Joining us now is
Michael Cohen to respond,
and he'll be here with us
in just a moment.
But first,
I want to take you through
the facts today.
We have Daniel Dale
with us to walk us through
what happened in the courtroom today.
Daniel, Trump made quite a few claims
as usual.
Some of them have already been
rejected by this judge.
But here is the former president
claiming that this lawsuit
is part of a coordinated effort
by the Department of Justice.
Is there any truth in that
This trial was railroaded
and fast-tracked.
This trial could have been brought
years ago,
but they waited until I was right
in the middle of my campaign.
The same with other trials
and indictments.
It's all run by DOJ,
which is corrupt in Washington.
Everything goes through them
So to
this lawyer, J,
he says, is part of all of this.
Is there any truth to that?
No, there is no truth to that.
There is not a shred of evidence
that DOJ is the hidden hand
behind the scene.
This is a state case brought by a state
attorney general
who Trump correctly noted today
and on previous occasions
and made it part of her campaign platform
that she was going to be tough on Trump.
And the second significant inaccuracy
in those comments
there, Abby, was the part
about timing in a wedding to the middle
of my campaign.
Attorney General James
launched a lawsuit
that led to this trial in September.
20, 22.
That's when she filed it.
Trump did not launch his campaign
until November 20, 22.
So the lawsuit that led to
this trial was filed
roughly two months
before he even announced
his 2024 candidacy.
Yeah, a good point there.
Donald Trump also talked at length
about what he called a worthless clause.
A disclaimer that he had put or his
his aides had
put in the financial statements
that are now at issue in this trial.
Let's listen
We have a clause in the contract.
It's like a buyer beware clause.
It says when you
take a look at the financial statement,
don't believe anything you read.
This is up front.
Some people go to worthless lawyers
because it makes the statement
and anything you read
in the statement worthless.
This is what's called a full disclaimer.
We disclaim the financial statements,
but even with a full disclaimer,
which immediately
takes you
out of any fraud situation,
and any litigation.
So what do we know about that, Daniel?
Trump is making this
clause sound way
stronger than it actually is.
You can read it.
What it says,
and I'm paraphrasing,
is that the asset valuations and Trump's
financial statements are estimates
that they used
a variety of methodologies
to come up with these estimates.
Including in some cases
are the judgments of Trump
and his associates.
It says that, you know,
you may not be able to sell these assets
for the same price that are
that is listed here.
So it does basically in so many words,
encourage readers
to be cautious about what they're seeing.
But it does not say that
what is contained in these statements
is useless or worthless.
It doesn't say don't believe anything
you read.
And the judge himself noted this
in his ruling last week,
finding Trump
and his sons liable for fraud
the judge said that their reliance
on this so-called worthless
clause is itself worthless.
They say that you cannot
rely on
such a vague disclaimer
to misrepresent facts
and claim
that that inoculates
you against claims of fraud.
So so Trump's assertions
about what this clause says
and how it supposedly
protects him against
any and all liability
is just not borne out by the facts.
Yeah, I mean, that would be pretty
hard to believe, honestly,
if it were true.
So, Danielle, also, shortly
before Trump appeared in court today,
his campaign released a statement
about New York City's crime data,
as if that is related to all of this.
Was any of it accurate? Yeah.
So it wasn't false.
They used actual numbers,
but they were cherry
picking the endpoint for those numbers.
So in talking about New York State,
they ended their data in 20, 21.
Talking about New York City.
They ended in 20, 22.
So they said New York City shootings
increased 71%
from 2018 to 20, 22 murders up 48%.
20, 18 to 20, 22.
What they didn't mention though
was that
we're in October 20, 23
and the trend line
is now sharply downwards.
So murder in New York
City is down 11% this year.
That's in addition to 10% decline
last year
should be shooting
incidents are down
27% this year
and that's after a 17% decline last year.
So in addition to the broader point
that you can't attribute
any trend in crime up
or down to any individual
attorney general.
This is complicated
difficult stuff to pinpoint.
Those numbers do not end in 2022.
They're not going up anymore.
They're going sharply down.
All right.
Daniel Dale, thank you very much.
And joining me now to discuss, Trump's
former fixer, Michael Cohen,
he is now a principal of crisis acts
and also the host of TO Podcast
Mea Culpa and Political Beat Down.
And The New York Times
bestselling author of Revenge
How Donald Trump Weaponized
the United States Department of Justice
Against His Critics. Michael.
Good to see you.
You know Trump very,
very wise to you, Abby.
What did you take
away from seeing him, his demeanor
outside of that courtroom
and even inside of the courtroom
when we got a peek at it,
So this is very typical, Donald.
You know,
on the outside of the courtroom,
he was all bluster.
He was typical Donald.
He was in campaign mode.
To the point
that he was looking to figure out
how to make this scenario into something
profitable inside the courtroom.
He was
he was behaving
the way that you would expect,
you know,
somebody to behave
when they're in a situation
that they have no control over.
And that's something that Donald hates.
He hates not being in control.
He sat there like a good child.
He didn't say a word.
He didn't speak.
He didn't, you know, get out of control.
Whereby
he had to be reprimanded by the judge.
Of course he's angry.
How could he not be?
He's watching is his company
his 50 plus year
company is in a death spiral.
I mean, basically
what Tish James did,
our unsinkable attorney general,
she gave him the corporate death penalty
And judge and Gore on is,
you know in agreement with Tish James
that the company
should not be able to practice.
Neither should Donald Allen Weisselberg,
Don Junior, Eric Trump or Jeff McConney.
None of them should be able
to operate any business
in the state of New York.
So sure it's understandable
he would be angry.
Michael,
you were at the center of today's
hearing in some ways.
I want to get your response
to some of the comments
that were made today
in court by cliff robert.
He is one of the representatives
for don jr and for eric trump.
He said in part, quote,
Their major linchpin is michael cohen.
So when you talk about credibility,
you're going to have a guy who lies to
everyone who's a convicted felon
and he is a fixture
of what their case is about.
What's your response to that?
I think Cliff Robert is an idiot.
First and foremost,
I have now provided testimony to seven,
seven different congressional committees
to the Mueller team, to the district
attorney on 23
occasions, to the attorney general.
And only Cliff Robert and Donald Trump.
It's all part of the GOP handbag.
All they're going to do is sit there
and try to discredit me.
To disparage me.
That's the name of the Trump game.
Look at what he did. Today.
Forgetting about Michael Cohen.
What I brought to
the table were documents
and corroborating testimony.
So there's
listen,
I don't even think that it would be 100%
necessary
for the AG to use me
in order
to find Trump guilty of the crimes that,
you know, he's been charged with.
Look at what he did today
just with Tish James
and with Judge and Goren,
Judge and Goren, he called him, you know,
all sorts of names, a rogue judge.
Tish James, of course, is a racist.
It's a line that he's used many times
with many people.
He said the same thing about Jack Smith.
He says the same thing
about Fannie Willets.
This is a guy who doesn't understand.
Disparaging
somebody is not the way to win a case.
What you need to do
is to bring the evidence,
bring the documents
in order to clear your name
as opposed to thinking
you're going to clear your name
by disparaging somebody else.
And the fact that you get guys
like Cliff
Robert, the fact that you get
even like a Linda Harbor
or Chris guys to make these statements,
the fact that now
Jimbo Jordan is now added as well.
This is all part of the playbook.
I've watched that playbook since 20, 15
as it related to the campaign.
This is so part
and parcel for the playbook.
It doesn't even affect me.
Do you
do you think that Trump cares
to your point
whether or not
he actually loses this case?
I mean,
you seem to suggest
that they are not as worried
about the legal
ramifications of all of this.
Yeah, this is actually
a big
one for Donald
because Donald's entire aid, his ego,
his super ego
have all been predicated
around the notion
that he is this incredibly rich
entrepreneur, genius businessman.
And what this does
is this strips him of all of that.
It demonstrates that he's neither rich.
He's certainly
not a genius businessman,
and he's certainly
not a good entrepreneur.
So you think that he can survive
everything that he has?
Do you think he can survive?
Do you think he can survive a penalty
of a quarter of $1,000,000,000
or even potentially more?
Because it's really up to the judge
what that number ends up being?
Correct.
That's also something
that people make a terrible mistake with.
What Attorney General James stated
is that it is a baseline of 250 million,
meaning that's the bottom.
That doesn't mean that that's the top.
And the way I calculated,
based on the information in that,
I know it's
going to be at least
at least double,
if not two and a half times
that amount with penalties and interest
and so on.
And the answer, Abby, is, no,
he cannot survive this.
He cannot recover from this.
Michael Cohen,
thank you very much for that perspective.