Watch The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell Highlights: May 7

well the excitement and anticipation in the room hit a new high at 10:32 a.m. she entered wearing all black as if on her way to a funeral the loose fitting plain black clothing draping from her shoulders to her toes suggested the modesty of a nun the makeup was minimal the way she and the other moms in her neighborhood might look when shopping at the local grocery store the long blonde hair held up with a clip at the back of her head the way it might be in a utilitarian way while she was doing dishes or checking one of the Horseshoes on her horse she later spoke of so proudly when she walked by him her face had the same expressionless somber look that all the jurors always have when they walk by him looking at the floor she didn't look at him the first time they were in a room together his bodyguard was standing outside the door this time his bodyguards were much closer she was alone in the room with him that first time this time there were over a hundred people in the room all watching her except him he didn't look at her when she sat down a court officer said quote pull your chair up to the microphone and state your first and last name and spell your name for the record the witness ready my name is Stormy Daniels last name is d n i LS the court all right good morning Miss Daniels the witness thank you the court you may inquire direct examination by Susan hoffinger question good morning Miss Daniels good morning answer hi question Miss Daniels have you also been known as Stephanie Clifford answer yes question what name do you prefer that we use here in court answer Stormy Daniels in the next couple of minutes we learned that she was born and raised in Baton Rouge Louisiana quote my parents split up when I was four years old I was mostly raised by Mom very lowincome family she was a single working mom I went to a private very Christian very strict Elementary School that my Dad paid for I was editor of my high school paper so I was in the journalist Club she was in a room filled with journalists many of whom were probably editors of their high school newspapers but there the similarity ended between her and anyone else in that room she described the beginning of her career as what she called an exotic dancer and said quote the people who make the most for their appearances were the people who the girls performers who had done adult films and so she acted in her first adult film along with a girlfriend of hers quote I will cut out all of the other details and 5 days later she got on a plane to fly back home and I got offered a contract at Wicked Pictures prosecutor and how old were you at the time Daniels 23 four years later she was at a celebrity golf tournament in in Nevada where the adult film company Wicked entertainment was sponsoring one of the holes on the golf course question and did you meet Donald Trump on the golf course at That Celebrity Golf Tournament in Lake Tahoe answer yes I did question can you describe how you encountered him on the golf course answer it was a very brief encounter the players were playing they came through very quickly we met every person who was in the golf tournament at the at the moment they came through obviously they would take their shot I would say hello and introduce myself to them I would I introduce myself the company and the other contract girls not just to Mr Trump but every player that came through gave them water posed for pictures it was a very brief encounter on the course every one of the dozens and dozens of golfers that day had a brief encounter with Stormy Daniels at that hole on the golf course for Donald Trump the encounter continued today in a Manhattan courtroom almost 18 years later Donald Trump was the only man on that golf course that day who did something stupid enough to land him in the defendant's chair in a courtroom today for the $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels to buy her Silence about what happened next that too she said was very brief Donald Trump invited her to dinner according to her testimony his bodygard brought her up to his hotel room to meet there instead of at a restaurant she testified that she expected to go to a restaurant and they never did she wasn't excited about going to dinner with Donald Trump but her publicist was quote he said I think you should go it will make for a great story he is a business guy like what could possibly go wrong Daniels told her now familiar story of that evening in the hotel room with Donald Trump leaving out some of the details that she has included in previous television interviews at the direction of the judge who tried to keep those details to an absolute minimum but Donald Trump was apparently bothered by everything he heard in her testimony because the judge held a bch bench conference with the lawyers in the middle of Stormy Daniel's direct testimony outside of the hearing heing of the jury in which the judge told Donald Trump's defense lawyer that Donald Trump had committed contempt of court right there in his chair in the courtroom this morning the judge I understand that your client is upset at this point but he is cursing audibly and he is shaking his head visually and that's contemptuous it has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that Mr blanch I will talk to him the court so I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don't want to embarrass him Mr blanch I will talk to him the court you need to speak to him I won't tolerate that Mr blanch I will talk to him the court one time I noticed when Miss Daniels was testifying about rolling up the magazine and presumably smacking your client and after that point he shook his head and he looked down and later I think he was looking at you Mr blanch later when we were talking about The Apprentice at that point he again uttered a vulgarity and looked at you this time please talk to him at the break at the break Mr blanch yes I will immediately after the lunch break before the jury was brought back into the courtroom defense attorney Todd blanch asked the judge for a mistrial saying that so much of Stormy Daniel's testimony was quote unduly prejudicial including details like Donald Trump quote not wearing a condom Todd blanch raised that and said this has nothing to do with why we're here that the details of the sexual count encounter were quote extraordinarily prejudicial and you can't unring that Bell for the jury the district attorney said the conduct that Stormy Daniels described as a witness was precisely the conduct that Donald Trump was paying to try to hide the judge noted that he sustained almost all of the Trump Lor's objections to that testimony and then said in a very direct professional insult to the Trump lawyers quote I was surprised there were not more objections that was a signal to Donald Trump that his lawyers did not do a good job in that section of the trial the judge said that he will issue a limiting instruction to the jury to limit what evidence they can use from stormmy Daniels testimony about those details in reaching their verdict on cross-examination Trump defense lawyer Susan necklace spent a full hour of flat unrevealing question and answer before Ever Getting to stormmy Daniel's testimony about having sex with Donald Trump Susan necklace used the word pornography several times to describe what Stormy Daniels does for a living it was all leading to the one point that Susan necklace wanted the to make for the jury question you were looking to get extort money from president Trump right answer false Susan necklace did not complete her cross-examination today when the court session ended at 4:24 p.m. she had just begun asking Stormy Daniels about her attempt through her lawyer Keith Davidson to sell her story to the National Inquirer during Donald Trump's presidential campaign in June of 2016 Stormy Daniels answer as to why she was trying to sell her story to the inquire was quote get the story out and make some money for most of Stormy Daniel's testimony she was wearing professorial eyeglasses that created even more of a remove from the image of adult actress stermy Daniels will resume her testimony on Thursday morning and Lisa I want to begin with you because I am challenged in trying to describe the feelings in this courtroom it is it's just such an extraordinary place to be especially today especially today and especially contrasted Lawrence against yesterday which was one of the dullest days of trial testimony that I've ever heard and yet also one of the most significant because yesterday's testimony was all about actually proving the crime that has been charged 34 counts of falsification of business records by showing the two witnesses who testified each and every business record alleged to be false and taking them through the statements in that that are supposedly false today by contrast didn't have very much to do with the law and everything to do with the narrative and I want to get back to something you said about Todd blanch who was in his motion for a mistrial told judge Juan Maran that for example whether or not Trump wore a condom and she alleged that he did not had nothing to do with why we here today and I will tell you I think it has everything to do with why we are there because Donald Trump engaged in a long conversation with Stormy Daniels the night that they were supposedly going to have dinner about the adult film industry and he asked a bunch of questions she said that were different than the questions people usually ask that were more and I'm going to quote from the transcript here they want to know the salacious things these were more very thought out business questions I can't tell you if I ever remember someone asking other than Donald Trump do we have a union and how we get paid and how the testing works in the industry are we worried about getting pregnant or catching something and Stormy Daniels assured Donald Trump that she was safe that every test she had ever taken had come out good and at that point in the industry tests were required every 30 days and he said aren't you worried about safety and I was quick to point out that my time in the industry I chose to work for wicked pictures because they are the only condom mandatory company in other words he very insidiously elicited from her that she was safe that she had no STDs before he very selfishly engaged in a sexual encounter with her from which she testified she literally disassociated while she was staring at the ceiling because while she wouldn't say she was threatened physically and clarified she was neither threatened physically nor verbally she felt cornered she felt that she couldn't get out and asked herself and this is also in the transcript as what had I done that I so misread this situation what had I done to get myself here and so with all due respect to Todd Bland she's an accomplished lawyer that condom was a big part of why we were there today because that's the story that Donald Trump and Michael Cohen never wanted Stormy Daniels to tell anyone much less all of the American people and Lisa just stay on that point for a moment uh the thing I mean I wrote it down right here in my notebook as I was going along not not wearing a condom and the very first thing that went through my mind is 60-year-old Donald Trump not wearing a condom with a 27y old woman who's from Louisiana a state where a 27y old woman or a woman of any age now cannot get an abortion if they make the mistake of having sex with someone like Donald Trump who's not using a condom and and and the idea that that that abortion ban that so many women in this country are living with was inflicted on them by by the defendant in this case described today as not wearing a condom it didn't even that part of it Lawrence I will tell you didn't even occur to me the power imbalance between them on the other hand and in particular the sort of um what I'll call Fortune imbalance between them you know it's not lost on me also that Susan hoffinger for the prosecution Drew out from Stormy Daniels that Not only was she from sort of a messy home life and a troubled home but she was a St student who won a full scholarship to Texas A&M to stutter veterinary medicine and why didn't she go because even on full scholarship you still needed money to pay for incidentals she stayed home for a year thinking she was going to save money and that's how she became an exotic dancer now you and I can say to each other we wish we lived in a world where the educational credentials and smarts of an adult film star accusing a former president of something that is not sexual assault but isn't quite consensual shouldn't matter and yet that's not the World in which we live now and the prosecution understanding that world and understanding how jurors think now their first move here was to situate Stormy Daniels a former adult film star as being every bit the intellectual equal if not more so than the person she was accusing of the crime so at president Trump's trial they were talking about how he might end up in jail if he continues to violate these court orders uh is rers prepared for that have you guys have those discussions yet uh and if so what would that even look like the um our amazing commissioner um she is prepared for whatever comes on reichy island and I'm pretty sure she would be prepared to manage and deal with uh the situation as you see what's happening with Harvey Weinstein uh we have to adjust you know in this business particularly around La enforcement we have to adjust whatever comes our way but you know we don't want to deal with a hypothetical uh but uh they're professionals they'll be ready Andrew Weisman they're thinking about it yeah well you know that actually is the right response which is um you know many people say because the former president has Secret Service protection I'm one of those people thus you know he can't go to jail that has it exactly with all due respect has it exactly backwards um you know the Secret Service um is going to do and has to do what the judge orders and as I've said it's easier to keep them protected in the jail cell not harder um you know their job is to make sure that the people they protect are you know it's not some Nut Job who's taking a crack at them and you know that's a difficult job that secret service has for everyone um but this this will be a challenge but not any more than you know for instance Barack Obama and Michelle Obama faced um you know when they uh took office where was off the charts what the secret serves had to do so you know if the judge makes that call then the job of the NYPD and the Marshall service and the Secret Service is to carry that out it's not to be you know for the judge to be subservient to them that really is not how our system works in a rule of law country yeah Lisa my point about it has been practical uh that that judges are going to be very reluctant to about the because of the Practical considerations of the Secret Service and we heard that when judge michon was giving his long statement about how reluctant he is to use jail because of what it might mean to the Secret Service and the guards but he didn't say I won't in fact he kind of said I will but I'm very reluctant I will and I'm very reluctant and I have to say that has to shape how the da is thinking about this now too because knowing that he's sort of thrown down the gauntlet and said I will even though I don't want to that puts the onus on them to make sure that whatever the next alleged violation is that they present him with it better be a really serious one that the public understands as K measure it with some incarceron because for example the thing he said this morning about being upset about the witness that was called and they didn't have enough time to prepare and then quickly taking down that wouldn't have passed muster so I think it's changing everybody's Behavior certainly changing the lawyer behavior on the Trump side right because somebody had to have gotten through to him to say that's not Kosher you better take that down but it also is changing incentive structures on the DA's side to really monitor themselves for the seriousness of any alleged violation knowing what will happen if the judge agrees with them for

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Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2024