Anderson Cooper describes ‘severely damaging’ moment during Cohen’s testimony

Anderson Cooper with us. Anderson.

How was court

You were there all morning.

I got to say

there was a lot of boring moments

early on.

There was a lot of kind of meandering

cross-examination

or seemingly meandering

cross-examination by Todd Blanch.

But the last 20 minutes of court

today, right before the lunch break,

it was incredible.

I mean, it was,

you know,

Elie Hoenig on, on my program

last night had talked about,

you know, on, on a cross-examination.

Lawyers want to kind of

put the the witness in a,

you know, build a box around the witness

and then slam it shut.

That's what Todd Blanchard did to

to Michael Cohen.

I mean, the story,

you know, the Todd Blanchard

just methodically went through

this sequence of events,

of this this, phone conversation,

that alleged

that that,

Michael Cohen

had testified to previously,

you know, that

that he had had this

consequential phone conversation

with Donald Trump.

It was a 92nd phone conversation,

I believe was October 24th,

with the date

testified to and in around 8 p.m.

or so at night.

but Todd Blanchard

on on his cross-examination today

went kind of looked

at the transcripts of text messages

that Michael Cohen had,

received and sent

before that, that time frame.

and there had been this series

I guess, a prank calls

that Michael Cohen had received.

It turned out to be

from some 14 year old.

There was an exchange of messages

between the alleged 14 year old

and Michael Cohen.

And then Michael Cohen

texted

Keith Schiller at like 750

something or 7:48 p.m.,

saying, hey, you know,

I've got some dope has been harassing me.

I got the person's phone number.

Who can I talk to?

Keith Schiller texted him back

saying, call me, and Michael

Cohen calls Keith Schiller.

This is the conversation

that previously Michael Cohen

had said

he was calling

to speak to Donald Trump to tell him,

that the stormy

he was going ahead with the Stormy

Daniels arrangement

and that Trump approved it, which was a,

you know, a

crucial, crucial

to Michael Cohen's whole raison d'etre

for being on the stand.

He's the only person testifying

to involvement

by direct involvement by Donald Trump,

in the Stormy Daniels payments.

but it according to suddenly now

Michael Cohen's refresh memory,

he now says, oh,

it was a call about this

14 year old making crank

phone calls to me, but also about,

the the moving ahead on Stormy Daniels.

Todd Blanch was incredulous.

his voice cracking, his voice raising

up, moving around the courtroom.

speaking.

You know, saying, you know, saying that

what the the jury doesn't want to hear,

you know him?

guessing it wants to hear facts.

It was an extraordinary

cross-examination by Todd Blanch.

And, you know,

Michael Cohen's

throughout the day,

Michael Cohen

when cornered

and when he found himself in a corner,

he does have a pattern of

suddenly not

understanding the question

that's being asked or seemingly kind of,

I mean, one

could say buying time

to try to figure out

what how he wants to answer.

but he definitely suddenly starts to,

you know, have Todd Blanch

repeat questions and say,

I don't quite understand what you mean.

I'm confused by the question.

but this time Michael Cohen

was was cornered in what appeared to be,

a lie.

I think to many in the room,

and had to adjust suddenly his memory

that he had just testified to on Tuesday.

Lee, I mean, you pointed out,

just right before the commercial break,

you know, if jurors don't believe Michael Cohen,

how significant is that?

That might be. He was.

I mean, it is hard to

I wonder how prosecutors

are going to redirect on this

because Todd Blanch also pointed out,

I got Michael Cohen

to admit that

he had not seen these text messages

in the Prep by prosecutors,

so he had

apparently had no memory

of those text messages.

and the implication is that he concocted,

you know, he was shown

that there was a phone call

to Keith Schiller at this time

by prosecutors in the prep

and the the implication,

certainly, by Todd Blanch,

is that

he concocted this story

of what

that 92nd phone call was

not realizing

that there were text messages

right ahead that directly related it,

and right after that directly related it.

So I understand obviously,

this resonated with you

as a courtroom observer.

Did you happen to see anything

in the jury box?

Were you able to pick up on

any reaction from the jurors?

I mean, these jurors are not, as you know,

I think a lot of people have said

and I've seen before,

they are they are they

they do not show reaction.

but you could tell the import import

of the moment and everybody in

the courtroom can tell.

And if you were unaware of it,

the clicking of every reporter

in the room's typewriters,

it was like a crescendo,

because the drama of the moment

was so clear to everybody in the room.

But the jurors showed

nothing on their faces, but they were.

They were watching incredibly intently.

And, you know, Todd Blanchard

essentially stopped the cross-examination

and said to the judge, you know, this

maybe this is a good time

for a lunch break.

And the judge agreed.

So this is what the jurors

are going to think to lunch.

I was talking to Norm

icing on the way out from court.

who was saying, you know, Todd Blanchard

should try to keep the cross-examination

going all the way

till through the afternoon.

not allowing the the prosecution to

to redirect it

so that for the next three

days, jurors

are just have

Michael Cohen's tested

testimony to mull over.

Yeah, that's a common tactic.

Anderson, let me ask you

if I can put you in the jury box,

having just witnessed

that piece of cross-examination,

do you have doubts

that that conversation happened

the way Michael Cohen testified

on his direct examination?

That I think Trump answered, I think it's

absolutely, absolutely

I think it's devastating.

I mean, for Michael Cohen's

credibility on this,

I mean, in this one particular topic,

whether it's, you know,

he just didn't I mean, it's it's hard to

I don't know. Yes.

I think

if I was a juror

in this case watching that, I would think

this guy's making this up as he's

going along

or he's making this particular story up.

You know, Todd Blanchard's pointing out

you were testifying

just on Tuesday in this court.

you know, and all morning long, he's

been pointing out,

you know, inconsistencies.

in, in Michael Cohen's testimony

or at least questionable

aspects of Michael Cohen's testimony,

but nothing that you would necessarily,

as a juror, think, okay, that's clearly

a lie. Maybe that's just,

he was

misunderstanding or,

you know, he was bragging or whatever.

This one, Todd Bland clearly saved this

to right before the lunch break.

I'm assuming,

because it was just so well crafted

and just point by point,

walking through this story,

which at first seemed, you know, why?

Why?

Well, this seems like a ridiculous story

some 14 year old is sending him,

you know, nasty text messages

and he's going to call it

Keith Schiller about it.

And then you realize, you look at that.

He showed the phone logs

that the prosecutor had shown,

and it's the phone call that,

that, that,

that Michael Cohen

previously talked about.

I think it is severely damaging

to Michael Cohen's testimony.

And I know

Kara Scannell is with us as well.

I mean, Carrie, you were there.

What did you think we were sitting

I was sitting opposite,

and I haven't been. I'll talk to you.

But I found it just so exciting.

It was,

you know, whatever,

whoever you believe, whatever side.

It was just a remarkable moment in court.

It truly was.

Because it

was really just kind of this building

crescendo with more of that,

you know, more mundane

questioning of trying to see

if Cohen did lie about multiple things,

including whether he wanted a pardon

or whether he was accepting

responsibility for his guilty plea.

But then it built to that moment

where Todd Blanch

methodically went through the phone

calls, the text messages and,

you know, as you were saying,

kind of put Michael Cohen in the box

and then shut the lid because it was and

added to it by being himself

more theatrical about it.

He's pacing, he's rubbing

his head, he's flailing

his arms, his voice is rising

as he is being incredulous,

saying to Cohen,

are you do

you really expect me to believe

that in that one minute,

36 second phone call

that you talk to Keith Schiller

about the harassing text

messages and phone calls,

and also to Donald Trump

about Stormy Daniels,

where you told him it was resolved.

So really

just trying to undercut

all of Cohen's credibility in that moment

and in Cohen,

you know, while he maintained his composure,

he certainly didn't look like

he had a lot of,

confidence in his answers there.

I mean, it even began

even more slowly

by saying that, you know,

asking Cohen,

did you even talk about this phone call

when he met with prosecutors?

And Cohen couldn't remember if he did.

He was trying to refresh

his recollection.

did it say that he did.

So that was casting doubt.

And then he just built and built

and built by showing those text messages

showing the call logs,

and then at the end

where he left the jury with it

after that big moment, he then said,

you know,

so I don't want what you think

you remember.

I the jury needs to know what you know

and what you definitely remember.

And then he left it

hanging in the air of did

was this true

for all of the phone calls

that Cohen recalled in 2016?

Because that gets to the broader

questions of his credibility

and whether the jury should should

maybe just doubt this one

phone call or doubt all of Cohen's

recollections of the phone calls

that he had with Donald Trump, including,

you know, some of these ones at the end,

including his testimony

about the Oval Office meeting,

the Trump Tower meeting where Trump

allegedly approved

and signed off

on the reimbursement scheme

that's at the heart of this case.