Surprise: Trump Has A Dick... Barely

Unlock the courtroom doors and step into the legal drama surrounding former President Trump, as we navigate the twists and turns of a case that extends beyond Stormy Daniels' silence. It's election interference on trial, with the Trump Organization's fraudulent history under the microscope. Our conversations with insiders, including Trump's former accountant, reveal a tangled web of deceit. The defense's own strategy could be their undoing, bringing Daniels' story to the center stage and highlighting the intricacies of consent entangled with power.

Buckle up as we dissect the chilling details of Trump's encounter with Stormy Daniels, with Michael Cohen's explosive testimony potentially tipping the scales of justice. The dynamics of power and the complexities of consent play out in the courtroom, and the consequences for Trump's future loom large. Cohen's transformation from Trump's fixer to a formidable adversary offers a unique perspective on loyalty and the forces that can shift one's allegiance.

The chaos of the trial becomes a spectacle in itself, as we scrutinize the legal blunders and unexpected testimonies that could belong in a political thriller. Lawyers scramble as the trial's narrative takes unpredictable turns, raising questions about the professional handling of the case. Amid the frenzy, we probe the political theater that ensues, with the stakes far removed from the fictional world of reality TV. This episode isn't just a recount of events—it's a critical analysis of a landmark case that challenges the very fabric of political integrity.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

One, two, three, four speak, though sadly not for the insurrection itself. I guess we'll have to hold off on that until the Supreme Court decides whether or not presidents have, you know, immunity for trying to overthrow the government and have their political opponents assassinated. But anyway, it is, you know, week four of this criminal trial that Trump is facing in New York thanks to the falsification of business records in an attempt to pay off a porn star to cover up an affair right before the 2016 election, commonly referred to as the hush money trial. I feel like it's at least a number of people have gotten around to calling it something slightly more accurate an election interference trial.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Yes, and Tristan snell is always pointing that out, and that is a great point, because when you say hush money, it to me it lessens the gravity of these charges and what the case is actually really about. Because at the end of the day stormy daniel's testimony it was the the bookkeeper, the accountant like, who for 40 years like worked for the trump organization, which has set set a clear pattern of their duplicity and just how detailed the fraud was. And and I think as soon as people say hush money and they're like, oh, what's the big deal, like that's the first thing, and they just tune out and they dismiss it without really like listening or paying attention.

Speaker 1: 1:52

So I'm going to be pursuant to election interference yeah, hush money definitely does like lessen the sting of what it actually was, and you know.

Speaker 3: 2:02

I've said this before. You have to say the incriminating part out loud.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Wait what? I'm sorry you froze up what happened.

Speaker 3: 2:09

I did. I said why do you have to say the incriminating part out loud? That just makes it sound bad.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Fair enough. Yeah, calling it hush money just kind of typically lessens the regard of what this is actually about. I've said this before. It's um, if you think about it, if they, if trump, hadn't committed this crime of having story mcdaniel's paid off and having the payments covered up just given the circumstances in 2016 I know a lot's changed since then, like after years of being pot committed, like the magas they've they've just decided to stick with them.

Speaker 1: 2:42

But it was fraught um, close to the, they were really thinking about pulling Trump off the ticket and everything, and so if this had come out, this would probably been the straw that did cost Trump the election, just given that the small margin which he won by. Again, he lost by three million votes, but he won a couple of swing states by a handful of thousands. That gave him the electoral college victory and in this story, would have probably flipped those swing states. But we had stormy daniel testify last week and I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast by now, you've already, like you, probably discussed it, hearing about stormy daniel's testimony. So we probably won't go super in depth there, but just a couple of noteworthy things about how Stormy ended up testifying about the lurid details of her encounter with Trump. It's basically because Trump's defense counsel took the position that Stormy Daniels was a liar and the encounter never actually happened. So they kind of opened the door for the prosecution to go into some realms.

Speaker 3: 3:49

That was a nice invitation to prove that it did happen.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Yeah, that was a mistake.

Speaker 3: 3:59

The trial wasn't about the trial. That wasn't part of the fact finding. That wasn't, you know, part of the fact finding. That was, that wasn't. It wasn't relevant, necessarily.

Speaker 1: 4:07

No, they. They could have stipulated to Stormy Daniels account of the interaction and that would have closed off her testimony about a lot of the specifics of that night. But just a couple of things real quick. What I found most disturbing is just that, you know, we've all seen Stormy Daniels over the past few years and we know she's handled just numerous obstacles in such a dead fashion. She's handled these lawyers here she's handled like her former lawyer was a sleazebag. She's handled the press press. She's handled these talk show hosts uh, obviously you know she's. She's been a stripper before, so she's handled the stage at these strip clubs. She's been an adult film star. She's handled these porn sets which we know to be uh well, there's a wide, varied experience in the porn industry and she's handled all of that shit without missing a beat. And then she couldn't maneuver her way through a single, you know, couple hours long encounter with donald trump without being creeped the fuck out.

Speaker 2: 5:19

And I think, yeah, that that was. I think that was really powerful, like I don't. Sex work is work and I don't shame it. However, the perception by a lot of people is that, oh, that's a sleazy business. In my mind, she is the least sleazy of any of the people involved in this case that are around him and have been involved with Trump, and I do think that she has handled when you say like handled herself, she has, but I think that that comes from her experience navigating herself in the adult industry, because she has dealt with predators, she has dealt with liars, she has dealt with people who have tried to take advantage of her and she is adept at standing her ground and not being marginalized by the people that want to make her feel shame because of her profession. Right, you know?

Speaker 1: 6:18

again. And that just goes back to the point that, with all of that and with her being able to navigate all of that, even she was in Donald Trump's hotel room. Like how the fuck did I get myself into this? It's crazy. And then you know Trump is all creepy and shit.

Speaker 1: 6:35

So this is the other thing that I wanted to talk about really quickly is that you know, typically this was portrayed like Trump was-a-Sum, suave, debonair, ladies' man type arrangement, and then you know he wooed Stormy Daniels in the bed. But really he pulled the old surprise I have a dick. If you don't know what that is. I mean, I'm sure you know women out there, if you've dated some dudes. No, actually, I guess a a better example. It'd be like you meet a guy and he's all you know. It's it's kind of platonic and it's very friendly and he never really kind of hits on you or makes a pass at you or or makes it like, seem as though it's some sort of uh, any kind of illusions towards it, towards a sexual relationship.

Speaker 1: 7:23

And then the second you you get alone, or maybe you had, and then the second you get alone, or maybe you had a boyfriend. The second you dump your boyfriend. He sends you a dick pic out of the blue with no context. You're like what the fuck? That's the surprise I have a dick. So trump invited her. Trump invited her out to dinner. She gets to the hotel room. He's in his fucking pajama robe or something like some um his satin, some old, yeah, some old hugh heffner type shit.

Speaker 1: 7:48

And she's like, bro, get the fuck out of there, put on some clothes. And then he's like, all right, all right, and he gets dressed and they sit down and talk and have a drink or whatever. And she's like, damn, where's dinner? And he's like I don't think we'll get there. And then the next thing you know he's on top of her. That's the surprise. I have a dick.

Speaker 1: 8:04

But the creepy, rapey version and she said, you know, she has said specifically that it it it was consensual in in the sense that she didn't say no, yeah, but it does feel very predator-like behavior where you know you've got the bodyguard outside the door and she tried to leave, and then you cut her off. And then you know you, there's this power dynamic where you know she's thinking that this conversation and this interaction is about some career prospects. And then the next thing you know you're on top of her and you're don't even have the courtesy to put on a fucking condom. But yeah, that's, that's some creepy behavior, and that she was made so uncomfortable by that after the fact just kind of goes back to just what a terrible, fucking, disgusting person trump is, like you grossed out a fucking porn star.

Speaker 2: 8:56

You did something wrong yeah, no, absolutely, and there are so many. Take her profession, whatever. She's a woman and, like you said, throwing the power dynamic in there, it's one thing if you're like it's the director of corn set or whatever, but this is, this is and I thought you were gonna say miramax no, no, no but it.

Speaker 2: 9:26

There are so many women that can relate to that being in that type of position and so many women, which is why so many sexual assaults go unreported, because at the end of the day, like you said, it was technically consensual, because I didn't say no, but do you? Did she even?

Speaker 1: 9:49

feel like she had the freedom to say no, exactly, that's exactly because that line was so blurred.

Speaker 3: 9:55

Yeah, maybe you can't say it was sexual assault or rape, but it feels rapey, um yeah oh, without a doubt yeah, but again I mean it was his hubris that brought those facts into play in the trial, like all we needed to know is that the payment. If he admitted to the payments I don't know, we wouldn't have to hash it out in excruciating detail if he didn't, and whatever laid up to be like, oh, you know, the guys will love that.

Speaker 1: 10:41

I, you know, was out here, you know knocking them down, banging a porn star or whatever, but this just made it seem kind of it. Just it seems so not only gross, but just kind of impotent. It's like and you two minutes like you couldn't do better than that and you didn't even make sure she enjoyed it. It's just all, it's all bad. It's all bad. But so moving on, uh, we had michael cohen testify, uh over the last couple of days here this week and it was.

Speaker 1: 11:08

It was rather extraordinary in in the sense that prosecutors did a very good job previously with all of the other witnesses and all. He's just there to connect the dots of everything that happened prior and to fill in a few holes here and there. That absolutely nailed trump. And then, also, like there's this idea that if you could discredit Cohen as the defense counsel, you could get Trump off. But that's extraordinarily, it's near impossible to do because basically, you would have to disbelieve all of that testimony from the other witnesses in order to look at Cohen's testimony and say this isn't the case and I find trump beyond guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, on these counts of falsifying these documents, but not only that, but like when the bookkeeper, when she testified, it was very obvious that she still was kind of was enamored with trump, like she was in his corner.

Speaker 2: 12:37

So, as I had said on previous times that it's easy to try to paint Stormy and Michael Cohen as oh, they're just out to get Trump, they have an axe to grind, etc. And I can see how people would be on the fence with that.

Speaker 1: 13:00

But the other witnesses there was none of what Trump was trying to cover up these negative stories before the election, which david pecker did a fantastic job of explaining how that worked. But we'll get to some of the specific excuse me, some of the specifics of michael cohen's testimony. And I mean, if you want to sum it up, we'll cut the podcast off right after this, because this was the nail in the coffin. Here it was. You know, michael Cohen told Trump about Stormy Daniels shopping her story in the middle of 2016 and Trump instructed him to take care of it. It's pretty open and shut after that. All of the specific details are just in line with that bit of a story.

Speaker 1: 14:21

But first of all, what was really insane is so Monday and Tuesday, of course, as Michael Cohen said, to testify specifically about Trump, and given that Cohen's already been to jail for these crimes, when he was charged by the Department of Justice for these crimes, when he was charged by the Department of Justice, you would think that Trump would be alert and focused. But no, even in this instance, he couldn't help himself. Motherfuckers still fall asleep every day. Like what is going on? Like how do you not stay awake for the dude that you know went to jail already? That's about to send you to jail. It's crazy.

Speaker 3: 14:54

Especially since he said it was freezing in there.

Speaker 2: 14:57

I am standing by my belief that his attorneys are slipping him some Benadryl or some melatonin or something. So that he what he does after court, whatever, but they're like please don't aggravate the judge I'm not trying to be disbarred, that's hilarious.

Speaker 1: 15:18

They got him drugged, so he's not acting crazy out here. Uh, you know, I think it might be the opposite. Actually, I think he might take some performance enhancing drugs on the side and, like you, got to chill out with that when we go to court, um, but yeah just, and then he's crashing like he was up all night right on adderall

Speaker 3: 15:38

I'm pretty sure we said this exact, had this exact same conversation we might have, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 15:44

But let's listen. He's still falling asleep, though, and that's what's crazy. He's been falling asleep in court every day of the fucking trial since the beginning of it. Like we kind of laughed it off at first. It's like, oh, it's funny he fell asleep. Well, now he's doing it every day and it's kind of normal and like how do we let that become normal, because this is insane? Um, and then, like I can only imagine what it must be like being a juror sitting in this trial and you're like focused on every detail of every individual's testimony and then you look over and you see trump there and he's like what the fuck? Um?

Speaker 1: 16:19

So michael cohen, first off, started his testimony on monday talking about how he actually didn't want to be a lawyer when he was growing up. He wanted to um work on wall street, but his, his grandmother said that ain't gonna happen, like quote unquote um, and it's just interesting because he said his grandmother was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Canada and later on to the United States, and I think that was one of the things that kind of colored Michael Cohen's mea culpa, so to speak, here. It's to some point, you know, I guess after speaking with his family in the midst of all of this. You know he came around to the side of being pro-democracy because he saw what a danger that Trump is to the United States and to our democracy. And some of the experiences that his grandmother probably had growing up might have might have colored that. And I know a lot of people are going to say, you know, fuck Michael Cohen, he's jackass. You know all the shit he did and it's totally fine.

Speaker 1: 17:25

I personally I've got some issues with a lot of the stuff that Michael Cohen did, but I can say, of all of the people that we know in the political landscape that were, you know, former Republicans or former Trumpers or you know, especially from Trump's inner circle, nobody's flipped as hard on Trump as Michael Cohen has. And since he's flipped he never went back. And not only that, he's been going out of his way every single day to make sure he holds Trump accountable for the things that Trump well, first of all, the things that he did in Trump's employ, but also the things that Trump has done. And he holds himself accountable and he'll tell you he's made a lot of mistakes and that he's not the greatest person in the world, but he also paid his dues, did his time and he's trying to make amends and like that's commendable.

Speaker 1: 18:11

Like this shit was, like you know, mike Johnson blocking the aid to Ukraine for months and then he finally lets the vote, go to the floor and then gets praise from the media. That's fucking insane Dude. It's a clown show. Like none of those people like that should be getting any kind of praise fromaped upon him. But just again, if anyone should be getting praise, it should be this dude.

Speaker 2: 18:44

Well, you know, the thing is that Michael Cohen is a private citizen. Michael Johnson owes us. He owes us. We are the people that he's supposed to be working for. So you do the bare minimum of you know, because we pay your salary. No, that shit. But Michael Cohen he's. You know. What does he really have to gain? You know what I mean? There's no real skin in the game for him, except him trying to do his best to right whatever wrongs he did, in whatever way he can.

Speaker 1: 19:22

Well, you know what? It's funny? You say that because the Defense Council for Trump on cross-examination actually tried to bring up some of these points Like what does Michael Cohen have to gain from this? And they were talking about you know your podcast, you know it's got a bunch of downloads. It's like, yeah, you make money off your podcast, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 19:38

And then they they did kind of mess up and make a mistake here where they were talking about, uh, the Midas touch merch store and they put some of the exhibits from that up and they were like, hey, is this like the, the stuff you sell for your podcast?

Speaker 1: 19:51

But that wasn't actually michael cohen's merch store, that was the minus. So they got that totally confused like way to miss out on that. That detail, guys, um. And it actually kind of made some of the cross-examination look ridiculous that they can't even figure out small details like whose merch store and stuff belong to, but also shout out to the minus touch guys, um, but no, trump is I mean Cohen's tried to at least try to make his amends, like people like Mike Johnson doing the bare minimum just every rare occasion. It's not even the bare minimum every day, it's like every few months that they shouldn't get credit for that. But Michael Cohen also talked about how he first began working at the Trump Organization because he was familiar with Don Jr and Jr said there was an issue with Trump World Tower, with the board.

Speaker 3: 20:42

And I don't know if you remember at some point the name Trump carried prestige.

Speaker 1: 20:47

What year is?

Speaker 2: 20:47

this. I bet that is true 1986?

Speaker 1: 20:50

1986?

Speaker 3: 20:52

that is true 1986, not at 96. It might have, I mean people, it wasn't like no, we was laughing, it wasn't unanimous contempt that is true, I fear maybe

Speaker 1: 21:04

I feel like we were laughing to do by the huh, oh yeah, no, I feel like we were laughing to do by the late 90s and he had been bankrupt a few times and he was never really popular like that. In New York Everybody thought he was a sleazebag, apparently or New York City, at least from what I hear from locals and by the 2000s it was a total dumpster fire. All he really had going for him was the show. And look, we all know reality TV shows is not real, but I guess that's not the case for most Americans.

Speaker 3: 21:35

I guess it would have had to have been like 2005.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Yeah, but Don Jr got him a job with the Trump organization and you know Cohen was talking about on the stand how Trump said he liked how he handled this issue with the board, so he asked him to come help on a few other matters and ended up having him come work for Trump full time. And I don't know, once he started working there full time, you know Cohen said he actually loved working there. And this is this goes to some of Cohen's credibility here where he's not totally just trashing his experience with Trump or the Trump organization where he was like actually it was my dream job, I loved it. I was working at a firm when Trump gave me the nod to come work for him full time. I didn't even go back to my office to collect my shit, like that's how dedicated he was to this whole Trump org thing.

Speaker 3: 22:38

For Trump to fall out of favor with Michael Cohen. Clearly it had to be an extreme situation for Michael Cohen to have made such a choice. Well, it's funny. You should say that because part of the original offer was for payment of money and, as you know, it eventually tapered off and was funneled into a conspiracy for campaign fraud.

Speaker 1: 22:57

Well, you know, cohen talked about this too.

Speaker 1: 23:00

He was like, yeah, I was making a pretty good salary at the Trump organization, but Cohen had previously made fairly good money. He'd been in a situation with these taxi medallions the New York city taxi medallions where some you know, an associate of his had owned quite a few of them but was leaving the country and it was like here man, I'll cut you in on this you know half price. So those taxi medallions had made Cohen quite a bit of money. And he'd also invested in some real estate here and there and once he began working at the Trump organization he'd invested in a few properties. So it's not like Cohen was hurting for money at that point anyway. But we'll get to more on that in a bit. And Cohen was clear that he even referred to himself as Trump's fixer. So that kind of lets you know the kind of work Cohen was doing for the Trump organization. And he said he was never part of the general counsel office at Trump organization but he was asked by Trump to take care of numerous matters. Regularly any issues came up.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Cohen was one of the first people that Trump would call yeah, exactly pretty much so there was an instance where Trump would call yeah, exactly Pretty much so. There was an instance where you know law firms, I've joked several times about being that.

Speaker 3: 24:19

So like I mean, he probably knew it was true he wasn't joking.

Speaker 1: 24:25

There was an incident where law firms and vendors to Trump university had issues about being paid and he had you know, cohen take care of like something close to 50 vendors that hadn't been paid. Cohen tried to lowball them and there were a few of like a couple of million dollars left that you know. He basically cleaned up Trump's mess, where Trump is like refusing to pay people what they're worth, and Trump or Cohen lowballed him and took care of most of those and you know Trump approved of Cohen's work. So I mean it was a mutually beneficial relationship at that point and you know it won Cohen a lot of favor, cohen, cohen a lot of favor. And then Cohen talked about some of the ways that Trump kind of finessed his work, his business or whatever, saying that Trump never had an email address because Trump had told Cohen that quote, emails are like written papers and he knows too many people who've gone down from using emails that prosecutors can use, is I mean guilty fucking conscience, though?

Speaker 2: 25:34

roy cone taught him well, man. He taught trump well, which is why he was always using burners somebody else's phone. Oh man, you know, yeah, no emails, no text messages.

Speaker 1: 25:45

yes, trump is one of them. Dudes, who was like I'm definitely never gonna have that wire situation where I'm taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy. Unfortunately, when you do so much dirt nonstop for decades, occasionally the people that work for you that engage in taking care of those criminal activities do leave some damning notes, and that is actually what happened in this particular case.

Speaker 3: 26:08

There were a few couple of things that or when you have so much evidence against you that it fills your ballrooms.

Speaker 1: 26:15

Sorry, that's a totally different criminal trial, carol um.

Speaker 3: 26:20

But I know it is, but he has a. He has a reputation in the history for having so much criminal evidence against him that he can't even keep it hidden at all.

Speaker 1: 26:33

Yeah, case in point different trial case in point, when he had those documents hidden in the bathroom shower, but they were stacked so high that they were, like above the shower curtain, like you can see that's fucking insane, but yeah so one didn one particular instance of a damning paper trail in this case were these handwritten notes by Allen Weisselberg in terms of reimbursing Cohen, these payments to Stormy Daniels, where he's like, there's like the number, there's the 130K or whatever, or whatever.

Speaker 1: 27:16

But uh, weisselberg has to gross it up by double to account for the fact that in order to make cohen whole, you have to count for him paying taxes, and and this is one of the things, that kind of I mean, it's again one of those things that it's the nail in the coffin that proves that these weren't legal fees. They were, were recorded in the financial documents. And also it appears to be some kind of form of tax evasion, where I'm assuming that the Trump organization used these payments to write off their taxes. So you know, if the election interference doesn't do it for you, there's also the tax fraud.

Speaker 2: 27:54

Very good point.

Speaker 1: 27:56

Yeah, very good point. Yeah, yeah, and um so Cohen talked about how he first started working for Trump in 2007, and the salary was about $375,000 a year, but that was his base salary.

Speaker 1: 28:14

And that, during the course of his work, he would end up getting a regular bonus. One of the things Cohen was upset about, though, was in 2016,. After he did all of his work to cover up these stories and coordinating with Pecker and Howard at AMI and paying off Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket after Trump won the election, he cut Michael Cohen's bonus, which is just some fucked up shit to do like this dude is.

Speaker 3: 28:42

Trump's got a habit of screwing over you don't piss off your fixer right exactly, exactly but I guess you got a new fixer now that you're done you know?

Speaker 2: 28:55

okay, like what did Trump think was gonna happen?

Speaker 1: 28:58

like, come on, man and then, well, the crazy part is Cohen while he was mad, was still loyal to Trump. All the way through that, all the way through the first couple of years of the administration, all the way up to even being going to prison.

Speaker 1: 29:12

Yeah. And again, even after he was indicted, cohen talked about how, you know, he had had a conversation with Trump. Trump was like, hey, man, I'm the president, you just hang in there, don't worry about anything. Trump was like, hey man, I'm the president, you just hang in there, don't worry about anything. But it was a conversation with his family where he really decided that he was going to change his ways and try and make amends, because his family was like, hey, you know, aren't you supposed to put us first? Like, how can you keep continuing to go along with this?

Speaker 1: 29:43

And I think that was the animus for the Michael Cohen that we all know today. And I think that was the animus for the Michael Cohen that we all know today. Imperfect as he may be, I wouldn't necessarily say that he engages in the same behavior as he once did. And he also talked about some of his conversations with David Pecker, where they use Signal to keep their conversations encrypted, where he was saying, quote sometimes we thought that encryption did not have any event, traceable would be beneficial. And this is just more evidence that concealing these conversations, in these transactions, was important. Not important in influencing the outcome of the 2016 election. Well, important in influencing the outcome of the 2016 election, actually, so Cohen talked about his relationship with David Pecker in the prosecution asked Cohen if AMI ever paid to suppress stories about Trump before 2015.

Speaker 1: 30:43

And Cohen's answer was no. He testified that suppression of the stories that would be damaging to Trump only began after Trump announced his campaign for president. Again, it was just like bomb after bomb after bomb after bomb coming from Michael Cohen and I think the way he handled himself. The jury is likely going to find a lot of his testimony credible, given the fact it was. It was constantly. Not only was it damning, it was always, in every turn, backed up by documentation. There were like call logs and text messages and emails and on and on and on in every turn. That just corroborated everything michael cohen was saying. I think this is this is going to be the end of of um you know, trump's run being an unconvicted felon. I don't think he's going to make it out of this.

Speaker 2: 31:32

You know, say whatever you want about Michael Cohen. You know what he did and he's very New York, like he's kind of crass, he's got a lot of Long Island asshole in him. Yeah, but he never comes across to me as fake. Everything that he says I absolutely believe is true as a matter of fact. He lays it out there, but he doesn't.

Speaker 3: 32:03

Wasn't he convicted of lying to Congress congress?

Speaker 1: 32:06

here's the thing, so cohen addressed that that was part of his job.

Speaker 3: 32:12

No, I agree that he's like. I do believe him. That is now to some extent, but you're like he would never lie, except to congress, though no, that's not, he's not fake.

Speaker 1: 32:20

No, michael cohen addressed that in his testimony actually because he and he would talk about the like a regular theme of co Cohen's testimony would be I was doing this for the boss and that that comes up regularly when we talk about a lot of the behaviors Cohen engaged in when he was working for Trump, including lying about, you know, the Mueller investigation to Congress, and he downplayed a lot of things that he probably shouldn't have.

Speaker 1: 32:47

And again, this is what Cohen talks about himself regularly If you listen to any of his podcasts about all the mistakes he made and how he probably would do it differently at this point. But, yeah, the fact that he's a convicted liar, well, what did he lie about? Some shit that didn't have anything to do with him. You know it was lies, again, that helped his boss, just like these, you know, payments to Stormy Daniels. We took out a home equity line of credit to pay her off and then like he didn't have the affair with Stormy Daniels. But yeah, that again this is something the defense counsel tried to bring up multiple times to try and discredit Cohen. But the problem with that also is you really got to?

Speaker 3: 33:33

you can't necessarily make If he was such a good lawyer, would he have been falsifying documents with my client? I mean?

Speaker 1: 33:41

Yeah, exactly Right. Uh, yeah, exactly right. Like to some degree, if you throw cohen under the bus like well, trump was driving it right, or rather I guess trump's under there with him because it just well, but like cohen didn't choose that they can't bring up anything outside of what was his reasoning?

Speaker 2: 34:05

he just decided one day I'm just going to go up to this woman I never met and I don't know, have nothing to do with nobody. I know knows her and I'm going to give her this money. I'm going to take out a home equity line to do like right, and then glossing over the fact that. Who was he working for? Right was he doing it for?

Speaker 1: 34:23

and then you have to explain well, why did trump pay him back if this wasn't in trump's direction? And that's the.

Speaker 3: 34:30

That's the thing why he paid at all.

Speaker 1: 34:32

He never pays anybody well he didn't, unless it was desperate, unless they were desperate, that's you wouldn't spend the money well, he didn't want to and he did his best and delay the payments as long as possible and corn talked about that too. Yeah, trump was basically like wait until after the election and then I won't have to pay Because if I win I'll be in the White House and if I lose, well, who cares? But we'll get to that in just a moment. But back to trying to throw Cohen under the bus like Cohen's, trump's right-hand guy. So the more you disparage Cohen, the more just disparages Trump. If you're the defense counsel and like, you got to be really careful about that Cause. This jury isn't stupid. Like if you like they, they can see that play coming a mile away. And people who were there in court today talked about how they were kind of bored with the cross-examination by Trump's defense counsel.

Speaker 1: 35:28

But another interesting thing that came up during Cohen's testimony is that in 2011, trump was thinking about running for president. Cohen took out an article well, took an article that said 6% of poll takers thought Trump should run for president, took it to Trump and said what do you think? And Trump said it's interesting, we should look into it. And then Trump created a website called ShouldTrumpRuncom, which he said a lot of people came to, adding that Trump's name recognition was strong because of his reality TV show from the Apprentice. And this just highlights the fact that what happened in 2015, with Trump announcing a run, wasn't totally spontaneous. It seems to have been somewhat premeditated and Trump had had ideas about running for president long before the 2015 election. And if you consider some news outlets that reported on conversations that trump had with some russians he'd been doing business with over the decades that trump had been um considering the idea of running for president since the 90s, um, you know, just food for thought.

Speaker 3: 36:45

Um also back that's around when Putin started suggesting it, right? Sorry, that's a different podcast.

Speaker 1: 36:52

Putin's oligarch friends. I don't think Putin necessarily himself engaged in that type of well handling so to speak.

Speaker 1: 37:14

But Cohen also testified about discussions ahead of his announcement in 2016, where Trump Not himself announcement just be prepared, there's going to be a lot of women coming forward. So trump acknowledged, before any of these stories were ever made public or any of these women ever even came forward, there was a high possibility of women coming forward with these stories. It just, and it just makes it, it really does a lot to kind of put into context, um, how guilty trump appears because he's made I mean just he's made a lot of admissions against his own interest to Michael Cohen here. And this is why I mean, before the trial started, we were all expecting Michael Cohen to be the linchpin witness and I mean it appears as though, if not for David Pecker and Stormy Daniels and Hope Hicks, he probably would have been. But again, they, they, they corroborate a lot of the things that cohen has to say here. And and again, this was just nuke after nuke after nuke going off. I mean just cohen really, um, hammered a lot of these out.

Speaker 2: 38:24

I like what they did. They had a variety of witnesses in all areas of his inner circle and all with a different allegiance or fealty to him, on different levels and different times. So while I think people initially maybe many, just because of lack of information felt like Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels were going to be the only two witnesses in this trial, you know like approaching it, like, oh, they can be discredited, we're not worried about them. And then you get these other people, but not what they're trying to do, like he's using his squawk boxes on phone news and other places. Those witnesses weren't even relevant. It's like, okay, the bookkeeper for the last 40 years who's worked there as long as Weisselberg has worked for the Trump, you know organization who went to prison not once but twice.

Speaker 1: 39:28

I I mean it was crazy trying to listen to trump's talk. Lawyers talk about how they weren't prepared to cross-examine the fucking witness who worked for the trump organization for 40 years. How could? You not have been prepared when they announced stormy.

Speaker 2: 39:40

At the last minute he go. They announced the special witness and we haven't had time. It's been called the hush money trial. And she has been the focus in the media, even though she's not when it comes to the law. And you weren prosecutors called a surprise witness and we didn't. He didn't say Stormy, he didn't trash her, he didn't put her name because if he was to say they called Stormy and we didn't have time to prepare, that would have sounded real fucking dumb it would have sounded real fucking stupid.

Speaker 1: 40:25

He also has an issue with the gag order, where he's he's on the 10th violation here and judge is like bro, you do this one more time, although that that hasn't necessarily stopped him from finding other ways to violate the gag order. Is you know he's? He's got his cult members out there from congress showing up to the trial now and going out in front of the press.

Speaker 2: 40:45

Did you see them all color coordinated today?

Speaker 1: 40:50

Yes, they are the Spider-Man meme. They're all pointing at each other and they're the same shit. They got the same uniform with the suit. Yes, it was.

Speaker 2: 40:58

I could not, and Vivek could not help himself. I'm like bruh, they're all senators and congressmen and the vet is just standing there and I'm looking and I go what the fuck is he doing here? Like, what is he doing?

Speaker 1: 41:11

here. All the potential vice presidential candidates had to show up in trump's defense here because it's basically the apprentice vp.

Speaker 2: 41:19

This is it. This is what it is.

Speaker 1: 41:21

It's the apprentice vp that is so funny, right? That is such an astute observation. That is exactly what it is it's the apprentice. Vp. That is so funny, right? That is such an astute observation. That is exactly what it is it's the apprentice. Except it's real life. It's no longer a reality tv show.