Next week, the prosecution's final two witnesses are expected to
take the stand in the criminal first criminal trial of
a former American president
back with us on Kush Kodori and Suzanne Craig.
We were in the the brink here Suzanne.
And at the the end of the break I was
saying you know a lot has been made.
People have said a lot of things about Michael Cohen
and I don't think he should have been on any
podcast this week or TikTok frankly.
But I think I have faith in Michael Cohen that
he is going to go in and on the stand
and do what needs to be done because he is
a person that went to jail for this.
He has suffered immensely And and I I think that
Michael Cohen once once Donald Trump to you know had
that accountability and he knows that the documents or how
that happens. I was making that case.
Ankush was looking at me like,
but I wonder what the both of you think it
was kind of looking at it kind of funny.
But you know, I agree with you.
But I also think he's been doing
some things that would suggest that he doesn't have the
best judgment.
I mean, that TikTok video that he made where he
had a picture of Donald Trump and a orange jumpsuit
behind bars,
he has, he went out weeks ago.
And I gotta admit, I'm not following every beat of
what Michael Cohen's doing in terms of what he's saying
about Donald Trump on Tiktok.
But he weeks ago, I did see a tweet where
he said I'm not gonna say anything now
about Donald Trump, but, you know,
because of all the stuff going on with the gag
order about Donald Trump and then he's been poking the
bear ever since.
And I think there's so much at stake here he's,
I'm just surprised that he's doing it given that I
do think though once Monday morning comes I it's interesting
that he's scheduled.
It looks like the defense is saying or that sorry
the government saying that they could wrap their case by
Friday,
which means that it sounds like his
his examination could be fairly tight
a few days. And I think they're going to keep
him to the four corners of the case and very
much have him be a narrator for the jury through
the documents you're going to.
We're going to hear a lot about the checks,
a lot about the agreement that he had with Trump,
about the hush money payment and just things like we
heard this week.
You know, he would send
emails over to the Trump organizations saying I'd like my
payment
and per my legal retainer,
well, they're not. There was no legal retainer.
And he'll talk about things like that.
But I I I hope you're right about I hope
he under.
I'm sure he understands the gravity.
But I this behavior that he engages in is still
perplexing to me.
I guess I agree. I don't know.
Well yeah. I 'cause I'm gonna set up the question
for you because
I'm gonna I'm gonna take the other side of this.
I get it completely what Michael Cohen's doing.
I I you know what?
And I approve, baby boy.
I approve. You know why he's working the head.
He knows the man. Everybody who's testifying in in this
trial,
who's involved in this trial,
He is the one man who knows the man.
And he knows the buttons.
And he knows doing that TikTok video and saying all
this stuff.
When he gets in that courtroom and there's the mano
a mano moment.
Oh, baby, it's going to be rich.
And I think there's a psychological game that's being played
here by by Cohen to a certain degree.
Yeah, he's going to do the testimony stuff.
But the setup for me,
the setup was when he said,
no, I'm not going to.
I'm not going to say anything.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, you are.
Of course you are, because that's Michael Cohen.
And that's their relationship. Yeah.
So
that that may be accurate on the I'm just talking
about the man,
you know if y'all watch Michael Cohen.
Yeah, you know Michael Cohen.
So where am I wrong on this that no that
may be accurately right.
At the level of human psychology and politics.
It is a terrible idea as a legal matter.
Terrible terrible. Well, here's why the prosecutors have been at
they say they said yesterday they've been asking him and
I'm,
I'm not surprised at all.
I would have been yelling at him pleading at him
to cut it out for years now.
So yes,
right. For. But he has disobeyed those instructions.
Right. Right. And if you take the so has Donald
Trump.
OK, but we the jury is now going to be
asked to trust Cohen not Trump.
And if the if you adopt the worst possible spin
even in the spin or or not spin.
Excuse me but your your thought.
No no your your your thought about what What might
have been going on with Michael Cohen.
Then he lied again last week to the public.
That is not helpful to him when he's about to
take the stand.
And you know the
it's not even an academic question because there's going to
be a through line that the defense is going to
pull through here.
Right, which is that Michael Cohen also thinks he can
say and do whatever he wants.
He lies to the he's lied to every branch of
the federal government.
A couple months ago, a federal judge concluded that he
had perjured himself.
He is. And we know that Cohen will say in
the service of Donald,
that is not true either.
But that, but that will be his.
If he does, that'll be a lie.
Because when he lied to the Justice Department to try
to get time off his sentence,
that wasn't for Donald Trump.
That was for him. When he lied to the IRS
on his taxes,
that wasn't for Donald Trump.
That was for him. When he lied to his bank,
that wasn't for Donald Trump.
That was for him. So he can't that that is
not going to work.
And so I hope for his own sake that he
did
abandons that line because it's false.
This does not hold on.
Now this does not sound good for Michael Cohen.
I am concerned for him.
He was like, yes, correct.
I'm like I think, I think the legal beagles at
the table legal,
the legal beagles do. But I think I think this
is also a matter of public public performance.
I I get the whole thing with the jury don't
know how much of the jury saw or heard of
any of this.
Hopefully they hopefully they. Michael give me give me one
second on this one because you know what this is.
I I think both things can be true.
But this is not a grade school fight.
This is a court proceeding and it's gonna matter next
week and it's it's true.
I mean some of the things that Michael Cohen has
done have been in service of Donald Trump,
but there are other things that he has done that
have been about him.
He's he's he went to deal partly for tax evasion
that had something to do with something else.
And I just think we're going to see if he
continues to speak out this weekend and do do these
things.
We're going to see a cross where all of this
is going to be brought up and it's going to
have been going.
They're going to be able to say this has been
going on while this court case has been going on.
I think, you know, I think if it was just
a public dispute,
it's fine. But in a court case,
you risk serious damage by doing it to the point
where the judge said to the government lawyers yesterday ask
him from me to shock,
What was that? I'm paraphrasing,
but that's what he said.
Well, at the end of the day,
Donald Trump hired Michael Cohen.
So if they want to make him,
you know, a a, a sleazy villain who can't be
trusted on Cross,
this was still your attorney.
So I still think he can be a really good
witness.
I want to get that out there.
I think he's going to be effective.
He knows the narrative. The documents are great,
but they don't go to intent.
And the witnesses have got to bring us to the
table on intent for the jury to to come back
with,
you know, a verdict of guilty.
We don't know where it's going to go.
But these witnesses are very important because the documents do
a lot of work,
but we still need intent.