of liars. that phrase from donald trump's

defense attorney punctuating the defense's last chance to convince the jury to acquit in the first criminal trial of a former president. i'm chris jansing, anchoring along side my colleagues andrea mitchell and katy tur has made her way back from the courtroom. we're here at msnbc headquarters in new york city. >> and in that downtown courthouse, history is being written during closing arguments today. donald trump's attorney todd blanche just wrapped his closing argument, leaning into the word lie, using it 25 times as he tried to attach it to the prosecution's star witness, michael cohen. >> and the court just broke for lunch. after that the prosecution is expected to start their closing arguments for the jury. can they deliver a powerful argument as to why 12 citizens should make a historic decision to convict a former president of the united states. >> i want to bring in former fbi general counsel and former

senior member of muller probe and msnbc legal analyst andrew weizman who has been inside the overflow room. duncan levin, chuck rosenberg still with us. we have gone over this pretty thoroughly, and if there is one thing that we heard over and over and over again, it is he lied, he's a liar, he's not to be trusted, he's the mvp of liars, gloat, the greatest liar of all time. what did you make of that emphasis of the argument and did he score at all, do you think? >> well, i think for folks like chuck and me, where we heard a lot of prosecution and defense arguments in our lifetime, this was a fairly standard defense summation, where you have sort of an amalgam of some catchy lines, like the gloat line, and the mvp line.

you have some inconsistent arguments, you have some make weight arguments that don't hold up if you sort of even begin to scratch the surface, and then you have some legitimate arguments which the defense -- sorry, where the state is going to need to respond. but they're about to right after lunch have that opportunity. it was a real grab bag. i don't mean that in a disparaging way. the defense has an obligation to try and see if they can find at least one juror who will bite on any of those, any of those presentations, so, they're really offering an array of things, but i have to say, as somebody who is pretty jaded, listening to these things, just saying michael cohen is a liar didn't really do a lot for me. everyone knew that going in. everyone knew that from his direct and his cross. so, that's not really the issue. the issue is can he be corroborated enough or is there

enough independent evidence and i really feel like the defense really failed to make certain key arguments about why michael cohen and allen weisselberg would have ever kept this scheme from donald trump. i think that's -- that, to me, is still the key issue in the case as well as exhibits 35 and 36, just to be in the weeds, which are the handwritten notes that detail the scheme. and those two issues were really not addressed by todd blanche. i'm not faulting him, i'm not sure what he could say, but he didn't address either of those two things. and that's where i think if you are actually thinking logically about what you heard, it left a big hole in the defense case. >> stylistically do you want to talk about that? we all know that when you're going to talk for hours, you need to be able to be the person

who engages, the one consistent thing we read in the document he would raise his voice when he would call him a liar or make another disparaging remark, but did you find it -- did you find him to be compelling? >> that's a great question. so, one, there was actually a fair amount of sort of decorum in the courtroom until about the last half hour or so, where todd really focused on michael cohen, and understandably when he was saying he's a liar, raised his voice and tried to use with his body language, in his inflection, trying to get the jury more engaged. that was understandable. but it was notably absent before that, and he was, i think, trying to engage in sort of rational discussion and going over the facts. i actually think where the jury, that is a better way to sort of

focus on the case. in terms of style, you know, it wasn't my cup of tea, but i'm not on the jury. again, i've always wondered why todd blanche was taking such a prominent role when susan necheles is such a more experienced defense lawyer. and i've seen her in action in court in other cases. and, you know, it just, to me, it was just notable that she was in my view sort of underutilized, but todd did a perfectly acceptable job. i'm not sure i would say, you know, it was compelling. at least to me. but, again, you know, the job of the jurors is to try and leave all of that theater aside, understanding there is always a part of the presentation that is theater and you do have to be compelling when speaking for about three hours. but i thought on his arguments

that the ones that if you sift through the -- to the ones that i thought were more -- had more meat to them, i thought he made those well. >> and andrew, can i ask you about what happened right before the lunch break for the lawyers and the judge at least. this is the judge reprimanding todd blanche for talking about sending a man to prison, having the jury think twice about that. steinglass objected, can you tell us about what that sounded like? >> sure, i mean, that happens quite a bit in defense summations where defense lawyers will just try to, you know, essentially ring a bell that can't be unheard. so, essentially that's -- the reason they talk about jail is so that jurors are thinking about what kind of punishment would be imposed, based on their verdict, and that is not at a proper consideration for the jury. and so that's, i assume, why

todd did that, it is something that, you know, i have seen other defense lawyers do. it is inappropriate. and that objection was sustained. i should say that judge merchan was very i think favorable to trump in terms of there were a number of objections that were not sustained. they were overruled. and so i continue to think that judge merchan can just continue to be really almost the definition of fairness and judicial temperament in the way he handled the summation today. we'll see -- he'll have the same on his hands with the prosecution summation and you should expect various objections by todd blanche because it is a way, remember, todd doesn't get to do a rebuttal. so, by objecting, i would expect that we're going to hear those objections as a way to try to

remind the jurors that todd may have a response to what is being said. so, it may be a bit of a bumpy afternoon. >> and, andrew, when you're the prosecution, what kind of -- well, do you change your closing? in some parts you do, but you change the way you open to try to deal with some of these problems right up front, some of the things the defense brought up? >> you know, in some circumstances, you would, but, andrea, the one thing, again, i think this comes from, like, chuck and i have heard so many of these types of arguments, the one thing i was struck by, there was nothing that i heard that was sort of unexpected or unplanned for. and so i just don't expect that this is going to throw josh steinglass, who is extremely experienced, he's done far more jury addresses than i ever have,

i don't think he'll be changing anything, but, of course, he will have a section of his summation that will deal with all of the key arguments that were made by todd blanche this morning. >> and in terms of the last issue that katie brought up, which is talking about sentencing, which was clearly inappropriate and the possibility of sending a former president to prison, will the judge jump in there and try to do a curative instruction to the jury or will he wait for his jury instructions? >> yeah. so, great question. i don't think -- certainly when i was there, he did not jump in. i don't expect just given judge merchan that he will say something before the prosecution summation. but we have not seen the final charge that he has handed out to

the parties. and if it is not in there, i would expect that the state would ask for a typical charge that is given, which is to tell the jury that they are not to concern themselves in any way with sentencing or what may happen if he's convicted. they're solely to decide the facts and whether the state proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. >> because he seemed annoyed, certainly in the language. we were reading text, but he was saying i can't believe that was an accident, you know better, you're an experienced prosecutor with all of your years, paraphrasing he really chewed him out. >> right. yeah. well, just to be clear, that's not a mistake. he's totally right. it is not a mistake, you know. todd, like the other two defense lawyers, is experienced, even if he is more experienced on the prosecution side, than the defense side, but i have also

more experience on the prosecution than the defense side and, you know, we all know you cannot talk about sentencing. so, of course, it was deliberate. and he deserved the tongue lashing and, you know what i think if you were to ask todd blanche right now did he expect that was going to happen, he would have said, yes, i understood, you know, this is what the consequences are. so it is not something you should do, he was appropriately chastised by the judge, i do expect, andrea, if it is not in the final charge of the judge gives right now, that that is something that i think the judge will add to make sure that it is not something that the jury considers, but as we all know, the whole point of this is once you have rung that bell, you can't unring it. >> so, also joining us now, msnbc's lawrence o'donnell, host of "the last word with lawrence o'donnell," who has been inside the courtroom today. you're the first person we're talking to who has done that. in case you joined a little

late, andrew weizman, when asked to sum up the closing, said it was fairly standard and perfectly acceptable. i'll just speak for myself, my college debate team, if somebody called my performance that, i wouldn't have been so crazy about it. but give us the sense, your sense, of what you saw and heard and particularly the mood inside that room today. >> well, it is very tense, as it always is, for summations in the case like this. and i would say that todd blanche did the best he could given the evidence that he had to wrestle with. he left one major issue completely unresolved, which is what was the $130,000 doing and allen weisselberg's written calculation of how much michael cohen would be paid. because the defense argument is that michael cohen -- the payments to michael cohen were a paycheck. they were for services rendered.

the defense argument is that that money, $35,000, to michael cohen every month, had nothing to do with stormy daniels. well, then why is $130,000 the basis of that calculation? that was never explained by the defense. they certainly never explained it during testimony. and i was sitting there all morning, waiting for that moment, where that can be explained within this defense theory of those were paychecks to michael cohen. they never explained it. they left it unresolved. it is a defense theory, conflicting with a defense theory. the real argument was michael cohen cannot be trusted. michael cohen is the embodiment of reason annual doubt, as todd blanche finished strongly with. it was all a you cannot believe michael cohen argument and what is so important about that and what he said five times was the

only testimony linking donald trump to the stormy daniels payment, when it was made in october 2016, comes from michael cohen and from no one else, and this jury simply cannot believe michael cohen. as to that last point you were discussing with andrew, about the todd blanche beginning a line of argument saying you can't send a man too prison on the word of michael cohen, todd blanche was admonished by the judge for that, after the jury left the room and the judge did say that he would issue a curative instruction to the jury specifically about what todd blanche said in that moment. and, of course, donald trump is not facing a mandatory minimum prison sentence in any, any of the cases where he has been criminally charged. not one of them carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence.

so, it was obviously as the judge said to todd blanche as an experienced prosecutor, you knew what you were doing, you were trying to get this jury worried about the burden they would have of sending donald trump to prison. another really important point toward the end of the argument was todd blanche saying to this manhattan jury, this isn't a referendum. this is not the ballot box. this has nothing to do with who you prefer as a presidential candidate or who you refer in the past as a presidential candidate. something that he felt i think understandably compelled to say to a jury in manhattan, where the vote was 85% for joe biden against donald trump. >> he also made a point numerous times, lawrence, of talking about how he was the former president and what he was doing at the time of the payments. i wonder if you found anything particularly effective from todd blanche while you were watching, any moments where the jury reacted? there was one that i thought was

decent, i was in the overflow room, the simplest answer is oftentimes the correct answer, the right one. he talks about what makes more sense, that the president was paying his personal attorney $35,000 a month pursuant to an agreement that he made with cohen before he took office, or that cohen was going to work for free and work as a consultant and then get 30k for a hush money payment. the idea that michael cohen would be working for donald trump as his personal attorney and not billing him because he had nothing to do, he called that not believable. do you think that rang true while you were inside the court? >> i don't think it does to any of the jurors who heard the totality of the evidence about that. michael cohen testifying that he did what he called minimal work for donald trump and occasionally for donald trump's

wife during that period when he was being paid. michael cohen's explanation of what that payment was based on using allen weisselberg's handwritten notes of the $130,000 and the other items, plus the tax impact to michael cohen, in order to actually make it, an effective reimbursement, you would have to double the amount of the $130,000 because it will now be taxed as it goes to michael cohen in this form. and so i think that part of michael cohen's testimony actually stands up rather well, certainly better than the so-called logic of the defense theory about that. the strongest point that the defense had this morning, by far, is the idea that you simply cannot believe michael cohen, especially, especially about what donald trump knew in 2016, in october, about the payment to stormy daniels. and what is so important about that is if they can convince the jury or at least create

reasonable doubt, that's all they have to do, they don't have to convince the jury of anything, if they can create reasonable doubt about donald trump knowing about that payment before the election, then that removes donald trump's motivation of election interference or election influence by making that payment. so, it is the linchpin of the defense. and, the phrase that i think you're going to find in that transcript more than any other is reasonable doubt. reasonable doubt. this was not an innocence defense. this was not someone getting up there saying, my client has never done anything wrong in his life, this is entirely a reasonable doubt defense and todd blanche kept saying, here are the top ten reasons at the end, the top ten reasons for reasonable doubt. not top ten reasons for innocence. not top ten reasons why he did nothing, but top ten reasons just to doubt, just to in some way doubt the prosecution case.

>> and, lawrence, they have done a count and the word liar was used 25 times. so it is between reasonable doubt and liar you might find frequency of the verbiage, but it also seemed to those of us, you certainly prominently who covered that campaign, very specious argument that the "access hollywood" tape was not a cause of concern. in this case alone, you have hope hicks and others testifying how concerned the candidate donald trump was. chris jansing was covering it on her show, i covered it, you covered it at the debate, that was a very big deal at the time. it seemed to me that it is a big leap for the jury to accept the defense argument that, oh, that was kind of nothing and he wouldn't have worked so hard to -- for the cover-up. >> the thing to remember about -- the thing to remember about every aspect of a defense argument is that it does not have to be accepted. a prosecution argument has to be

accepted. all the defense needs to do is create a doubt. they don't even have to offer a counterargument, and so i don't think there is a juror there who doesn't think the "access hollywood" video was a big deal. remember, they all lived through it themselves as americans at the time. they know it was a big deal. the legal question is did that increase donald trump's eagerness, his personal eagerness to pay off stormy daniels immediately. and for that, the evidence comes down to michael cohen. and that is why michael cohen is such an important linchpin in that pre-election decision to pay off stormy daniels, that michael cohen insists donald trump approved that decision before the election, and approved it in order to influence the election and that's why todd blanche was leaning so heavily on you cannot believe michael cohen on that. >> there is also a kind of conflicting argument that the defense made that donald trump

was very detail oriented when it came to payments and keeping track of his finances, that he would never pay -- overpay michael cohen, that's absurd. and then after the election, he was not very detail oriented because he was so busy. but what you're talking about there is the argument that all the defense needs to do is prove that donald trump might not have known about the payment in october. maybe not. just the reasonable doubt there. but it sounds to me like the defense undercut their own argument by claiming he was so heavily involved in the money managing of his organization. >> well, the point that they were making about how much was he paying attention when he was in the white house signing those checks, there is a bookkeeper who said she always attached the invoices to the check. so that, if donald trump saw the invoices, when he was signing the check, that makes those

invoices trump business records and because michael cohen says he falsified his invoices, they become falsified trump business records. and the bookkeeper said sometimes donald trump didn't necessarily look at the invoices that were attached to bills. and so the word sometimes is a perfect reasonable doubt opening. the possibility that maybe donald trump didn't necessarily look at these invoices when he was signing checks in the oval office, the defense needs the jury to take -- to have some reasonable doubt about that. but the most important element of reasonable doubt for them that they're trying to create is did donald trump know about the payments to stormy daniels? did he approve those payments in october of 2016 and that's where they're placing all of their reasonable doubt weight. and todd blanche did as good a job as you could do with the facts as they stand on that particular point. >> did you see the jury react to

anything in particular? react at all? >> no, this jury reacts very little. there are only a couple of note takers. i could see most of the jury, but no one can see all of the jury. and no one can see their hands all the time to they will whether they're writing. there is one particular juror, the most active note taker during the trial and that juror took virtually no notes this morning. we all have been trying to guess who the two lawyers are in the jury box. i have a theory about who they are. and one of the people who i think is one of the lawyers was probably taking the most notes today. >> and we should make note, lawrence, while we were showing something else, apparently the family trump was walking behind you we presume maybe to go to as they have in the past -- there they are, go to the microphones. okay. we'll thank you, lawrence, and remind people that lawrence has a lot more analysis from the trail today. all you have to do is tune into the last word tonight at 10:00

p.m. on msnbc. i want to bring in msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin and "new york times" investigative reporter suzanne craig, at the courthouse in the overflow room. let me pick up, if i can, lisa, where lawrence went off, that the question is did trump know, did he approve, what do you think the critical element of doubt could be with this jury and if so, did todd blanche plant that seed? >> chris, i think the critical element that todd blanche was trying to plant has to do with distance at all stages, trying to distance donald trump from a number of the pieces of paperwork here that would establish the crime. so that means, you know, for example, he didn't sign the nondisclosure agreement or the letter to stormy daniels that would have identified him as david dennison himself. there were no fingerprints of trump's on the actual invoices

or general ledger, no fingerprints by trump on what some people including andrew weizman identify as the most important government exhibit at all, government exhibit 35. the sheet of essential consultants llc bank statement with handwritten notations from allen weisselberg on one hand and michael cohen on the other, laying out the details of the repayment scheme. in every twist and turn, todd blanche wants the jury to think, wait a second, how do i know trump was involved in that? did trump touch that? legally, it doesn't matter. and that's what i want to push back on. you'll hear that from the prosecution. the crimes here are falsification of business records in the first degree, they become a felony. and that's because trump either has to falsify them himself or cause others to do it. it doesn't matter if trump never had contact with deborah tarasoff who prepared the

invoices or involved in the general ledger entries. it won't matter for the underlying conspiracy that trump may not have signed that nda. that underlying conspiracy is a conspiracy to promote trump's election to the presidency, through unlawful means. but he himself doesn't have to be the one who takes the unlawful means. as much distance as blanche is trying to create between trump and some of the key documents here, the law itself doesn't require that he be hand and glove with that evidence. i expect you're going to hear that from the d.a.'s office when we come back from the lunch break. >> those people on the jury, who don't follow, who don't follow donald trump's behaviors, that closely as president or before, so there has been so much testimony that he was a penny pincher, he tracked everything down to a picture frame, but now he's too busy, in the oval office, the president of the united states, he's too busy to know what he's paying. well, those of us who covered

him know that he was not a detailed person in the oval office on almost any issue that pertain to lots of different policies. how does a juror approach these somewhat conflicting arguments? >> i think, you know, you have to look, i thought a lot about this, because for years, you know, beyond just the evidence in this trial, we have known what a micromanager donald trump is. and that is -- he signed checks famously for years, every penny that went out of the trump organization, he would sign the check. and we heard he intimately involved in fish there is a contractor who is getting paid a certain amount, donald trump will try and reduce that to half or more. so you heard a bit of that at trial, and then you also heard the other part, that he was so busy in the oval office that he was just signing checks on phone calls and i think it is going to

be up to the jury to sort of kind of match those two. but what i found interesting and i have to say, it was maybe the most compelling part of the morning, and it was compelling on its face, it ended up sort of hitting reality in one way, was just the argument that michael cohen was actually acting as a lawyer, that has been one of their main arguments, these payments actually were for legal fees. and then todd blanche didn't bring up the exhibit that lisa mentioned, where then, you know, it is broken down on a sheet of paper. they talked about it a little bit, broken down on a sheet of paper, the gross up and michael cohen took that to donald trump for approval. what is hard to believe, why was it on a piece of paper that actually involved the wire transfer to stormy daniels? like, it is up on a big screen and you're thinking that's maybe not the best exhibit to have up there for a long period of time. i get what they're saying. they want to make it look like

the money was paid for legal fees, but it is actually on a wire transfer to stormy daniels. and we weren't in that meeting, that next meeting where likal cohen goes to talk to donald trump and donald trump approves the hush money payment apparently. but that was one i thought misstep they made this morning. >> i thought it interesting you brought that up, the idea that michael cohen was working for free, he didn't have a retainer agreement in writing or not in writing, it didn't make sense because why would this guy ever work for free. i thought that was a compelling argument when i listened to it. i'm curious, lisa, one argument i found that was not compelling but i wonder if it is because i work in the industry is the conflation that todd blanche did to try to make it seem like the business that he had with ami, the catch and kill, it was normal, normal practice, every campaign is a conspiracy between a candidate and somebody else to

get this guy or get the candidate elected. conflating the work of what journalists do covering a campaign, with what donald trump and david pecker and michael cohen are alleged to have done with ami. >> yeah, that struck me as well. as much as catch and kill was something that the "national enquirer" did, their interaction in 2015 is the first time where that catch and kill mentality runs headwinds into let's do something extra for our buddy donald. never before and theoretically never since have they done something like that for a federal candidate. blanche tried to detract from that by talking about david pecker's ongoing relationship with the hollywood super agent ari emanuel whose brother rahm emanuel was the white house chief of staff and ran for chicago mayor. there was nothing wrong with them, the fec would come after

them. running for a municipal office like the mayor of chicago is far outside the jurisdiction of the federal election commission. but more importantly, and more to your point, it wasn't until 2016 that the inquirer had ever paid for a story involving donald trump. they had promoted him in the past, they had suppressed negative stories for him in the past, there was a clear, acording to david pecking, meeting of the minds of the 2015 trump tower meeting where they said, what can you do for us and for the first time, he offers i will catch and kill for you and, yes, money was not discussed, but i think he was presuming that trump would be the source of those funds as was cohen. it is only later when trump doesn't pony up that that becomes a problem. that cheapness that blanche wants you to believe in as, like, a vehicle for discrediting

cohen, well, that's also the reason he's in this predicament to begin with. another important point, it was the "access hollywood" tape, i was surprised that donald trump's lawyer downplayed how significant it was during the campaign. those jurors know how significant it was outside of all of the proceedings. and i think for him to go down that road, the jurors will be going, come on, like, how stupid do you think we are. >> really making that point. >> we presume they're paying attention, but 2016 was a while ago and who knows what their memories were like. what other option did they have other than to try to diminish that? that is -- i think some of the stronger evidence that the prosecution has in terms of motivation, what option could they have had other than to try to argue that it wasn't that big of a deal?

>> i'm having trouble hearing you. >> i can pick that up. i think the other option could have been just to really not have gone on as long about it. i think they quickly transitioned into what they ended with, which is, you know, back to michael cohen, he's a liar, i've written down some of the lines, i don't know how many lies are enough to reject michael cohen's testimony. at one point they blurted out in another scene, that is perjury. and then they said he's the mvp of liars. they said you guys have heard of the goat, tom brady is the greatest of all time, well, michael cohen is the gloat. that was i thought a good summation of everything. on the "access hollywood," i just felt maybe they stuck on it too long. it was to the point where people were laughing about it in the overflow room where we were sitting. >> we didn't see -- >> can i add one more thing before we take -- >> sure, go ahead. >> go for it. >> no, go ahead, lisa. >> what i was going to say, one

thing i thought was really ineffective is blanche had this other theme he kept reiterating, if these people were criminals, why would they keep records in the way they did? in other words, if they were criminals, they were really stupid criminals and the answer is actually, yes. there is a persistent years long, decades long fraud involving the trump organization. and how did they get hoisted on their own betard, by keeping expensive records, including conversations they had with one another about how they arrived at particular valuations for properties. so while these jurors won't know that, i expect that you'll hear from josh steinglass when he makes his summation. yes, these people were in fact exactly that, stupid, and that's how we caught them, because they documented everything in case the boss ever asked.

>> people keeping records. >> emails were also -- i found them to be purposefully just vague enough, you know, let's discuss about the agreement as discussed earlier. they didn't get into specifics. they were one line emails that were vague. >> none of them had him on them. >> that's true. >> yeah, right. >> that's true. some of the emails here are very vague. but for example, the one where weisselberg says, please send me your retainer agreement, no retainer agreement was ever sent and that's because they likely have a private conversation. he needed to pay off at least two women with whom he had sexual encounters.

>> we don't know how the jury is reacting, based on the people who are in there obviously, lisa. but when you hear things that make folks in the overflow room laugh, those of us who are on set reading it, chuckling, maybe to ourselves, one of the things, for example, that struck me is when todd blanche was talking about how stories were purchased all the time by david pecker and even if there was something wrong with it, he said, the idea that even sophisticated people like president trump and david pecker believed positive stories in the "national enquirer" could influence the 2016 election is preposterous, we were not talking about positive stories. that's not the reason there was a hush money agreement. the hush money agreement was obviously to quash a story. and you pointed out some factual misstatements that todd blanche made, for example, about gina rodriguez and who she worked for. do you think that there is, in going to so many different

arguments, and trying to find one juror who will find reasonable doubt, also, a potential land mine in that if you say enough things that jurors find make no sense at all, they might punish you for it. >> right. >> absolutely. look, it is a cardinal rule of lawyering that you speak and at most three bullet points, or maybe five, not ten. what todd blanche did here was a david letterman top ten list reasons not to convict his client. i think there is a danger that while you're trying to give just one juror something to hang their hat on, you might have thrown so much at the wall that everybody thinks it is too messy. >>exchange. he was accuing michael cohen of being a lawyer, about a lunch he had with david pecker and everybody was, like, okay,

great, we're going to hear something new and they have evidence that michael cohen lied about it. they didn't have evidence that he lied about it and never really finished that. they just said there was no credit card receipt for the lunch. that's not evidence they didn't have lunch. those sort of things, the jurors are picking up on some if not all of that. i was surprised by that. that was going to be the a-ha moment of the morning as a reporter, and it never went anywhere. >> two hours and 52 minutes he had to convince the jury or a juror that donald trump should be acquitted. but we have not heard yet from the prosecution. lisa and sue, thank you. we have much more still to come with our reporters and analysts right after this. you're watching special coverage of closing arguments in the donald trump hush money trial on msnbc. e donald trump hush money trial on msnbc. we're still going for that nice catch. we're still going for that perfect pizza. and with higher stroke risk from afib not caused by a heart valve problem,... ...we're going for a better treatment than warfarin.

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joining us now is former federal prosecutor and former fdny deputy chief christie greenburg, in the overflow room in the courthouse and harry litman who was in the courtroom. harry, first to you, your summation of the summation. did you think given he had a tough, you know, challenge there, that the defense did as good a job as he expected?

>> short answer is no, andrea. i thought for one as a matter of style it kind of lacked pop. the only time he went into sort of high -- he tried too hard to say some of cohen's slips on the stand were lies. and on the merits, he really chewed off a big, big bite in trying to say these papers are not false. that was his main submission for the first 45 minutes. and then also essentially to say stormy was lying and making it up completely. i think he took too much and i thought the jury was polite, but not hanging on his every word. so, i thought it was fairly meandering and fairly ineffective in substance. >> christie, let me ask you about what happened after he finished summation, which was that there were concerns about him suggesting that former president of the united states could go to prison, so what does the judge do now, what do you

expect to hear from judge juan merchan? >> first of all, i will say this was absolutely predictable. before this trial started, i wrote a piece for msnbc, noting that given the pattern of conduct we have seen from todd blanche, who i worked with, that we could expect he would continue to violate the judge's orders and break the rules. and that is exactly what he did here. it is very clear to all the lawyers in that courtroom that you cannot mention a potential sentence at -- during the trial. because it is prejudicial to the jurors. the jurors don't want to think that whatever they do, whatever their decision is could result in the former president going to jail. that really could affect and intimidate these jurors in terms of how they come out here. so, this was a highly predictable, i think, result, i really wish that there had been a stern warning in advance about the fact that there would be serious sanctions if anybody

violated any more court rulings. that didn't happen. that said, the judge has to fix this. he has to fix this with a very strong instruction to the jury that prison is not a fait accompli here. if there was a conviction, the judge determines the sentence and he could decide there is no jail involved. he has to make that crystal clear to the court. this judge should be considering sanctions against todd blanche, who knew exactly what he was doing when he did this. judge merchan said as much. >> he was livid, right? >> he was livid as he should be. this was completely improper and the only reason he did it was to try to hang this jury. >> well, certainly everyone we have spoken to said that todd blanche knew what he was doing when he used that in his summation, that he knows better, he's been around the block and understands what the consequences potentially would be. harry and christie, thank you very much. andrew, you and i were talking

right after -- during one of the first breaks about how todd blanche was doing, and you were saying that his argument, in your opinion, at times seemed almost condescending to the jury. what did you mean by that? and what moment in particular struck you? >> yeah, i mean, i think when we were talking in the overflow room, i was saying you kind of make a decision where you're going to talk up to the jury or if you're going to talk down to them. i was a prosecutor, i brought the case because i thought was right and i thought the evidence supported it, i wanted a smart jury and i wanted to talk up to them. here, i think is one of the things you talked to people about is, you know, you don't want to make arguments like, well, the "access hollywood" tape is not really a big deal. it was not something they really focused on. you just don't want to waste your capital on those kinds of arguments.

you need to concede what you want to concede and then i have no problem with making lots of arguments, but, you know, you lose some credibility if you make those kinds of arguments and i do think to christie's point, about does a jury just tune off and say, you know what, you made that weak argument, i'm not going to listen to anything, i do think jurors will still go through everything. it just makes it a lot harder if you don't exude credibility so that when you're saying something, the jurors take it with some real measure of, you know what, if that's what todd is saying, we need to focus on that, so far everything he's saying, i may not agree with it, but it is based in fact. so, that's the danger if you're sort of really trying to pull a fast one on them and hoping they don't really see it. that came up, for instance in

the tape recording that you and i heard todd blanche try to explain, where cohen and donald trump were on tape, and he tried to say that the discussion of cash really just could have meant financing, not actually paying in cash. but the problem with that is that on the tape he says, okay, well, we'll take -- we'll use a check and he said, well, we don't know what chuck means, it could have gotten cut off and i thought that was such a weak argument. it was clear that he meant cash versus a check. and so i'm somewhat in the weeds, but that's an again, that's an argument that you probably wanted to prune to keep some more credibility for the stronger arguments you have. so that's all a question of mechanics and style. here, we saw more of a kitchen sink approach, which doesn't mean that some of the stronger arguments aren't good. it just means they don't stand out as much to the jury. >> i just want to quickly,

andrew, thank you so much. for everything that you're reporting from there. i want to quickly ask chuck rosenberg a question. just to note keep here about something that happened with cannon today because the judge rejected jack smith's order for a gag order on what donald trump improperly argued and dangerously suggested on truth social. which was that boilerplate instructions on search warrants were in some way an assassination effort. same instruction from the search warrant at joe biden's house. was just flatly rejected by the judge. >> maybe some context if i may, andrea. whenever the fbi executes a

search warrant, they have an operational plan and a briefing prior to the search. they discuss where they're going to go, talk to, what the goals are, and what the warrant permits them to do and doesn't permit them to do. as part of that briefing, there are standard, meaning every time, every case, reminders to the special agents that the fbi is definitely force policy. there's nothing unique about this. nothing different about this. and oh, by the way, fbi special agents just like cops, just like atf and secret service agents, are permitted to use deadly force under certain prescribed circumstances. there was no targeting. there was no assassination plot. mr. trump either knows that and is lying, which is remarkably dangerous and reckless or he doesn't know that, which is remarkably dangerous and reckless. >> hold on. he wasn't there for the

mar-a-lago search. he knows, he must know because it wasn't targeting. >> the point, it's dangerous and reckless to fbi agents. >> i know. >> why chuck feels so strongly. >> i understand that. given that you can argue that he knows, i think believably, and given how dangerous it is to the fbi. remember we had that field office issue last year where a guy targeted a field office. >> in cincinnati. >> is this an issue that jack smith would consider appealing on? >> so, thank you for moving me along down the track because fifrl, the fbi picked a date to execute the search warrant that he wouldn't be there also sort of proving the lie, but no. i agree with you. i'm not sure that it was necessary for the government to sort of raise this issue. what trump said and often says

is so reckless and dangerous and so deceitful. i can understand why they're upset about it. i am, too. but the notion they're going to get some traction with judge cannon on this seemed to be fanciful. but there's an issue under the rules that govern motions in this florida federal court. in order to file one, you have to meaningfully confer with the other side. so the opposition to the motion that the government filed wasn't that trump was right. or there was an assassination plot. it was that the smith team failed to meaningfully confer with the other side before filing the motion. it was on that basis that the judge dismissed it. and gave them the opportunity in theory to raise it again. i frankly -- >> what's the likelihood of

that? you've been giving this judge the benefit of the doubt more than anyone. >> only in the following way. saying that i think she's not very good at her job, but that she hasn't demonstrated to me that she's biased or acting fe nefariously. it's not high praise, but yes, they can refile it, chris. i'm not sure they should because i'm not sure they're going to get traction on this issue, but i think what viewers need to know is it was absolutely no assassination plot. it was a reminder to the fbi before they executed a search warrant as in every case that the deadly force policy applies and here are its parameters. >> chuck rosenberg, duncan levin, thank you very much. as we see folks heading back into court because we are just moments away from the prosecution starting its closing arguments. stay close. much more coverage of former president trump's hush money trial after this short break. president trump's hush money trial after this short break

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any second now, the prosecution will begin what will be a marathon, a four-hour plus closing argument in the people versus donald j.