Welcome to our special Trump trial coverage. Joy Reed is off tonight. I'm Ari Melber and we are covering the law and the testimony. And I can also tell you from reporting inside the courtroom today and reporting at the courthouse,

where you see some of what we were discussing with our colleagues.

In that building behind me in the surrounding area

that were not just lawyers jurors and reporters like usual they were also top

Republican politicians even more than on other days.

And not just Trump's defeated primary opponents now seeking a job, there's one,

but also the highest-ranking Republican in the federal government.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson there in the middle, embracing criminal

defended Trump in this unusual show of partisanship in the middle of a felony

trial.

It's an embrace that actually echoes the loyalist turned

witness Michael Cohen himself.

And that was actually one of the themes in today's testimony.

If this were a movie and they brought in all the other

top famous national Republicans to physically be at the trial you'd say come on they

don't all gather in the New York courtroom but they did and they heard some of them who were present for it, Cohen saying he

used to lie for his then boss Trump because he was knee-deep in the cult of Trump. Now Cohen

says he's broken out, testifying about Trump's hush money payments.

Not the kind of thing most candidates want their political peers to revisit and hear in person.

Cohen confirming Trump directed the payments, which was a and here in person.

Cohen confirming Trump directed the payments,

which was a key moment in this consequential day.

...