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

but first, a moment in court the judge called outrageous and simply not allowed. good day. i'm chris jansing alongside andrea mitchell and katy tur and they are back in the courtroom. >> the judge is now planning to issue a new instruction to the jury after trump's defense attorney made a remark that the jury, quote, cannot send someone to prison based on the words of michael cohen. the judge did not like that at all and blasted todd blanche for even raising the idea of trump going to prison. it's not in the jury's purview. >> and of course, you can't unring the bell and now we are all watching to just see how the prosecution tries to rebut the defense's portrayal of michael cohen as someone with an ax to grind and quote, the greatest liar of all time, that he called

the gloat. >> vaughn hillyard is with us, danny, catherine christian. both are msnbc legal analysts. okay, they are already back, as we said. we have a little bit of color from inside the room. all the attorneys are present. donald trump has been chatted with todd blanche and emil bovey. his family is here today. tiffany, lara, eric and don jr. are back in their seats. merchan takes the bench and says, people, do you have proposed instructions and susan hoffinger, who is on the prosecution team says this. not only was mr. blanche's comment inappropriate, the comment where it was suggested that the former president of the united states could go to prison, but your honor specifically precluded any argument by the defense about

potential punishment. mr. blanche was certainly on notice. blanche said reference to prison. on notice, this was improper. mr. blanche misstated the law in new york to the jury. at best, it is california law and we request that it be stuck. merchan, i have a copy of the proposed instruction. todd blanche, your honor, the proposed jury instruction is fine. on the retainer agreement, we very much believe we have not misstated the law. our arguments were that the witnesses testified about their understanding. we request permission the brief on a potential instruction on that topic tonight. so they're getting into a number of things, but where is this going, catherine? >> two things. one, if you've tried enough cases as a prosecutor, you've always had at one point some defense attorney slip in the don't send my client to prison argument. what you do is what the prosecutors are doing. ask for an instruction.

it's outrageous, oh, my gosh. i didn't lead a charmed life as a federal prosecutor. you're used to every once in a while that happening and the judge will give a firm instruction. punishment is not your concern. sympathy for the defendant is not your concern. for this retainer agreement -- >> can i just stop you there and ask you does it need to be stronger? they're not talking about someone unknown. putting them in prison. they're talking about as todd blanche very clearly said -- >> he knew what he was doing. >> former president of the united states. >> he knew what he was doing. but he will give the instruction. it was outrageous, but not shocking. as i said, i had that happen more than once. a defense attorney. >> merchan is saying i think that to actually talk about it, i think would simply call more attention to it than it's worth. >> exactly. exactly. >> danny, you're reacting.

>> so it ends up being a freebie. there's that dilemma. same thing with objections. if someone says something objectionable, do you object, and draw more attention to that issue, or do you need that corrective instruction. and this year, i have to tell you, i'm surprised, too. and lest you think i don't make these kinds of mistakes. i've made plenty of mistakes in closing arguments. >> mistakes? >> truly true mistakes. >> this was not accidental. >> that's right. i'm trying to give the defense benefit of the doubt here, right? i do not see a way where you can utter the words prison in closing argument and say oopsie later on. there are oopsies during closing arguments. >> is the judge wrong to say we'll draw more attention to it than it's worth. as angry as he was from what we heard and heard from those in the courtroom or overflow room, this now will not be instructed.

>> i can imagine the prosecution agreeing with that because really, it ends up being something that is unfixable with the fix or i should say the fix is sometimes worse than the sin itself. so, it happens a lot. i think catherine would agree with me that even though it was inappropriate by having a curative instruction, you could possibly draw more attention and make it worse. and that's exactly, that's a dilemma that goes on in trial all the time. somebody on the other side does something they're not supposed to do. but if you get a curative instruction, now here we are talking about that thing longer than we should have in the first place. i just have to tell you, i have never accidentally stepped into the area of talking about punishment. it's never allowed. i've made plenty of true mistakes in closing argument. i don't go for the extra, really because i'm afraid of getting yelled at by judges but i still get yelled at.

if you utter the words, prison, you can't chalk that up to a mistake. >> clearly intentional. just no way. and mr. blanche did it because he knew he could get away with it and judge merchan, he's a very experienced judge. he is absolutely right. to take time now and quite frankly, you may have had jurors that didn't even hear that part. to highlight it is a good decision. >> he just says jurors, before we hear the government, you heard mr. blanche ask about sending the defendant the prison. ask that you not send the defendant to prison. that is improper and you must disregard it. if there is a verdict of guilty, it will be up to me to impose a sentence. so, listen. we're following a document that i think can be hard to follow because they're updating it in realtime and our team inside the courthouse and overflow room are

working so hard. how quickly they're typing, there's like four of them in there filling in this document. so sometimes, we don't get everything correct in the moment but we're trying to correct it now. merchan does appear to be giving the warning to jurors. why don't we -- >> he'll say it again, too. >> was it a good idea to tell the jury this is not up to them, it's up to him? >> it's never a good idea to stray into the issue of punishment. >> for the judge. >> he's just given the instruction to the jury. >> in my view, i'm a fan of curative instructions because i don't like to leave anything out. >> and to do it now rather than during his instructions, in the moment. >> it's a judgment call. again, when i want a curative instruction, i want it cured right a way. i don't want to wait a day or two or whenever the jury gets the case. this is an appropriate way to fix it. i subscribe to the idea that a

curative instruction is better than nothing but other people disagree. >> he also says a prison sentence is not required in the event of a guilty verdict. that's important to understand. it is not required that donald trump go to prison if he is found guilty. there are a lot of other options. >> and josh is now starting the prosecution's summation. >> your honor, members of the jury, in his opening, mr. colangelo told you the case is a conspiracy to corrupt the 2016 election and hide that conspiracy by hiding records to pay off miss daniels for her silence. three things, steinglass said, need to be proven by the people. so here he goes right at the beginning, danny. he's starting with this is what we told you we were going to prove and this is how we proved it. >> philosophically, a totally different thing is going on during a prosecution's closing argument. when a defense is closing, they're pot shotting. calling up pieces of evidence they think are the weakest and

highlighting those. that's because the defense has no burden at all. pot shotting is how they get to an acquittal. the prosecution has a far greater burden. they have all the burden and they have to build an entire house of evidence, brick by brick. so that's why, and i say this glibly sometimes, but i understand why. that's why prosecutors are the ones who are often using powerpoints. they need to put those pieces of evidence in front of a jury to build a foundation because they have the burden and it is the highest. >> they need to do it clearly. one of the things all of us have talked about in every show is talk about how complicated it might be to help people understand how you go from a misdemeanor to a felony in this case. three things he said need to be proven by the people. can't get more simple than this. that there were in fact false business records. that the false business records were intended to cover up a conspiracy related to the 2016

election that the defendant himself was involved. is that an accurate and understandable telling of what the people need to prove? >> it is. he could have done more with saying it was, you have to prove that he caused it with the intent to defraud, with the intent to commit or conceal and say what that conspiracy is, but that's just nitpicking me. what he has to do, and i know josh, he's not a wind bag. i'd be surprised if he does four and a half hours, but he has enough skills to understand that if he's going too far and boring them to death, he knows how to stop and get around it. >> that's what i was struck by when listening to the defense this morning. didn't start off as tight as this. blanche wound his way through an argument and bits and pieces here, bits and pieces there. it was hard to follow. and it went on for nearly three hours. you didn't get the sign post at the start of it. and lisa rubin said a moment ago that the cardinal rule is you have three points, maybe five.

not ten. like todd blanche ended up. >> similar to the way they did direct and cross. journalists and writers, all of us know about the magic of three points and not five and not ten. >> well, here's three. ready? >> steinglass says to the jury, focus on the facts and logical inferences and the hard evidence. notes voice recordings. we ask you to remember the tune out the noise and if you did that, you will see the people have presented powerful evidence. before we get to what the case is about, let's talk about what this case is not about. they are questioning the integrity and suggesting call summaries were trimmed down. the phone records themselves are all evidence. don't fall for the suggestion that these call summaries were trimmed down to mislead you. so here he is right away in essence defending what we heard

todd blanche say. the people on the stand were liars and some of the evidence -- >> and that, a good prosecution summation, some do it different. some just start out with their case then say and now what would the defense have you believe. josh is right up front saying you just heard from mr. blanche. don't let him mislead you. and that's exactly. then he's going to get to, you'll see. it won't be pot shots. it will be very organized, complete narrative. >> one of the things the defense did a good job with with michael cohen was sewing doubt that michael cohen had the conversation he said he did with donald trump on the day he said he had it about the stormy daniels payment. they brought up phone records, said he spoke to keith schiller about this 14-year-old who bullied you and in the moments before, you had a phone call with keith schiller. could you not have had just a conversation about that.

and michael cohen said well, okay, maybe. later, the prosecution brought up a picture of them the moment they were having the conversation. steinglass is getting to that here in talking about the phone records. he says the defense can point to any call they want you to look at. they double counted half the calls on the costello chart, calls that michael cohen made to robert costello. nor should you accept the defense's argument that we somehow hid. they were free to and did make their own exhibits. keep something else in mind. not every call is reflected in those exhibits. not by a long shot. he says there are 11 different members in cells for donald trump. we don't have his office land line at the white house. there are no outgoing calls to that number. phone companies told us they only keep those records for

three years. the absence of a phone record does not prove a call never happened. no records of encrypted calls of conspirators either. some of the conversations in this case took place in person so there would be no record. the fact there isn't a record of a particular phone call does not mean that a particular conversation did not take place. i think that this is, you tell me if i'm wrong, but underscoring how just because there's not direct evidence about conversation that happened in person, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. they're talking about the circumstantial evidence. >> the absence of evidence does not lead to you voting not guilty. >> but does that help the defense? because all they need is a little bit of doubt. >> that's what the defense job is. to create that doubt. as danny said, pot shots. reasonable doubt. not any doubt. they're going to be instructed what it means. doesn't mean beyond all doubt. it means reasonable doubt. >> i think it's interesting they

talk about 11 different phone numbers. whoever he happened to be with, they would hand the phone to him. donald trump at the white house. i mean, he has his own personal phone but that's not the only way you could get in touch with donald trump. >> michael cohen's testimony and as it relates to these phone calls, more and more is really being reduced to really a single jury instruction that these jurors will get. in latin, it's called falsis in unum. if you find a witness to be not credible, you can choose either to not believe them on that one issue or completely disbelieve them. and michael cohen is sort of the living embodiment of that principle. they may find him credible. they may go back into the jury room and say michael cohen is the kind of guy donald trump did business with. we believe him because they were in the business of being deceptive or may disbelieve him as to a single phone call but to everything else or may decide you know what, everything he

says is garbage because we think he lied on one particular issue. >> steinglass says you don't get to falsify your business records because you think you've been victimized. in other words, even if you were daniels and her attorney were trying to extort from him, not a defense for falsifying business records. you've got to use your common sense here. consider the utterly damning testimony of david pecker. it alone establishes one of the three things we have to prove here. the conspiracy to unlawfully influence the 2016 election. you don't need michael cohen to prove that one bit. pecker also eliminates the whole notion that was politics as usual. the defense took one question out of context and put that on the screen, but it was part of a whole series of questions. keep in mind, mr. pecker has no reason to lie. no bias toward the defen dent.

this was neither politics nor journalism as usual. at ami was something with catch and kill that none of us were really aware of until this case came up. >> it also occurs to me they were very busy over the lunch break. they are going point by point on the things they say uh-huh. that's not what happened here. >> they knew michael cohen would be the subject. they're not going to throw him under the bus because they called him, but they are going to point out as he said, you have david pecker. they're going to go through all of the corroboration for different things that michael cohen testified to. and add that you know, why he can believe about what happened in the oval office in trump tower. >> and catherine, he says hope hicks, graph, westerhout, these people like the defendant but each provides critical pieces of the puzzle. building blocks. if anything, they have the incentive to skew their

testimony to help the defendant. other witnesses want to see the defendant held accountable. they're angry and want to see him convicted. >> don't just trust michael cohen. it's everybody else. that their case goes well beyond cohen. >> and there are people who testified who like him and want to defend him, but their testimony only backs up what michael cohen initially alleged. >> hope hicks cried because clearly, she still has some, you know, feeling for her former boss. >> i wonder how that reads with the jury. i've been thinking about that a lot. seeing her cry and understanding she doesn't have a relationship with donald trump any longer because he's been angry at her for a couple of years now, does the jury look at that and think, god, this woman steamed his pants while he was wearing him and now she and he don't have a relationship because he's angry over this, that or the other? does that read well to the jury that this man is an em pathetic and at his core a nice guy if hope hicks is crying over a lost

relationship? >> obviously parts were good for the prosecution but the idea that someone is that loyal to donald trump, that they cry at remembering the relationship. i mean, that could humanize the defendant, but it could also show the jury, hey, maybe this guy was as much of a tyrant or had a hold over his employees that even now years later, they're still sad or upset. in a sense, is she kind of a michael cohen figure? someone who was willing to do anything for this man including bad things. >> now, he's trying to deal with the stormy daniels issue. the defense has tried to shame her saying she changed her story. she lived 2017 in pure silence. michael cohen came out and said sex never happened. she felt compelled to set the record straight. he says there were part of her testimony cringe worthy. so he's dealing with that. that whole episode in the suite,

that was uncomfortable. what it looked like, the toiletry bag, those details kind of ring true. the kind of details you would expect someone to remember. you don't have to prove sex took place. that is not an element of crime. the defendant knew what happened and it reenforces the incentive to buy her silence. >> i also wonder -- >> to discredit her for testimony so irrelevant, why did they work so hard to discredit her. so going to the fact that it was that cross-examination, a lot of us and lawyers felt went too far in putting her on trial. >> it doesn't remind the jury that she didn't say the sex in her estimation was exactly consentual. >> i think daniels as a witness was a mistake for both sides. in other words, the prosecution called stormy daniels and they didn't necessarily need her. they didn't need to get into the

same detail steinglass is discussing now. in my opinion, her testimony may represent the strongest case on appeal and that, just my opinion, it's about the only issue that the judge himself commented on was problematic. they may have waived that on appeal. >> have to show she knew a lot of details to prove her credibility. >> no, just because -- i've heard that as proposition. i tend to disagree with it because there are lot of things made more believable if you provide details but they may be issues that are inappropriate. for example, if something is extra prejudicial, too prejudicial to be admissible, i could give you a ton of details about it. just my opinion, this may be an appealable issue. this stuff he's talking about, the detail of the tiling and whether they had dinner or didn't. yes, those are details. and yes, they may tend to show that her story is more credible. but is it a story that should have been told in the first place? again, that's not me. that's justice merchan.

>> steinglass says her story is messy but says that's kind of the point. the display the defendant didn't want the american voter to say. they didn't want the american voter to see that her story was messy. you can be sure donald trump did not play 130 grand twice when adjusted for taxes just because he took a photograph with someone on the golf course. if her testimony were so irrelevant as the defense argues, why did they work so hard to discredit her? then he says in the simplest terms, stormy daniels is the motive. >> that's the mistake the defense made. so i think the prosecution, they didn't necessarily need to call stormy daniels. i think they probably were going to no matter what, but the bigger mistake i think was the defense and it was cross examining her for long as they did and saying donald trump did not have sex with that woman. also a mistake. what they should have done on cross-examination, take five minutes, ask daniels, you don't

have anything to do with creating business records at the trump organization, do you? no, i don't. you sit down and don't raise or give life to any of these issues but i suspect the client, donald trump, may have encouraged the defense to argue about whether or not. >> they're also acknowledging the baggage michael cohen has saying this. cohen has baggage. he is a convicted felon. and he publicly denied, i think we've lost words there. but cohen is interested in this and that's a factor you should consider but you're not required to reject the testimony of an interested witness. michael cohen is understandably angry because he's the only one who has paid the price and they're ut ping this in all caps. the defendant has escaped justice. he was his right hand man and he cut him loose like a hot potato. >> i always say he's thrown out like trash. >> yeah. >> this was someone who basically i say he was donald

trump's you know, man servant. because it really wasn't an attorney client relationship. he did whatever donald trump told him to do. he, you know, idolized donald trump, so of course he's now devastated and angry and vengeful against him. josh is giving a good explanation. yes, he's all of these things but he has a reason to be. >> anyone in cohen's shoes would want the defendant held accountable. >> exactly. >> using the term con cig lair, that's a loaded term to use in this white collar -- >> i'm surprised. pecker got a non prosecution agreement. howard didn't. dylan howard's in australia. the defendant up until now had escaped justice. that's what he said right before anyone in cohen's shoes. >> and the defense raised the point, they didn't bring in weisselberg, howard. joining us now is former federal prosecutor, mark. he's experienced in fraud and

corruption cases. so, what do you think about the way josh steinglass is now attacking the defense argument, defense summation? and trying to resurrect or rehabilitate michael cohen to the extent he can. >> i think there's little he needs to do with michael other than point out that michael was somebody donald trump picked to work for donald trump. that donald trump picked him to carry out this plan and to make these payments and that donald trump was the one you know, even as michael cohen admitted stealing money on the red finch deal, but i would not be surprised if josh does. he points out even that deal was the same kind of cut out practice that donald trump is alleged to have used with michael cohen with stormy daniels. the difficulty blanche has is even when he goes into attack michael cohen, which is what he should do in this situation,

he's caught you know, drawing upon examples which can be used to come back on him as to why ooechbl with those examples, it doesn't change the fact this is donald trump's person. and those examples are further corroboration of exactly what he did in this case. if i were josh steinglass, that's what i would do. hitting on the small issues to make sure the juries don't get caught up in things are minor is the thing to do. but you want to address michael cohen for who he is then i think as we've been talking about, note that all of these things have been established by a host of other witnesses. one other thing, too, is that somebody like hope hicks, even though the prosecution called them, they did a good job of establishing and josh did this as well. these are not their witnesses. these are people who are loyal to donald trump. who believe in donald trump. and yet who have still took the

stand and provided testimony that was damning and still supported the alleged crimes. those are the things in a good prosecution, that kind of cross, sort of sponsoring witnesses who are loyal to the trump organization and to donald trump, actually can be quite helpful to the jury. >> and he's pointing out while the defense urges you to reject cohen testimony, he never got his sentence reduced. he's still providing information about what went down and if you remember the recorded conversation, they're showing the transcript. the defendant tells him he hates the fact he did it, relating to the daniels payment. this was before the cooperation and guilty plea and he was getting monthly checks. of course, the defendant knew much earlier than 2017. they say he stole from the trump organization and when he and weisselberg were working out the

reimbursement, they're talking about as lisa rubin is pointing out from inside the courthouse, from people's exhibit 267, a phone call in which cohen well before any cooperation was in the works tells davidson trump hates the fact we did it. meaning the stormy settlement. that cohen had reminded him that everybody in his life told him it was the right thing to do. so trying to reenforce and trying to bring cohen's testimony about donald trump into the, in front of the jury. >> that kind of recording showing that michael cohen knew that this was not true. that they had been able to buy silence and that trump was aware of it and although he didn't like doing it, it was a clear acknowledgment and may help him. i think what you may hear from josh is even if you were to remove the testimony of michael

cohen, all of the other elements of this offense are well supported by the evidence that's been introduced at trial. he will go down and start listing them one at a time, including all of the trump witnesses they called to help provide that information. >> but let me just ask you with all of these other witnesses and all the paperwork and the checks, does the jury, how does the jury forget all the lies that michael cohen told? not in the past, but as the defense was emphasizing over and over again today. to them. that he lied to them as far as the defense is concerned. in this case. >> at this point, the way the defense is talking about that is talking about lies with respect to the evidence at hand. i think jurors are going to take michael cohen's testimony, put it on the table and next to that, put the document. put david pecker's testimony.

but the testimony of the trump organization witnesses and line them up and just see what has been proved here, what hasn't been proved. >> they're looking though to, i don't know if rehabilitation is actually word. i think what they're trying to do is say there's a reasonable explanation for a lot of these things that the defense would like to sort of show is nefarious. for example, what would he say after doing three years plus three years post release supervision is that he paid the price for the role in this scheme. but it's not a defense. they call him a thief or they can call say this is not really a reimbursement, but not both. now the defense is urging you to reject cohen's testimony because he's still making money from things related to the case. he sells merchandise. none of that is a crime and he will continue to do that regardless of the outcome of the trial. he has no taxi medallions. he has been disbarred. huge legal bills. online attacks.

i am not asking you to feel bad for michael cohen, he made his bed, but you can hardly blame him that he's making money for the one thing he has left. his knowledge of the inner workings of the trump org. what do you make of that, mark, as an argument? >> i think it's a valid attempt to try to explain why michael cohen does what he does. i'm not so sure it's so necessary, but clearly, i think the prosecution felt that it had enough of an impact on cross-examination and may have raised enough of a concern at least in some of the jurors' minds that they had to address it. it's really the reason why you see the specific stuff being dealt with in that way including that particular question, which is how do we trust a man who is making money off this case and off his relationship with the defendant. >> danny, they're clearly going through and addressing all of the ways that michael cohen is a problematic and not a perfect witness. and all the flaws that he has.

i wonder is that effective? >> let's take a step back. there are zero surprises in the prosecution doing this. there are zero surprises really in the defense's closing and when it comes to someone like michael cohen, the prosecution must address their credibility issues and they addressed them early and often. they addressed them in their opening statement. they addressed them in the sense that so many witnesses in the prosecution's case basically hit michael cohen with truth shrapnel throughout the trial. michael cohen was getting hit from all sides. and i have to believe the prosecution knew that was coming and they were fine with it because they wanted the jury to know early on that michael cohen was a flawed human being. and sure enough, they're embracing it in their closing argument. which comes as a surprise to no former prosecutor like catherine. it's exactly what she would be doing probably close to verbatim right now is saying something to the effect of this is somebody who's flawed but he is the way

he is but that's who donald trump chose. he needed lackeys like this to do his bidding. >> they're calling michael cohen a liar, a liar, a liar, and a liar. donald trump doesn't exactly tell the truth all the time. is it worth it for them to allude to donald trump's inability to be honest a lot of the time? >> they're going to bring that out because remember during the trial, they had videotape of him talking about not knowing these women, that they're lying. stormy and mcdougal. they're going to bring out excerpts from his book where he's described as a micro manager. danny's right. you don't decide as a prosecutor to call a witness like this unless you're going to him him and his flaws and argue this is why donald trump had him as his personal lawyer. >> right now, what he's doing is saying in terms of him being a liar, he's saying defense tells you you should reject his testimony because he lied in

federal court. he feels like he was treated unfairly and as a first offender, he should have been able to pay a fine and back taxes and he believes the trump justice didn't did him dirty. whether that's true or not, he accepted responsibility and went to prison for it. you should consider this for his credibility. the mueller investigation and the russia probe and what he lied about was the number of dealings they had with russia and he stayed in the defendant's good graces and now those lies he told are being used by the same defendant to undermine his credibility and some might call that chutzpah. >> yeah. >> i read their mine, they read my mine, one of the two. >> and steinglass says that's the big lie. arguing what we know is used to talk about the election. >> they're going to get into the bit more about the phone call, the keith schiller phone call. the harassing calls.

he says let's try and experiment and i'll be cohen. he's now reading the text between schiller and cohen regarding the 14-year-old and he timed himself. i think catherine, you predicted that he might do this. 49 seconds, he says. steinglass immediately after they hang up, cohen texts the kid's number to schiller. compare that conversation -- wait. compare that conversation between the defendant and cohen. as we wait on this, catherine, what is the -- >> this is very good because the whole cross-examination with blanche saying that's a lie because you couldn't have text and talk about that crank caller and talk about stormy daniels in that short period of time. and what josh is doing is doing basically a demonstration for a jury.

yes, you can. of course, don't forget, they have the photograph of schiller and trump together around that time that cohen says that's when he called and spoke to schiller who handed the phone off to trump. >> and it was a 90-second call or something. that's showing how long that is. if you have, you know, silence for 46 seconds or whatever amount of time, it's a lot longer than people realize. >> you could sit up there and said let's time out what 90 seconds is. >> it didn't have to be a long conversation. they're arguing it's an established relationship. you're not going to go on for an hour. >> you can go over a lot of topics. if you're argument and this is such a crucial argument. if it's that something is impossible, it has to really be impossible under the laws of the universe. in other words, not just it would have been unlikely or maybe they would have to speed talk, it has to be something like trump and schiller weren't even in the same state or trump and schiller didn't even have

phones on them that day. to argue that it is impossible that michael cohen could have talked to him about the 14-year-old and the payment to daniels, they're really going to need it to be something that couldn't have happened and that's not really what's going on and the prosecution has jumped all over that. >> the fact they're addressing it directly signifies they saw it as a problem. >> remember how we read, laura jarrett is pointing out some color that steinglass is referring to trump not as mr. trump, but the defendant and he's certainly not calling him the former president. he's also saying these guys, you know, on this call, knew each other well. they speak in code. a better explanation is that cohen could have gotten the time and place of the call wrong. he spoke to the defendant 20 times in october. say you had dinner at a restaurant with an old friend, the friend says you're getting married. you find a reseat. you think that was the night. that does not mean you're lying

about the fact you had dinner with your friend. he's trying to make it relatable. >> also he's referring to trump as the defendant. defense has gone to great pains to not call him mr. trump, but president trump. i started thinking during closing, that may have created a problem because as they're talking about these campaign issues and whether or not these payments were motivated, they're calling the defendant president trump, reminding the jury that oh, this is a politician. he is a president or about to be a president. or was about to be elected president. you make those little decisions. laura obviously seized on calling the defendant the defendant. the defense will often call the client by his first name. hey, it's bob. that you think might humanize your client to the jury, but they made a deliberate choice to always call him mr. president. again, a decision that may have been influenced by the client more than the defense team.

but as you're listening to blanche's closing argument and he's discussing how none of this could have had anything to do with the campaign, president trump. and you hear that over and over again, it's an interesting juxtaposition and it just goes to those little micro decisions that each side makes. even as to what to call the defendant. >> laura jarrett is pointing out -- >> trying to call defendant, defendant. they're not, you know, a person. it's defendant. >> but i think in this case, instead of not calling him mr. trump or the former president, she says watch for him to argue at some point that even the former president of the united states is not above the law. that we have seen that before. when he was in other cases that just over the last year. that donald trump was referred to this way. so it may be strategic for several reasons that they're doing that. let's go back into the document because steinglass clearly wants as we said, all this to be relatable to the jury.

bringing this into terms that people can understand. cohen may be able to place a particular call by looking at the phone records again based on what was going on at the time. how important is this just to give them any number of options, catherine, for how this could have happened? maybe he did misstate it. you know, everybody can probably remember a situation where they were talking to a friend and said remember when we were at x and talking about this and then the friend saying oh, no, we were at y. we had that conversation, but it wasn't there. it's very relatable. >> very important the prosecution takes time to do this because remember, that was a big deal on cross. i was even saying uh-oh, this is a problem. and then on the redirect by hoffinger, i believe it was cleared up, but just in case it wasn't cleared up enough, josh is spending time during the summation and i think doing that demonstration about how you could have had this conversation and texting within that 90

seconds is very valuable. >> he's also arguing that cohen, if he was lying, could have made this a whole lot more concrete. he could have said donald trump said x, y, and z. he could have been more forthcoming with details that donald trump said. he said the defendant went over every line of every contract and told him when he locked it down. he could have said the conversation with the defendant and weisselberg, let's cook the books, but cohen didn't do that because he is limited by what actually happen. >> that reminds me when daniels was testifying and she said if i was going to make up a story -- >> i'd make up a lot better one. >> that's what they're arguing. he would have made up a much -- >> that's a stock phrase. better story. and it's true. that's why it's a phrase that's repeated over and over again. >> because it's effective. >> very effective. >> but of course the defense argument to that is you're basically saying well, we have a witness who lied.

his lies weren't better and that's why you should believe him. his lies could have been way worse than the lies he may have told. it's a stock piece of a closing argument from prosecutors. and it's effective. these things persist because they work. cooperating witnesses like michael cohen is similar to work. they simply work. >> here's a fun thing. steinglass, we didn't choose michael cohen as a witness. we didn't pick him up at the witness store. i've heard this time and time again from all of our lawyers that you can't choose your witness. these are the people that donald trump surrounded himself. these are the people that the defendant chose. they're not great people. for a reason. because the defendant's not surrounding himself with this. >> trump chose him for the same qualifies you want him to to be rejected for. >> i'm struck by what he's going to next. the passage from trump's big book. as a matter of fact, i value loyalty more than everything else. brain, drive, energy. i still feel the book doesn't

work because we know it was ghost written and maybe it's his voice. >> co-ghost written. >> i think a book's a weakness. the prosecution has a decent case. i think they have enough to find guilty. but the defense i think correctly pointed out that look, if they're looking to books that somebody wrote as general evidence of intent or what somebody does on a specific issue, i think it's correct for the defense to point out well, is that all they've got is books they wrote? because lots of people have written books. >> but that is true about trump. he does prioritize loyalty over everything else. hobba is still his defense team and in her case, lost him half a billion dollars. >> we are in heated agreement, katy. what i'm saying is that you're right. that book evidence may be evidence of how donald trump did business. but if you're the defense and they made this point in their closing. if that's the best you got on

that issue, that general issue, it is evidence, but it's not the best evidence. there should have been something better. i wouldn't be surprised if that something, that's one of the data points the jury could seize upon. >> is there a way for them to bring that out? is it just a tool for them to say hey, listen, this is what donald trump writes about himself. and allow the jury to take it and then to think, oh, yeah, that's what i know about donald trump, also, from the experience we've all had with him over the past ten years. >> the reasoning is because donald trump makes a general statement in his book, that i always look at all the bills. that this is evidence that on this particular occasion or on these 34 particular occasions or 11 occasions, he looked at these particular 11 bills. i agree. it is probative but it's not probative enough if i'm the prosecution. i can see the jury saying i don't know. book evidence, i'm not so wild about. michael cohen evidence, fine. >> in the argument, steinglass

is taking us the next step away from michael cohen, which is this. in this case, there's literally a mountain of evidence of corroborating testimony that tends to connect the defendant in this crime from pecker to hicks from his own tweets and rallies. this is the big statement, catherine. it is difficult to conceive of a case with more corroboration. he's tried to do a bit of explaining why michael cohen is the way he is regarding donald trump. that that's exactly why donald trump picked him, but now he is getting to the crucial point. you can't just believe everything when the papers, when the texts, when the evidence is there. >> witness by witness corroborates most, not all, because really, the oval office meeting and trump tower meeting, that's basically only michael cohen. but the argument is going to be the circumstantial evidence and yes, some of the book evidence where he describes himself as like knowing about the paper

clips and reading the invoices of the decorator, but pecker calling him details. hope hicks even saying he was really hands on in the campaign. all of that evidence, the corroboration is circumstantial. >> they're spending a lot of time right now rehabilitating cohen and they're saying this is as well. eventually, cohen came to the realization that trump was not acting in his favor. i assume is what they're saying. costello was a double agent to discourage cohen from cooperating and keep the defendant informed and it became clear to cohen they were setting him up to be a fall guy. he has been describing the events in this case for six years. he apologized to the american people for lying. the question is not whether you like cohen. it is whether he has useful, reliable information to give you about what went down in this case and the truth is he was in the best position to know about the conspiracy and in the best position to know about the false business records the defendant

created to hide the payments, catherine. >> so they are basically acknowledging you actually do need michael cohen for that. he gave me the thumbs up what weisselberg did. you can believe him is because of all this corroboration and because of the book evidence which may is just one piece and all of the documents, the text messages, et cetera. >> can i bring in peter baker? msnbc political analyst. peter, just to take a break and talk politics for just one second. as we are following this case, and we're getting the summations for the first criminal trial for a former president, which could lead to the first conviction for a former president, especially in the middle, especially since it's the middle of an election year. you have the lead article in politico this morning saying dems in full blown freakout over biden. talk to me about that dichotomy. democrats are freaking out over

president biden at the same time that his rival, his opposition for the white house, donald trump, the former president, is in the middle of a criminal trial. >> yeah. i think it tells you everything you need to know about how topsy tur vi our politics has become. we all grew up in an era where being on criminal trial would have been enough to kill political careers. how about four indictments, multiple civil judges for sexual abuse, business fraud, tax evasion, other items like that. all of which has done nothing at least to this point has done nothing to stop donald trump's march to the republican nomination and to make him a viable candidate in the fall regardless of his legal troubles. that's one of the things that's mystified the biden campaign and democrats. how do you run against somebody for whom this trial we're talking about at great length and detail because it's important, has no seeming impact on the voters up until now.

now, the factor is what does an indictment do. we've learned the trial has not moved the poll in a meaningful direction. will a conviction change that dynamic? maybe. because we have no history that judges against to say well, in this case, that happened or that case, the other thing happened. not at the presidential level. we're all in uncharted territory and i think that's one of the reasons the biden camp seems so mystified. >> also the fact the biden camp is frustrated because the president is the president is doing things such as the west point speech this weekend, an important foreign policy, military speech and political context, got very little coverage whereas, you know, donald trump, you know, has rap artists, now the biden-harris campaign has put out a press release. biden making american safer as trump makes lawlessness his brand and here from the "new

york times" they're pointing out over the past week donald trump rallied alongside two rap artists accused of conspiracy to commit murder. he promised to commute the sentence of a drug dealer, and another rap artist who bleed guilty for assaulting a fan. there's never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly in our country's history. just reading from the times version of what the biden-harris team is trying to put out to in their view get some ballots. >> they're putting that out in a statement. and we awe earlier today robert de niro came out talking on behalf of joe biden, a couple very familiar officers at the capitol on january 6th. did they seem settled how they're going to approach both this trial and whatever the verdict is, the campaign, are they settled? >> no, i mean, look, you know, they're having their own debate

about this, obviously, there are those who want to emphasize this more, who think they ought to be pounding away at the idea that we might have a convicted felon as a republican nominee for prosecute and there are those who think no, this isn't what the public cares about, inflation, or immigration or the economy. the president should talk about his accomplishments in terms of infrastructure, or in terms of fighting climate change and so forth. and i think that that's kind of a real push and pull inside the administration, there's -- they feel very proud, understandably, of their accomplishments and they don't understand why they're not getting credit for them. they're frustrated that trump seems to suck the oxygen out of the room. of course, he sucks all the oxygen out of the room for something that certainly biden wouldn't exactly want trump's coverage right now. but it does make it harder for them to get their message across. one of the reasons you saw president biden accept this early date for a debate on june 27th is because that one way to get this election turned around, they think, is to focus on that choice, to say, fine, you know you may not be happy with me, president biden, because if i'm

too old or i have, you know, blame me for inflation, but the truth is, it is a choice, the choice is the other guy. you may not have reconciled yourself to the idea that these are the two choices you have in front of you but these are the two choices. remember what you thought in 2020 and remember you didn't want donald trump then and you shouldn't want him now. >> back into the document. this case is not about michael cohen as the defense wants you to believe, this case is about donald trump. then he's going through a detailed timeline of the entire case, putting up an on-screen graphic showing all the important meetings and the moments, the color from inside of the courtroom from our team is that this is a crucial piece of information for the jurors to be able to see. it was only up for a short time but one of the more helpful documents that our team has seen about the timeline of these things when the "access hollywood" tape came out. when the phone calls were, et cetera. you have to roll up your sleeves and get into those documents. august 2015 meeting at trump

tower, the prism you should analyze the evidence in this case, three rich powerful men high up in trump tower trying to become even more powerful, trying to control the flow of information to voters. howard says -- >> hope hicks. >> hope hicks says she was in and out and this wasn't something you wanted to discuss in front of your female campaign press secretary. as hicks told you in her own words there were some things she just didn't want to know. steinglass says pecker gave you a lot more detail about this than michael cohen did. three key components to the agreement, accentuate the positive. promote the campaign by colluding with the campaign to manufacture favorable content outside of normal press function. they even gave advanced copies, second to publish stories attacking the defendant's political opponents. the defense asked mr. pecker on cross whether some stories were old or recycled. steinglass says either way pecker told you the stories were

reprinted at exactly the right time for the purpose of helping the defendant's campaign. steinglass adds that's also not a normal legit press function. these stories -- we're laughing because it's true. these stories were not just consumed by the "national enquirer" subscribers, the "national enquirer" is seen by anyone in a checkout loin or who has shopped at walmart. it's a real game changer of this meeting that was the catch and kill component. steinglass says once the money exchanges hands that's federal election campaign finance violations. we're going to get back to that, steinglass says. now, mr. blanche said in his summation they didn't discuss catch and kill. no, that's not true. they discussed catch and kill plenty. they didn't use the term catch and kill, but that's exactly what it was. pecker said he would try to be the eyes and ears of the campaign, all three men knew women would be coming forward

with accounts of sexual liaisons they had with donald trump. trump himself told pecker and cohen to work together, and if something comes up, cohen, you take care of it. as pecker testified pecker would notify cohen when they could purchase a story and suppress. that's the definition of catch and kill, steinglass argues, whether you use that phrase or not. this is buying a story that you do not intend to run, so that no one else does. blanche said there's nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. this meeting at trump tower, this was the opposite. this was subversion, steinglass says, in reality, this agreement at trump tower was the exact opposite, subversion of the election that assumes the voting public has access to information, and the meeting was to deny the voters. to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion. pecker and ami stopped engaging in legitimate press activities

the moment they agreed to become a covert arm of the defendant's campaign. they are telling a story. >> yeah. >> this is a narrative. i didn't hear, except for small portions, todd blanche tell a story today. >> he goes on to say when they serve an unlawful purpose, including unlawful campaign contributions in the past, pecker had declined to publish negative stories about trump. that was fundamentally different than seeking out and buying those stories to make sure they would never be told. >> what josh steinglass just did was describe the conspiracy to promote donald trump's campaign by unlawful means and he talked about the campaign finance violations. and no, you did not hear a narrative and a story from the defense, which you rarely hear from the defense, it's just like, don't believe this, don't believe that. the prosecution has to be coherent and concise, and do the explanation exactly as josh is doing. so he started off with rebutting everything, you know, the defense said, you know, the noise, and now he's now let's

talk about what the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt. >> we're going to continue to stay in the document. i want to thank peter backer and mark califano. much more to come as the prosecution continues its closing argument almost an hour hold old. keep it right there. you're watching live inside donald trump's hush money trial.