here's a plan. i'll be back in two hours along with rachel maddow and the msnbc primetime team. the beat with ari melber starts right now. >> hi, nicole. see you soon. welcome to "the beat."

we're covering today's climatic closing arguments in donald trump's trial. the trial is still ongoing right now. the prosecutor continuing the closing arguments. we'll continue in our live coverage to bring you that as well as what i'm going to do with you right now, which is try to summarize what is the most important day and likely the last day or two before this jury deliberates. the day began with trump's lawyers doing their closing arguments for the defendant. they finished. the scene outside court was more rauk cause than usual. there was trump family members, robert deniro. i was downtown with our team, reporters and lawyers at the court today. we were out there. i made some videos. we kept an eye on it. all working together. the closing arguments give jurors the pivotal final last material. it's the culmination of a trial that's featured 22 exhibits, 20 days, emails, hundreds of exhibits. now it's all going down today. >> critical day, former president trump's criminal

trial. >> both sides set to deliver their final pitch to jurors. >> we're in the final stretch of the first criminal trial of a former president. >> after four weeks of testimony, lawyers are about to give closing arguments in the trial of former president trump. >> one way or another, history is about to be made. >> the verdict could exonerate the first president or make him the first commander in chief convicted of a crime. >> big, big, big day. >> this is it. a make or break moment. a chance for both sides to tell the jury a story they'll carry with them into deliberations. >> now right now tonight we actually know most of that story. the defense finishing their closing. we have a breakdown on the defense portion of this later this hour. right now we have the prosecution's closing. they unloaded on the alert and other times bark. how do we take this week of testimony, evidence for what you call them for a jury and that's

actually the challenge of this. the prosecutors hammering the defendant as a habitual liar. he ran through his role in a crime and the campaign. to remind the jury today cohen, trump, this tabloid empire did all these things. they explain the trump campaign more than anything in that crucial home stretch october, they needed stormy daniels quiet. that in the simplest terms stormy daniels is the motive. that she's the criminal motive. that's boiling it down to one person. prosecutors then went through adding details, examples and receipts. they brought back the characters that this jury has met. we've got some on the screen right now. some of them have testified like daniels and tabloid boss david pecker. others did not like former model mcdougall or the doorman paid

for his silence with suspicious terms that were for trump and his campaign, not for any conceivable benefit to the tabloid. today they reminded them of these figures and they argued they were all lit in transactions providing overt transactions. once money starts changing hands on behalf of the campaign, that's a crime. it was a scheme cooked up by these men which maybe got trump elected. the tabloid made this illegal contribution. that's a campaign crime according to prosecutors. the old legal saying goes, there it is. weissman is standing by. i did it that way for him to connect with this material. remember, there have been questions, very fair questions, about the prosecutor's different potential theories of this case and whether they would ask the jury to keep mulling multiple

possible crimes that would make this fraud a felony by defendant trump or they'd focus in on one. if you are watching the news, you probably remember some of those discussions and debates. let me tell you where it began. in the opening arguments weeks ago prosecutors did emphasize cohen went to jail for an unlawful corporate donation. they have cited the possible tax crimes and other theories. here's another headline tonight if you are following all of this. the this closing argument hammered the campaign crime that the last three weeks of evidence showed illegal political goals plotted and funded for trump's campaign but in a special illegal deal, if you can get a deal like this and get away with it. >>, the trump campaign didn't have to pay for it. a false smear by the doorman and stories from daniels and

mcdougall. the lead prosecutor said use your common sense, they didn't pay tens of thousands of dollars to bury a trump story for the tabloid's benefit. with extra terms to publish any potential leak of that material. burying susan mcdougall's story, that's not in their interest. they don't benefit. if they were acting as a secret arm. thirteen it makes sense. the prosecutor said who benefitted? why would they do that? remember, the allegation is deceit. the tabloid was acting as a secret operator and former model mcdougall was being told she was getting a deal and behind the entity was donald trump himself. that's something she later discovered. in addition to telling you what they're talking about in court, which we're doing in our reporting, i want to remind you the context. we asked her lawyer about that aspect of this whole plot when the story broke.

>> you're convinced now this was an effort to do a favor for donald trump in the last few months of the presidential race? >> unfortunately, yes. >> was the national inquirer acting as the arm of donald trump and michael cohen? if so, is there something wrong with that? >> we strongly suspect they were. >> pecker said he believed what donald trump was trying to do, the stories he was trying to get buried for the benefit of protecting his campaign. >> there you have it. this is what we learn as we go. the maybe you talk to people at home and your life, i know what happened, i know what's going to happen, i know what the jury's going to do. those people are full of it. maybe they like sounding like they know more than they do. we didn't know which theory was going to land and we didn't know exactly what was going to be presented. we certainly don't know what the jury is going to do with it. in this closing, which is the last thing the jury is hearing, the da is saying don't even call

it the national enquirer. call it the trump campaign enquirer because it's a secret arm of the campaign just like we asked mcdougall's lawyer about it six years ago. they told the jury these were illegal corporate contributions to the trump campaign that trump was not only aware of but participated in. showing it impossible for the trump campaign to claim cohen was acting on his own when it was all a deal from the top. so that's already a lie. now it's ongoing. we have the live update on the side of the screen. we will keep monitoring everything that's coming out in the hours ahead, but right there i would argue we've caught you up in brief on some of the key points the prosecutors hit today as it's ongoing. that's some of the main line of attack they made. that was the offense. i also want to make sure you understand if you are interested in what was happening in court today, even though prosecutors by definition have to be on the offense, they have the legal burden of proof. they also did some defense and chronologically was actually

where they began when they first got the ball. it was earlier in the day and they dealt with their star witness. seemed like they were doing this first like getting a chore out of the way. i'll tell you something else, if you are watching this case and wondering if trump is going to be definitely convicted, well, today we saw one sign the prosecutors are concerned that trump's lawyers were effective and be at least raising doubts about cohen and through cohen. we saw that today because they began by trying to deal with this. the trump lawyers have tried to put cohen's credibility on the trial. the prosecutors had about i would argue three main ways to deal with this. first, another reference to that common sense we were talking about. consider the utterly damning testimony of david pecker. meaning they're arguing other witnesses back up cohen. so this case and these alleged facts don't rise and fall on just him. second, they made a less legal and more practical argument and

it's one that any trump observer knows. you do not need a law degree. the people around trump who now have yet again become legal witnesses to trump's actions, they're dodgy and sketchy and sometimes outright criminal and the prosecutor argued, that's not a bug, that's a feature. it's because trump picked them. here's the quote, we didn't pick michael cohen up at the witness store. no. trump picked him. now that doesn't cancel out all of cohen's issues but it is their effort in this key final period to reposition the admitted lying and shady practices not as just a cohen thing or random witness thing as coming from trump, flipping that back. this is legal jujitsu. we can all agree he lies sometimes, but who does he lie for? why do the enquirer and cohen and people lie this way and cut deals this way? the d.a. ultimately arguing, because of defendant trump and that's a good thing.

they argue trump chose cohen for the same qualities that he wants the jury to reject them for. the willingness to outright lie, cut corners and break the law. they used trump's own words he values loyalty above everything else, more than brains, drive and energy. that doesn't mean some kind of generic loyalty like you might want a certain amount of loyalty, ride or die as the saying goes. no. they mean it in a much more damning way. defendant trump used loyalty as something that includes refusing to cooperate with police and law enforcement or being honest and telling the truth under oath. >> what i believe in loyalty, it's called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal. >> i would have wiped the floor with the guys that weren't loyal, which i will now do. >> prosecutors saying trump hand picked a liar who would lie as part of loyalty because trump's loyalty comes before truth.

that's more practical than legalistic terms. sort of third and related, prosecutors pointed at times when cohen did lie for trump like defending russia contacts to congress dealing with the muller probe and said trump's team trying to use that is not just hypocritical, it's what some people might call chutzpah, said joshua steinglass. they might know the word chutzpah. and fact check, true. it is a lot of chutzpah to take michael cohen's lies for donald trump and that means, well, you can't trust him now that he has allegedly come clean and is under oath explaining what he did for trump. criminals are often surrounded by criminals our legal experts and prosecutors have told us that. this is part of what we're

learning today even as the hours go on and they are staying later than usual tonight so we have an active and ongoing summation, closing arguments here by the prosecutors. the key parts we've heard already represent these many hours and that kind of damning case i've shown you, it was pre-cohen. either you believe what the receipts and the texts and the witnesses have told you, that there were these plots, more than one, to do illegal off the books campaigning for donald trump, or you have to believe something else, that michael cohen went rogue, that's part of the defense, but also these other people suddenly match up with the version of what he said for some other unexplained reason. the burden is on the prosecutors but they certainly try to remind people why they have said these things. if you are looking at this and thinking it's a knockout, later in the hour we'll go through the defense case. sitting there at 100 center street watching it all, you were reminded this case even had for

a defendant who avoids email a heck of a lot more receipts and texts and call logs than other cases that have resulted in convictions. if there's one more quote you might want to remember to understand this, the jury was reminded by the prosecutor today, it is difficult to conceive of a case with more corroboration than this. do they have the defendant dead to rights? is that a fair statement of the case? when i say we have a power panel for a big news night, i mean a big news night and a power panel that you see right here when we're back in 90 seconds. i never knew your cat was so cuddly. right, she really loves these delectable squeeze up treats. deliciously, de-lick-able delectables. you're hilarious. delectables squeeze up. ♪ deliciously de-lick-able delectables ♪

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we have our power panel,. andrew, having summarized some of the key points, how strong was the d.a.'s side closing today thus far? >> thus far is the key because, you know, it's still going on. it's quite long.

it is really long. they had a lot to accomplish. there's a ton of evidence. i think i'd start maybe with sort of where they had to start. todd blanch did a great job and josh steinglass, there were so many key pieces of evidence that had not been addressed by todd. he did not address hope hicks' testimony. he did not address that with respect to david pecker. he did not address the parts that were really harmful. he didn't address in any meaningful way what josh steinglass referred to, smoking guns, exhibits 35 and 36, for everyone not in the weeds, the

hand written noegts by allen weisselberg and jeff mcconny detailing the payments. >> i think most people have memorized the exhibit numbers. >> i hope so. >> they wrote down their plot. >> exactly. the problem was is that todd blanch, i think, did a good but obvious job with respect to michael cohen. michael cohen is a problematic witness. we knew that from the direct. we knew it from when the trial started. it's fine for him to lay that out. it's fair for him to lay that out but that doesn't address all of the other problems. so i think that let josh steinglass start with a leg up. >> that all makes sense. one thing i'm thinking about, andrew, the holes that were left i think were left there because the things that blanch could have said to help trump, trump

doesn't want public necessarily. it didn't go with his total denial. todd blanch can go after michael cohen because that's in line with trump's larger goals of discrediting cohen and taking revenge but addressing the legal weaknesses would expose trump to having to admit he did some of the things and that has always been unacceptable to him. i think blanch is fighting with one hand behind his back. >> i think it's been a slow burn. they had some good days and some off days. they had some pretty strong hand with the evidence. here opening arguments, they were still dancing around. cohen went to jail, was that the problem? here today they hammered it. we can't be have an election system where people can go off and get, you know, 100k here, 100k there and have all of these

secret agreements to silence women and do this fraud. they landed there in a way that sounded different. >> no offense to the prosecutor who did the opening statement. it was my understanding that was his first state criminal trial. josh steinglass who is doing the summation, prosecutor for 25 years, he knows how to try a case. what he did -- well, he's still going. what he's doing in this summation which i thought was great was the michael cohen. the prosecutors are not going to throw michael cohen under the bus but they're not going to pretend he is anything but what he is. he lies. he stole. he has all of these issues and as he said, josh steinglass, i always say we don't get our witnesses from central casting, but you don't get them from the witness store. michael cohen is really donald trump's mini me. that's why he worked for donald trump. that's why donald trump loved him. >> the campaign theory was much clearer today. >> yes, they hammered it. >> no?

>> he was hammering it home and putting -- you always want to put what the jury is going to hear during instructions in their head, conspire to promote an election by unlawful means. you heard steinglass talking about this was about the campaign. this was about getting donald trump elected. this was about this campaign contribution that was illegal. hammering it, the campaign, the campaign, the campaign. >> it's impossible to know what the jury will really think. with two lawyers in the room, it seems where they've landed is broader. defrauding the public. that's a poetic version of the word defraud. here i'm going to read from closing arguments, tabloid chief pecker was willing to sacrifice even the company's bottom line. it's business at the end of the day, service of president trump's campaign. this deal was the antithesis. that hits pretty strong. this is not the push and pull of

campaigns. this would seem to be an off the books operation for trump. >> absolutely. the language that josh steinglass used did both two things, one for the lawyers on the jury and they will hear the jury charge tomorrow from the judge, they track that and he did that but he also spoke to why you should care. the big language about this is subversion of democracy. this is pulling the wool over the public's eyes. it was such useful language to speak to, you know, the non-lawyers on the jury of why you should care. >> this was the 2015 trump tune meeting. the entire purpose of that meeting was, quote, to pull the wool over the voters' eyes before they make their decision. i guess my question to you is wouldn't that be true even if they paid it out of the campaign co if feurs?

wasn't the point this was illegal not just whether they did it off the books? >> absolutely. this is one of josh steinglass's best and quickest rebuttals. one of the arguments from the defense, nondisclosure agreements, nothing illegal about them. that is something that happens all the time. josh steinglass goes. you know what's illegal, contracts. you know what's wrong? when you take out a contract to kill your spouse. so it's all a question of what are you doing with the nda, the nondisclosure agreement. what are you doing with the contract? to just have a tag line of ndas are legal leaves -- is really to me talking down to the jurors and i think josh steinglass did a great job talking up to them. >> emily, you get the final word. how much do you think they moved the ball? >> i think they moved it. they elevated the case. they reminded them why they're there. this isn't a tawdry sex scandal, it's about who became president of the united states. >> andrew, emily, katheryn on a

big night, thanks to each of you. up ahead, as promised, we're going to dig into the defense, what it revealed, where it may have scored points and why you need both closings. they are still going. we've got it all covered for you coming up. (♪♪) (♪♪) bounce back fast from heartburn with new tums gummy bites, and love food back. (♪♪)

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welcome back to our special coverage. i can tell you something that is a legal fact. right now today is one of the most two most important days of this trial, if not most important when it comes to the actual arguments presented. today we know we heard from the defense arguments. we're going to currently hear from the prosecution. that's why they're going at 6:30 p.m. new york time. we'll have a special later whether they drift into tomorrow or not is yet to be seen. this is either the most important day or one of the two. i told you we would turn now to the other piece that you need to have to understand exactly why

today is so important. donald trump's defense team trying to find ways to create reasonable doubt. their lead attorney, todd blanch, boiled it down as this. trump's innocent. he didn't meet their burden of proof. period. you can get that out of ai or chatgpt. arguing nothing happened. if something did happen, michael cohen did it. the hush money scheme was done without trump's knowledge and without the criminal intent and whatever might have happened, the legal defense, they've argued it's not against the law. that was again what they were trying to push today. it was about three hours that the defense went. that is already less than the prosecution and at times it was scattered. "the new york times" said blanche used sports metaphors and tried to undercut the falsified business records by simply asserting there is no falsification of business records, period. i can tell you right there that

is what is called conclusory which is a bad thing in the law. you don't want to just say words or proclaim innocence. that's not technically much of an argument although it's within the rules of what they can say. what you need to give a jury here are, the ending, pieces of evidence, testimony, or questions which might not be as sturdy as evidence that they might hold on to that create this reasonable doubt that we talk about, right? blanche also did some of that. they talk about the catch and kill scheme. they argued, it may not be 100% true, there was nothing unusual. this case isn't about an alleged election crime. multiple witnesses said trump was concerned be about this for campaign reasons, the "access hollywood" tape, all of that stuff you probably remember. here's what the trump lawyer said today the tape here is being set up to be something that it's not. it wasn't a referendum on views of trump. it's in the a referendum on the ballot box.

trump addressed the tape. he never thought it was going to cost him the campaign. it was not a doomsday event, as you see there. now that is a type of interpretation. that is fair game. we heard from witnesses, including around donald trump, including hope hicks, michael cohen, that this was a kind of doomsday event. they were literally talking at the rnc about kicking him off the ballot. this is where the reasonable doubt comes in. if you can get one or two jurors who might not be as versed, i don't know, maybe it wasn't a big deal. didn't he become president anyway? they might have reasonable doubt as to whether this was a campaign motivation. then you have the star witness, michael cohen. i mentioned this earlier in the broadcast. there he was walking around. they tried to undermine everything cohen said and his credibility. they told jurors that he was repeatedly lying under oath. he lies to his family. at one point they argued he's literally the mvp of liars.

and he lied to you. make no mistakes. if you heard about goats in sports, they slipped in another letter, michael cohen is the gloat. trump's liar claimed he's literally the greatest liar of all time. i talked about chutzpah, reference to the prosecutors. whether gloat is a great pop culture reference, that's not the question. do they resonate with one or two jurors. hey, isn't he is the gloat? don't we all agree on that? these are the things they're trying to do to poke holes. the defense also went after cohen for recording his own former boss, you remember that evidence. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend david. i spoke to allen about it. when it comes time for the

financing. >> what financing? >> we'll have to pay -- >> pay with cash. >> no, no, no, no, no, no. >> now that is just a damning piece of evidence. it was damning when it came out. it was damning when different trump people tried to spin it. it's been damning in this case. what does it mean to have the defense try to deal with this in closing? what can they even really claim? i'm going to show you. quote, mr. cohen told you he thought that president trump was referring to green, it makes it more sinister, gren, cold hard cash. that was mr. cohen lying to you, painting a picture that fits his narrative, not the truth. now here's the point there, they are trying to get the jury to get fixated or even confused about what that tape means because the point there isn't just the cash part, although that could make it worse if that is interpreted as trump trying to hide this. could make it worse, but the real point is they're trying to

get people to think about anything other than what's on the tape, which is trump knew about it at the time. if michael cohen went rogue and did all of this stuff himself, maybe trump didn't know, he was busy on the campaign trail. no, they were talking about it. it's on tape. what i'm telling you is not that this is the most accurate or fair rendering, this is the defense. the defense is ep be titled to their best legal defense. they're trying to poke holes, oh, remember the tape was maybe manipulated, maybe cohen spun it. forget spinning it, the tape is a valid real piece of evidence that shows trump knew then, but we won't be in with the jury when they're talking about this. who knows what things they'll remember. as for the compensation, the lawyers say cohen talked to every reporter they could pushing the fact he was going to be attorney to mr. trump and the payments were compensation to him, period. meaning he used to lie about it. quote, he is biased and motivated to tell you a story that's not true. there was another moment that

shows a lawlessness, desperation, whatever you want to call it. trump's lawyers did something that not only is not allowed in this summation but actually they had been personally specifically warned not to do by this judge and that is try to blend two separate things. a lot of people are watching this case what if trump ends up in jail? as a citizen, you are free to ask about that. in the fairness of our system, that is not supposed to be used before the jury and certainly not supposed to be used by trump's lawyers and say, oh, no he could go to jail forever, how unfair. that's not allowed. in other words, the jury's only supposed to decide what happened. did he do it? not what the punishment would be which in this case in new york would be meeted out by the judge and yet there they went. trump's lawyer saying you cannot send someone to prison based on michael cohen. the objection right out of the prosecutor's mouth and that was a violation. so what does that mean?

well, they discussed it, the lawyers discussed it with the judge and admonished trump's lawyers saying it was outrageous. someone who has been a prosecutor, defense attorney as long as you have, it's simply not allowed. it's hard for me to imagine how that was accidental in any way. i can tell you the judge later told the jury not only is that stricken from the record, but you cannot discuss that in your deliberations. he basically told the jury, that was a no-no. trump lawyers were wrong and you're only supposed to find the facts. he said out loud, this is important, especially with fairness. he said to the jury, this is a case where even a potential conviction might not result in prison. in other words, if you're thinking as a juror that it's so unfair that the former president might go to prison. stop thinking about it and don't worry about it but it's ultimately up to the judge. the defense just has to find, as

i told you, one juror that has reasonable doubt. this is the be all end all. this is all coming together. what do you do? what do you interpret when you see trump's lawyers breaking the rules wantonly here? i'll tell you one thing, it might backfire with the jury. it might make people feel they are being overly pushed but it tells you they are willing to roll some of the dice, trying gimmicks like gloat because they want to put everything out there and make one juror have reasonable doubt about this case. i can promise you we've been thinking about who to have on. we have two experts you're going to want to hear from when we come back. it works for them. - i don't have any anxiety about money anymore. - i don't have to worry about a mortgage payment every month. - it allowed me to live in my home... and not have to pay payments. - [narrator] if you're 62 or older and own your home, you could access your equity to improve your lifestyle.

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the jury heard from donald trump's defense lawyers for the last time this morning, and now we are joined by someone with special experience in this realm. william j. brennan is a defense attorney who represented then outgoing president trump in a second impeachment as well as a tax fraud case and christy greenberg. welcome to both of you. >> thanks for having me. >> your thoughts on this closing from donald trump's lawyers today. >> i mean, look, i wasn't in the courtroom. i'm just in the cheap seats like most people but -- and i don't like to second guess lawyers, but i think he hit all the points. you know, if you look at the most important point for the defense to hit, it's the lack of credibility of the star witness, michael cohen. a lot of analogies have been made when you prosecute a drug

organization or organized crime, you bring people in from that world. it's different. you bring in sam gravano, he killed 19 people. doesn't make him a liar. the unique subset of a subset of being a purger or liar is beneficial to the defense. all he has to do is tell the truth. that's what a witness's job is and i think blanche did a good job on reminding the jury of all the problems cohen had. >> i showed some of the quotes there where at times he seemed to just be asserting things. there was no business fraud. this wasn't a campaign crime. is that the best he can do? >> everybody has their own style. it's ultimately up to the jury to be the finder of fact, but it's really just turning the prosecution on its heel. the prosecutor's going to get up and say he's guilty of this, he's guilty of that. i think it's incumbent on the defense, whatever their style is, it's subjective, to get up and say he's either not guilty

of this or he didn't do this or it's not a crime. you know, it's important to remember that here we are and we've heard a lot of people say even today i heard people in our legal community say, you know, well, who do you believe? no. it's a criminal prosecution. mr. trump could have went into that court room and just played tidley winks for the last six weeks. he has no burden. if the state didn't make his case, it's not enough to say they don't like it. >> i would say i expected more of a sharp attack on cohen than we actually got. i think some of the gimmicks, as you were mentioning before, the gloat, the mvp of liars, don't show me that. show me changing of story. show me where he said something in his plea, then the story changed. show me, don't tell me. and i felt like that part was

missing. not only that, the cohen piece in the defense owning -- closing was kind of at the end, and they spent a lot of time, disproportionate amount of times saying that these business records, the checks, the invoices, vouchers, they're all accurate. they're not false. even if they were, donald trump didn't know about it. that was most of it, and there was far less on the cohen piece than i would have expected. also, a lot of it was just presentation from being in the courtroom, it was hard to follow some of the powerpoint. you know, they weren't really necessarily reading from bits of the transcript or exhibits that were in the images, they weren't blown up, they weren't highlighted. at times he was talking about things that weren't on the powerpoint. it was very hard for me to follow and i've been in the courtroom every day. if it's hard for me to follow, i'm guessing it was probably hard for some of the jurors to follow as well. >> what they're trying to say is cohen lied about this stuff so

trump didn't know about it until later. whatever he may have authorized, he wasn't authorizing the campaign crime. >> right. i guess i didn't think it was done necessarily as effectively as it could have been. i think you kind of -- to me, the whole case is not just the documents but there are these meetings that happened where you have to be able to say, you know, donald trump is the one who approved the payment. donald trump's the one who approved the reimbursement to me and there isn't a document that says that. you have to believe michael cohen to say that and that part was kind of lost until i think like the last half hour or so where we're two hours in. i think it was a timing issue. it was an organization issue. how effectively you hit it. again, it just fell flat for me. it seemed very disorganized. >> these arguments, as i've told listeners, are going later than they've ever gone before because they agreed to extend tonight. the judge recently had a bench meeting. it's the prosecutor's turn.

one of the things they said since we got on the air, basically donald trump is cheap. because he's been proven to be cheap, micromanager, frugal, whatever word you want to use, it doesn't reason he would throw this much money out without knowing what it was for. cardinal sin for trump here as a defendant is overpaying for anything and that goes to his guilt. your thoughts? >> i mean, that's a stretch, ari, after six weeks if that's what their hopes and dreams are partially or wholly pinned on, judge merchan will instruct this jury tomorrow on the heels of what christy said. it's so much more poetic in latin. tell one lie, the jury can decide he lied. we have a guy who took a mortgage out on his own house, lied to his wife. could have gone rogue. in this meeting, the crucial

meeting, where it's him and two other people, they didn't show, so it really does come down to cohen. i'm not going to second guess any lawyer. mr. blanche seems to have done a good job. christy was in the room. if it it's an eight sliced pizza pie, you take six of those slices and hammer on cohen. if you can knock cohen out, if they can get back there and say, i can't believe this guy, i don't think there's enough left on the vine without cohen's tying it in for a conviction. >> i think it's way too early to issue a conviction of blanche and the lawyers, if this is a hung jury, they did fine. they got to the point. i will say their use of witnesses was a disaster. as you pointed out, that's not their burden. this was costello, i wanted to remind people of this, they only put up two witnesses and the

main one was a debacle. here's who he was to remind everyone. >> they notified me that michael cohen had executed a waiver of the attorney-client privilege for reasons i have no idea. frankly, it was a very stupid move by michael cohen because now we're able to tell the truth about what michael cohen was saying at any point in time. he's totally unreliable. >> based on what we heard this morning in what they focused on, did you get the sense that they wanted the jury to revisit their star witness costello or not? >> they did, and i thought he was awful so i didn't think that was a particularly smart move if you're trying to say that michael cohen is a liar pointing out bob costello's testimony is not going to get you there. bob costello was confronted with email after email after email and he was denying what was in the emails. denying there was a backchannel. there's an email that says it. denying he was trying to giver

the appearance he wasn't paying attention to rudy and donald trump. email says he was. at one point he's saying donald trump is the most powerful man on the planet and my guy's an a-hole. that's not what -- he denied it. again, it was in black and white. so i felt like if we're trying to set this up as a credibility battle between michael cohen and bob costello, costello comes out the loser there. >> we're running over on time. since you are here with us in person, you've represented donald trump, do you have a view of what the most likely outcome in the case is? we could find out >> i really think in my heart of hearts it's going to be a hung jury. i can't believe all 12 jurors, even a manhattan jury, and that's a tough forum for this defendant, i can't believe all 12 jurors can get past cohen. >> do you have an expectation? >> based on what i saw today, i feel like the prosecution will get a conviction. the only issues i had were as you alluded to, some of the

issues that came up about sentencing that may give jurors pause that shouldn't have happened. >> sometimes where you stand is determined by where you sit. we'll see whether the defense and prosecution here, one of you has to be wrong. we'll run the tape back when it happens. i want to thank you. and this is, of course, as mentioned, ongoing. you can see up on the screen, a lot going on with the presentation by the defense over the prosecution continuing into the night here, plus joy reid next and special coverage with rachel after that. keep it locked on msnbc. so, what are you thinking? i'm thinking... (speaking to self) about our honeymoon. what about africa? safari? hot air balloon ride? swim with elephants? wait, can we afford a safari? great question.

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let's make it happen! (vo) switch to the partner businesses rely on. the fight for a lot of us didn't end on january 6th that evening when we went home. the fight still continues now. donald trump is the greatest threat to our democracy, and the safety of communities across the country today. >> some of what we heard outside the courtroom today. as we approach 7:00 p.m. in new york, more coming out of the courtroom. prosecutors are continuing their closing arguments into the evening, and they told the jury that trump made hope hicks is someone they think supports their case. she testified that trump was all about the campaign as he dealt with these issues. the prosecutors said, quote, this is the defendant caring about the election, not his family. drawing on hicks' testimony. that's the crux of the d.a.'s argument, that all of this was about the campaign and you don't even only need cohen, as we have been reporting, to hammer home what they call this fraud and

election crime. now, this is part of our special coverage, and they're still going in the courtroom. keep it locked on msnbc. joy reid is coming up. we also have special coverage with rachel, joy, nicolle, chris, everyone on your screen. i'll be joining them as well for part of it. keep it locked for "the reidout" right now. imagine being good to go without daily hiv pills. good to go unscripted. good to go on a whim. with cabenuva, there's no pausing for daily hiv pills. for adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete, long-acting hiv treatment you can get every other month. it's two injections from a healthcare provider. just 6 times a year. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients, or if you're taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions, post-injection reactions, liver problems, and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms,

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