for the jury in summation.

1:00:58

But they can't say there was no agreement.

1:01:00

This is not, she was not being hired

1:01:03

for her work and

1:01:05

it makes no sense as why her story wouldn't

1:01:07

be run. So they have to be able to

1:01:09

say, well, this had nothing to do with the

1:01:12

election. This is just sort of normal catch and

1:01:14

kill stuff. And that is

1:01:16

where you're gonna have a lot of contrary

1:01:18

evidence and the timeline just does not work.

1:01:20

As I said, the narrative is, right

1:01:23

now, the narrative is on the state

1:01:25

side. You're not hearing a coherent story

1:01:28

that explains all of the facts. And

1:01:30

that is a real theme that you're

1:01:32

hearing here from the state. Take

1:01:35

what they're saying. How do they account

1:01:37

for certain facts that just do not

1:01:39

fit with that sort of innocent explanation

1:01:41

narrative? Well, and the other would be the

1:01:44

amount. It's not a normal catch and kill scheme. All

1:01:47

of these things. The usual stories and

1:01:49

source agreements that we did with thousands

1:01:51

of dollars. And we actually

1:01:53

had a limit of $10,000. And

1:01:56

then we'd have to go to David Pekka's office. So $150,000 is... Extraordinary

1:02:00

amount of money for a story we weren't running

1:02:02

as was the Dean of the dormant payment $30,000

1:02:04

to pay you know, do you know the doorman

1:02:06

and David Peck is saying well, I did you

1:02:08

know the story was wasn't true We never actually

1:02:10

got to the point of learning either way because

1:02:12

we were told to stand out with the reporting

1:02:14

But we're paying this bloke $30,000 I

1:02:17

mean, you know at the biggest the luckiest day when

1:02:19

he called the clip line with this story because he's

1:02:21

just earned $30,000

1:02:23

and and those sums of money are highly

1:02:25

unusual and and as is

1:02:28

the million dollar break cause for Dino

1:02:30

and again to Andrew's point the timeline

1:02:32

here is crucial is

1:02:34

where when these payments are going

1:02:36

on and when the Stormy Daniels

1:02:38

Situation happens right after the access

1:02:40

Hollywood tape David Pekka by that

1:02:42

point is so Frustrated and

1:02:44

angry with Trump about not being paid back.

1:02:47

He said on the stand I'm not a

1:02:49

bank and that's when he says well, you

1:02:51

know these guys the campaign Michael Cohen's gonna

1:02:53

have to have to handle it I

1:02:55

know lots been made of Michael Cohen's credibility

1:02:57

What did Michael come go to jail for? Well,

1:03:00

you know this answer for me What

1:03:04

did he go to but what was he lying about? Oh

1:03:08

It's three verses. It's almost hard to

1:03:10

follow. What is it exactly how many

1:03:12

times he well his name per tree

1:03:14

was in Congress Yeah, and it was

1:03:16

for Donald Trump. It was

1:03:18

lying about the Russian

1:03:20

but Moscow The fake election

1:03:22

stuff was what he pled

1:03:25

to in his sentencing agreement is about

1:03:27

what crimes what crimes is Michael Cohen

1:03:29

plead to an ascendant election. Yeah, right

1:03:33

Yeah, I mean wasn't Michael Cohen who

1:03:35

had sex with Stormy Daniels. It wasn't Michael Cohen

1:03:37

who had a 10-month Love

1:03:39

affair with Kerry McDewall wasn't Michael Although

1:03:42

this last witness is because they know

1:03:44

they're gonna try to say it was

1:03:46

Michael Cohen who did this personally if

1:03:48

I'm a jury I

1:03:51

know I look Pick

1:03:53

up on the common sense thing. Let me just

1:03:55

say a Cohen point which is I think

1:03:57

they're right now both sides both side not

1:04:00

The defense has taken to calling

1:04:02

him Cohen instead of

1:04:05

the first name and trying to

1:04:07

dirty him up in a sort

1:04:09

of anticipatory way. Even

1:04:13

the prosecution has put in a few

1:04:15

things about he's a challenging kind

1:04:17

of client for that bank guy and

1:04:21

Pekka thinks he exaggerates.

1:04:23

So the jury, I'm sure, is very,

1:04:25

very curious to see this guy. And

1:04:28

I think the DA's main task,

1:04:31

I mean, they've laid the tracks very well, but

1:04:33

I think they know that Cohen's coming and their

1:04:35

main task is to between Hicks, between

1:04:37

Pekka, and then the paperwork is to corroborate

1:04:39

every single hole so at the end of

1:04:42

the day they can get up and say,

1:04:44

look, Michael Cohen, first of all, you can

1:04:46

believe him for these reasons, but even if

1:04:48

you don't, every single piece, et

1:04:51

cetera. But I'll bet back in the jury

1:04:53

room there's a lot of questioning

1:04:55

of, you know, who is this Cohen guy going to turn

1:04:57

out to be? I

1:04:59

think they, look, they've concluded that they do and

1:05:01

it's a really good question because if they

1:05:03

didn't, I think we wouldn't be seeing him.

1:05:06

They called him a tour guide. So I,

1:05:08

you know, I think what they want to

1:05:10

do is minimize his role, put him in

1:05:12

the middle, you know, you don't

1:05:14

want him at the end, you don't want him

1:05:16

at the beginning. There are a few pieces, it

1:05:18

seems to me, like the actual transaction with Stormy

1:05:20

Daniels. I'm not sure how they prove otherwise. It

1:05:23

just becomes a bland paper case. I

1:05:26

trust their judgment and they've certainly decided they

1:05:28

do need them. What are you

1:05:30

looking toward next, Ray? I'm looking

1:05:32

forward to, you know,

1:05:34

hearing Hope Hicks. I think that's what

1:05:36

we're coming up for. I think the

1:05:38

DA is doing a brilliant job of

1:05:40

really kind of creating this narrative. David

1:05:42

Peck was never a journalist. He's an

1:05:44

accountant, but he did an incredible job

1:05:46

of being a storyteller this week. And

1:05:49

as someone who's still invested in the story, knows it very

1:05:51

well. I was learning things for the

1:05:53

first time and he really did lay it out

1:05:55

perfectly for the jury in particular

1:05:57

detail. And there was something I learned. for

1:06:00

the first time this week, which was

1:06:02

pretty stunning to me. And that was

1:06:04

Keith Davidson, who you just played that

1:06:07

recording of before. When on election night,

1:06:09

he text Dylan Howard, who was one

1:06:11

of his key sources. They had a

1:06:13

relationship that went on for some time.

1:06:15

They actually exchanged Rolex watches, which is

1:06:18

something I had kept out of the

1:06:20

Times piece, but on election night, he

1:06:22

text Dylan Howard and he says, what

1:06:24

have we done? And for

1:06:26

me, that was just a moment in court this

1:06:28

week where I just thought, oh, yeah,

1:06:30

that's what I've been I've been asking that I

1:06:33

was asking myself that on election night, what have

1:06:35

we done? It's part of the phenomenon

1:06:37

of the moment, too, to think I

1:06:39

must be crazy. And what you

1:06:41

realize when any device, whether it's a congressional

1:06:43

hearings, whether it's a criminal trial shows that

1:06:45

no, you weren't crazy. What have

1:06:48

we done? I thought the other thing

1:06:50

that we learned from this text were

1:06:52

about a pardon for election interference. All

1:06:54

of the known criminality on the part

1:06:56

of these folks was was stunning. He was

1:06:58

texting his mom in Australia and saying, you know,

1:07:01

well, at least they'll get pardoned now. And

1:07:04

and that's very well. Yeah, yeah, that thought

1:07:06

process just really went into the mind of

1:07:08

Dylan Howard, who, you know, due to the

1:07:10

spinal condition, we probably won't hear from on

1:07:12

the stand. But we did learn, you know,

1:07:15

what was his conscious feeling? What was he,

1:07:17

you know, what was going through his his

1:07:19

mind? It was it was it

1:07:21

was funny to hear that. We

1:07:23

have lots of great spine doctors here in New York. Thank

1:07:27

you very much for being so generous with your time today. Lots

1:07:30

of car right has spent an hour and 20

1:07:32

minutes of some Andrew Weissmanship. The rest of the

1:07:34

table sticks around. Much more of

1:07:37

what happened in court today. We'll ask

1:07:39

our legal Eagles what happens next. And

1:07:41

later in the broadcast, more than three

1:07:43

years after his harrowing testimony before Congress

1:07:46

about his near death experience on January

1:07:48

6th, the search

1:07:50

for accountability for those

1:07:52

who started the insurrection, the guy who lit

1:07:54

the match, according to Liz Cheney, Donald Trump,

1:07:57

continues. continue

1:08:00

to look at the meeting. And

1:08:12

his statement was Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received

1:08:14

a monthly retainer, not from the campaign, and

1:08:16

having nothing to do with the campaign, from

1:08:18

which he entered in through reimbursement. That's

1:08:21

not accurate. You've mentioned

1:08:23

some individuals to my colleague from

1:08:25

New York, Ms. Connolly, and also in

1:08:28

your testimony about Mr.

1:08:30

Weisenberg and other individuals, Ms.

1:08:32

Rona. Who are those individuals? Are

1:08:34

they with the Trump organization? They are. Are

1:08:37

there other people that we should be meeting with? So,

1:08:41

Allen Weisenberg is the chief financial officer. Uh-huh.

1:08:44

You've got to quickly give us as many names as you can so we

1:08:46

can get to them. Yes, ma'am. Ms. Rona, what

1:08:49

is Ms. Rona's name? Rona

1:08:51

Graf is Mr. Trump's executive assistant.

1:08:54

And would she be able to corroborate many

1:08:56

of the statements that you've made here? Yes,

1:08:59

she was. Her office is directly next to

1:09:01

his, and she's involved

1:09:03

in a lot that went on.

1:09:08

Joining us, joining our Mary Gang, the host

1:09:10

of Politics Nation here on MSNBC, the president

1:09:12

of the National Action Network, the Reverend Al

1:09:15

Sharpton, is here. Harry,

1:09:17

I want to come back to you, though, on the

1:09:19

Rona of it all. She was on

1:09:21

the stand today. Tell me how that went down. Well,

1:09:24

she was on the stand for not very long,

1:09:26

and you're absolutely right. In

1:09:28

34 years or something as the assistant

1:09:31

knows everything, they obviously concluded that she

1:09:33

wasn't a safe witness for them. They

1:09:35

used her basically only to, in lawyer

1:09:37

terms, authenticate, be able to use and

1:09:39

get into evidence who the contacts were,

1:09:42

who the calendar was. She

1:09:45

gave a peon to what a great boss he

1:09:47

was, and when she walked from

1:09:49

the stand, Trump stood up and

1:09:51

extended his hand, wanted to sort

1:09:53

of hug her, and in front of the

1:09:55

jury, baldly and proper. And

1:09:57

the guards actually came to stop. stop

1:10:00

him. But she was an ultimate friendly

1:10:02

witness and the DA decided it just

1:10:04

wasn't safe notwithstanding how much she knows,

1:10:07

I think. And so she wasn't on

1:10:09

loan. I thought she had some

1:10:11

interesting testimony though. Rona is the

1:10:14

gatekeeper. She was for years and she was

1:10:16

up there. In my ear, I could hear

1:10:18

Donald Trump yelling, Rona, get me my messages.

1:10:21

I mean, she worked for

1:10:23

him for so long. And what

1:10:25

Donald Trump's lawyers tried to establish with

1:10:28

her is that she did tend to

1:10:30

Trump Tower. And it's interesting just before

1:10:32

I get to that, she

1:10:34

had to testify about contact names that

1:10:37

she'd put into his Rolodex and Karen

1:10:39

McDougall was entered. And then Stormy was

1:10:41

entered. And it didn't say Stormy Daniels.

1:10:43

It didn't say, it just said Stormy with

1:10:46

a phone number. That was kind of funny.

1:10:48

But Stormy Daniels came to Trump Tower

1:10:51

in 2007. She writes about it in her

1:10:53

book, Full Disclosure. And there was a little

1:10:55

bit of information about that, that she had

1:10:57

been there. And they tried to position this

1:11:00

visit if she was coming in to try

1:11:02

to get on the Celebrity Apprentice. That it

1:11:04

wasn't a big affair, but that she was

1:11:06

angling to get on the show. I happen

1:11:09

to know from separate reporting that NBC was

1:11:11

not going to let that happen. But

1:11:13

that's how they were trying to portray her as

1:11:15

a potential contestant for Celebrity Apprentice, which

1:11:17

came after The Apprentice. And it had

1:11:19

a lot of sort of interesting

1:11:22

characters on it that

1:11:24

Stormy, I don't think she would have fit in, but it

1:11:26

was kind of a different halo than MBAs buying

1:11:28

through dogs. Can I make a quick comment

1:11:31

on that? Yeah. I mean,

1:11:33

what's interesting about that to me, in

1:11:35

a different way, Trump has all the

1:11:37

way denied having had the tryst at

1:11:40

all with her. And a different kind

1:11:42

of defense with a different kind of

1:11:44

defendant, most defendants, the

1:11:46

defense would be, yes, he's a

1:11:49

little sleazy, he cuts corners, but he's

1:11:51

not a criminal. They can't make that

1:11:53

defense because Trump is right there and

1:11:55

they won't let him. So they're having

1:11:58

to carry that weight. and

1:12:00

therefore have a whole narrative of, oh,

1:12:02

and she was just there for the

1:12:04

apprentice, but you add that up with

1:12:06

McDougall, with everything they have to deny

1:12:08

because Trump is their client and they

1:12:10

have to substantiate what he's done before,

1:12:12

and the weight of it, I think,

1:12:14

is just too much to bear. The

1:12:16

jury will say, you know, not all

1:12:18

these things can be lies, and given

1:12:21

the way they've defended it, that makes

1:12:23

the whole case very hard

1:12:25

to defend. Well, and I think

1:12:27

the jury has seen, again,

1:12:29

they will decide, they're the only people who

1:12:31

will decide if he committed crimes here, but

1:12:33

what they've seen is a very, very, very,

1:12:36

very, very good friend of his who still

1:12:38

likes him very, very much. Right, and so

1:12:40

you may think, and

1:12:42

then Rona, who's so loyal to him, he got up and tried to

1:12:44

hug her. And so they haven't heard

1:12:46

from anybody whose credibility they

1:12:48

would think he wouldn't trust. I

1:12:51

mean, that seems like a pretty good place to

1:12:53

start. Well, what the

1:12:55

defense is, Paul and Nastal just waiting

1:12:57

for this, and his name is to

1:13:00

them, one named Cohen, you know, what

1:13:02

they call him, and they'll see that

1:13:04

as the centerpiece of the trial. To

1:13:06

Andrew's point, it's really true they haven't

1:13:08

had a narrative. I think the cross,

1:13:10

for example, of Pekka, was technically sound,

1:13:12

but just didn't get anywhere because they

1:13:14

tried to call him, this guy is

1:13:17

not a liar. He's a very interesting

1:13:19

figure. He's a scoundrel of some sort,

1:13:21

but he's not a liar, and

1:13:23

they're just trying to sort of poke

1:13:25

any hole they can find, but they're

1:13:27

not doing it thematically. And

1:13:29

I think the only theme they seem to

1:13:32

be ready for is Michael Cohen is the

1:13:34

devil of all devils. With all the corroboration

1:13:36

and everything there, it's gonna be a hard,

1:13:38

hard road to hoe for them. Just

1:13:41

as, like, if Michael Cohen gets up there

1:13:43

and is what Trump's team plans to call

1:13:45

him, which is a liar, then you have

1:13:47

to believe that he didn't have sex with

1:13:49

McDougal or Stormy. He didn't run for president,

1:13:51

but he went to jail because

1:13:53

of what? Because of what?

1:13:55

I mean, if he

1:13:57

went to jail for doing something, can

1:14:00

you say it wasn't done? And

1:14:02

the only way that it was

1:14:04

done is he had to do

1:14:06

it with Donald Trump because the

1:14:08

last time I checked, Michael Cohen

1:14:10

wasn't running for president. And

1:14:13

I think that if I'm the DA and

1:14:15

I don't have any insight to the DAs,

1:14:17

I know the DA, but I've never talked

1:14:19

about the case. I

1:14:22

want you make Michael Cohen as sleazy

1:14:24

as you can, because in closing, I'm

1:14:26

going to say he was his lawyer.

1:14:29

This is who he paid. In fact, he

1:14:31

told you that these were

1:14:33

for legal services, services

1:14:36

that we still want to know what

1:14:38

they were. What was he paying this

1:14:40

money for? This sleazy guy that they

1:14:43

told you he is, that Donald Trump

1:14:45

who could have picked anybody on Fifth

1:14:47

Avenue, but he chose this guy. So,

1:14:50

I mean, that's going to hurt

1:14:52

him. And the other thing that I

1:14:54

would say in closing is Rona,

1:14:56

who I knew because we ever had

1:14:59

to go through her. Why would Rona

1:15:01

have a contestant for the

1:15:03

apprentice coming to see Donald Trump? Donald

1:15:05

Trump didn't deal with the contestants and

1:15:08

Stormy, not even the

1:15:10

last name. I mean, we heard today

1:15:13

he did for celebrity apprentice. I just,

1:15:15

yeah, but a lot of it, a

1:15:17

lot of it just leaves too much.

1:15:19

I think they're going to dig themselves

1:15:21

a hole. The digger they deep Michael

1:15:23

Cohen, the digger, the sleazy guy was

1:15:26

his lawyer, his choice, who he wrote

1:15:28

these checks to. This is his guy.

1:15:30

It feels like with Michael Cohen, and

1:15:33

here's to them, because I'm not a lawyer,

1:15:35

but it feels like that they're trying to

1:15:37

make him like an obsessed sort of lone

1:15:39

ranger, that he was just obsessed with Donald

1:15:42

Trump. Now he's obsessed with taking him down,

1:15:44

but before he was the boss. And even

1:15:47

today there was testimony from this banker, at

1:15:50

the time I felt like I was back at the

1:15:52

civil trial, it was so dry. But even the banker

1:15:54

said, Michael Cohen couldn't stop talking

1:15:56

about how he worked for Donald Trump and

1:15:58

they keep just putting that

1:16:00

in at every point and you're hearing it,

1:16:03

it's become repetitive. Yeah, very quick point on

1:16:05

that, very clever the way they sort of

1:16:07

peppered in. Pekka

1:16:10

says he couldn't go,

1:16:12

he couldn't pay for lunch without

1:16:14

Donald Trump's approval. So 130,000, and

1:16:17

always, always they refer to Trump

1:16:20

at when they're, when calling it the boss.

1:16:22

It's always the boss and the DA, you

1:16:24

know, makes a point of it. Yeah,

1:16:26

and I've noticed that about Pekka too, I'm

1:16:29

sorry about the defense team

1:16:31

describing Cohen that way. But

1:16:34

we all know the story and we

1:16:36

learned it first from Cohen. The jury's

1:16:38

seeing it reverse engineered, right? Because even

1:16:40

if Cohen told Bragg where to go,

1:16:42

you know, what doors to press on,

1:16:45

what the jury has heard is David

1:16:47

Pekka tell the whole story and I'm

1:16:49

really- As a conspirator. Correct, as a

1:16:51

co-conspirator. I think Cohen's just, you know,

1:16:53

basically running the money back and forth.

1:16:56

The other thing I wanted to do- That's the trial in

1:16:58

a nutshell so far, really effective. Right? Yeah,

1:17:01

absolutely. I mean, just quickly, Cohen is a salaried employee.

1:17:03

So what is the jury going to be led to believe? Why

1:17:05

did Trump pay him for legal services or how to make a

1:17:07

new lump? Well, that's a huge question. He was getting

1:17:10

a W-2 every year, he was paid very

1:17:12

well. So why was he getting these payments?

1:17:14

And they're not accounted for in his taxes

1:17:17

through what would we call a 1099 payment where

1:17:20

you get, if you get a lump sum, that's, you

1:17:22

know, extra, like a bonus, you may get a 1099

1:17:24

payment, depending how, that's not there.

1:17:27

It's not to say there's other ways she can't bury them, but

1:17:29

you just don't see them. He was a salaried employee, so why

1:17:31

was he doing this? Why were they,

1:17:34

why was he getting extra payments? Exactly. Suzanne

1:17:36

Craig, for making the trek up here,

1:17:39

for being here and for going to court and making the

1:17:41

trek up here, we thank both of you so much. The

1:17:44

Rev sticks around a little bit longer with us,

1:17:46

for the rest of the hour with us. After

1:17:48

the break, more than three years after he was

1:17:51

on the front lines, defending the US Capitol

1:17:53

and the men and women who work inside of

1:17:55

it from Donald Trump supporters, the mob sent by

1:17:57

Donald Trump to the Capitol. I'm Mr.

1:17:59

Michaels. has a warning now for

1:18:01

voters. We are the last line

1:18:04

of defense this November. This is my next

1:18:06

guest. Someone

1:18:14

who would sit and watch that

1:18:16

attack on television, who

1:18:20

would refuse multiple

1:18:22

pleas by his family,

1:18:25

by his senior staff, to tell the

1:18:27

mob to leave, we know that

1:18:29

someone handed him a note that

1:18:32

said a civilian had been shot at the door

1:18:34

to the House chamber, and he

1:18:37

put the note on the table in front

1:18:39

of him and continued to watch the attack

1:18:41

happen and wouldn't tell the mob to leave. That's

1:18:44

evil. It's evil. And

1:18:48

that's a moral issue. Palette

1:18:53

cleanser, if you will, will do

1:18:55

some moral clarity. Truth bombs from former

1:18:57

Republican Congresswoman, Liz Cheney, talking about

1:18:59

what is evil. I'm

1:19:01

talking about the disgraced ex-president's conduct

1:19:04

on January 6th, or back of

1:19:06

conduct, during the attack on

1:19:08

the U.S. Capitol. This was a conversation

1:19:10

that she had with historian John Meacham

1:19:12

Wednesday night. It was a conversation on

1:19:14

democracy and how leaders should put principles

1:19:16

ahead of politics, wouldn't that be nice?

1:19:18

The ex-president and now the presumptive Republican

1:19:20

nominee continues not just to downplay

1:19:23

January 6th, but to celebrate

1:19:27

the events of that day, referring

1:19:29

to the writers as hostages and

1:19:31

playing music that they've created at

1:19:34

his rallies as he seeks another term

1:19:36

as President of the United States. Our

1:19:39

next guest, Michael Fanon, who bravely defended the United

1:19:41

States Capitol and the men and women who were

1:19:43

inside of it on that day, told

1:19:45

Congress this, quote, I feel like I went to

1:19:47

hell and back to protect members of Congress and

1:19:49

the people in this room. Too

1:19:52

many are now telling me that hell

1:19:54

doesn't exist. Or that hell actually

1:19:56

wasn't that bad. Joining us

1:19:58

at the table, former DC News. Metropolitan Police

1:20:00

Officer Michael Fennone. He was one of

1:20:03

the brave officers who defended the Capitol

1:20:05

from the violent insurrectionists. Trump supporters who

1:20:07

stormed the Capitol on January 6, his

1:20:09

book is called Hold the Line, The

1:20:12

Insurrection and One Cop's Battle for America's

1:20:14

Soul, the Rev is with us as

1:20:16

well. How are you doing? I'm

1:20:19

hanging in there. Yeah. Getting by. Yeah. Thank

1:20:22

you for having me on there. Thank you for

1:20:24

being here. I mean, we

1:20:26

cover with a lot of horror what

1:20:29

Trump says and does about January 6, but

1:20:31

we weren't on the receiving end of what

1:20:33

Liz Cheney there calls the evil you were.

1:20:36

What is it like to watch him campaign on

1:20:38

January 6? It's

1:20:42

disgusting, but it's something

1:20:44

that I've grown accustomed to at this

1:20:46

point. And I mean, frankly,

1:20:48

I've come to expect.

1:20:51

I think what's most concerning for me is, you

1:20:54

know, as law enforcement officer who like

1:20:56

hundreds of other police officers from DC

1:20:58

police and Capitol police responded to the

1:21:00

Capitol on the 6th, watching

1:21:03

my, you know, former colleagues

1:21:07

in the law enforcement community continue

1:21:09

to embrace Donald Trump

1:21:11

and this mag of movement. And

1:21:14

I would ask them to pay attention and

1:21:17

listen to the things that he's saying about

1:21:19

individuals who stormed

1:21:21

the Capitol and

1:21:23

assaulted police officers. You

1:21:25

know, your fellow brothers and sisters in law

1:21:28

enforcement who were there just doing their job.

1:21:31

You know, I

1:21:33

responded because

1:21:36

I heard distress calls coming out from

1:21:38

other cops. My

1:21:41

department answered the call from

1:21:44

Capitol police who are under

1:21:47

siege. You know,

1:21:49

is this really someone that you

1:21:51

believe backs law

1:21:53

enforcement? Donald

1:21:56

Trump supports those that support him as

1:21:59

evident by myself

1:22:01

and the officers that were there that

1:22:03

day holding the line on January 6th.

1:22:07

He would embrace us had

1:22:09

it been any other circumstance other

1:22:11

than his supporters doing his bidding

1:22:13

at the Capitol on January 6th.

1:22:17

Why do you think members

1:22:20

of law enforcement believe him instead

1:22:22

of people like you? I

1:22:25

mean I think there's a whole host of reasons. Why

1:22:27

do people support Donald Trump? You

1:22:30

know there's people that buy

1:22:32

into his racist homophobic

1:22:34

xenophobic anti-american

1:22:37

ideology. There's you

1:22:39

know police officers and policing as

1:22:42

a microcosmos society. There's

1:22:44

racist cops that identify

1:22:46

with Donald Trump but there

1:22:49

are other cops that just don't have

1:22:51

the information. You know I've spent the

1:22:53

past two and a

1:22:56

half almost three years now traveling

1:22:58

the country talking to Americans about

1:23:00

my experience on January 6th and

1:23:03

you know more often than not

1:23:06

I met with I

1:23:08

had no idea. No

1:23:10

idea it was that bad. You know

1:23:13

that's unbelievable and

1:23:15

I think this same you know it rings true

1:23:17

with a lot of police officers just have no

1:23:20

idea what actually happened that day on

1:23:22

January 6th. A lot of it has to do

1:23:24

with the fact that Donald

1:23:26

Trump, his surrogates and

1:23:29

you know his supporters in

1:23:31

media continue to lie to the American

1:23:33

people about the reality of that day.

1:23:36

We make this mistake people like me

1:23:38

who cover Trump I'm thinking because he

1:23:40

seems so

1:23:43

hopeless that he's not strategic but

1:23:45

it seems that the minimizing

1:23:48

of January 6th is for the purpose of

1:23:50

what you just said so that the truth

1:23:52

won't get to other law

1:23:54

enforcement or law enforcement families. I mean when

1:23:56

someone is in law enforcement their whole family

1:23:59

we waits every night

1:24:01

for them to get home. If it's their mom or their dad,

1:24:03

their kids do too. And I

1:24:05

wonder what you make of

1:24:07

this effort. Republicans against Trump is a big

1:24:09

effort that we cover a lot here. Liz

1:24:11

Cheney has said she'll spend every fiber of

1:24:14

her body to make sure he never gets

1:24:16

near the Oval Office. What do you think

1:24:18

of the effort to create these

1:24:20

permission structures for people who may have liked him

1:24:22

before to say, no, no,

1:24:24

no, because of January 6th and because

1:24:26

of his promise to govern like a

1:24:28

dictator, never gonna do that again? I

1:24:31

mean, listen, I think that everyone

1:24:34

has a responsibility, at

1:24:37

least those of us who love this country and

1:24:39

love democracy, to do

1:24:42

everything that they can in their

1:24:44

power to ensure the future of

1:24:46

our democracy. And right now, I

1:24:49

think the biggest threat is Donald Trump

1:24:51

and the second Trump presidency. That

1:24:54

being said, I thought maybe

1:24:56

naively that being a former

1:24:58

Trump supporter, a police officer,

1:25:00

a white guy, that maybe

1:25:02

I could communicate with some

1:25:04

other Trump supporters as

1:25:07

to why, you know, how

1:25:09

I was bamboozled, so to speak, lied

1:25:12

to by the former

1:25:14

president. But unfortunately, you

1:25:17

know, their, I

1:25:21

guess you'd say messaging

1:25:24

apparatus is strong

1:25:27

enough to withstand, you know,

1:25:29

even my country

1:25:32

ass. It's amazing, it's

1:25:34

amazing. I wanna ask you, I wanna

1:25:36

ask you how those conversations go. I have

1:25:38

to sneak into quick break. Will you stick around? Yeah, yeah,

1:25:40

yeah. Okay, all right, we'll all be right back. And

1:25:46

we are back with Michael Fanon and the Reverend Al Sharpton.

1:25:48

Rev, you've got a question. Yeah, first let

1:25:50

me say how much respect I have for

1:25:52

you, Michael, and your colleagues. And

1:25:54

one of the things that I wanted to

1:25:56

ask you, you talked

1:25:58

openly about, lot of the appeal

1:26:01

of Donald Trump is he's

1:26:03

racist, he's

1:26:05

xenophobic and all. And

1:26:07

I don't believe everybody voting, someone

1:26:09

said it best, everybody voted for Donald

1:26:12

Trump as a racist, but I believe

1:26:14

every racist voted for Donald Trump. And

1:26:17

let me ask you though, as one who

1:26:19

went through this experience, how

1:26:21

do you feel when you hear him

1:26:24

call people convicted of what they did

1:26:26

to you and your colleagues hostages?

1:26:30

I mean, we're now in the

1:26:32

midst of a hostage situation in

1:26:34

the Middle East for him to

1:26:36

even remotely equate these

1:26:38

people convicted and in jail for

1:26:41

what they did. I mean,

1:26:43

how do you react to seeing the former

1:26:45

president of the United States saying these people

1:26:47

are hostages? Then what does that make

1:26:49

you guys? I

1:26:52

mean, it's outrageous, but

1:26:54

it's outrageous by design. You

1:26:58

were talking earlier about, I think the

1:27:00

point you were getting at, there's a method to

1:27:03

Donald Trump's madness. And

1:27:06

I think that this is like,

1:27:08

obviously he recognizes the fact that

1:27:10

these individuals, those that stormed the

1:27:12

Capitol on January 6th, make up

1:27:14

a core group of his supporters.

1:27:16

And this is a way of keeping them in his camp. And

1:27:21

also, I think he recognizes

1:27:23

the value of individuals that are

1:27:26

willing to commit acts of violence

1:27:28

on his behalf and

1:27:30

how that can play into

1:27:33

potentially a future presidency

1:27:37

or a potential loss

1:27:40

in 2024, just like

1:27:42

it did in 2020 when

1:27:44

he called upon the Proud Boys and the

1:27:46

Oath Keepers and the 3 Percenters and

1:27:49

we saw what hell they unleashed on

1:27:52

a small group of police officers who

1:27:54

were just trying to defend the Capitol and

1:27:56

do their job. see

1:28:00

the Supreme Court entertain

1:28:02

this idea of absolute immunity, which

1:28:04

is so Trumpian, it's hard to

1:28:07

say with a straight face. And

1:28:09

it looks like a criminal

1:28:11

trial where he'll face consequences for

1:28:13

January 6th is not likely to

1:28:15

happen before the election. What do

1:28:17

you think of a country that

1:28:19

can't pull off accountability for an

1:28:22

ex-president? Well,

1:28:26

I think that, I mean, I've always said that,

1:28:28

you know, institutions are not,

1:28:31

will not protect our democracy,

1:28:33

do not protect our democracy,

1:28:35

and have not protected our

1:28:37

democracy. It's individuals that occupy

1:28:39

positions within, you know,

1:28:41

those institutions. I mean, you have, for

1:28:44

example, my police

1:28:47

department did not protect the Capitol

1:28:49

on January 6th. Individual

1:28:51

members of my department of the

1:28:53

U.S. Capitol Police, Metropolitan

1:28:55

Police Department, made conscious decisions that they

1:28:58

were going to respond to the Capitol

1:29:00

and stay there. Same

1:29:03

can be said for the Department of Justice. You

1:29:06

know, individual members of the Department of

1:29:08

Justice made a conscious decision that they

1:29:10

would not be corrupted by Donald Trump,

1:29:13

that they would not submit to his

1:29:15

illegal scheme. Unfortunately,

1:29:18

you know, what we see with the

1:29:20

Supreme Court are

1:29:22

individuals who are met with

1:29:24

a moment and chose

1:29:27

not to rise to the occasion.

1:29:30

But in a way, at least

1:29:33

in my humble opinion, and I'm not a legal

1:29:35

scholar, kick the can down the road. Unfortunately,

1:29:38

there's not a lot

1:29:41

of road left to kick

1:29:43

the can down. And so, you know,

1:29:46

I think obviously

1:29:49

it was a missed moment. They

1:29:51

don't seem to feel the urgency

1:29:53

that so many other Americans do

1:29:56

when it comes to accountability

1:29:58

for this president. and the crimes

1:30:01

that he committed and

1:30:05

it's unfortunate and I hope that you know

1:30:08

it doesn't have a lasting effect. It

1:30:11

leaves us right the only people of

1:30:13

any agency anymore are the voters. Voters

1:30:15

yeah. That's it that's the whole ballgame. So

1:30:18

what are we gonna do? I

1:30:20

mean I think that you know I've

1:30:23

said time and time again every

1:30:26

American has an obligation whether

1:30:29

it's this election or any election this

1:30:31

one I think being particularly important

1:30:35

you know to participate

1:30:37

in the process and

1:30:40

ensure that democracy lives on for

1:30:42

future generations and in this case

1:30:45

it's making sure that Donald Trump does

1:30:47

not become the next president of the

1:30:49

United States. And getting people to

1:30:51

vote and see their power getting

1:30:54

into believe the opposite is a tactic

1:30:56

right and your life's work to

1:30:58

make sure that that's

1:31:01

why I have a lot of respect for Michael.

1:31:03

The people that are not

1:31:06

the traditional liberal

1:31:08

Democrats or people perceived of

1:31:12

being progressive like me but regular

1:31:14

Americans saying we can't have this

1:31:16

kind of country. These people are

1:31:18

law enforcement and admit nothing to

1:31:20

them and meant

1:31:22

obviously nothing to him to come

1:31:25

back and say that the people being held for

1:31:28

beating his colleagues and

1:31:30

worse are hostages. I mean I

1:31:34

hope more Americans get that because

1:31:36

imagine if somebody that was leading

1:31:38

one of these progressive movements somebody

1:31:40

like me called them hostages they'd

1:31:42

be ready to throw me out

1:31:44

of the country and they should

1:31:47

and I think that the

1:31:49

the callous disregarding sensitivity that

1:31:51

he's shown even

1:31:53

now are those that defended

1:31:55

the country what you talked about the

1:31:57

decisions you guys make you defended us.

1:32:00

I mean, we all don't agree on everything,

1:32:02

but you defended us and

1:32:04

I've not heard him express even any of

1:32:06

the slightest bit of sympathy for the people

1:32:08

that suffered that day. Yeah. I mean, I'm

1:32:11

not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I'm

1:32:13

pretty sure I feel safe

1:32:15

saying that Donald Trump is incapable of

1:32:18

experiencing feelings of empathy or compassion

1:32:21

for anyone other than himself. But

1:32:23

I, you know, keying in on

1:32:26

voting and participating in the election, I can

1:32:29

assure you no one is more disillusioned with

1:32:32

the political process in this country

1:32:35

than I am. I talk to a

1:32:37

lot of young people all the

1:32:39

time who express the same feelings, many of whom

1:32:41

have just, you know, this is the first election

1:32:43

that they're going to participate in

1:32:46

and they're already disillusioned.

1:32:50

My argument to them is that everybody

1:32:52

has issues that they

1:32:54

are passionate about. And

1:32:56

while you may not feel as though you're

1:32:58

being heard by either of

1:33:01

these two candidates, you

1:33:03

have one candidate in Joe Biden who

1:33:05

has a long history in

1:33:08

politics of respecting

1:33:10

the constitution, of

1:33:13

respecting the peaceful transfer of power

1:33:17

and serving our republic.

1:33:22

Donald Trump has a very short tenure in

1:33:25

politics, in American politics, and

1:33:28

already he's incited an insurrection

1:33:30

and committed fraud

1:33:32

against the American people. And

1:33:35

so my choice to them is you choose

1:33:38

Joe Biden and you

1:33:40

have somebody who under the democratic

1:33:43

process, you can air your

1:33:45

grievances and try to effect change.

1:33:47

At least we'll still be a democracy. Right. I

1:33:50

hope this conversation is to be continued. Former

1:33:52

DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fannan. Thank you

1:33:55

for being here. The book is called Hold

1:33:57

the Line, The Insurrection and One Cup's Battle

1:33:59

for America. soul. So Evan, I'll

1:34:01

start and thank you for spending the hour with us.

1:34:03

That does it for us this week. Thank you so

1:34:05

much for letting us send you your home during these

1:34:07

truly extraordinary times. Time for

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