about in my life. my husband and i both serve. this year he is deployed so it has been on me to figure out the childcare piece for our three kids and i'm very lucky. i found something that's working for our situation and also very lucky i'm farther along in my career that i can afford options not available to every service member. >> ainsley: 30 seconds left in the show. what can we do about it? i know congress are proposing some legislation to help. >> i would love to see us break down some of the red tape and barriers to access for the different programs that offer and subsidize military childcare. the cost of living can change wildly based on where you live and duty requirements can also change a lot in terms of not fitting into traditional childcare times. if we can make it easier for families to access it, it would be a huge win for us. >> bill: the endgame, they say, is upon us.

former president trump about to head downtown. the final phase of his trial where the jury could deliver a verdict as early as today. we'll watch it. good morning. let's go. i'm bill hemmer, welcome to the program. a lot to get to. >> dana: i'm dana perino and this is "america's newsroom." so it is a big day, everyone will try to focus. we might get a verdict today, we could. let's get you first to the beginning of the day. a live look at the courthouse where less than one hour from now judge merchan will give the jury instructions to them. it has been a bone of contention before they're given about to take an hour with that. the jury starts deliberating and then we see where they go. >> bill: the clock will be running and verdict watch. former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records. the jury to convict or he quit him on all charges. it could also deliver a mixed verdict which gets very complicated. if the jury is deadlocked the judge may declare a mistrial. >> dana: each count carries a

sentence of up to four years in president and face probation or house arrest. that, of course, could hamper his campaign. first let's go to eric shawn kicking us off outside the courthouse. hi, eric. >> good morning, dana and bill. a tenet of american democracy is the right to be judged by a jury of your peers. today for the first time in american history 12 ordinary american citizens will sit in judgment of the former u.s. president. the courthouse, inside the courtroom of judge merchan in over an hour from now he will give the jurors the final instructions for them to deliberate. those jury instructions expected to be finished at 11:00 a.m. when the jury is expected to get the case. the prosecution and the trump defense have weighed in on what merchan will tell the jurors. the judge mostly sided with the district attorney's side during that hearing and won't include the fact the hush money deal for

stormy daniels, the so-called non-disclosure agreement is legal. it is not against the law. he also will not include the defense request that trump claims he was relying on his lawyer michael cohen, for legal advice through all this. in his closing arguments yesterday prosecutor said a mountain of evidence shows trump engaged in what he called a conspiracy and a cover-up. he said the smoking guns are michael cohen's bank statement and the trump memo pad with the financial calculations to reimburse cohen for paying stormy daniels scribbled in black and white plain for all the jurors to see. he said cohen's testimony is corroborated by documents, email and testimony and told the jury, the con spur tee to unlawfully influence the 2016 election, you don't need michael cohen to prove one bit. todd blanche said there is not a shred of evidence to show trump

was involved in paying cohen and savaged cohen's credibility calling him the greatest liar of all time telling the jurors they can't believe anything the convicted perjurer and disbarred lawyer who has lied under oath before told him in this courthouse and also said he committed perjury in front of them during this trial. there is an air of expectation, a bit of an edge here in the air today. the street is different, the court officers have put up a double metal barrier, there is no parking. more police, more security as we all wait for the jury to get the case and then the verdict when that comes. back to the studio. >> dana: eric shawn, thank you so much as we get this underway. >> bill: andy mccarthy, former federal prosecutor and shannon bream, anchor of "fox news sunday." hello, you two.

hope you slept well last night because you guys will be chained to that chair for a long time. one quote from the prosecution yesterday during this five-hour wrap-up, he said any single one of the unlawful means is enough for you to conclude that the trump tower conspiracy violated new york state election law. you don't have to agree on which unlawful means were involved. andy, can you interpret that for us? i thought they were arguing federal law, or did to get to that later? >> well, i can interpret it but i can't bring it into the line with the united states constitution. here we go. what is supposed to happen in a criminal trial is a prosecutor has to prove every element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt. every crime which is a creature of some statute has different elements. one is a mental element and then

the things you have to do to commit the crime. so like with bank robbery, you have to take money by force from a financial institution and do it intentionally. and those are the things the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. what this judge is telling this jury in this kind of make it up as you go along new york state prosecution of federal law is that when they get to the end of the rainbow and we get to the elements of the offense, the jury doesn't have to be in agreement on what it is exactly that trump did or what he was trying to commit or conceal when he allegedly falsified his business records. they will give the jury a menu of choices and tell the jury that some of them may believe that this was the criminal objective. some may believe something else was but that they don't have to be unanimous on that. i think that is pretty outrageous, but in this case i'm not sure it makes the top ten of outrageous. >> dana: i will ask shannon

bream to talk about that. judge merchan yesterday said to the lawyers, both prosecution and defense, that those of you who have appeared before me who have summed up before me i want to remind you, please don't go into the law. stay away from the law. stay away from the law, stay away from the law. that will be my job. i will take care of that. shannon, i don't understand how they are supposed to talk about a case if they can't talk about the law. moving forward as we advance the story here, the jury instructions are going to be how detailed whether they get into the law? there are 34 counts here. >> uh-huh, yeah. this will be the interesting part, dana. we haven't seen the jury instructions. the counsel and teams got them on thursday apparently. what we need to know is where do they go? judge merchan as you said yesterday admonished the lawyers don't get into my space. i talk about what the law is. you talk about the evidence, the facts, the witnesses, those

kinds of things. the jury instructions are so critical. they are going on the instructions they get from judge merchan, the one interpreting all of this. as a andy and all been saying what the underlying crime is. without that peg you are left with misdemeanor counts that the statute of limitations ran on long ago. so those jury instructions that get into the law will be very detailed, we think. they are estimating an hour to get them to the jury this morning. but again they are all coming from the pen from the hand of judge merchan. you heard the two sides arguing about these last week what they wanted in. they know this is what the jury has as their guide book to getting to a decision and that's why they are so powerful and why the judge has so much power over the jury in a case like this. >> bill: andy, just on trump truth social right now he says all caps, kangaroo court, corrupt and conflicted judge. reliance on counsel.

advice of counsel. not allowed by merchan, a first. his rulings in a case that should according to all legal scholars and experts never been brought have made it a biden pushed witch hunt. there was no crime except for the bum that got caught stealing from me and god we trust. the bum is michael cohen and this is how todd blanche, the attorney for donald trump, summarized cohen yesterday said cohen the gloat. michael cohen is the gloat, the greatest liar of all time. might be a good line. appears the entire case is hinged on cohen's testimony, andy. >> so i don't think trials ever get won by add homonym. that stuff is great for political consumption. where trump has gone wrong on the approach to this case, he continues when he is outside the courtroom to say none of this is

illegal or a crime. but his defense in the trial approached the things that are legal as if they were criminal and that he had to stay a million miles away from them. they say again and again non-disclosure agreements, ndas we keep talking about are legal. if they're legal, then don't run away from them. don't treat them like they're dynamite. except what the defense approach has been to say that was all michael cohen, had nothing to do with trump. reimbursing cohen was legal, yet todd blanche, trump's lawyer at the start of the trial, looked the jury in the eye and said trump didn't reimburse cohen under circumstances we're like there is a ton of evidence including trump's tweets and financial disclosure form he did when he was president that shows he paid him. so i think the problem here for him aside from the fact that the fix is in, i think, as far as the d.a. is concerned and the judge is concerned, but trump

has played into their hands by treating the strengths of the defense as weaknesses and gone a long way toward helping them. it wasn't the intention but one of the cases where the political dynamic, the political message that he wants to carry to voters for 2024 does not sync up with the defense he should have been pursuing in the four corners of the trial. >> dana: shannon, i know you don't have a crystal ball. you don't know. any sense of how long the deliberations will take? >> gosh, this is the game we played this morning. andy, jonathan, the judge, trey and i waiting in line taking the over/under. wondering whether the jury will come back with the questions. how clear are the jury instructions. if they come back and say we're at an impasse, one or two of us holding out and can't get to a unanimous decision the judge will send them back. an allen charge saying you have

a duty, please go back through this. you are the jurors. we expect you to make full consideration. so if they come back and say they're hung, you know, that's going to be step one. he will send them back for more deliberations. if they feel united and come out with a unanimous verdict one way or the other, i think that will take a little longer. i think it's more likely we come out with one or two hold-outs and a command to them to go back and stay at it. i don't know. i won't name who thinks it is but there is one of us who thinks it could come together and i will let everybody speak for themselves. juries are totally unpredictable. they fooled all of us in trials before. >> dana: that's true. >> bill: we have a draft kings for this. andy, shannon, stand by, thank you much and talk to you in a moment. share this image with you. 56th street as it runs in mid town manhattan west to east, the

side entrance on the street side where donald trump junior is presumably waiting for his father to come out. they will take the caravan directly east over to the east river and downtown about two miles, i guess, maybe 2 1/2 to court. we'll see the former president momentarily. looks like ms. habba is there as well. we haven't been given a list of the guests we expect to be in court today. that may be forthcoming. regardless we should hear from trump before he goes in today. we're standing by for that. that's what we're watching and we're listening to this as well. check it out. >> the pressure on you to endorse joe biden. >> i'm not -- that's not what i'm here for. >> bill: he called president biden uninspiring. is it sounding alarm bells at the white house? there is this, check it out. >> donald trump wants to destroy not only the city, but the

country. >> dana: biden campaign tapping actor robert de niro for a surreal news conference. we had it here live yesterday >> bill: waiting to hear from the former president on what could be a climatic day of his criminal trial. no matter what we get, it will be. so we'll watch it together as we move throughout this morning. introducing, ned's plaque psoriasis. he thinks his flaky red patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis.

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people couldn't see my potential. so i had to show them. i've run this place for 20 years, but i still need to prove that i'm more than what you see on paper. today i'm the ceo of my own company. it's the way my mind works. i have a very mechanical brain. why are we not rethinking this? i am more... i'm more than who i am on paper. >> bill: this will be a day. this will be some day and the day is only just beginning. we haven't seen the former president yet but expect him to come out of the door in the next 30 minutes and make his way downtown and expect comments on camera. we're waiting for how he frames the big day before the judge gives the instructions to the jury and then they go off into their own private room.

that's just step one. >> dana: as we wait for that we'll get other news. covid select committee investigating a potential con spur tee at the nih. republicans say they have evidence top health officials purposely hid records from the public. we have more. >> good morning to you, dana. this whole thing gets worse and worse for the nih. chairman of the covid committee just told us that he now knows the name of that so-called foia lady, the name is margaret moore, also goes by marge and he wants to bring her in to capitol hill for a transcribed interview. we could see marge very soon on the hill. he also just sent the nih director a letter demanding a briefing by judge -- june 4th. >> what we have asked in this letter right now taking the next

step is that we want a staff brief, at least, on the policies at nih on retention of documents, on transparency. >> this all comes because last week dr. fauci's former top advisor, offered some apologies, excuses, after a trove of his emails showed him trying to evade the foia requests, freedom of information act requests to hide conversations about covid and eco health alliance in the bombshell email that you remember he wrote i learned from our foia lady here how to make these emails disappear after i'm foiaed but before the search starts. the committee is flagging more dramatic emails. o o one that peter saying it is drumming up lab leak. all eyes on margaret moore and when we might see her.

>> dana: we wait for the trump trial to get underway again other news is happening and big news. >> bill: while the former president waits to go down to court now, president biden will head to philadelphia for a campaign stop. it will be his seventh trip this year to the keystone state. critical where he and the vp harris plan a new outreach to african-american voters. jacque heinrich is in philly waiting on them now. >> good morning, bill. this trip is coming as the democrats are officially freaking out according to that "politico" report that said pervasive sense of fear has settled in at the highest levels of the democratic party and it is showing with how top operatives are talking about it. you had robert de niro telling the world that trump could literally destroy it. that was in front of the new york court yesterday. then the campaign statement this morning calling trump's agenda racist and toxic. that was part of an effort to drum up black support and then

this anonymous democratic operative describing the internal pandering to "politico", this is oh my god, the democracy might end. so today both biden and harris are heading to swing state pennsylvania to try to turn things around. according to the real clear politics average trump is up 2.3 points in this state. a recent fox poll showed trumps lead is coming from white evangelicals, conservatives, white men with no degree. rural voters and independents. that's not who team biden is going after today. he is launching black voters for biden/harris. >> president biden: that's my commitment to you to show you democracy, democracy, democracy. it's still the way. the black men are being killed in the streets, we bear witness, for me that means to call out the poison of white supremacy. throw out systemic racism. instead of a trail of broken

promises we're investing more money than ever if black families and black communities. >> today's focus is on black student centers and faith centers across the country. we expect biden to talk about how he forgave billions of dollars in student loans that disproportionately impacted black borrowers and how he delivered a record low unemployment rate for black people. so that's some of what we anticipate later on today, bill. >> bill: thanks for that . jacque heinrich in philadelphia. >> dana: want to bring in josh holmes, co-host of the ruthless podcast. who would you lean towards and for the election amongst black voters biden 69, trump 18. if you think what it was like in 2020 and years past there might be a reason why biden and harris are going to philadelphia today to launch voter initiative aimed at black voters in particular black men.

what's going on? >> yeah, you mean to tell me joe biden is having trouble relating to black voters? of course he is. of course he is. he is having trouble relating to anybody outside of an assisted living facility at this point. this is a demographic that immediately causes the most problems within the biden campaign. as you illustrated and what you laid out, dana, it is not this will be a competitive demographic overall but the margins matter a lot here. the biden campaign, need 85 or 86% of african-americans nationwide in order to win this election. that's true in places like atlanta, philadelphia, detroit, those three key states, two of which he has got to win to be reelected. it is becoming a real problem. as you just suggested his polling is down in the low 70s. >> bill: here are numbers from 2020, josh. biden got 81% of the vote in

philadelphia. and if you look at the raw numbers, that was nearly 500,000 raw votes. which tells you if you live in philly and a democrat, you have to run up the numbers. he will be back in the city of philadelphia repeatedly, josh. >> no question. equally important to the percentage that you get with urban demographics is the volume, as you just suggested, bill. they need record-type volume to off set losses they have had across this country. increasingly if you see sort of the non-college educated voter and rural voter, white men, for example, the numbers there are significantly worse for joe biden than they were in 2020. so the volume of voters, the turnout, enthusiasm which is what they are focused on here today is super important if they will be competitive in a lot of these states. >> dana: want to ask you about this. the biden campaign decided to

take the opportunity to do a campaign event across the street from the courthouse with robert de niro. donald trump is leaving trump tower now heading to his s.u.v. and the motorcade, 9:26 now. how long is it, 20 minutes down there? >> bill: max, depending on traffic. >> dana: he didn't give any remarks when he left. i wonder if he will this morning? >> we get the thumbs out. sometimes they have the police escort that can help him get downtown quickly. >> dana: he is getting underway there. i won't play robert de niro but he said that donald trump wants to destroy not only the city but the country and eventually he could destroy the world. is spielburg running this campaign? >> i mean, somebody ought to tell robert de niro he is not a real life gangster. one of the dumbest moves i have seen in a long time. representative of a campaign that is sucking wind and

starting to get scared. when you get scared you start to make bad decisions like sending out old hollywood actors to try to make a press conference in front of something that was -- they tried to remove themselves in the campaign and talk about the seriousness of the charges against donald trump. well, they couldn't wait until the last day. all of a sudden they are politicizing it. as we know it has been politicized all along. removing all reasonable doubt from their standpoint as to what they care about in this outcome. >> bill: i think it went a step further, actually. this wasn't like de niro said i will be a surrogate and make comments for the president. he went with one of the communications director for the campaign, josh. >> right, right. it is a critical mistake. you can't on one hand say this is something you are holding out as separate and we want justice to be served. not a campaign activity. and then all of a sudden you make it central to your campaign as we've known all along, bill.

this has been central to the strategy of joe biden and democrats and that they want to say a convicted felon donald trump. if they can say that they feel like they have a chance. if they can't say that we see where the numbers are headed and looks grim for biden. >> dana: that is why the white house signaled president biden will give an official president of the united states statement after this jury verdict? >> i think they are nervous. there is no other explanation for it. a confident campaign wouldn't insert themselves and entirely change their strategy how they handled this case from the beginning. at the very end. they are seeing the numbers sink and know they have one hook to try to get president biden back to the oval office and now they understand they will have to play it for all its worth. it is a very, very tough road for them to go and a lot of that is outside of their hands. >> bill: did you see the "new york post" cover? it was a classic.

put it up. this is one of de niro's early films. you see it. josh, thank you for coming on and we'll see what we get. the president is with his motorcade heading east on 56th street. they head down to the east river and they will be at that courthouse in a matter of minutes. why don't we get a commercial break now and take this opportunity to get a time-out and when we come back we'll likely hear from the president before he heads to court today. by the way, court has started every day at 9:30. today it starts at 10:00 eastern time. >> dana: they usually don't work wednesdays at all. >> stand by. people like mccarthy, turley, bream, hugh and kerri urbahn and they will decipher the language the judge gives the jurors. this could be the most important aspect of the entire case. stand by and we'll have it for you next.

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>> dana: less than 30 minutes from now the judge in the new york versus trump trial will give jury instructions. we're looking a few minutes ago. that was president trump leaving trump tower to get into the motorcade to head to court. deliberations will begin after they get the jury instructions. we'll bring in andy mccarthy and saal wisenberg. former independent counsel. your thinking, saul, about jury instructions. let's start with you and the broad brush. >> my first question is, will the jury instructions go back with the jury to the jury room? in federal practice, it is up to the judge and typically he or she sends it back. my understanding is that in new york state practice, it typically does not go back. i would think in a case like this both sides would want the jury charge to go back with the jury. i think particularly trump's

team given the fact that the prosecution still has to prove that trump intended to commit or cover up another unlawful act. it strikes me that the government, from what i've seen, the state has not been able to come close to proving that. that other act being a violation of the federal election code, that he intended to. i'm aware of no evidence that cohen spoke to him about that code. >> bill: it was almost like they inferred, right? that's what the state was arguing. the lawyers for the state were saying you know how these guys communicate. they are all in it together. >> you have to have something, though. you have to have some piece of evidence. i wasn't in the courtroom like andy and some others were, and i don't have a transcript of every single day, but i don't recall them getting into that code, the federal election code or any

discussion with him. and i'm not sure as andy has pointed out in one of his excellent articles, i don't think they were even thinking about that when this plot, if it was a plot, was hatched. >> dana: your call last night was the cat is out of the bragg and super clever. i hope you wrote the headline. kudos to whoever did. if we can think forward a little bit. what are the possible scenarios for post return from the jury after they finished deliberations and made a decision, if there is an acquittal on all counts it is goodbye, you're free to go, no problem. if it's a conviction on some or all counts, what's the next step there for former president of the united states and the current candidate for the republican nomination? >> well, i think, dana, if he is treated like other defendants, they will be a pre-sentence

investigation ordered that usually takes three months from the time of the jury's verdict until sentencing. this is a non-violent crime, trump is a first offender, so he would be -- he would remain out on the conditions he is out on now, which is basically his own recognizance. as a practical matter in new york once he filed a notice of appeal those same conditions would obtain while they awaited the appeal, which would take into next year. so to the extent people are concerned that, you know, the jury will find president trump guilty and then he will be in handcuffs and taken to ryker's island. that's not going to happen. >> bill: you may be exactly right. trump is 77 years old. but his accountant is 76 years old and he is in ryker's serving a second sentence, this time for a period of five months. >> yeah but bill, he is serving his second sentence after he

pled guilty and then many weeks later in the normal course was sentenced and then had to surrender at a date certain. so i think that was a highly irregular set of prosecutions from alvin bragg, whose well earned reputation is pleads felonies down to misdemeanor. in this case he went after 76-year-old weisselberg twice in two years in order to send a powerful signal to other potential trump witnesses. but in terms of how he was put in custody, it was pretty much along the lines of the regular process. >> dana: saul, can i ask you about this? the prosecution side yesterday call for number two, he talked about michael cohen who the defense called the gloat, the greatest liar of all time, a great line. but steinglass said we didn't choose michael cohen to be our witness and pick him up at the witness store. the defendant chose him to be his fixer because he was willing to lie and cheat on mr. trump's

behalf. seemed to be signaling that yes, of course, michael cohen is a proven liar and he might have lied to you even in court but i was listening to another podcast this morning where the prosecution was explaining that they don't just have cohen, they think they have many witnesses tying trump to this crime that is still undefined. >> but they don't have many witnesses at all talking about that other key element that i keep talking about. it's part of the intent element, which is there must be an intent on trump's part to commit or cover up another unlawful act. and i think the evidence is very weak on that. even if they hadn't impeached cohen and from what i can tell they did a masterful job of cohen even now can't be believed. they caught him lying on direct and particularly the testimony

about the telephone call with trump and the what was the other one, the stealing money from trump, that he is just not somebody who can be trusted. and again i would focus, if i were them, the arguments are over, but the focus really should be on that part of it. the idea that anybody was thinking or talking about the federal election code when these payments were made, i think is pretty critical. now another thing the judge and again andy has pointed this out, the judge, i think, there is a lot of potential reversible error here. the judge has allowed the prosecution in effect to say because cohen pled guilty and because pecker had a non-prosecution agreement and they admitted that they violated election law, you must infer that trump did, too. they will get an instruction saying you shouldn't infer that but that has been the whole

theme of the prosecution case. and the trump people said we're not going to -- you don't need to put that in. we won't impeach cohen based on that. the judge let it in anyway and it has pervaded this trial and highly improper and if trump is convicted, a possible grounds for appeal. >> bill: all this conviction talk, too. a long piece in the "washington post." we'll get into it throughout the program. >> dana: the motorcade arriving at the courthouse. >> bill: what happens if you get a conviction for an active candidate and how it changes his campaign. this commute did not take long at all. we've got an early summer in late may here in new york and it is an otherwise beautiful day. the former president just passed screen to the left. andy, before a commercial break you were talking about the complications for the jurors and what they need to consider. don junior is there as well and others. i don't have a list. jason miller.

he was in front of the camera yesterday. habba, an attorney. turley wrote this yesterday and important to the entire matter what the jurors get. i will read it and i apologize for getting away from the screen here. i have to show viewers this. he wrote the following. judge merchan has even ruled that the jurors can disagree on what actually occurred in terms of the second crime. this means there could be three groups of four jurors with one believing there was a conspiracy to conceal a state election violation. another believing there was a federal election violation that bragg cannot enforce and a third believing there was a tax violation respectively. the judge will treat that as a unanimous verdict. they could see vastly shapes but send trump to prison on their interpretations. is that the way it works, andy? >> no, it is not.

it is really -- it would be a constitutional outrage in any case, bill, because juries have to find unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt that the prosecution has proved all of the elements of the case. so the idea that they don't have to agree on something that essential in any case would be outrageous. but considering the historic nature of this case and also considering and i think this is very important, the other crime is what turns this from a misdemeanor on which the statute of limitations has run, to a four-year felony that has a six-year statute of limitations and why we're all here. that crime has to be one that everybody agrees on. it is outrageous that they don't have to agree on that. >> bill: wow. >> dana: thank you so much and saul wisenberg. we're seeing the motorcade there. they have dropped off president trump and we'll see if he makes comments going into court. we get those. let's take a quick break.

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>> bill: any moment now we should see the former president. if it happens we'll bring it to you live. we're only ten minutes away from court convening. judge merchan will be on the bench in a moment and we'll be frantically reading emails for

the next 12 hours of our lives. guy benson, host of the guy benson show on fox news radio. nice to have you on, guy, good morning. a few things queued up for you. your reaction how you feel this is perhaps going to go in your crystal ball. >> it seems like the most likely outcomes are either a conviction. new york jury that hates donald trump or a hung jury where a handful of them say there has not been prove beyond a reasonable doubt to the point others are making smart legal people have been making. it strikes me, guys, that watching analysts on other networks more hostile to donald trump in their general disposition, they have been sort of searching and grasping out there for a actual clear evidence of this crime and the whole unspecified second crime. and what i think is disturbing to a lot of americans regardless how they feel about donald trump

a man, there should be a very crystal clear understanding of the charges and the alleged crimes in the first ever criminal trial of a former president of the united states who also happens to be running for the presidency again. there should not be ambiguity or confusion. there should not be smart people across the spectrum wondering what is the second crime? it should be unambiguous and that is not the case here. and i think that's pretty worrisome. as i said, this has never happened before and the crime ought to be crystal clear and the legal theory at the very least should have been tested before. we're 0 for two on the big ones and see what the jury decides. >> dana: andy mccarthy is with us, too. the gravity of what guy is saying and the way he is saying it. we don't have andy, sorry, you were ott bret baier's show last night making similar points.

i feel like it's hitting people now that yeah, we've been watching this for four weeks, get the comments from trump. a little circus atmosphere. bob de niro down there yesterday. we are talking about some very serious norms being broken here and how this goes later today could really affect the psyche of how people feel about what is happening in the country when they do feel there are two systems of justice. >> yeah. the other thing i worry about, dana, frankly and we'll see what the jury decides. i'm pulling for acquittal or a hung jury. this trial is an absolute joke. you had the previous d.a. in manhattan decide no charges. the d.o.j. look at these exact same fact, no charges. the f.e.c. didn't fine donald trump over this. but you have alvin bragg deciding let's try to put him in prison for more than 100 years based on the legal bank shot that no one has tried before?

i think that is sort of an astonishing thing. you are talking about the norms that we have enjoyed for a long time in this country. and this creeping sense of things coming unglued. there is a very real possibility, dana, that let's say this new york jury decides to -- they are confused by the prosecution says look at this blizzard of icky stuff. let's convict him of something and they go along with it. it moves to appeal. you have the term convicted felon slapped onto donald trump's forehead for the next several months leading into an election. let's say trump for that reason narrowly loses the election. i'm not saying that is what is going to happen but a hypothetical situation. then that conviction gets overturned as many of the legal eagles say it would be is a slam dunk on appeal because of the buffet of appealable items here. after the election? think about what that would do to the american people, tens of

millions of people who would look at the fact pattern and say this was completely politicized. they got a temporary verdict for the purpose of winning an election and then it got wiped off after the election. that would be another major nail in the coffin of many people's perception of general fairness and equality under the law in our system. >> dana: guy benson, thank you for that. we are waiting to see if president trump will give opening comments before going into court where the jury will be given instructions finally. judge merchan set to do that and sneak in a quick break and we'll be right back. [announcer] introducing allison's plaque psoriasis. she thinks her flaky gray patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. allison! over here! otezla can help you get clearer skin and reduce itching and flaking.

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>> dana: fox news alert. moments ago the former president walking into court. he did not speak to cameras today but you got the wave and fist bump and a little bit of that before going into that courtroom where the jury will be giving the instructions. welcome to a new hour of "america's newsroom," i'm dana