Defense attorney Todd Blanche got fiery as Michael Cohen refused to give yes-or-no answers to some of his questions.

"Sir, sir, please don't make a speech," Blanche snapped at Cohen.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger objected, and Judge Merchan instructed Cohen to just answer the question.

Blanche continued his deep dive into Cohen's past perjury.

"There is no doubt you know what perjury means?" Blanche asked.

"I know what perjury means," Cohen said.

Blanche then asked Cohen about his 2019 congressional testimony following his guilty plea.

"When congressmen ask you questions, they go on and on and on?" Blanche asked.

"Yes sir," Cohen said.

"Even more than I do," Blanche joked.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche confronted Cohen with his past statements about the late Judge William Pauley, to whom he pleaded guilty in 2018 to charges including those related to the Stormy Daniels payment.

“You also believe Judge Pauley is corrupt as well?” Blanche said.

“I have said that,” Cohen said.

“He is deceased, by the way,” Blanche said.

“Yes he is,” Cohen said.

Cohen confirmed that he at one point described Pauley and prosecutors as “f------ animals.”

“Do you believe that Judge Pauley was in on it?” Blanche asked.

“I do,” Cohen said.

Cohen said he does not believe he should have been charged with federal crimes in 2018.

“I do not believe I should have been charged,” Cohen said.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche emphasized that Cohen told a federal judge that he was not pressured or induced to take a guilty plea in 2018 on charge including those related to the Stormy Daniels payment.

"That was a lie?" Blanche said.

"That was not true, correct," Cohen said.

Blanche later asked Cohen to confirm that he believes he lied at the time.

"It was a lie?" Blanche asked.

"Correct," Cohen said.

Under cross-examination from defense attorneys, Michael Cohen continued to suggest that he was pressured in 2018 to plead guilty to changes including those related to the Stormy Daniels payment.

"No one indicated you threatened you to guilty correct?" defense attorney Todd Blanche asked.

"As I stated previously, I was provided with 48 hours within which to accept the plea or the Southern District of New York was going to file an 80-page indictment that included my wife, and I elected to protect my family," Cohen responded.

"You do feel you were induced to plead guilty?" Blanche asked.

"I never denied the underlying facts, I just do not believe I should have been criminally charged for either of those two -- or six -- offenses," Cohen said.

Cohen confirmed that prosecutors never directly told him that his wife would be indicted, telling jurors he heard that from his lawyers.

"I accepted responsibility," Cohen said.

Michael Cohen testified about the fallout from his work for Trump, telling the jury he is no longer a lawyer.

"I lost my law license as a direct result of this," he said.

He said he wrote his book, "Disloyal," to "pass the time" in prison, then wrote his second book, "Revenge," which he described as a "forensic dissection of the prosecution ... against a critic of the president."

The jury then saw a 2023 social media post by Donald Trump about "convicted liar and felon" Michael Cohen.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger questioned Cohen about Trump suing him in Florida for half a billion dollars -- and for the first time in a while, Trump, at the defense table, opened his eyes, took notes, and passed them to his attorney Todd Blanche.

Cohen told the jury that he regrets what he did for Trump.

"I regret doing things for him that I should not have. Lying. Bullying people in order to effectuate a goal," Cohen said. "I don't regret working with the Trump Organization, as I expressed before some very interesting great times."

"But to keep the loyalty and do things that he had asked me to do -- I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family," Cohen said.

Trump appeared to have his eyes closed for the majority of Cohen's last answer. The prosecution completed its direct examination of Cohen, and the court recessed the lunch.