morality in real time, he is perfect for that job. now, whether he brings any addition to the table, that's a different question. given the down playing of january 6th and the down playing that my former boss' wife was in peril that day and how close he came to killing him, and for him to go on tv and say he wasn't in danger, tells you how conniving that person is to what that role. >> olivia troye, always appreciate your voice. we've had chuck, danny, ashley, yasmin and vaughn as well. thank you. that does it for me today. i'll be back saturday and sunday at 1:00 p.m. eastern. "deadline: white house" starts right now. ♪♪ ♪♪

hi there. it's 4:00 in new york. buckle up. witness number nine in the people of the state of new york versus donald trump was unlike any moment of this trial we've seen so far, unlike any witness in this trial we've seen. this is a trial that's seen twists and turns and drama. on the stand today, hope hicks, the silent trump insider who was by donald trump's side for years from before he ascending down the escalaors at trump tower and during the president's time in white house. a visibly and nervous hope hicks who began to cry as cross-examination began. hope hicks described the meltdown inside trump world over the release of the "access hollywood" tape. she was the first person in the

campaign to know about it when she got an email from a reporter with the "washington post." he was seeking comment from her. hicks sent the email to other staffers including kellyanne conway and steve bannon. one, need to hear the tape to be sure. two, deny, deny, deny. hope hicks said there was consensus the tape was damaging and it was going to be a crisis. what was trump's first reaction? well, that it was not something he would say, but later trump said it was, quote, not anything to be so upset over. he said it was, quote, pretty standard stuff for two guys. nonetheless hope hicks recalling the intense reaction, enough to completely overwhelm press coverage of a category 4 hurricane bearing down on the united states. the trump campaign battered by criticism from the highest ranks

of the republican party. in the coming few weeks, the campaign had to contend with allegations of more inappropriate behavior on trump's part. and that trump was, indeed, concerned about how these stories would impact his standing with female voters. when it comes to the two women at the heart of the criminal case, stormy daniels and karen mcdougal, hope hicks she first heard of karen mcdougal four days before election day when she received an email from a "wall street journal" reporter. she heard of stormy daniels a year before when, quote, guys on a plane were telling a story about stormy daniels attending a celebrity golf tournament what participant who played with donald trump. hicks said the trump campaign hoped the story would blow over. then prosecutors began to ask hope hicks about her time serving in the white house. she said that donald trump told her that michael cohen paid

stormy daniels out of the goodness of his own heart. trump said that actually. to protect donald trump from false allegations. hope hicks told prosecutors that trump's story was inconsistent with the michael cohen she had come to know, quote, he is a kind of person who seeks credit, hope testified to. an insider's insider bringing the highest levels of trump world to light today in donald trump's first criminal trial. that's where we start with our most favorite reporters and friends. christie greenberg, an msnbc legal analyst and former criminal division deputy chief at the southern district of new york and sue craig has joined us from court. she's a "new york times" investigative reporter. plus, democratic strategist and director of the public policy program at hunter college, basil smikle joins us. vaughn hillyard is outside the

courthouse in manhattan. vaughn, i'm going to start with you and the hope hicks of it all. we know she was in the room where it happened, when it happened, all the time, as it was happening and she was exactly as you describe, professional, courteous, managed to keep herself held in high regard regardless of the sort of gutter that trump dragged the country into. this was too much for her at a point today. talk about your reaction to watching this testimony. >> reporter: emotional, teared up literally within the first minute of her cross-examination from donald trump's attorney. the court had to take a pause as she was given the opportunity to regroup, collect herself there. then upon walking out, our team described her looking just solemn on her way out of the courthouse understanding this was an emotionally difficult day. what she described in the

courthouse was a relationship that began with the trump family in 2014. this is is a decade long relationship. she testified it has been cold since 2022, at least cold to the extent she hasn't talked to her former boss since the middle of 2022 after the tapes of her testifying to the january 6th came out in which she described on january 6th warning donald trump that his legacy was on the line because of the attack that day. so for hope hicks to come in here and publicly testify just short distance from donald trump, somebody who gave her not only a terrific job at a major corporation, but then ultimately let her become the campaign press secretary for the presidential campaign that would go on to win the presidency and give her a job as comm director inside the white house all by the age of 30 years old. in no small part did donald

trump have an impact on her life. you heard her describe what the prosecution knew from her -- what she previously told congressional investigators about her experiences in the 2015 and 2016. then she provided insight when it turned to 2018 after "the wall street journal" reported about the stormy daniels $130,000 payment from michael cohen in which she says that donald trump explained to her that, boy, michael cohen, such a charitable act on his part to do that for me there. you could see here, you know, almost by testifying to this, providing an insight into one -- applied skepticism but then for somebody as she described herself to be so in the know about the campaign and the trump organization, clearly there was a lot that she, from her own testimony, did not know, that she was not privy to, that donald trump and michael cohen

kept away from her and so much of this bearing out for the public through this criminal trial that she was asked to take the stand. >> you two were in the room where it happened. tell me about it. >> it was a remarkable moment. let's go to 2018 and "the wall street journal" has a story and more details on the stormy daniels' payment. they mentioned it in the 2016 story with karen mcdougal. they're surfaing a lot more information about it. as a result of that, michael cohen issues a statement to "the new york times", who's doing a story on it. he's saying he did it on his own. he made this payment on his own. then he tells hope hicks about this. hope hicks is pretty skeptical. it doesn't sound like the michael cohen he knows. he's not a very charitable person. she's very skeptical about it. the next day, don't know where

it is, but she has a conversation with donald trump about it. this is the moment that was sort of the whole courtroom was, like, wow because she's talking to donald trump and relaying the conversation she had with michael cohen and donald trump says, well, better to be dealing with it now. it would have been bad if it came out during the election. just, i mean, the courtroom was just quiet and then the government ends their questioning of her. the cross starts. donald trump's lawyers ask a basic question. tell us what year you started working at the trump organization. then suddenly -- i thought she just lost her voice. i thought he was reaching for water. she just started crying. she had -- tissues came out and the judge said we'll take a break. it was unbelievable. we're never going to -- we can put together what happened.

i don't think it was the government's question about when she started working at the trump organization that triggered it. >> trump's lawyers asked that. >> i don't think it was that. it was just the overwhelming a -- felt like a confession that she came forward and said this. >> it's the heart of their case. if in '18 he said, yeah, i paid for it, but thank god -- >> it didn't come out and influence the election. it was this moment. she was tearing up as the cross-examination continued. it was an emotional moment today. >> yeah, and what i would say is you cannot overstate just how significant this testimony was because there is no document. there's no other corroborating witness. it's just hope hicks and donald trump having this conversation. she didn't have to share it. she clearly didn't want to share it. that was obvious. yet, she went up there and told the truth. she said, yeah, this clearly mattered to him.

it was about the campaign. as you said, that's the whole ball game here. it's interesting because leading up to this, she was being very careful with her answers. there were a lot of i don't recall. she was asked about the conversation she had with michael cohen. i don't remember. she's refreshed a few times with other grand jury testimony. oh, sitting here i don't remember today. back then, yes, i suppose. she's been very careful. i'm thinking is she playing games here. what are we doing? then it leads up to this. it was the mic drop moment the prosecution ends with. she says, yes, he understood this mattered. this was about the campaign. she didn't have to do it, and she did. i think it's so damaging to this case. you can attack david pecker as a sleaze ball from the national inquirer. there was nothing to attack here. she was a young woman who got on to his campaign four years out

of college and clearly looked up to him and cared about him. she had many moments where she was saying wonderful things about him, and then this. >> he's so good at multi-tasking. he's so good at message. that's how it started. >> right. you really felt her affinity for him. she was a little nervous when she started her testimony. then i thought really did a good job. she was even. she was -- i thought the jury -- very personable. then, as we're leading up to this moment where she starts to cry and makes this -- i felt like it was a confession. she became very anxious on the stand and you could feel something building as she got to this moment. >> what does a jury make of a witness that delivers -- i mean, this is the bottom line. this is the whole case. was the fraud committed in service of an underlying crime? this was it. this was the bombshell testimony

that proves this was it. this wasn't michael cohen, their problematic witness. this was hope hicks, who literally -- her testimony is littered with compliments for donald trump. >> so, if i'm the prosecutor in the closing, i mention -- i would mention the fact that she cried. look how hard it was. you saw. you saw how hard it was for her to make that statement. she did it because she had to tell the truth. i would absolutely draw on that and take them back to this moment because the jury is not going to forget this. this is the friday before they're going home for the weekend. this is going to be in their minds for days. >> vaughn, there's so much hope hicks fills in that i think wasn't known to those of us covering the 2016 campaign. let me bring back to you some of her testimony about october 7th when she gets the email from the "washington post." she gets ask, when did you first find out about the access

hollywood tape? the afternoon of october 7, 2016. how long before the general election? >> a month, a little less. prosecutor, how did you learn of it? i received an email from the "washington post" asking for comment. i was in my office on the 14th floor. then they have the email she received. they put it up. urgent, "washington post" query. what was your action? i was concerned, very concerned, concerned about the contents of the email. i was concerned we had a transcript and not a tape. did you forward this to other? i did. who did you send it to? jason miller, kellyanne conway, steve bannon. it said the priorities are to get the audio tape and second audio quote. deny, deny, deny.

for all of her credibility, vaughn, for all of her reflectability, she is contaminated with the trump dna of deny first, ask questions later. >> reporter: if you view hope hicks through a respected professional operative sympathetic lens you'll see somebody that through the course of this testimony here today in response to the "access hollywood" story on october 7th and then "the wall street journal" story on november 4th detailing the karen mcdual ago "national inquirer" arrangement, you would view her as a sympathetic character, took the advice of her principal and other advisers to him. she testified the initial urging she gave to the other trump

senior campaign officials on october 7th when they went up to the 25th floor of trump tower to talk directly with him about the tape, the words were deny, deny, deny. if we believe hope hicks that the first time she heard about the allegations from karen mcdougal and stormy daniels was on october 7th, she was really kept away from these damaging stories and put in charge of communicating to the american public on behalf of a major party presidential nominee mistruths, falsehoods and lies. this is what the testimony here today provided. we were wondering whether she was actually privy on august 2015 at that trump tower meeting to the conversations around the catch and kill scheme or whether the october 28th phone call

contained conversations with michael cohen about stormy daniels. none of her testimony provided any of that. she provided testimony to this jury that she working through the capacity of the campaign, that her and other campaign members understood the gravity of what they were dealing with and the stories about the "access hollywood" tape were going to be damaging to the campaign and they were having conversations about how this would impact women voters and then celebrating that effectively nobody was covering the karen mcdougal story. if you take hope hicks at her word as a trusted operative, you're dealing with somebody who told the jury she believed her boss donald trump when he made the statements to her that he had no awareness of the arrangements to silence the

stories about him and extra marital affairs. >> in the end, basil, what you have is another woman, a beautiful young woman, who doesn't walk away when she learns that the transcript that she sent to her colleagues to deny, deny, deny, is completely true. the prosecutor says it's difficult to deny a tape when there's a full transcript. she walks up to the rest of the staff and vaughn has reporting on what was going on in this room, i do as well, jason miller, kellyanne conway, steve bannon, jared kushner, steve miller was in there. they were rehearsing for debate prep. prosecutor says where was the debate taking place? hope hicks said in the conference room.

i motioned for jason miller and others to come out. trump asked us to come inside the conference room. it's my understanding he was easily distracted from debate prep. and share what they were discussing. i shared the email with trump verbally. we were trying to get a copy of the audio to assess the situation further. we weren't sure how to respond. prosecutor, did you read trump the email? hope hicks, yes, i have a vague recollection of reading him the transcript and then he finished reading it. prosecutor, what did he say? hope hicks, he said it didn't sound like something he would say. prosecutor, did you get the actual video? were you with trump when he saw the video? hope hicks, yes. prosecutor, fair to say he was as mad as you've ever seen him?

what was your reaction? hope hicks, stunned. it was concerning. i had a good sense this would be a massive story and make the news cycle for the next several days. were you concerned about the effects on the campaign? yes, it was a damaging development. it didn't feel like the kind of story that was helpful. there were a lot of layers to it that complicated where we wanted to go with the campaign that were going to be hard to overcome. did others feel the tape would be damaging? yes. there was consensus this was damaging and a crisis. were you concerned about female voters? in that moment, no. maybe a couple hours later or the next day it crossed my mind. at some point did you discuss how the campaign should respond? i know trump thought it wasn't good, but it was just two guys talking, locker room stuff. i talked to somebody named in

the testimony adds being in the room when this came out. that is not how other people responded. they were disgusted. they were horrified. nobody thought it was locker room talk. >> you know, every time i -- as i'm listening to you talk, i'm constantly reminded about the -- that comey letter right before the election and how that landed and just consider how much trump's orbit was trying to protect him from something that could come out that would affect the election. this -- it's -- >> this story about stormy daniels. >> all of that. i talked to you about this before. this is an extraordinary amount of activity. so many people involved. so much money involved to try to bury something because he knew that the voters would not -- at least he believed the voters would not have a palette for this. having said that, i sort of

focus on something you said about hope hicks and the tears. it really sounds like someone who was sort of upset they met their hero and that that person disappointed them substantially, that she can't believe that here's a person she looked up to that is saying the kind of things he's saying and behaving the way he's saying. anyone who worked in government, we sometimes have those moments about the people for whom we work. it shows you the lengths at which people go to please him, the lengths at which he will bring you into his world to the point where you sort of feel compelled that you have to do what others have done and that he taints everybody around him. >> what's so interesting is she doesn't -- her hero doesn't break her heart until he confesses and then she works for him for two more years.

again, we only have what we saw -- >> we have a snapshot. >> we don't know what was behind the emotion. it could have been fear. we don't know what made hope hicks cry in court today. you remember that movie with ed norton and richard gere is his lawyer and at the end he confesses and he has tears. to me that line about 2018, my whole body went cold. oh, my god, he confessed to her. >> you wonder too when she -- did she realize two years before -- did she think he didn't have an affair and when did she realize these payments happened and the relationship happened. we don't know. there was moments of reckoning in this. >> there's so much more. i could read through all these documents for the next hour.

i promise i won't do that. still to come, another insider from the trump white house will join us. former deputy press secretary sarah matthews joins us. later, judge juan merchan exposing the disinformation being pedalled by donald trump after criminal defendant donald trump lied about what the gag order means for him and his ability to testify. we'll tell you about that and jeff daniels later in the broadcast. don't go anywhere.

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we have got to start with the breaking political news that

took place overnight. a very rare apology from donald trump. >> the candidate forced to say he's sorry after a tape surfaced where he said vulgar comments about women. >> hours away from the debate rematch and donald trump not backing down after this explosive video. top republicans calling on trump to quit the race. will the gop abandon its own nominee. >> speaker paul ryan telling republicans in a conference call he will not defend trump nor campaign with him. he seemed to suggest this race is over. >> here's what we can say. we know that donald trump cratered in a bad way over the weekend when news of that tape came out. >> the party has said to people, fight your own race, do what you need to do. you can separate from the nominee. >> we're back with christie, sue, basil and vaughn. vaughn, you and i remember all these news cycles with

disturbing detail. here's where i think they're part of the exhibits that the prosecution is trying to put into the minds of the jury. this is the motive. these weren't affairs that happened in '07, hush money dealt with years later. this was a micro compacted crisis management strategy designed to suppress the story in the four weeks between access hollywood and election day. it comes out october 7th. the money transfers the 28th. the karen mcdougal breaks november 7th. talk about the timeline that hope hicks pulled back the curtain on. >> reporter: right. she acknowledged, nicolle, that on october 7th directly that the conversations ended up beginning about concern about women voters and cratering support here and, of course, if you're looking at potentially more women's stories -- allegations coming forward as they were in real

time during those weeks there, it was of the most concern for this trump operation. that's why the prosecution brought forward multiple statements that trump made himself on his social media account tweeting out, in part saying, can you believe i lost a large number of women voters based on events that never happened? another tweet that these phony stories have impact. they were used by the prosecution to show the jury that donald trump was acknowledging these stories and access hollywood tape hurt him politically. that's why in those closing weeks there was not only concern about him and these stories, but an effort to turn the attention toward hillary clinton which is why on october 9th you saw steve bannon and trump bring out clinton accusers at the debate to try to turn this back to a conversation that included the

clintons. >> i want to read again how this was -- vaughn's exactly right. i think the thing for us to reckon within our politics, p.s., it worked. he won. this is how the prosecutors pressed hope hicks on the impact of the tape in terms of developing for the jury a narrative about the motive to suppress the story with hush money payments. shortly after the access hollywood tape surfaces did you become aware of trump's behavior with women? we were contacted by "the new york times." prosecutor, this was the middle of october 2016. hope hicks, yes. how soon before the election? a few weeks. did you attend a rally with trump in greensboro, north carolina. hope hicks, yes. then this video that vaughn's talking about, hope is complaining there saying that if

5% of voters believe these allegations are true, it could hurt his standing with women voters. he's got the polls on his mind. he knows that they were here and they went down after the tape comes out. prosecutor, was trump concerned this could hurt his standing with voters? hope hicks, yes. she closes the loop with firsthand understanding of what trump thought, what trump said. attaches it to what he did publicly and you have a full circle on his motive. >> i want to go back to something that you said because you were talking to people this. this wasn't just concern. this was a five alarm fire. >> they thought it was over. >> they thought it was over. the damage control went so far that he made a video that was released which looked like a hostage video. >> do we have that, control room? let's play that. >> i've never said i'm a perfect person, nor pretendsing to be someone i'm not. i've said and done things i

regret. the words released today on this decade-old video are one of them. anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who i am. i said it. i was wrong and i apologize. >> right. >> it came out very late in the evening. >> it was quite late. i remember because i was in the -- i was covering -- we were in the newsroom nonstop. it was late. hope hicks, her delivery of it was interesting. she used words like concern and i would maybe put those in all caps with a highlighter. >> freaking out. >> she did say she remembered there was a category 4 hurricane bearing down on -- i don't know where it was. she said nobody was talking about it. the news cycle was the "access hollywood" tape. then in the middle of that another story comes out that

"the new york times" did. it's important to remember it wasn't just karen mcdougal and stormy daniels. there was other stories that were coming out. >> 19 women have accused donald trump of sexual misconduct. >> this was a huge concern. the news got out about the payments. you can't emphasize enough the importance of the "access hollywood" tape and she punctuated that. every witness has. the thing about hope hicks compared to david pecker, she's a friendly -- i mean, she's credible and not a scoundrel. >> but she revered the scoundrel himself. i guess a jury has to hear the story from people close to the accused criminal. >> right. and somebody who's saying such positive things about him becomes credible when they say something that is negative and

harmful to him. you could tell it was hard for her to say it, and they saw that. why the access hollywood tape matters so much, we heard from keith davidson it came out in 2011. in 2016 they're shopping the story. nobody is really biting. after "access hollywood" there's great interest and there's sense in the campaign that this would be the nail at coffin. it would be over if this came out. that's why they entertain making this payment in the first place. even with that, they enter intro the agreement and don't pay her. they make all these excuses to delay. michael cohen saying everything but the dog ate my homework for why they can't come up with the payment because donald trump won't pay up. hope hicks said they didn't want this payment to happen. i think -- i think it was really -- >> stormy's team thinks it's

because he is hedging to see if he wins. >> keith davidson was very clear about that. he was very worried he wasn't going to get the payment. >> because if trump won it wouldn't matter. >> if he lost it wouldn't matter. stormy daniels was calling keith davidson if not twice a day, every hour saying where is the money? >> all right. so much more. so much more. we have to sneak in a quick break. former trump aid sarah matthews joins the conversation on the other side. ♪♪ uh-huh. uh-huh. ♪♪ [ metal groans] sure, i can hold. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty liberty liberty liberty ♪ ghostbusters: frozen empire. in theaters now. sometimes, the lows of bipolar depression feel darkest before dawn. with caplyta, there's a chance to let in the lyte™.

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in evidence of fraud on a scale that would have been impacted the outcome of the election and i was becoming increasingly concerned that we were damaging -- we were damaging his legacy. >> what did the president say in response to what you just described? >> he said something along the lines of -- you know, nobody will care about my legacy if i lose so that won't matter. the only thing that matters is winning. >> so that was maybe the only other time we've heard from hope hicks. it was some of her testimony before the january 6th select committee telling some of the story of january 6th. it was also one of the moments

of rupture for her role as one of the few people donald trump trusted completely. may have been one of the last times they spoke. she said today they spoke in 2022. that's about two years ago. now she's again the consummate insider turned witness to nearly every trump scandal, testifying sitting just a few feet away from him in his first criminal trial. joining our conversation is sarah matthews. she was white house deputy press secretary during the trump administration and overlapped a bit with hope hicks. sarah, hope hicks at the beginning of her testimony before the really universally agreed upon damaging testimony to donald trump in terms of the crime that's under scrutiny here, as well as her own emotions that came out in a rare and human moment for her, there was some pretty important testimony about how she didn't ever freelance. donald trump was in charge of the message.

donald trump, she said, was the best at it. he was in charge of who to respond to, what to say to them and that she really just got reporters on the phone. is that how the press operation worked during your time? >> yeah. i think certainly donald trump had a hands on roll in terms of his branding and the message coming out of the white house. i think too, really when we're talking about scandal that trump was dealing with -- don't get me wrong. i was dealing at the white house and we had a low level policy statement we were giving to a reporter, that's not something we would have raised to him. when it came to controversial or salacious stories, those were things we cleared with him. i can remember during the time i was at the white house, those last seven months of the administration when his niece's book dropped. that was during that time. we had to push back on some of the allegations that she made in

that book. we cleared all of those things by him. so i believe that her testimony is true and factual that he was very hands on when it came to the press. we know he consumes a large amount of media. he's very in tune with what people are saying about him. so it's very believable that he would micromanage these kinds of statements coming from her during the 2016 campaign because it tracks the experience i had while working for him in 2020 at the white house. >> one of the exhibits put before the jury was her own email message after she receives the email and it had in her own words deny, deny, deny. was that the strategy? was that the message from the top down of what you did with every press inquiry? >> yeah. we would clear these kinds of things by the president and ask him about different allegations. if he told us, no, i didn't say that, no that's not how it

happened, we had no evidence to go off other than his word. i can remember for example -- one example that struck me during my time at the white house was when "the atlantic" story dropped when he said fallen soldiers were suckers and losers. we asked him if it was true. he said he didn't make that statement. he said it was from anonymous sources. now we know that john kelly was one of those sources. that was something i pushed back on. at the time i was taking the former president at his word. i think that's probably similarly what hope was dealing with during the 2016 campaign. obviously i wasn't part of that campaign. i can't speak to if deny, deny, deny even if they knew they were lying, but that wasn't how i operated during a communicator during my time at the white

house. >> lying for donald trump is now central to his first criminal trial. what do you feel seeing all the in contra vertable evidence said about karen mcdougal and others? >> donald trump is a pathological liar. it's not surprising he would tell his staff these things. they're serving him and they spread these lies, whether they did so knowingly or unknowingly. i have a little bit of sympathy for her in that case if she was mislead in a way. i will say, too, when you go to work for donald trump, i think everyone including myself was aware of the kind of man he was and his character. you kind of sign up for that knowing that -- he did have his good moments and could be, you

know, a good boss in some ways. for the most part, i think, you knew what you were signing up for in that role. for me personally i decided to take the job at the white house because i believe in the majority of the policies we were pushing and i think with the case of hope specifically, this was someone who wasn't even in the political world. she kind of just got dragged into it, caught up in all of it. i think she had this personal connection to him and the family and i think that led her to be the spokesperson on the campaign in 2016. i don't know if there was necessarily -- she knew full well what she was kind of getting into during that time, if that makes sense. >> you have so much credibility now as someone who came out and told the truth about what you saw in the time there. i wrote down losers and suckers because i remember that story.

for your admirers, what policies did you believe in so much that you would work for somebody that was accused of sexual misconduct by 19 women? >> it's a fair question. i believed in a lot of the economic policies. i believe in a lot of the border and immigration policies. i thought that was something we needed to be stronger on and he was a strong voice for that. i didn't necessarily believe in all policies he pursued, such as family separation. that didn't happen during the time i was at the white house. i think too that i agreed a lot with the way that he kind of disrupted washington, that he kind of came in and wanted to shake things up because a lot of americans, i think, it resonated with them that the status quo wasn't working for them. donald trump was a disrupter in a way. for better or worse the end of his administration showed maybe

that wasn't the best case. i think a lot of americans feel similarly to me where they liked the policies of the trump administration, but maybe didn't so much like the man. i think too something really important to note, though, is that donald trump is no longer the candidate that he was in 2016. he's no longer the same candidate he was in 2020. he has fundamentally changed for the worse and in a sense that no other president in history ever disrupted the transfer power peaceful. these are disqualifying things for me that i could never support him again, even if i did like the policies coming out of the administration. >> sarah matthews, you know how i feel. i think that necessity is the mother of all invention. i think it's necessary to protect the country from donald trump. i appreciate your candor and

taking my questions. i welcome your insights. i hope you feel like you had a chance to explain your viewpoint. thank you for joining us on this historic day. another break for us. we'll give vaughn hillyard and others inside the courthouse the last word. don't go anywhere. last word. don't go anywhere. - so this is pickleball? - pickle! ah, these guys are intense. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? this week on chewy, shop all your pet's favorites and get a $30 egift card. enjoy more savings on more food, more toys,

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truth to this. when you heard that denial, what did you think? >> i think somebody's lying. i can tell you it's not me. it's a little hurtful. at the same time i have to understand, like, if he were to have told hope he didn't do it, i guess i understand because he's trying to protect his family, his image, things like that. but it was definitely like, wow, you're going to lie about that? okay. >> we're back with vaughn, christie, sue and basil. this came up and this was really, really a part of the story the prosecution used hope hicks very effectively to tell to the jury. >> right, because she talks to him right after this and his question is how is it playing? we heard that phrase so many times. that's what he wanted to know. how is it playing? then they wanted to know how much traction the story was getting and they would decide

whether or not to put out a statement after or if it was dying on the vine. donald trump always wanted to know. that was the question to hope hicks. i remember from david pecker's testimony there was another call that night involving the karen mcdougal thing. he was very concerned about it. you know, i think he was just phoning one person after the other after that anderson cooper interview. >> george conway sat at this table and said he was with kellyanne conway and jared and ivanka and asked if they were watching. what was hope's testimony about karen mcdougal used by the prosecution to do? >> so i think, again, she came off as somebody who is very credible giving that inside context how it was playing in the campaign. the prosecutors to prove it's a felony have to come back to the fact that he wasn't worried about melania or the family and

how it was affecting the campaign. you have a woman saying she had an affair with this. you don't have hope hicks saying, he's worried about how melania was going to take this. she doesn't testify about any of that. >> melania did come up. there was a conversation between donald trump and hope hicks -- was it after the 2016 story on karen mcdougal -- >> "the wall street journal" story. >> yes. donald trump says to hope hicks, can you make sure the papers aren't delivered to the apartment today so melania doesn't see them? as if melania doesn't have a phone and doesn't call anybody, her only source of news is a physical newspaper. so she did mention -- i'm sure that donald trump's lawyers will mention that because they'll say his main concern was for

melania. it's the only time any concern has been raised that donald trump had for melania. it was don't have the papers sent up to the apartment today. >> vaughn hillyard, this was the most dramatic day so far from perhaps someone with a lot of credibility in donald trump's eyes. what do you expect next? >> reporter: right, and just a jumping off point from this, if we step outside the guilty or innocent part of this trial, so much of the testimony that i've taken away from these last two weeks, and especially from hope hicks, is just how involved donald trump is with the day to day of his image, in the discussions and ultimately the decisions that take place around him. i say that because we're talking about four days before the election him going back and forth with the campaign over what statement they were going to give to "the wall street journal" on november 4th about what was alleged to have been a

$150,000 payment from the national inquirer to karen mcdougal and the statement that they ultimate put out in consultation with donald trump was, quote, we have no knowledge of any of this. i spotted john eastman walking by the courthouse while we were on the air. i had producer dan run over and john eastman was down here for a wedding, but wanted to see what was taking place. january 4th, two days before january 6th, it's john eastman talking to donald trump telling him he didn't believe he -- vp pence didn't have the constitutional right to reject the electors. donald trump, we keep bringing him back to the scene where all these discussions take place. now it's whether you believe his word on whether he committed a crime with these checks. >> vaughn hillyard, thank you.

kris, sue and basil, thank you for spending time with us. coming up, judge merchan swatting down trump's latest attempt at misguiding his own base. we'll be right back. you founded your kayak company because you love the ocean- not spreadsheets. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

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speaking of hope, hope hicks is here. where is hope hicks? where is hope hicks? the great hope hicks. you know, she tested positive, but she's okay. where's hope? >> hi. we can share a microphone now. thank you all so much. thank you, president trump. i have stage fright. >> she's great. hi again, everyone.

it's 5:00 in new york. that wasn't today. beloved by the ex president, hope hicks was someone we heard a lot about during the trump presidency, but almost never heard from. that was very rare to hear her voice and see her behind the podium, until today. hicks was the star blockbuster witness in day 11 of donald trump's criminal election interference hush money trial. she was in donald trump's inner most circle for many years. first working for him at the trump observation and then as his press secretary for the campaign. hicks said, quote, we were all just following his lead, referring to the ex president. she said she doesn't recall being in an august 2015 meeting with david pecker when the catch and kill scheme was launched, but it is possible she was there. she does recall participating in

phone calls after the national inquirer published a negative piece about donald trump's rival ben carson. hope hicks remembers that donald trump praised that piece. hope hicks provided the jury an insider look into the meltdown of the entire trump campaign following the public release of the "access hollywood" tape. hope hicks testified, quote, there was consensus among us all the tape was damaging and that this was going to be a crisis. when it came to the stories of karen mcdougal and stormy daniels, hope hicks detailed how she came to know about those stories and how she worked with the ex president and michael cohen to craft denials of trump's involvement with either of those women. before hope hicks took the stand today, judge juan merchan took time to debunk misinformation trump spouted outside the courthouse yesterday in his

usual rallying against the gag order, donald trump lied and said the gag order prevents him from testifying in his own defense. it's a claim judge merchan shot down this morning. the judge said, quote, it's come to my attention there may be a misunderstanding. i want to stress to mr. trump, you have the absolute right to testify if you decide. it's a constitutional right you have not been denied, just as you have the right not to testify. the gag order does not prohibit you from taking the stand. it only applies to statements made outside the court. donald trump paid the $9,000 he has been fined for violating that gag order. judge merchan is expected to rule on four additional violations of the gag order next week. it's where we start the hour. msnbc legal correspondent lisa

ruben has run to join us from the courthouse. also special correspondent for the hollywood reporter loughlin cartwright and former lead investigator for the january 6th committee tim happe joins us. he's interviewed hope hicks as part of the committee dealing with the january 6th investigation. lisa, i start with you. hope hicks became emotion and seemed to destroy the claim that donald trump didn't know about the payments. >> absolutely. in the weeks leading up to this testimonity spent time with hope hicks' prior testimony. she gave testimony in 2019 to the house committee and she testified before the january 6th committee. in those interviews she was

truthful, but not forthcoming. one of the things that came across differently in 2022 than in 2019 was her willingness and ability to talk about what happened in the white house. what happened between those two times, a whole bunch of litigation instigated by congress and the house to vish yat donald trump's claims of executive privilege. in 2019 when hope hicks walked into house judiciary she was willing to talk about what happened during the campaign and no further. she would not say what she learned, what she knew while she was in the white house. those were the most dramatic moments today and where the prosecution dramatically also landed in asking hope hicks to reveal what donald trump said to her after michael cohen came forward and claimed to "the new york times" that he himself made the payment to stormy daniels. hope hicks then related donald trump told me michael cohen did this out of the goodness of his heart because he wanted to

protect me from false accusations. instead of asking her did you think the president was telling the truth, the attorney went around it and said was that consistent with your experience of michael cohen and her answer was just devastating. she said, no, michael cohen was not a person i knew to be selfless. he was out for credit. in one blow hope hicks both damaged the defense very badly and in damaging michael cohen also helped the prosecution quite a bit. both soften the jury up for the character that they're about to meet, but also almost throwing him under the bus in order to save the case. it wasn't credible that michael cohen would have paid this because michael was not that guy. >> the other piece she seems to -- she makes clear that -- she was basically the communications director in name

only. he was in charge of the message. he was in charge of who the message was delivered to. he got reporters on the phone and facilitated things. >> she as a communications director, i think you're right, she was a mouth piece. as she said today, they viewed trump as a communications savant. it's why their team was small. they didn't need all those people. everything happening during the campaign was in his head. >> then it lands on the bombshell, the smoking gun, that in 2018 he says, whew, dodged a bullet. >> that was the second part of that conversation. he's musing out loud to her, would it have been better hope that it came out before or came out now? i think it was better it came out now. it was a minute or two after

that that hope hicks became emotional. none of us know what actually made her emotional. i can't imagine sitting across the courtroom to someone you devoted your life to, you were essentially a surrogate child to them, to see them as a criminal defendant and know what you're about to say is going to impact the future of the case, that has to be overwhelming for anyone. i know we have viewers who find it disappointing that we have empathy for people in this drama, i have lots of empathy for hope hicks in court today. >> another extraordinary moment was when she had to answer to her own emails where she gets the access hollywood transcript. she follows it with deny, deny, deny, end quote. that was the dna of the campaign. as sympathetic as anyone appears when they cry in court, sitting

across from someone she revered who may have -- who knows what she's feeling when she's crying. she bought into the m.o. which was, quote, deny, deny, deny. >> that was one of the most extraordinary moments, seeing the tiktok of the "access hollywood" tape and seeing the tiktok what was happening when "the wall street journal" called for comment when they had the karen mcdougal story locked down when they had a conversation with me. >> throw this down. take me through this and why it matters. take us through all of it. >> it's the friday before the election. i get the phone call from the "wall street journal" who said someone is asking for help getting a story across the line. he said do you know anything about karen mcdougal? i was feet from dylan howard. i walked outside the building and walked away and called him back and said, mate, if david

pecker finds out i'm helping you, i'm caught. i knew if i -- it would give me cover. i said it was a catch and kill. he said, what's a catch and kill? i explained the process of buying a story off the market and killing it. i go back up to my office after telling him dylan is doing this story and i'm sweating and dylan howard comes into my office and says "the wall street journal" has a story coming. for me it was fascinating finding out what else was going on when michael sends that email for comment to hope hicks and then hope getting to jared and saying can you get in touch with rupert? they're looking to buy time. she's also trying to figure out

what the strategy is here. seeing those bits and pieces today play out was just something -- filled in the pieces of the puzzle there. >> to your point, i mean, the get jared to call rupert, it wasn't a criminal catch and kill. it had the election interference as a motive, but it was still the m.o. it wasn't let's talk to him and see if it was true. it was deny, deny, deny, kill, kill, kill and that was in the blood stream of the -- >> and the communication between michael cohen and hope after the story comes out. it landed late friday night. i was taking cover in a sushi place in the village hoping no one would call me and asking if i had any involvement in getting the story out there. no one did. what we know from court today is michael cohen and hope are communicating and cohen is saying the story is poorly

written and not getting any traction and hope made the joke about it not getting any traction. the story got no pick up. it got swallowed up in the election. the fire-alarm fire with access hollywood didn't happen here. >> it's clear from her telling of the response to "access hollywood" -- you look at jurors as people you're telling a story to, she tells the story it wiped the hurricane off the news. >> that's so important because then we get into the stormy daniels situation and she comes on the scene. they were so concerned about the impact on female voters. here you have a porn star shopping a story about an affair with a married man who is potentially going to be in office. >> there's something so eerie too about watching a young woman

who took trump's word for it -- i mean, by this point there are 19 women who accused trump of sexual misconduct. she gets the "access hollywood" and before she watches it says deny, deny, deny. it's incredible insight into the campaign. >> the email she was sent has the transcript with it and she doesn't realize that at the point where she says deny, deny, deny. she says that's what i wrote, but i'm realizing here today that the transcript was at the bottom. >> it was deny, deny, deny. it wasn't i did my due diligence. i'll find out if this story is right. that was something else that came out. hope clearly said i just accepted donald trump's word or accepted the word of whoever and sent the statement on.

>> she writes to her colleagues before she interrupts him in debate prep. she knows that's her instruction. tim, you're in this rarified air of someone who has asked questions of hope hicks and received answers. what did you think of her testimony today? >> sounded very familiar, nicolle. she was reluctant to talk to us, but credible when she did. she was not happy to be providing information that she knew would potentially damage her former boss and mentor, the former president, when she spoke to the select committee. similarly today it was emotionally difficult for her to do. i think it enhances her credibility. she provided a couple facts to the select committee, one was her belief that the election was not stolen and the fact that she conveyed that to the president several times. it's time, sir, to accept this, to start talking about your legacy and not wasting times on these claims of election fraud.

she also told us that in the days before january 6th she encouraged the president to issue a statement telling his following that they should remain peaceful and that eric kirschman said he had a conversation with the president and he said, i don't want to do that. people might not come. two significant facts that helped us piece together the narrative about january 6th. i found her smart, credible and reluctant so therefore more candid and truthful. >> let me play some of that for you. >> when i say it, it means that the president say something about being nonviolent. you said i suggested it several times monday and tuesday and he refused. tell us what happened. >> sure. i didn't speak to the president

about this directly. i communicated with people like eric kirschman that it was my view that it was important that the president put out some kind of message in advance of the event. >> what was mr. hirschman's response? >> mr. hirschman said he made the same recommendation directly to the president and he refused. >> just so i understand, mr. hirschman said he already recommended to the president that the president convey a message that people should be peaceful on january 6th and the president refused to do that? >> yes. >> tim, she's -- it's clear that she knows right from wrong. it's also clear she doesn't run into the burning building and tell trump you do this or else, which makes her fascinating -- almost at organized crime trials

you get the people that were around when the schemes were hatched. >> yeah. so must have of what we were probing and the current case is probing is what's on donald trump's mind, nicolle. we talk again and again, you and me, about intent and what the president means. not many people are as close to him or had as direct communication with him, know him as well as hope hicks. when she gives you a vignette like that, i was concerned there would be violence on january 6th, so was eric hirschman, and the president said, sorry, we can't suppress turnout, that's huge. it's credible and gives you a window into the president's state of mind. when she says he was very concerned about these stories and their impact on the election, not just on his wife, but on the election, that's really credible. it gives you a window into what's on donald trump's mind. >> i want to read some of the

testimony about karen mcdougal. prosecutors ask, when did you first hear the name karen mcdougal? she says, november 4th. >> in what context? i received an inquiry from a reporter at the "wall street journal." have you ever heard about stormy daniels? she was mentioned before. what was the previous time? trump and some of the security guys on the plane were telling a story about a celebrity golf tournament and her name came up. she was there with another participant trump played with. prosecutor, you mentioned when you heard about karen mcdougal, where were you? hope hicks, on trump's plane. we were about to do a hangar rally. we just landed in ohio. he was going to start the rally. i received the email as we were landing.

prosecutor, what did you learn about the story he was about to publish? hope hicks, it outlined there was a woman named karen mcdougal that was purchased by the national inquirer and never published. he was asking if we the trump campaign knew anything about that. this might be sort of the closest she comes at this point in the testimony to revealing that the trump/pecker conspiracy was kept from his spokes performance. it's the first evidence of the crack. >> this came around in a pivotal moment when she's talking about a situation in early 2018 where donald trump is trying to get ahold of david pecker and doesn't have the correct phone number. the defense then later on tried to present this, well, he's just trying to contact another journalist. david pecker is not a journalist. he's an accountant and a

publisher. the timing is pivotal because the day he's trying to contact david pecker is the same day karen mcdougal is suing to get out of her nda. why is trump trying to contact pecker on that specific day? it's because karen mcdougal is trying to get out of her deal with ami, the deal that silenced her. >> what is it like to see -- you've got all this visibility that none of us have and you've written about it, what's it like to see the underbelly? >> it's surreal. little pieces of puzzle that i keep wondering what was that conversation going on like when dylan howard walked out to david pecker and said i don't know how this leak has come about and he has no idea i was on the phone with the "wall street journal." it's bizarre to me to realize all this stuff was going on in the background.

i have visibility to what's going on in front of me. >> the future president is lying to his campaign spokesperson. >> we'll still there pumping out hillary tells all right up until that last minute david pecker's orders were to do everything we could to get donald trump elected. >> no one is going anywhere. there's so much more going on in the first criminal trial of an ex president. later, jeff daniels will be our guest at the table. he's one of the most politically astute players in hollywood. his home state of michigan is pivotal in the next presidential election. we'll talk to him about his next role. he plays a deliciously corrupt real estate developer. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere. thinks her flaky gray patches

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we're all back. lisa ruben, right out of the gate she said she paid for her own lawyers. why does that matter? >> a number of other trump affiliated witnesses had their witness paid for by the trump organization. the defense elicited that it was going to be true of other witnesses. the former controller of the trump organization who is instrumental in the actual falsification of the business records that's been charged as a crime, i imagine that's true for

him too. you heard her say, i paid for my own counsel. that's as clear a break as anything from trump. she's saying, i don't need them to pay for me even though i worked for the trump organization because i'm paying my own way. >> what do the prosecutors need to do next? >> they've done a good job of setting the context, the motivation for the falsified business records of campaign assistance. the defendant's control over everything from communication strategy to expenditures. they need to start tying that to the specific records at issue. that's where michael cohen comes in. he's obviously coming. that's where stormy daniels comes in.

again, it's the money to her that's the basis of those allegedly falsified records. we've done a lot of scene setting and contextual saigs of the facts. now we'll get closer to the actual records that are at issue. >> when you look at hope's testimony, talking about the hurricane, talking about the access hollywood wipes the hurricane out of the news. i was in this studio covering that final 30 days of the presidential campaign. what was it like inside the inquirer. you talked about the final covers. you look at what is happening up to access hollywood and it's ben carson and ted cruz. that's the spring. you get into that final month and it's after hillary clinton's september 11th health scare at a 9/11 memorial. the october stuff was next level. >> this is why i've got friends calling me now saying you sit in

a bar and said there's something going on here. there's a conspiracy to, you know, throw everything behind donald trump. there was a last-minute push from above for us to do everything we could in terms of resource and coverage to support donald trump. you could see in the reflection in the covers and just in our priorities in the newsroom, it was all in for donald trump. and i think that one of the things that -- keith davidson the last few days and also before that the testimony of david pecker, it just has confirmed to me that a lot of the things i've been saying to people over time and when we were having dinner last night, it was said, you were telling me this, but it's hard to understand and hard to follow. a tabloid gets together with a campaign and starts buying stories off the market and is running these soviet propaganda

type covers and it's all in coordination and there's back room phone calls. i get why i sounded like a conspiracy theorist. what's nice is knowing that, well, i guess i'm a little bit crazy, but not as crazy as everyone may have thought at the time. >> when you see it all play out publicly, you wonder how nobody else saw what you saw. it's so flagrant. >> it is. one of the greatest takeaways is that it was journalism that got us here. it was the work of the "wall street journal," of the blokes there, the work of the "new york times" and the work of the associated press and the work of ronan and "the new yorker." i know this because i was sort of feeding them all. the competitiveness of those organizations and it kept going and going until michael cohen was raided. that was the point where i had this moment that someone else is

taking notice now. it was the journalists and editors taking notice this was a big story. now it was the authorities taking notice. >> that's where the prosecution lands with hope hicks today, the final question to her is about 2018 when trump sort of -- as we were saying, says, thank god this didn't come out. it was like he was confessing to the election interference crimes. >> it's wild that it's taken all of this to kind of finally put all the cards on the table and to sort of confirm that, you know -- for me at least, that it was this big sort of conspiracy. >> tim, as someone who investigated and referred six crimes to doj that trump committed around the deadly insurrection of january 6th, i worked on campaigns. these are flagrant violations of the spirit and text of our campaign finance laws. >> absolutely. campaign finance laws require sunshine and disclosure.

that underpins the process that voters have a right to know who is funding campaigns because it has potential influence on the candidate. that's a relevant consideration as people vote. there's no question that this alleged conduct flies in the face of campaign finance law. as someone that's investigated a separate conspiracy involving the former president, there's so many parallels, nicolle, here, control by the central figure. other people willing to do his bidding, even mindful that maybe there's something wrong with that. some people telling the truth. some people getting off not running into the burning building. we had team crazy versus team normal on january 6th. there were some voices of reason and others were not. there's a lot of parallels in terms of how he manages people and how he lives his life. >> the variable is how people react to him.

he's this toxin in the government and people react differently as tim said. what do we expect trump's team to do to hope hicks on cross? >> they've already done it. she's come off the stand now. it was really incremental. they realized once emil bove got up and she started crying. they realized they were going to have to take a different approach. they were trying to get her to chip away at the margins. he was concerned about the family for example, things like that. it was not a full-blown dismantling like we've seen of other witnesses. they knew she came across as credible. she was already fragile. the last thing they wanted to do was have the jurors go home thinking in their minds, wow, they were mean to that girl.

>> i think they recalibrated when she got off crying. when she got back up, it was -- >> kinder and gentler. >> yeah. they didn't want to -- she came off fragile and kind of broken. >> when she walked into the room, the ghost of tim and his committee's work was with me. she talked about the last meal they had together and they didn't have much more to say together. he said to her, was january 6th as bad as everyone was saying? she looked across the table and said, yes. there was not a meeting of the minds between them on the worst thing he has done, not to mention some of the other worst things he's done. to loughlin's point, reliving this shows us how crazy it all

was. >> the brain reacts to drama by making it relative. this was a serious assault on our elections. lisa, loughlin, tim, best of the best, thank you for starting us off. when we come back, we're joined by emmy award winning actor jeff daniels who stars as a corrupt real estate tycoon on a netflix show called "the man in full." we'll talk to him after a short break. spread it to other people. -mom, come here! -don't worry about it. it'll go away on its own! -no, it won't go away on its own. it's an infection. you need a prescription. nail fungus is a contagious infection. at the first signs, show it to your doctor... ... and ask if jublia is right for you. jublia is a prescription medicine used to treat toenail fungus. its most common side effects include ingrown toenail, application site redness... ... itching, swelling, burning or stinging, blisters and pain.

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donald trump is there trapped in that courtroom because of what he did. there are a lot of other people trapped in that courtroom as well because of what he did. he doesn't seem to care that they are also cold and tired and don't want to be there. so it's just another example of how selfish he is and how he doesn't care about anybody else's circumstances even if he caused them. >> that was mary trump on this very program yesterday talking about her uncle donald facing consequences of his own actions where every day brings new revelations, riveting ones, about how desperate he is to cover up his misdeeds and alleged crimes. today hope hicks told how the team scrambled to save trump's reputation after the release of the access hollywood tape. our next guest the one and only

jeff daniels is very familiar with the inner monologue. he stars in "a man in full" as charlie crocker who finds himself suddenly bankrupt. daniels' character is not based on donald trump. life sometimes imitates art imitating life. here's a look. >> charlie crocker is the biggest hero of real estate in atlanta. the problem is he's going bankrupt. >> jesus balls almighty. >> mr. crocker, party's over. >> you want to take your shot, you better make it your best one.

nothing can kill me. i'm not sure who the hell you think you're talking to. >> i'm talking to a [ bleep ]. >> joining us at the table is multi-emmy award winning actor jeff daniels, the star of "a man in full." it's glorious. it's the best escape i've had from the trump story. >> thank you. >> congratulations on the series. let's talk about charlie crocker. it's such a departure. i quoted mcavoy in talking about chuck todd. you played atticus finch on broadway. was this fun? >> great fun. those are the fun ones. you know, the hero and the strong jaw, the righteous thing, you can do that, but to play the scoundrel, the despicable, crude, vulgar -- those are the

fun ones. you get to go places you wouldn't ordinarily go unless you're like that. you're putting on a completely different suit. >> it's based on a tom wolf novel. i was a big fan of tom wolf. it's amazing how this feels so of the moment. this story is right now. how does that get pulled off? >> david e. kelly did the writing of the six-episode series. regina king directed. he wrote it based on two or three guys in atlanta who were like trump. they were using other people's money to buy skyscrapers. too big to fail. wolf took this guy and made him fail. in the first episode you see charlie get hauled into the bank and they say you owe $800 million by tuesday. he's corrupt.

he'll get $100 million to build a building and he using some of the money to buy a jet and they call him on it. he's not as big or important or as rich as he thinks, which is what trump is going through. >> i see trump in everything i see because i've been covering him for so long. there's this accountability for charlie crocker. >> he is held accountable which is what we're seeing all day today. you see hope hicks walk in and basically she's crying because she's -- she has to betray him as gently as she possibly could. david pecker didn't cry. you know, he did the same thing. donald is sitting right over

there and it's come to jesus time. it really is. look, we all have to live under the rule of law. i hate to tell him that, but it's true. being able to kind of talk your way out of everything or delay, delay, delay, which is what people who are guilty do, is -- you know, at least in this particular case with this particular trial, he's got to sit at that table. there's a judge. as you guys have been saying, he's not in control now. charlie is the same way. he thinks he can handle this and get his way out of it. then, as we find out, he can't. we'll see what happens with donald. this is costing him. i know this is costing him where i live in michigan. this is costing him votes. >> is it the sense that he has a different set of operating

rules? you're so good at sort of banging our head into the reality that people going about their lives are not following everything in the trump story. is it this bigger thing where he thinks he's getting away with stuff that normal people don't get away with? >> yeah. being from the midwest, being from michigan, we've had this chip on our shoulder about the coasts. >> say more. >> we're told, you know, new york tells us how unsophisticated we are. we're not calling you stupid, but you know what i mean. we hear that. we're not. we're not. what we don't like is being lied to. what we don't like is being told what you see isn't true. what we don't like is there are alternative facts. what we don't like is rudy saying -- that truth thing he

said. >> alternative truth. >> not for us there isn't. there's just a lack of decency that donald has kind of, you know, hitched his wagon to. he keeps telling us these things. you know, i mean, i look at the trial every day and you watch what happens in the trial and then you watch him talk about it like it was an amazing day. no, it wasn't. it really wasn't. quit trying to tell us like you're a bad salesman on my front porch selling me a vacuum cleaner that's the greatest vacuum cleaner in your life. you've never seen anything like it. that's what bad salesman do. >> that's what he did. he sold water, steaks. he's selling bibles now. >> he's a bad willie lowman. it's the fraud. it's the emperor has to clothes. we get that.

i'm not talking about the people on the right, maga, they're going to go. people on the left are -- it's the people in the middle. it's not the hollywood liberals. it's the mid western independents who are sitting there listening going, somebody tell me the truth. somebody treat me with an intelligence. somebody be decent and talk to me straight because we need to change this country. we need to change what's going on because where we're headed is -- you know, i would like to think that the people in the middle are over him and they are going to demand more of the republican party. the republican party dropped the ball when they brought in sarah palin for instance. >> i was there. >> i know. a heart beat away from the president. that's the best you got? really? i remember -- you would know.

reince preibus after romney lost said the republican party needs to open its tent. it was almost that phrase. >> yeah. >> i was, like, okay. now we're getting into my dad's republican party and maybe going back to that. okay. and then 20 minutes later the tea party yanked john boehner's leash. he was sitting in the rose garden with obama. they yanked him and now he's in florida selling marijuana. >> if someone wrote this in a script, you couldn't make it up. >> that's why house of cards, "veep," "newsroom," we can't top this. then they doubled down and hitched their wagon to trump. then they went further down the rabbit hole with trump and here's where they are. >> you think it's too much?

when you look at not the maga base and not the happy biden voters and the democratic coalition, but the people in the middle, the people liz cheney's trying to wake up, the people biden is trying to reach, do you think those people have had enough? >> i would like to think they have. i think they're not paying nearly as much attention as your network would like. they're living their lives. i mean, i am. i'm like -- it's like -- i'm reading this novel that's going to culminate this fall. they're engaged. not as engaged as they will be in the fall. >> they're open? >> they're open and they want better. that's the thing. they want -- i know people -- i know republicans who went with trump to get their tax cuts and then maybe it's desantis and then it was nikki haley and now they're throwing up their hands. what everybody wants is decency.

they want respect again. they want someone whether it's left, center, right, center, whether it's -- not so much 2024, which is biden and trump, but it's 2028. it's liz cheney, nikki haley, gavin newsom, gretchen whitmer, kamala harris. >> whitmer is doing a good job in michigan. >> she is. most of the state love her. she's the real deal. you know, it's -- we want someone who respects the institutions, who understands that the office of the presidency is bigger it's not like your faith is bigger than you are. >> the military. >> the military. they need to be served. you're only renting that office for four years, mr. president. even ragan knew that, right?

that's kind of what we're looking for again. with trump, there's nothing bigger than trump. nothing. and that's just wrong. we are not going to be the greatest country in the world unless we are -- elect great leaders and we're not there yet but i hope in the fall i think that's the voters. it's the middle of the electorate that's going to decide the election. we vote for decency, even if he's old. you know, old, it's wise, it's wisdom, experience. that will get you to 2028. >> biden's campaign as a transitional figure. it's part of the story he's told to the electorate. will you keep an eye on michigan for us? >> i will. >> will you keep an eye on it? >> i'll be there. >> in the meantime, "a man in

full" is delicious. >> it starts right now. you can stream all six episodes. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. and doing more to prevent recurrence. verzenio is specifically for hr-positive, her2-negative, node-positive early breast cancer with a high chance of returning, as determined by your doctor when added to hormone therapy. verzenio reduces the risk of recurrence versus hormone therapy alone. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection.

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assassinated in 1963. all-americans who, as the white house put it, built teams, coalitions, organizations and businesses that have shaped america for the better. our thanks to you for letting us into your homes for another week of shows. we're so grateful. the beat with ari melber starts after a very short break. stay with us. with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be. so i hired body doubles. 30,000 followers tina in a boutique hotel. or 30,000 steps tina in a mountain cabin. ooh! booking.com booking.yeah