wait a minute, donald trump did not choose churchgoing grandmas as his partner in crime, his co- conspirator, his criminal associates. he chose michael cohen, that is why we presented michael cohen's testimony to you. >> you know you have a good closing when you can all remember. like if the glove don't fit, you must acquit. if you don't have something strong like this you might not be able to we -- to win this case. don't go anywhere. i'm sticking around for our special coverage of today's closing arguments along with rachel maddow, chris hayes and the whole gang and that starts right, three, two, one, right now. closing arguments in the trial of donald trump. tonight, the defense makes its case for reasonable doubt. >> president trump is innocent. >> the real argument was

michael cohen cannot be trusted. >> michael cohen is the greatest liar of all time. >> the judges sharp rebuke to trump's attorney. >> he was livid, right? >> he was livid as he should be. >> and the prosecution tells the story of a conspiracy to corrupt the election. >> this meeting cannot be overstated. >> trump was overtly discussing purchasing the story to keep it from being published. this scheme could very well be what got president trump elected. >> tonight, rachel maddow recaps the closing arguments with lawrence o'donnell, alex wagner, jen psaki, and katie phang, all inside the courthouse. plus nicolle wallace, chris hayes, joy reid, ari melber and stephanie ruhle as special coverage of trump on trial begins now.

>> thank you for joining us tonight. we know you have every option in the world for where to follow the news of this remarkable moment in american history. it makes us all the more grout -- more glad you are with us. i am rachel maddow with chris hayes and nicolle wallace. the one-of-a-kind lawrence o'donnell who was in the trial today will be joining us at any moment. he is still down at the courthouse. he will be joining us as soon as he can get to a camera. also onset with us, ari melber is here and katie phang is here. katie was in the overflow room at the courthouse, as well, today. we will be joined by joy reid and alex wagner and jen psaki. andrew weissmann is standing by with us at msnbc headquarters. we will be joining lisa rubin i believe at a camera outside

the courthouse, moments from now. this has all been breaking as we have been discussing about it. there is a lot to get to. we know that even though you know this is important news and history in the making, you also have a life, a job, school, childcare. lots of people have traveled to deal with after the holiday weekend. we know you have stuff to do. as this trial draws to a close, as the days in court get longer and longer, tonight going until 8:00 p.m., just moments ago, we know it is hard to follow it all in real time through the course of the day, but that is why you have us. our aim tonight is to catch you up and let's do it. we will talk about the big picture of what happened today. we will talk about where we are in the overall process. when we will learn trump's fate. we will talk about the main points made by both sides in the closing arguments. we will talk about how they are landing legally and more

broadly. we then try to answer some of the questions that came up today at trial, like for example why did the judge yell at trump's defense lawyer as soon as he was done with his summation, right as the jury went to lunch? why did he say, i think that statement was outrageous, mr. blanche? we will try to answer that tonight and more, but we need to start with what happened in the last few moments. the summation from the prosecution literally ended in the last five minutes. we do not have an official transcript at this point. i will read to you from our reporters updates about what has happened about the way the prosecution concluded. forgive me for this not being word for word perfect, but this is the best we've got. joshua steinglass is the prosecutor giving the closing argument. he says, quote, listen carefully to the judge's instructions.

it is a crime to willfully create inaccurate tax forms. the defendant had an incentive to keep the conspiracy quiet and, postelection, and effort to conceal the same conspiracy and prevent the catch and kill scheme from going public. he had every reason to continue to conceal his election fraud and at the end of 2017 he already announced his intention to run again. any of the things i mentioned is enough for you to conclude that the trump tower conspiracy, meaning the conspiracy that trump hatched with the company that owns the national enquirer, the trump tower conspiracy violated new york state election law and the judge will tell you you don't have to agree, you, members of the jury, do not have to agree with one another on which unlawful means. the defendant's intent to defraud cannot be clear. why didn't he just pay stormy daniels directly?

instead they devise to this elaborate scheme. secret fedex packages. an effort to conceal the truth. he didn't want anyone to find out about the conspiracy to steal the election. everything was cloaked in lines. lies in the bank paperwork. lies in the tax forms filed with the irs. lies in the bank transfers, the shell companies, the encrypted apps. the name of the game, steinglass says, was, quote, concealment for the man who benefited most, former president trump. our reporter notes in this moment, steinglass is getting fired up at this point. speaking up and going rapidfire for the above remarks. steinglass says to the jury, quote, you have been a remarkable group. i know this has been a really long summation. no it hasn't. i apologize but we only get one shot. the defendant has a constitutional right to a fair trial. he has a right to make us prove our burden. there are contracts, emails,

and texts that corroborate every bit of testimony. in this case, the prosecutor says, the evidence is, quote, literally overwhelming. so now he has the trial, he's had his day in court and remember as the judge will tell you and as mister blanche told you, the law is the law. there is no special law for this defendant. donald trump cannot shoot someone on fifth avenue during rush hour and get away with it. >> objection. >> no kidding. >> judge merchan, sustained. prosecutor, you, the jury have the ability to hold the defendant accountable. you are the ones who had the opportunity to focus on the evidence and the logical inferences that can be drawn from that evidence. use your common sense and follow the judges legal instructions. steinglass then says to the jury, pointedly, come back in

here and say guilty. guilty of 34 counts of falsifying counts to cover up a conspiracy to corrupt the 2016 election. and then he concludes, in the interest of justice and the name of the people of the state of new york, i ask you to find the defendant guilty. thank you. and he wrapped up at 7:57 p.m. eastern time, whereupon judge merchan told the court and told the jurors we will get started tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. now why would they be getting started tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. after closing arguments just concluded? it is because a very important thing is about to happen next. we now know it will happen tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. with the jury. it will be the judge instructing the jury about how to deliberate. that sounds like it must be a boilerplate thing. that must be the sort of, you know, do your job, don't be biased kind of generic, patriotic instructions they always get.

no, the instructions to the jury is very much a contested matter. it has been hotly fought over by both sides. judge merchan started today's proceedings by saying essentially to the prosecution and the defense that he had heard them out in terms of what they wanted for jury instructions and he made his decision. he asked if they had further comment and neither of them said they did, so he announced at the beginning of today's proceedings, okay then, effectively, you know what my jury instructions will be. it is final and that will happen when you are done with summation. he said that at the very start of what ended up being a very, very long day in court today, starting in the 9:00 hour and not ending until just now. we have so much to talk about. it was such a big day. let's start by going right to the courthouse. msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin has been at the courthouse for the entire trial. she has been earning her kibble

today. lisa, thank you for sticking it out through the whole day today. thank you for joining us from outside. right now i have to ask your big picture take overall on how the two sides did and what we think is most important for the country to understand about the way the trial concluded today? >> reporter: i think the way the trial concluded today, rachel, was with a very exhausted group of people upstairs. let's start there. not only the jury, but for example all of the court officers who have been protecting us, protecting this trial. they work as long as the judge says that the trial is going on. i asked, at what point do you change shifts? one of them looked at me and said i'm here until the trial closes today, so you are looking at a group of people from reporters to the jury who are all a little bit tired. that said my big take away at

the end of the day is that i feel a little bit like goldilocks still in search of the right to bed. that is because todd blanche is closing was light on detail and long on hyperbole. you got the exact opposite from josh steinglass. four hours in excruciating detail where he went from call records and text messages and every single contact that could be used to corroborate the witness that they did not want to think the jury this whole case -- did not want the jury to think this whole case rests on. if you were to listen to josh steinglass the star witnesses were david pecker, hope hicks and all of the records. from business records, meaning 34 business records that are part of the felony counts, to call records, text messages, emails. josh did a very thorough timeline start again august 2015 at the trump tower meeting where the conspiracy was formed and going through the end of

2018 with michael cohen's plea to two counts of election violations. one involving amis payment to karen mcdougal and the other involving his own payment to stormy daniels and in between you got everything from madeleine wester hout talking about how trump signed things in the white house, to details about the trump organization and how they process business records and anything and everything you can imagine in between. so i feel a little bit of whiplash right now having witnessed these closings because one was so remarkably showed -- remarkably short on details and evidence and all about poking holes and cherry picking including obvious cherry picking the prosecution was able to refute. then you have steinglass who went through every possible piece of evidence that maybe did not make the selective and judicious choices that someone

who has more distance would have made in trying to convince a jury who has been sitting here for six weeks that they can convict on something less than every little bit of evidence. to underscore how detailed his closing was, at one point i looked up at the slides he was showing. they encapsulate or summarize evidence. in the bottom right-hand corner they have notice -- they have numbers on them that i noticed was going up every time they pushed the button to animate the slides. at the last count when i left the courtroom they were on slide 420, so that might give a sense of how much detail was packed in there and why it is hard in many respects to see the forest for the trees because we were right in the woods with it today. >> lisa, thank you for that. i know we will be speaking with lawrence as well, who was also

just in there. i want to put what you said to our lawyers on the panel. you are both in the courtroom as well today. what lisa is describing about two very different approaches to closing, mirrored in some ways with the difference in the openings. i was there for opening statements and my feeling about the prosecution's opening statement versus the defense opening statement was that the defense statement was hard to follow, very emotional. sort of emotionally unpredictable, like why are you yelling now? i don't know where this is coming from. also not very linear, where the prosecution was calm, linear, and not as exciting, in part because it was not as weird. that may just be the style of these legal teams, but as a non- lawyer, i don't know how to translate that into effectiveness for the jury. what lisa was describing makes me worry for the prosecutions

sake, that maybe they give them too much to chew on. what did you think? >> i thought it was a strong day for the prosecution because it was voluminous and thorough. if you are asking me straight up, it was too long. it did not need to be this long and that may or may not matter in the end, but it was longer than it needed to be, i think that is a fair statement. >> was the defense summation, which was first, was it also too long or too short? i was like three hours roughly. the prosecution went for four hours. >> the defense could've been shorter, because it still meandered, but it still hammered what it wanted to about cohen and poking holes for reasonable doubt. i think the prosecution reminded everyone why you don't need michael cohen and it is a records case and there are all of these records. i would also remind everyone and sometimes we repeat ourselves, but if this were a

cooking show it is not like both contestants have to make a great meal. the prosecution has to have a five course, perfect meal with every ingredient and if the defense is able to serve an edible hotdog, that might be reasonable doubt. we've talked about this. why are we being so nice to the defense? we are not being nice. the defense has to do less. if they can poke reasonable doubt they could get a mistrial. >> reasonable doubt for something that matters. >> yeah, reasonable doubt for an element of the crime. being down there and watching today i think it was clear that the prosecution realized we may have a bigger cohen problem than we thought, even though we prepared for it and the thought of that was that they opened the closing arguments by saying okay, first let's talk about cohen. we told you he can lie. here is more than one way to interpret these things. here is the other way to

support what he said. they basically said if you want to throw this guy out you can still convict. that is fine. it showed you that by at least the end of the defense summation they were at least concerned enough about wanting to punch back on that and then they did their business. >> lawrence just walked out of the courtroom, so i want to go to him next and then katie i will go to you. lawrence, you had a very long day in the courtroom today. i know you have just been able to get out to the camera, so i want to get your take, your overall take on what you saw, how things went today and what you think is important for people to understand about how the summations unfolded. >> reporter: the longest day i ever had in the courtroom, rachel, thanks to the prosecution closing which i think everyone will agree was much longer than it had to be. however, the assistant district attorney is a very compelling speaker. he is very easy to listen to,

so you could be 2 1/2 hours into it and not feel as if you were two hours into it. by the time you were four hours into it, you knew you were four hours into it. that is inevitable. he had some really powerful moments. he did his own imagined version of the 92nd phone call in dispute in this case, where according to michael cohen he called keith -- he spoke to keith schiller about some harassment he was suffering and then spoke to donald trump for the remainder of the 90 seconds. we saw the d.a. basically come up with an entire version of that conversation and how that could've gone in 49 seconds. so it was one of those moments in a courtroom that was very impressive. very effective. sorry. you know, this is -- he is the kind of student who really

fills up the exam paper. you know, does not leave anything out. and oddly enough it did not feel that repetitive. that is the funny thing about it. but the essence of it was basically, look, this was in fact a reimbursement. there was a moment when he rattled off all of the reasons why this was a reimbursement to michael cohen and not a big paycheck. at the end of all of the reasons he gave for being a reimbursement and then going to the trump position that it is not a reimbursement, his loudest moment in the courtroom today was saying, does anyone believe that? i think he is right, there is no one on the jury who does not believe that that was, indeed a reimbursement arrangement for michael cohen. the question for this jury is just is donald trump guilty in a falsifying business records

scheme that was entered into in order to corruptly affect an election? that may be, for the jury, a complicated question. >> lawrence, can i just ask you in terms of todd blanche's summation, a lot of lawyers today described that is hard to follow. because he was not going chronologically the way the summation from the prosecution went. that blanche, it was hard to know what he was getting at, other than going liar, liar, liar at michael cohen and trying to make the fact that michael cohen has been proven to lie something that should be fatal to the case. was it, in fact, hard to follow? >> reporter: listen, i have watched an awful lot of

criminal lawyers in my life trying and struggling to defend a guilty client. that is what it looks like. there is no good way. there is no easy way. i don't see how todd blanche could have done any better, actually, in his summation today, given the facts that he is loaded down with. given the complexities he failed to deal with and the d.a. pointed out this about the argument, that it is an argument in conflict with itself. because the defense argument is michael cohen was paid this big paycheck that had nothing to do with reimbursement of the $130,000 to stormy daniels, but we know and the defense knows that the calculation of how much he would be paid was based on a document had written -- document handwritten by allen

weisselberg. that has never been explained by the defense, not at any point. and then the d.a. made this point when he got up to speak, saying, look, you can't accuse michael cohen of stealing in the reimbursement scheme if you are also saying he was never reimbursed. that is the central problem that the defense has. it has theories crashing into each other and in one side of their theory they are fully adopting the prosecution case, which is michael cohen was reimbursed, but when the defense adopts the idea that michael cohen was reimbursed, they say that in the formula michael cohen lied and they managed to steal $30,000. so you cannot accuse him of stealing and then say he was not reimbursed. you can't have that both ways. so that was one of those

things. as a child develops you sit and wait. when there is something really tough for one side you should just sit and wait to hear that side address the most difficult thing they have and the most difficult thing the defense has is that number, $130,000, written in allen weisselberg's handwriting on that document and the defense has never explained it. they have never come close to explaining it and the prosecution made that very clear today, that they have never explained that difficult thing. the difficult challenge for the prosecution today, laid out for them by the defense argument, is michael cohen is a liar. you cannot convict donald trump on the testimony of michael cohen and it is only michael cohen's testimony that says donald trump knew and approved the payment to stormy daniels before the election. that evidence comes only from michael cohen and the defense

insisted you cannot find donald trump guilty based on that testimony from michael cohen. so the prosecution did a lot of work on that very point and a lot of work on corroborating michael cohen as much as they could on that very point. so the prosecution was not afraid to go after the most difficult challenge posed by the defense, but the defense never came close to the most serious challenges posed by the prosecution. >> we have the prosecution that was clear to me in the transcript than anything else i have seen in terms of the heart of the case and the fight between the prosecution and the defense, that the prosecution is able to say here are two documents that are smoking gun documents and yes they have something to do with michael cohen getting paid, but the reason we have these documents is because they have been corroborated by other trump organization personnel and that is why they are in evidence and there is no contrary explanation

from the defense as to what the smoking gun documents might mean and that feels, to me, to be the unassailable core of where we are and for all of the time that joshua steinglass spent talking today, that was my biggest take away. we have smoking guns that you can't say anything about and you haven't. >> reporter: and the defense does not have any comparable so- called smoking gun. there is nothing comparable to that on the defense side of the case. >> lawrence o'donnell, i know you need to leave where you are standing in order to come sit with us. please travel safely and we will see you as soon as you get here. katie, on that point, in terms of the overall scope of what each side tried to do, but also the salient points that the jury will be able to remember and may be decisive to them, do you agree with lawrence -- >> i want to disagree with everybody to some extent and

bring everybody back to what the realities are. the jury never stayed past 4:30 now and the trial is taking less time than before. this is real life. this is how real trials go. when you have closings, they go along. that being said, trump is a style over substance guy, so i'm not surprised that his lawyers are style over substance and you would think that somebody like todd blanche, having the experience that he does, would be able to deliver something more compelling. so it would be irrelevant if it were compelling and that is where he loses out to the prosecution. so the prosecution not only has the style from joshua steinglass being compelling, clear and concise, but he also has the substance. when you have todd blanche get up and say michael cohen is the mvp of lies or the greatest liar of all time. when you hear that you are like yeah, maybe you chuckle, but

that's all you've got? that is really all it is. so i take umbrage with the idea that this was too long. the prosecutor made it clear, this is his only shot. the jurisdiction is important to clarify as well. in florida you get the sandwich. prosecution, defense, prosecution or a bottle. you don't get that here. so you get the defense to go first and then the prosecution. you know steinglass had it repaired, but he also had to pivot based on what he heard or did not hear during closing argument. that is why i think you saw it a little bit longer. you knew it was going to be meaty, because you saw it in the opening. lawrence, briefly, when he noted that 49 seconds reenactment, there is a power in being able to stand before the jury. i've done this when timing is in dispute and there was no way that you could i.d.

the defendant, victim, because you only saw the defendant for 15 or 20 seconds. what you do is stand in silence for 15, 20 seconds. when you had joshua steinglass today reenact, not in a rushed manner, the call that blanche spent so much time on and steinglass got up and in 49 seconds he dismantled the entirety of that. that is the substance that is going to, no pun intended, trump any style from the defense. >> it was also their choice. he kept giving them off ramps. if they were tired or done, he said at the end of the day it would be entirely up to them. so it was not his decision. i bring zero expertise except getting picked as a juror.

i had ken burns on today and i am so sort of hostage to the story piece of it. i think to steal the analogy, one like shakespeare and the other like a trump tweet. what the prosecution had going for it is why do you think they paid for it two weeks before election day? on every element, if the records were fraudulent, if trump inspired them to be fraudulent and the election was an additional criminal element, they are asking them to decide three narrow things. >> was this about the election, were the records false -- >> and i think as a story that was told, that was told through every witness. look, i had no idea how the jury will go. we have no idea how they witness

-- but if they have to process a story, i don't know what story they were told about trump's experience and i don't know what they stitched together based on the fact the one witness trump side put out was an absolute home run for the prosecution. >> the phrase that steinglass closed on, two things. listen to the instructions, which suggests the tip of the hat. he's happy with them. listen to the instructions and use your common sense. following this all day it is like, to me, again not as a lawyer, is what happened exactly what it appears to be? based on the testimony and all of the evidence or was there some magical other thing that happened and the magical other thing that happened was donald trump was sort of out of it and did not get in the weeds of who he is paying money to.

boy, i don't know. maybe this is overly familiar the way i ain't, but i have found myself, if i am looking at reasonable doubt as a juror in good faith, i do need an alternate theory i can hang on a little bit. >> not an all-encompassing theory, but an explanation for the events presented in an individual, itemized way. >> yes and i think the point that lawrence made, the one piece of evidence that links them is the testimony from michael cohen. but if you zoom out a little bit, there is a lot of testimony and again, i don't know what the jury will do but when he says use your common sense it really does come down to a copious rehearsal of the testimony and evidence. is this exactly what it looks like? yeah, probably. it is probably exactly what it looks like.

>> we will talk about this in terms of the defense gamble to put its own credibility with the jury on the line by saying trump did not have sex with stormy daniels and the access hollywood tape was no big deal and michael cohen was an esteemed lawyer for donald trump and that is why he was randomly paid this weird way for that one year and never otherwise paid. they did make a lot of claims. they didn't have to make any of those claims. they made all of those claims, none of which are central to disproving the prosecution's case. they nevertheless made the claims to the jury. they are all very in contrast with what you would think would be a commonsense take on the matter. we will talk about why they may have done that and also give you the moment from the transcript that katie was telling us about, when the prosecutor acted out the phone call that the defense made central to their case. we have so much more to cover tonight. we will have that moment from

the transcript coming up next. stay with us. a perfect day for a family outing! shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today.

are your gutters clogged? cleaning them can be dangerous, mucky, yuck. get leaffilter. it's as easy as one, two, three. call or click today. get your free gutter inspection on your schedule

and get leaffilter installed in as little as a few hours. you'll never have to clean out your gutters again, guaranteed. get leaf filter today. call 833 leaffilter or go to leaffilter.com as easy as 1, 2, 3

norman, bad news... i never graduated from med school. what? -but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc?

one dramatic moment in today's closing arguments, today's summations from the defense and the prosecution, happened fairly early on. the prosecutor acted out for the jury a phone call between

michael cohen and donald trump, a phone call as it could've happened. this is an important phone call because the defense sort of hung a big heart of its case on the idea that michael cohen was lying about a phone call that he said he had with donald trump about stormy daniels, because that phone call was very short. i believe it was only 1:36 long. he also says he spoke to trump's bodyguard and said, will you put trump on? then he spoke with trump about stormy daniels. the defense claimed if it was only 1:36, that was not enough time for cohen to have any substantive discussion about stormy daniels and the alleged hush money plot. they said the length of the call from phone records effectively disproved that the conversation between cohen and trump could have gone the way

that cohen said. so this is from today's court transcript. this is the prosecutor acting, sort of re-creating that call and timing himself doing it, so the jury could experience, in real time, how long it might reasonably have taken for cohen and trump to have the conversation that michael cohen says they had to. the prosecutor. that brings us to the phone call on october 24 at 8:02 p.m. in which cohen testified that he called to speak with mr. trump. of course the defense says that is perjury. the only interpretation of that is that he is lying. that is the only interpretation they want you to consider. to them that is the big lie, but that is not the only interpretation. steinglass says, forgive me, but let's try an experiment.

i will be cohen. hey, keith, how is it going? it seems like this prankster might be a 14-year-old kid. let them know how serious this is. it is not a joke. thanks, pal. is the boss near you? can you pass him the phone for a minute? i will wait just a couple of seconds. hey boss, i know you are busy, but i wanted to let you know this other thing is moving forward with my friend keith davidson and the other party we discussed. it is back on track. i'm going to try one more time to get our friend david pecker to pay, but if not it will be on us to take care of. all right. good luck in tampa. by. and then josh steinglass says, 49 seconds. so, katie was describing this, having been here in court with this type of moment when the defense has said, one minute and 36 seconds, that is so fast. you can't get anything done in

that time. then you walk through something that takes significantly less time and say that does not seem like it was me screaming through it. that seems viable, doesn't it? >> it is so impactful because it leans into the common sense that the judge will read as part of the jury instruction, that they can rely on their common sense to make decisions and course of the deliberations. so when you have the prosecutor get up in a very relatable way and have this reenactment. it was not based on a transcript, but it sounded totally credible the way you just read it and it took only 49 seconds. that is the real-life application of what makes it grounded in their sense of common sense. when you have myriad examples during the course of closing arguments, lawrence talked about it as well. how can you say you didn't get reimbursed, but that he stole it because it was really legal fees. you can't steal your legal fees, can you? as a jury or like, you can't do

that. >> for me, if you are the jury, the defense has offered a few alternate explanations for the fact pattern that has been presented. one of the most compelling, surprising, memorable moments was when the defense said hey, you know that call michael cohen described where he said he had to get keith schiller to get trump on the phone? let me show you what else's in the phone records. let me tell you about this 14- year-old child harassing michael cohen. this is a rabbit i'm pulling out a hat. this is a whole new interpretation and the reason this is important is not only because it is memorable and it will stick in your mind is something the prosecution didn't tell you, but it also disproves that the call could have ever happened. even if it was the one most compelling and memorable thing the defense produced, joshua steinglass essentially said wipe that off the balance sheet

in terms of whether or not you think you have a contrary explanation of the facts that punctures the believability of the prosecution case. >> i always thought that the reputation seemed excessive, in the cross that they did, like hanging on that phone call partly because the totality of the evidence seems -- >> that one phone call is not the most important. >> you take it away and maybe there is a credibility issue. but again, it is all about giving people enough. like is there someone there you are giving enough to be like, no, what about x, y, z, as ammunition for a hung jury? i'm not going to say what you said to me during the commercial break, because i think it is a smart point and you should make it on error. how is that for a t? i was

tempted to steal it. but the strategy, talk about that because i think it helps make sense what they are trying to do. i find there is no alternate theory, so then what? >> i think that is why this sometimes sounds like a lot of silly and meandering comments. many people have observed the approach from trump's lawyers was meandering. i think they were meandering because it is only a strategy to get a hung jury, which means one or two holdouts is good enough. you don't get a verdict and they probably don't retry the case, so that plays as trump skates. that is different from an acquittal strategy. that is a completely alternative theory, some might call it a conspiracy theory, but one that touches all of the evidence. there is bad dna evidence because they planted his blood. you have this full theory. there is nothing like that. there are way too many opening

questions and obvious things they have not explained. all they are doing is this strategy of questions, reasonable doubt, hung jury, get one or two people. we were talking about how it is pretty bonkers, bananas, not believable to say that the access hollywood tape was not a problem. we checked. it is the only time we could find a public apology ever from donald trump in his public life. it is the only time he said not, i'm sorry you feel bad or i'm sorry you feel terrible. he said i'm wrong. i'm sorry. >> it's also the only time the jury heard him speak in the trial, so the only time they saw him on camera speaking is in the c-span entry into evidence where the archivist came up and entered the tape of trump at the podium saying this is going to cost me thousands of female votes. this will poison me in the mind

of the voters. the only thing the jury heard trump say in five weeks is that the access hollywood tape will kill him with women voters. >> so i would not call it believable, even by the most fair standard. to get one juror to say i don't remember it all that well, people say all sorts of things. i don't think this was for the campaign. that is what the lawyer said. i think it was all about the family. then if you start projection, which is not the best thing, jurors are supposed to use the evidence, but a person projecting their own life might say i understand not wanting that to come out. now what are we talking about? the reasonable doubt about someone's theories about family. >> we are going to take a quick break, but when we come back we will talk about this point because this was a really important moment, especially i think for those of us who are not lawyers, watching this, because you get to a point that

is not about the law and is a little bit about history. it is something that all of the jurors will personally remember. when you're defense counsel on telling the jurors what you think you lived through, what you think you remember didn't really happen that way, let me tell you a different way it went, that is when you are playing with people psychology in a way that is very unsettling to the non-lawyers among us and we will talk about that in detail when we come back. stay with us. when life spells heartburn... how do you spell relief?

r-o-l-a-i-d-s rolaids' dual-active formula begins to neutralize acid on contact. r-o-l-a-i-d-s spells relief.

hi, i'm jason. i've lost 228 pounds on golo. ♪ changing your habits is the only way that gets you

to lose the weight. and golo is the plan that's going to help you do that. just take the first step, go to golo.com.

this was an extremely personal event for president trump. nobody, i'm going to state the obvious, nobody wants the family to be subjected to that. the government wants you to believe that the release of that tape from 2005 was so catastrophic for the campaign that it provided a motive for president trump to do something criminal. this is his defense counsel. >> there was no evidence of that . they did not react to the tape in the way the government was suggesting.

they didn't testify. you heard that there was talk about something consequential for president trump who was the republican nominee but none of this happened. none of this is true. you heard president trump and his campaign was ready for the debate and responding to allegations. a couple of days of frustration, that happens all the time and we know that. the access hollywood tape has been set up in the trial to be something it isn't. it was one of many stressful stories and issues that came up during the campaign but it wasn't a doomsday event. president trump as you saw addressed this in the video addressed and released to the american public. he addressed this in a debate and he didn't think it would cost him to lose the campaign and indeed it did not. it wasn't a doomsday event from trumps defense counsel, saying his estimation to the jury. claiming the access hollywood tape wasn't a big deal. obviously you could argue about whether or not this makes sense to make this claim that there was no new sense of urgency around his various creepy sex

scandals. in october 2016 before the election, after the tape came out, the strategic importance of making this claim at least to me in particular not on its face. this is a factual claim, right? from the defense. a record about whether or not the tape was a big deal. an empirical and observable thing that we could check. didn't matter at the time? we were all alive and sent and when this happened. we could remember and we could check. >> trump tape bombshell, caught on a microphone making vulgar comments about women. saying when you're a star they let you do it. >> noticed that graphic at the beginning of that going away. when the tape came out a month before the election, it did knock hurricane news out of the news cycle is was what was

described as a bombshell. not only did his comments about grabbing street for women's genitals make the front page news across the country the news really did in real life lead to an avalanche of republicans calling for trump to drop out of the race. three dozen republicans have called for donald trump to drop out. a local view from swing state michigan, the republican leader ron daniel mcdaniel. this is a headline from politico, republican women are done with trump. that all happened. it wasn't that long ago in our living memory. in closing arguments his defense tried to argue that the access hollywood tape was a normal day on the campaign trail without any real consequences trying to tell the

jury even though the timing of evidence makes this look like his side was motivated to quash this story days after the tape, that cannot really be right because he had no reason to worry about the impact of the tape so it had no impact. why make an argument like this? it's so easily disprove mobile, even by people in their own living memory. these jurors are not junior high school students. they were old enough in 2016 to out live it and remember it. even testimony in court this month, the trump campaign secretary describe the release of the access hollywood tape by saying this, i have a good sense to believe that this would be a massive story. i think there was a consensus amongst all of us that the tape was damaging. making this claim to the jury that what you live through and

might you remember what happened. >> they have reason to feel decently confident that they made the case if your student of his social media posts you could smell his panic. i think that the need to address access hollywood speaks to the strength of the part of the prosecution case we don't talk about quite as much. what they've established in a way making blanche nervous to say something on his face ludicrous because only the time they've seen him talk was when he was saying that this would poison the minds of women. the piece that's lost to history because they paid stormy daniels to remain quite ahead of the election is whether that would have tipped

them over. whether access hollywood and stormy would have done what trump was afraid they would do. stormy doesn't get a dime until two weeks before the election day. >> there not interested in making this go away. then there's the fatal moment. >> the other piece about the timeline and what the jury saw before michael cohen was introduced to the jury he was demeaned by almost every witness. he said he couldn't do anything. before he takes the stand, what you know is that he was instrumental and helped hope hicks. >> they needed to because it was catastrophic for them. >> much more on the recap of today's closing arguments. more questions that we have your tonight so stay with us. u

e provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients. (fisher investments) at fisher investments we may look like other money managers, but we're different.uct. (other money manager) you can't be that different. (fisher investments) we are. we have a team of specialists not only in investing, but also also in financial and estate planning and more. (other money manager) your clients rely on you for all that? (fisher investments) yes. and as a fiduciary, we always put their interests first. (other money manager) but you still sell commission -based products, right?

(fisher investments) no. we have a simple management fee structured so we do better when our clients do better. (other money manager) huh, we're more different than i thought! (fisher investments) at fisher investments, we're clearly different.

>> welcome back to the recap of

the trial of donald trump on what was a critical and very- very long day. the trial today with closing arguments from both sides. i'm joined by my colleague. it's great to have you here, joy. you have had an enormously long day. you just finished a show. you were all in the courtroom today. let's talk about this. the big picture of you. let's solve the context here with the closing arguments included tonight so let's take a look at where we are and what will happen next. in terms of the overall scope of this criminal proceeding trump was indicted 14 months ago in march of last year and was arraigned a few days after that and it took a year before the jury selection began. that was six weeks ago on april

15 with opening statements one week later in april 22. then we were off to the races. prosecution took 15 and to have days in court to present their case. the defense took a day and a half. that is how we arrived today with closing statements which means we aren't at the end but we are getting close. they gave the closing statement first. the defense lawyer said his estimation is that they would take 2 1/2 hours but ended up taking three hours and prosecution began to give their closing statements, the 4 1/2 hours. by the time they took a break around 5:00 the prosecution was already 2 1/2 hours into it and the judge asked continue until 7:00. they were hoping to keep both summations on the same day in their entirety but the prosecution wasn't done until

seven and they remained until 8:00. they both went on and on longer than expected. both are finished and the judge said strategically he likes both sides to get their summation in on the same day. making the day extraordinarily long they could do that today. what will happen next is that they will reconvene tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. now that both sides are finally done with their summations, there's more to go. when they convene at 10:00 and the judge will give instructions to the jury as to how they will deliberate. it's technical and sensitive and it could also be impenetrable to the onlookers and nonlawyers and those who haven't followed a second of the trial. though this is a really important phase of the trial. it will be a long process as jury instructions will take at least an hour. that's just the judge speaking to the jury about how they

should think of the evidence. the judge opened proceedings by noting he had notified both sides of what the jury's instructions will be. they are done arguing about what the instructions could be. we will hear him deliver them to the jury tomorrow and then we have closing arguments. we will get those instructions at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow until roughly 11:00 a.m. and then the jury will get to the case and deliberate amongst themselves. they will take in the information from both sides but not deliberate about it yet. the jury is not allowed to talk about what they've seen until deliberations start and they will only start after they receive instructions from the judge and he will tell them what to consider and what not to consider. as for how long deliberations will take before we get a verdict, we have no idea. we will watch and wonder and bite our fingernails and weight. that is where we are logistically in this case in terms of the big picture for

the overall scope of these things. as far as how summations went into court today, mileage may vary. perceptions of who did well and who didn't, the real audience that matters obviously is the jury. in the broadest strokes there were stylistic differences between how these sides would some of their case and keeping with the defense attorney, todd blanches style for the start of the case, it's fair to say that they describe the closing argument as some version of hard to follow. scattered shock, not completely incoherent but not a coherent story overall. it's not chronological. it didn't tell an alternate version of who had done this which explained the conspiracy or the pattern of facts.

i should note in keeping with his style throughout the trial by far, this did involve quite a bit of unpredictable shopping. mileage may vary. this is largely described as pretty nonemotional, linear, chronological, or coherent. they walk this through the beginning of the case but this has also made every single local stop along the way. there's exhaustive treatment of the evidence. this went on and on and on. now, who knows what style the jury would prefer. a trend that would reflect most observers today, the choice the jury had, stylistically with these sides was random and it varied and was somewhat

confusing for defense and methodical and exhausted from the prosecution. to be fair it's hard to say which one did a better job. neither one of those sound like much of a good time if you ask me but this is what it comes down to. over the course of the recap the special coverage we've talked about some of the major points made on these sides. the prosecution describing these documents. smoking guns of the alleged crime scene. there's this tweet in which he publicly admitted that the payments to michael: were

reimbursements. for the prosecution he knew what these payments were booked on his file as if they were income and not reimbursement. he must have known that was false. we will be talking about these exchanges between these two people involved in the scheme to hush up the negative stories about trump. the text between dylan howard and keith davidson as they were finalizing one of the hush money payments on his behalf. another on the night of the election. the clearing he would win. this is those involved in the hush money scheme. quote what have we done? showing those who were involved in the payment schemes knew that what they were doing had the election of donald trump.

we will finalize the statement to karen mcdougal could i also get my ambassadorship? trump's been elected, oh dear, we are the hush money team. what have we done? we apparently just got him elected. they are talking about how happy they were to be saving his wife and from marital upset. we will talk about his defense lawyer saying it would be crazy for him to enter into an agreement to help his campaign. "the idea that sophisticated people like trump believe that the story in the national enquirer could influence the 2016 election is preposterous. >> didn't think it would have any effect on what they were doing which is why they spent so much time doing this. we will talk about the prosecution's assertion against that. it turned out to be one of the most valuable contributions anyone ever made to the trump campaign. when you put these components

together this scheme cooked up by these men at this time could very well be what got president trump elected. we need to answer why the defense would praise david pecker is truthful. when he pretty bluntly testified that he participated in an illegal hush money scheme to influence the election so why would you praise that witness with that testimony? will try to answer why prosecution did not object when his lawyer repeatedly claimed that he was the bad guy here. he was the victim of an extortion scheme. they did not object to the word being used over and over. we will try to answer why the defense claims that he did not actually have sex with stormy daniels. is there a legal reason why they feel the need to say that? and whatever they are taking that assertion doesn't balance

out their credibility as a jury. we will try to answer if this matters with the defense claiming that the payments sent to michael: worked reimbursements but they stated publicly that these were reimbursements so there's so much that had been covered today so we are glad you are here with us. we are joined here by three of our colleagues who were in the room today. those are some of the moments that stood out to me with outstanding questions and a big point. what stood out to you? >> the first i will say, having gone to court today the first i'm hearing these voices of the lawyer who is actually something, we obviously don't have audio of the trial but hearing todd blanche who had a scattershot defense with closing arguments, he doesn't vocally command the room or speak with great authority. >> it was notable when he

finally finished his argument he had sat down and he was sitting next to donald trump. he's looking that way and blanche is looking this way. that's not the body language. trump is looking that way and blanche is looking this way this is in the body language of someone who's happy with the job they are doing. remember that the end of his argument that there was a lot of back-and-forth with the judge about todd blanches plea to the jury not to send donald trump to jail. something that was stricken from the record. in the dish into a series of fairly mild versions some of which was pointed out, one of my favorite ones for the excuse that there was no other way to categorize an invoice from the lawyer to the president other than a legal expense it was a drop down menu. it was the only choice that the trump organization, that's all they could do which clearly

they make sense legally i'm not sure. this is something that the campaign sees as a conspiracy. it was something i didn't know. as they work together to help someone when, all campaigns or conspiracies. the access hollywood thing. it's not a doomsday event. those of us watching on the outside. of course, the business as usual it's not a crime it's what happens in the media. the national enquirer as you pointed out, it's just a magazine, no one really reads the thing. it has no bearing on the election. >> these sophisticated men, it would be preposterous to think the national enquirer would have an effect on the world. that's why he's the guy who owns the company that runs the

national enquirer. this is in every grocery store everywhere you go across america. >> i was struck by the voices. the judge who everyone who has subscribed as very calm with a soothing voice and when he was telling todd blanche he was outrageous in what he suggested the jury could not find him guilty of going to prison which is way out of the bounds of what you're supposed to do as a lawyer he remained calm. what struck me, not a lawyer, was kind of the storytelling over the last hour and the contrast between them. this reminded me of like trump versus the democrats and how they communicated about things. todd blanches closing was very trump like in my view. like everything you think is wrong you're totally normal.

everyone is working with the media to take money for those who've got bad stories about the candidates. everyone's doing this. he even said, retainer is just a word. right? >> the drop-down menu. >> so to me this reminded me of crooked joe and crooked hillary and corrupt joe, right? it's this message of like everyone is bad or corrupt. we all do this stuff. whether or not that will work on the jury is a question. a question no one knows the answer to. on the other side you have josh steinglass who's like i want to be in the study group so this was very methodical and meticulous. it was maybe too detailed. there had been moments that we were sitting in their and we were zoning in. >> were there moments where he looked insecure and let's skip

this part? >> it felt like this. he said earlier in the day it was be 4 1/2 hours but it was of course longer. >> for hours and 40 minutes but he was on the top end of that. >> tell them about when he only got a third done. >> one of the interesting things about sitting in the room with so many legal experts whose said when he said 4 1/2 hours there was this audible gasp in the room, the length of that of how long it would be. this could be as long as you want in a court. they've got every right to do that. then there was the other like -- they'd been going over two hours at this point. >> talking about some of the points that these guys made i'm stuck on the drop-down menu.

they were saying effectively we may have booked these expenses at the organization in such a way that was technically false but we had no choice because software was designed in a way that made it false. >> our hands were tied. sure you know, conveniently. >> this was happening halfway through they were finished. they kept on leaning what was coming through the google document that we were blessed to have so we were reading it in real time. the line that stood out to me from josh steinglass , this was a strong prosecution team so i think we can all agree that they were really good at the storytelling theme. he says, use your common sense. the drop-down menu thing would be a commonsense moment because

the challenge, this was the challenge i had with todd blanche. he's kind of all over the place. he doesn't seem to be satisfying donald trump. he's flailing around like kermit the frog. he's talking and it's all over the place. the prosecution, to me has done a good job overall with all of these days of the mistrial telling a very simple story. does it make sense to you i think mr. josh steinglass was saying that micromanaging donald trump would pay michael cohen who the other side said was a liar and a horrible person, just give him $35,000 because of the drop-down menu? it's the only way you could

explain it would be saying it was a reimbursement and an nda but not knowing anything is happening and he's unaware of this during the campaign to become president of the united states. he gave away all that money and then they never really explained the other exhibit which i think is an outstanding exhibit which was the handwritten note so how do you explain why the pieces of the number are on the paper? >> there's no defense explanation. >> the thing that i found so shocking and i know that todd blanche is an experienced prosecutor but as the of defense attorney they never tried to explain it. there is a powerpoint that was poorly put together not that i'm a powerpoint expert but they had handwritten notes in these slides which they did not explain. the kind of flash through. some of them had a few written notes on them as they went through the slides and the

presentations. >> asking the jury to digest them without watching this first? >> i think that you assume he was explaining a trust but there were slides for us to see but the jury wouldn't walk through them. i don't think it's a very defensive effective defense strategy. >> for some reason , the judges don't want me but i've been on a grand jury but i could see in that situation it would be over explained. i found even in that kind of process that the more detail there was, the better. i think the advantage that they will have is when they explained the law, your feelings about michael cohen, it may be reasonable on the stand. he thought he was respectful to the judge. i think the challenge is is that you get all of that detail and the judge explains the law. all the jury is going to do in that room, they will compare the details they've gotten both of those sides of the law.

i still cannot tell you what the defense is against the actual legal claim against donald trump. the first witness, david pecker, i was there one of the first two days and david pecker admitted it was a scheme to impact the election. michael cohen is on tape and admitted it was a team a scheme to impact the election so there's been no explanation of how donald trump couldn't have known that and how this was not a thing so when they look at the law and the facts i don't know where the defense is going because they need someone to nullify in order to do this. >> there's this hung jury approach with the defense rather than an acquittal. they need to get somebody stuck on one piece of the evidence and as a legal matter, there was a dramatic moment before

lunch, where the judge, he said i think that statement was outrageous. someone who's been a prosecutor as long as you have, it's simply not allowed. a very dramatic moment. explaining why the judge was so mad. that is next. stay with us. ay with us. ti on. we didn't have to worry about any of those things thanks to the donations. and our family is forever grateful because it's completely changed our lives. when you over do it... undo it, with the pepto that's right for you. ♪ pepto has berry fast melts ♪ ♪ cherry chewables ♪ ♪ liquicaps ♪ ♪ that make relief easy. ♪ ♪♪ ♪ pepto bismol. ♪ pick your pepto.

( ♪ ♪ ) start your day with nature made. the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can i make my side softer? the #1 pharmacist recommended i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. now, save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus special financing. shop now at sleepnumber.com

♪ ♪ welcome to the roots of our legacy.

where excellence, comfort, and electricity... are forever in bloom. welcome to beyond. the mercedes-maybach eqs suv.

>> this is the moment before lunch today, right when the defense, the defense lawyer was ending his summation, the final climax to the jury. judge merchan seem to be irritated with the defense counsel. what happened with the jury was an objection from the prosecutor at the end of trump's closing statement. the prosecutor objected. the judge's abstained the objection. what happened after the jury was out of the room was sustained a notable confrontation, and admonition to his lead defense counsel. and it led to the jury being told something unexpected after they were brought in. so there's a big drama

involving judge merchan today and here's how it went with todd blanche the defense counsel. >> you can't rely on him, meaning michael cohen. lies under oath, lies when it matters, lies when it doesn't matter, all those lies, put them to the site for just a moment. that alone is enough to walk away. he came in here, he means michael cohen, he lied to each of you repeatedly. you can't send someone to prison, you cannot convict somebody, josh steinglass the prosecutor, objection. judge merchan, sustained. you cannot convict somebody based on the word of michael cohen so thank you for paying attention. i know that was a long morning with a lot of evidence. this is important to president trump and his family.

it's very important you know this isn't a referendum on your views of donald trump or on the ballot talks. that's not what this is about. the verdict you will reach has to do with the evidence that you heard here in the courtroom and nothing else. nothing else that you knew or thought about president trump or any of the other testified, just the evidence you heard from the witnesses, the recordings, and the documents. if you do that, if you focus on the evidence this is a quick and easy not guilty verdict. thank you. that is the conclusion of donald trump's case with the jury. judge merchan says thank you juror. we will take our lunch and recess at this time. i'll see you at 2:00 p.m. enjoy your lunch. >> the court officer says all rise and the jury exits and the judge says after the jury is gone, you may be seated .

meaning no one else is going anywhere even if it is the jury. and then the prosecutor says, we would like a curative instruction for that ridiculous comment that mr. blanche made at the end of his summation about sending the defendant to prison. there is no requirement of prison, the punishment is something that is explicitly the jurors are told not to consider and that was a wholly inappropriate effort to pull the defense with the people of the client. the judge said to the defense counsel, let me hear your comment about prison. todd blanche said pardon? the judge said, let me hear your comment about prison. todd blanche , i mean your

honor there is an instruction that will give as far as the charge on that and we don't think there needs to be a curative instruction. the judge says i will give a curative instruction and then he says this. "i think saying that was outrageous, mr. blanche. please have a seat. for someone who's been a prosecutor as long as you have, a defense attorney as long as you have, you know making a comment like that is highly inappropriate. it's simply not allowed. period." it's hard for me to imagine how that was accidental in any way. the prosecutor said thank you. then the lunch and recess begins. they go away for lunch and then this is what happened after lunch. the prosecutor said the defense was finished. they've stopped their case. this is it they are done, prosecutors are about to start closing argument and this is how it starts. the judge says let's get the jury. they say all rise, the jury is entering. the judge says he may be seated. the court says the case on trial continues all jurors are present in properly seated in the judge says this. jurors before we hear the

people's summation there's an instruction i would like to give you. during the defense summation you heard mr. blanche asking that you not send the defendant to prison. that comment was improper and you must disregard it. in your deliberations you may not discuss, consider, or even speculate about matters relating to sentencing or punishment. if there's a verdict of guilty it will be my responsibility to impose an appropriate sentence. a prison sentence is not required for the charges in this case or in the event of a guilty verdict. the prosecutor says thank you and good afternoon. what did todd blanche do so wrong? at this crucial moment from the judge. the former fbi special counsel who was at the courthouse today

for the closing arguments. what happened there? >> it's totally taboo. you don't know that you do not say that and you don't raise the issue of punishment. you don't raise the issue of going to jail. one of the best ways to understand what's happening here, the reality of the fact that this is the former president of the united states. what he was doing here to what was done at the end of his summation, i think they are rooted in the same way. what's happening here is that this is a way to raise the burden on the state and really say to the jury, are you really sending this person to jail? the former president or maybe the future president of the united states which is an

improper argument. it's clear that the judge was right to give the curative instruction. one thing to note is that this is so clear is that the defense agrees with no objection to the curative instruction with the line that was drafted up that you just read. they were given the opportunity to object but they did it because the bell had been wrong in the jury heard it and frankly getting the curative instruction kind of reinforces it so they are trying to raise the bar in the same way i think the judge that was objectionable but not in the same category where at the end of his summation he would say about donald trump, you know what, you can't treat somebody and not be held to account. what he was getting out i think is, the concern that the jury will hold them to a higher burden beyond a reasonable doubt because he's the former president. it's the same thing. he's just like everyone else

he's got to be held to the same standard in compliance with the law so you saw both lawyers trying to figure out a way to either play this to their advantage or raise the burden or to lower the burden to what it should be so i think that's the real reality of what's going on in the courtroom. >> could ask you about whether they are taking on a level of risk in doing so ? with both of those cases the objections were sustained in the first case. the judge explicitly told the jury basically right then and there the next moment they were talking about, don't consider what he told you that was wrong and you should not have heard it but in both cases the bell was rung in the jury did hear this. when lawyers do thing like this in the courtroom are they taking risks? it's like if you want the jury to hear those things, you shouldn't have said that, having the jury say no you shouldn't have heard that doesn't feel like enough of a fix or cure.

>> yes they are taking a risk. the best thing i ever heard a judge do, the special master in the judge cannon case, when a lawyer did that the first time he brought the lawyer over to the sidebar and said to him with counsel only present saying you do that again and i'm going to cut your knees out from under you in front of the jury meaning if you think there is no cost to you in terms of the effect of ringing that well, there will be a cost. unfortunately, you know, lawyers will do things like that, things they aren't supposed to. sometimes they take this zealous advocacy too far. i think it's worth noting with what trance what josh steinglass that it was a different category. he sort of suspected there

would be an objection. but it's not in the same category as talking about punishment where everybody who was a prosecutor and defense lawyer with that, there absolutely off-limits. >> very helpful to have you on. thank you very much. much more ahead in our recap of the criminal trial in new york with closing arguments, along day in court today. a lot has happened. we have more. stay with us.

an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement. summer. it's the hungriest time of year for kids across america. kids whose hardworking families are struggling to make ends meet. whether it's working the crazy hours so you can have enough money for food or, you know, just giving up things for your personal self, and it's just yeah, gotta feed your kids. far too many kids are missing the meals they need this summer. that's why i'm here now asking you to join me in helping end child hunger in america for just $0.63 a day. that's only $19 a month. you can help provide healthy meals

to power kids through their days. they're growing at this age, and they need the best diet they can have. so please, call now or go online to helpnokidhungry.org right now give $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. and when you use your credit card, you'll get this special team t-shirt to show that you're helping kids build a brighter future for themselves and for the world. we want to ensure that all of our kids have healthy meals every day, and many of our parents and many of our communities are still suffering. it's very difficult to, you know, have a good family setting when we are worrying about having enough food for your family. you can help kids get healthy meals this summer and all year long. please join me in supporting no kid hungry today. for just $0.63 a day, only $19 a month.

you can help provide healthy meals to kids across america and in your local community. thank you for giving. thank you for giving. thank you! families are struggling to make ends meet. these are hard times. so please call now or go online to give.

>> if he gets in i could tell you right now he will never leave. he will never leave. you know that. he will never leave. >> robert de niro showed up outside of donald trump's manhattan trial today on behalf of the biden campaign. it's interesting, he said we aren't here for what's going on in the courtroom. we are here because all of you media are here. he spoke alongside former police officers who risked their lives protecting the capital on january 6. the three of them talked about the way this movement has used and stoked of violence to get their way. new the end of his remarks, he was arrested by a co-trust protesters which led to of course the most in new york city moment possible.

>> let's go, let's go. >> were trying to be gentlemen in the world, you are gangsters. you are gangsters. >> you're not going to intimidate that what trump does. we will fight back. we're trying to be gentlemen in this world. democrats. you are gangsters. my friend stephanie joins us joined again by alex wagner. stephanie, you have robert de

niro on your show recently. >> i did and i spoke with him an hour ago. he's speaking out because he believes the democracy is at risk. he talks about this in 2016. he's a true new yorker who's been saying that this guy is a fraud. he is a con artist. the fact america could ever look to elect the guy. he not only went bankrupt six times, look at the trial in the way he ran his business. what's interesting about what he's doing, he realizes he will get a huge amount of blowback but he says i'm an 80-year-old man and i'm worried about the generations ahead. you heard him say if crump wins, he believes he will never leave office. he said tonight when i asked him, if i've impacted anyone and if i'm doing 1 ounce of small good, it's worth it. our future is at risk. >> it does appear maybe the most influential person in the

presidential campaign is one musician, he's been telling democrats get in front of the courtroom because trump is putting look-alikes out there. he saying get out there. and i love robert de niro by the way. >> seeing them all say, we are here for what's going on in the courtroom, we aren't here to try to influence the course of the case, we are here because the media is here. they talked about his other legal problems. this was a biden campaign event. even in so doing, they are doing this carefully to say we are trying to influence the proceedings we are only here because of these situations here. >> this has been the complaint that they've had about the democratic party is that they don't fight that with like. the reason that he sending his clones out there dressed like him is because the media is

there. until now they haven't been playing the game with them. they need to get on the field because this is war. you could not find a more new yorker than a popular celebrity new yorker which is everything he's ever wanted to be. >> it kills him that the republican party right now has hijacked the word and the concept of patriotism and he wants people to remember what happened on january 6 and who was fighting for our democracy. >> while supporters are yelling at them that they are traitors today. >> we just heard the summation about 2016 campaign crimes. the reasonable doubt is that he had other strange desires other than cheating in the election but there's plenty of evidence of the cheating but the 2020 crimes as were alleged to have been within this course. his two impeachments were about what?

going about biden who became the president. then of course, what robert de niro referenced, the roof useful the refusal to have a peaceful transfer of power. he is presumed innocent in every court but what ties this together as we are dealing with trials of an individual who stands accused of election crimes every time that he's been on the ballot and even when he's lost. >> in the bigger picture it should be an asset for the democrats campaign that they were running against someone whose cloaking himself and criminality. not only in court but look at the way he's running so for him to be siding with the january 6 defendants, democrats say we side with the police who were trying to protect the capital during this. our recap of this very big day in the trump criminal trial continues. we will be right back.

>> he doesn't belong in my city, i don't know where he belongs but he doesn't belong here. we make room for crowds but not for a person like trump. using violence against anyone who stands in the way of his megalomania or his greed. this is the time to stop him by voting him out once and for all. all. always dry scoop before you run. listen to me, the hot dog diet got me shredded. it's time we listen to science. one a day is formulated with key nutrients to support whole body health. one a day. science that matters.

to give your teeth a dentist clean feeling. start with a round brush head. add power. and you've got oral-b. round cleans better by surrounding each tooth to remove 100% more plaque. for a superior clean. oral-b. brush like a pro.

the defense we heard today from trump's lead defense lawyer is that there were no falsified business records. that michael cohen really was paid $35,000 per month in 2017 as a retainer for ongoing legal services and anyone who says otherwise just isn't looking at the facts. in his closing, however, lead prosecutor joshua steinglass said claiming those payments were a retainer for legal services, in his words, makes no sense. we do not have the official court transcript yet for that portion of the trial today, but these are our notes from our reporters in the courtroom. steinglass says in 2018 cohen continued to do legal work for trump. he probably did more legal work than the previous year and in

2018 he was not paid. if he was still doing legal work, why wasn't he paid a nickel in 2018? quote, he was being reimbursed in 2017 and when the reimbursements were done, the payments stopped. the prosecutor continues. the testimony was that cohen did less than 10 hours of legal work in 2017 while he was paid $35,000 a month. quote, cohen spent more time being cross examined in this trial than he did doing legal work for trump in 2017. alex, i want to but this moment you because i feel like it is the defense feebly trying to put forward the case. >> at the 11th hour, too. even trying to suggest to the jury what michael cohen might have done to earn $35,000 a month from a guy who had a problem spending $650 on a tiffany picture frame.

none of it makes sense and then you couple that with the argument that michael cohen was taking out this home-equity loan because he was going rogue and wanted to appease donald trump so he could be a.g. one day. none of it makes sense and that was a hallmark of the closing argument. they would argue one thing and then argue the counter five minutes later. i thought the strongest part of the closing was outlining in three bullet points my michael cohen could not have gone rogue. the defendant, donald trump, was the beneficiary of this entire scheme. that is what they left him with and it really took apart all of this. >> then he shared on the screen that weed from trump where he described paying michael cohen as reimbursements. we have a great case. unfortunately our client, the defendant, publicly made the exact opposite assertion. seven hours of closing arguments

leaves a lot to recap. we have more from the trump criminal trial today in just a moment. moment. lifetime career services. learn about our more than 125 degrees and certificates at umgc.edu. [music playing] tiffany: my daughter is mila. she is 19 months old. she is a little ray of sunshine. one of the happiest babies you'll probably ever meet. [giggles] children with down syndrome typically have a higher risk for developing acute myeloid leukemia, or just leukemia in general. and here we are. marlo thomas: st. jude children's research hospital works day after day to find cures and save

the lives of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. tiffany: she was referred to st. jude at 11 months. they knew what to do as soon as they got her diagnosis. they already had her treatment plan drawn out. and they were like, this is what we're going to do. this is how long it's going to take. this is how long in between. this place is like a family to us now. like, i can't say enough how grateful we are to be here. medical bills are always a big thing to everybody because everybody knows that anything medical is going to be expensive. we have received no bills since being at st. jude. we have paid for nothing. marlo thomas: thanks to generous donors like you, families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food so they can focus on helping their child live. for just $19 a month, you'll help us continue the lifesaving research and treatment that these kids need now

and in the future. join with your credit or debit card right now, and we'll send you this st. jude t-shirt that you can proudly wear to show your support. tiffany: anybody and everybody that contributes anything to this place, no matter if it's a big business or just the grandmother that donates once a month, they are changing people's lives. and that's a big deal. [music playing]

okay, we are wrapping up our part of our special recap