'Hour longer than it needed to be': Lawrence O'Donnell on Stormy Daniels' cross-examination

so let's bring in someone who was in the courtroom, the rumor that it happened, host of MSNBC's The Last Word, Lawrence O

donnell

, uh, Lawrence, what was your conclusion from the testimony, the

cross

-

examination

, the redirection, everything? what she went through on the stand and how she responded and how important the jurors responded to her because the people in courtroom C in the upper courtroom don't see that and we can only read exactly word for word of what's happening well of course the jurors They are always the mystery in every courtroom and that is. The good thing is that we really have no idea what they are thinking.

I can't say that at the beginning of this interrogation of Stormy Daniels that began on Tuesday I had a perfect view of all the jurors that entire time and none of them were taking notes at any point uh that doesn't really tell you anything in a way. or another uh but there certainly wasn't a moment that they thought was worthy uh I want to make sure I, I do remember that and today was very, very slow and it was an interrogation today that was about an

hour

longer

than necessary. A full

hour

passed before Susan Necklace entered that hotel room. to get Stormmy Daniel's testimony about what happened in that hotel room and once you got to that hotel room it was a matter of playing different quotes against her at different times, so there was an interview that she gave about this on 2011 that was constantly being published mentioned her in In Touch magazine and the basic difference between what she said in that interview, which was the most sober account of this whole thing, and the prosecutor in the redirect pointed out that the article itself said that was lightly edited so that this is an edited version of what Stormy Daniels said, but it did not include every quote, every single detail that she has included in her subsequent accounts and in her testimony in this courtroom today, but what she also en What is known about his testimony in the courtroom today is that he was not allowed to leave out details that he had included elsewhere before because the defense did not want those details included, so there is a defense team here that did a lot of work to limit what Stormy Daniels could say here and then spent a good amount of time talking about how she hasn't said it exactly like she's said it before in other places and listen, that's a game the Witnesses have to play and usually The statements that are presented to them are things that they have said in previous sworn testimony, whether it's a deposition or testimony before a grand jury or something like that.

Here are interviews on 60 Minutes and an interview with In Touch. magazine uh and it's something that all Witnesses have to go through but what was never really addressed by the defense was what happened in that hotel room uh Susan's necklace in her

cross

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examination

question suggested that nothing happened in that hotel room except the The problem with that as an evidentiary issue in this case is that the only way the defense can present evidence of what happened in that courtroom is that the defendant onald sorry in the hotel room is that the accused Donald Trump take the witness stand and swear under oath what happened in that hotel room, we know that Donald Trump is not going to take the witness stand in this case, because he could not answer questions about all aspects of the case, and Daniel's basically

stormy

testimony about What Really Happened in the Hotel Room will not be questioned before this jury, and the other most important piece of evidence not related to the hotel room that the jury will have is a transcript of the video of Access Hollywood outlining Donald Trump's approach to women. aggressive approach toward women and then you'll know that guy said that and that's that guy's motto about how to approach women in this world and now he's alone in a hotel room with Stormy Daniels and the defense just threw out a question that was denied wants to suggest to that jury that Donald Trump alone with Stormy Daniels in that hotel room did not have sexual relations with her.

I don't see any possible way that a jury could argue that point, uh, in the Jury Room there is and Chris, I'm Chris Jansing, here, uh, Lawrence, uh, yeah, there was a pretty long section where Susan Neckolas kept, it seemed like trying to get her to say what the meaning of the word dinner was when she wasn't really eating and you're. I wonder why it goes on and on and on, that's one of the things that happened in that room, but there's also all these questions about whether she was just saying that she was making this whole thing up, obviously, is the clear implication here.

In fact, she basically said that because she wanted to make money. I'm going to read you a couple of short exchanges that you actually saw and heard. They were talking about the documentary that was on Peacock. They paid you $125,000 for it. doc no I wasn't, I haven't received it all, um, you're trying to trick me into saying something that's not entirely true, you misunderstood that I was quoting some women who approached me. I wasn't selling myself to anyone and then show me repeatedly where I said that and I wonder how you think the jury well again you can't get inside the mind of the jury but how did you read that?

Did it show up so quickly? Did she seem so well prepared? Maybe because of her lawyer. Who tweeted that photo? How did you believe? Stormmy Daniels appeared before the jury today. She presented herself as a normal person with normal reactions on the witness stand, so most of her testimony was done in the yes-or-no style that courts are accustomed to. uh and it wasn't contentious, he wasn't really fighting with the defense attorney, but a certain amount of that includes

stormy

Daniel's personal inability to walk away from the battle of wits and one example is Susan's necklace that told him so in your profession you make up stories about sex and his answer was no, sex is real just like it was in that room and that's the danger you have as a defense attorney questioning Stormy Daniels, you never know where that little Hook is going to come from.

Back to where she says the sex in that room with Donald Trump was real and there's no counterattack at all from the defense, uh, D's stormy testimony about the real sex and that's, and I think the members of the jury completely understand how he feels. in the interrogation or when they posted tweets of the attacks on Stormy Daniels to which she responded and made it clear that I never started the attacks on Twitter, but I responded to the attacks on Twitter and her responses were always an attempt at a witty and applied response to that, but this jury could see that this woman has a history of being attacked over this very issue, that this defense attorney is not the first person to do that to her, and therefore she is someone. who is in her opinion in her presentation of s trying to tell a story and she is trying to tell that story with people who hate her, who attack her all the time and now there is a defense attorney who is trying to bother her, that's the That's the point, and I don't think the jury would fault the defense attorney for trying to upset Stormy Daniels or throw her off balance in her testimony, but I don't think that was accomplished at any relevant point. uh what you always have to do when you hear testimony, especially in cross-examination and defense, is how much of this is actually relevant and it's extremely common for a lot of it to have nothing to do with the charges in the case. and that was certainly true in the cross-examination today and Lawrence, that same exchange is something we talked about here before because it stood out, as you know, a real example of his combativeness, his responsiveness, his defense, but also the dedication of more information and in a very granular way, I don't know how that impacts the jury, but the fact that she then said necklace trying to restrain her said, "Well, you make up stories and you make up stories about Mr.

Trump, we read something like that." before and she said no, if that happened, if she was making it up, you know, it would be a better story, you know, if it were fictional, so she's in the moment and she's very smart and generous, but also, according to someone who was watching this, I Think of the Overflow room, uh, noticing earlier that she seemed upset and excited by the exchanges of people who are harassing her on social media on Twitter and that she was being combative about it because she felt threatened or under attack. life has changed and as she pointed out in the redirect, it's changed for the worse because of everything that's happened, yes and yes, you know, I would say in the room tonally, uh, no, I wouldn't say combatable, I would say that it was. she replied she, that is, if you say something aggressive to her, as was said several times and by the way, Susan Necklace didn't raise her voice, she didn't shout, so I think when no one raises their voice there, uh stormy.

Danels never raises her voice in any way, she never sounds angry in her response, in fact it's kind of a table tone on both ends of that conversation, that only includes a few pointed questions, to which Stormmy Daniel's response is, I think which one is. it would have been what it would sound like anyway and what it would sound like tonally, uh, if you were at a table having dinner with her and you heard this kind of exchange and I've been in courtrooms where it gets very loud and very angry and I heard lawyers yelling uh and I heard the Witnesses extremely angry and genuinely combative, that's not really what we saw here.

I mean, I've seen talk shows get more combative than this one. I've seen interviews on cable news. more comb, we've all done it too and then um yeah, yeah exactly and and you know, that's right, it was a pretty normal balance uh I would say the cross-examination uh where I don't think Susan necklace was trying to pull any tricks and and I don't think my stormy Daniels was trying to, you know, play tricks on her side in these exchanges, but what's absolutely true is that you can never be sure where stormy Daniel's response is going to end up because she might just add something to the end of a short sentence or right after a yes, that is actually relevant in some way, like that line about you know in their movies that sex is real, like in that hotel room.