good day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city, and i'm just back from spending the morning in court with the jurors. you must set aside any personal opinions or bias. with those words, judge juan merchan sent a jury of 12 citizens to make one of the biggest decisions of their lives and determine the legal fate of former president donald trump. we will dig into the enormous task now before them with our team of legal experts and analysts. defendant trump proclaiming his innocence and comparing himself to a saint. the former president, real estate mogul and tv star now confined to a bleak waiting room. so what happens if he actually got convicted? and miles away from that room where donald trump is right now, president biden and vice president harris are hitting the campaign trail together today. we begin inside that had new york city courthouse where the moment of truth for donald trump

could be either hours or day away. the jury in the hush money trial has now been deliberating behind closed doors for more than an hour and 20 minutes. my view from inside the courtroom today with those jurors, it showed 12 men and women who were intently focused on the monumental task in front of them, most of them taking copious notes and that was particularly intense when the judge went into the specifics of the law. the law that will guide them toward reaching a verdict. before those jurors right now is whether donald trump committed 34 felony acts of falsifying business records beyond a reasonable doubt. their decision will not only go into the history books but could have an extraordinary impact with voters around the country. the 2024 election is count them, 160 days away. nbc's vaughn hillyard is reporting from outside the courthouse in new york city. also with us, paul butler, former federal prosecutor, professor at georgetown school of law and an msnbc legal analyst. jessica roth, former federal

prosecutor for the southern district of new york and a professor at cardoza law school, and duncan levin criminal defense attorney, former manhattan prosecutor and a former federal prosecutor. great to have all of you here. it was fascinating to be inside that courtroom. as many people have reported before, when they came in, they didn't seem to make eye contact with donald trump. i had a perfect view. i was on the right side of the courtroom. i could see both rows very, very clearly. i could see where they were writing very, very clearly. i could see any reaction. there was none except the pen to paper, and so let me start with that, if i can. i got to tell you, several points there were when the majority of them were taking notes. and perhaps no more busy than when the judge guided them on the law, the offense is falsifying business records in the first degree, 34 counts.

the definition of the law. he gave that to them. they seemed actually almost to be trying to write it down verbatim, and duncan, i took away from that this is a jury that is incredibly serious and understanding of the task that they're about to undertake and now undertaking. >> most jurors are, and i think people are surprised by that. you hear all these stories about people trying to get out of jury duty and people not taking it seriously. i've tried a lot of cases in front of juries as a prosecutor and defense attorney, jurors take it seriously. in this particular case, they're taking it extra seriously. they know the eyes of the world are on them right now. these are 12 ordinary people who are for the first time in history judging the fate of a president. the fate of the president in the hands of 12 ordinary people, an engineer, you know, lawyers, some people in finance, a salesman. they're all being watched. i think they're taking it

seriously. one interesting thing about new york law is that they don't get to take those jury instructions back into the jury deliberation room with them. so they can ask questions -- >> that's a very -- >> but they don't get to have them. >> a very important point. another point at which, jessica, they were taking copious note, and he had said to them right off the top, you will not receive copies of this jury instruction, but you can request a readback. if you need to send me a note, send me a note, but man, they wrote that down, and then they were writing down some more of the specifics. one interesting point where a lot of pens were flying, they were talking about michael cohen as an accomplice, when the judge said even if what he says is believable, you must find it corroborated. >> this is a feature of new york state law that's different from federal law and it provides that if somebody who's testified is an accomplice in the offense to which the defendant is charged, that that person's testimony in and of itself is not sufficient to convict, that the jury has to find that it is corroborated by other evidence that tends to

link the defendant to the crime. and so that's going to be an important instruction for the jury to bear in mind, as it sifts through the evidence that corroborates michael cohen's testimony. the summation by the prosecutor in a sense was a response to that instruction that the prosecutor knew was coming, and so they walked the jury through all the corroborating testimony of other witnesses and the documentary evidence including phone records and other records including weisselberg's handwritten notes about the payments to michael cohen and how they were essentially the same amount as the payment to stormy daniels grossed up and broken out over 12 months to corroborate exactly the narrative that michael cohen gave. >> so paul butler, let me talk to you about another area where they seemed particularly intent and particularly engaged. now, look, we can't extrapolate negative for sure, right? all i can tell you is that there were periods of time when it got maybe a little less compelling when they were taking no notes at all, and then at other times, again, as i said, the pens were

literally flying across the paper. at one point after the jury had left, and they only had the alternates in, the judge had said how one particular juror, he noted had gone through three sets of notebooks. when you come in -- when they came in to sit, their notebooks are waiting for them, and they carried them into the deliberation room. but the other thing that really struck them is when juan merchan said you can find he committed a crime personally or in concert with another or both. and i wonder what you make of the fact that they found that something compelling enough that so many of them, of the main jury pool, of the pool deliberating, probably three quarters of them were writing during that? >> first, chris, i'm jealous that you got to be in the courtroom today. you get a different feel for the trial when you're present there,

which is one reason these important proceedings needed to be televised. there have been so many questions about outside influences. when you're in the courtroom, you see that the focus is on the defendant and the facts as it should be and so, yes, i'm not surprised that jurors had questions about other people who acted in concert with the former president and how responsible they might be for some of his actions as opposed to his own individual responsibility. with jury instructions, the prosecution won some, and the defense won some. so for example, the judge said that the jurors have to find that trump used some unlawful means to advance the conspiracy that you're referring, but those unlawful means could be violating campaign law or tax law, but it was a win for the prosecution when the judge said the jury does not have to agree on what those unlawful means were. they just have to be unanimous

that there was at least one unlawful means. but then the defense got the judge to rule that the unlawful means test was a criminal act, not a civil violation. so again, the prosecution won some, defense won some in the jury instructions, but that's frequently how it goes. as we said, that's how judges get reversed with jury instructions explaining complicated law to ordinary people. you saw it up close and personal, chris. >> so we're going to see exactly ultimately what conclusion they come to, but in the meantime, it's very, very opaque, vaughn hillyard, what happens inside that jury room, although the judge at least outlined some of the things that the jurors can expect. for example, right now, do we know are they having lunch? >> we have found out that they are, in fact, having lunch. they will every day that they are deliberating have a lunch break of an hour, but what is abnormal about this is that they

are going to be having launch -- lunch brought to them. it is not clear whether they are able to continue deliberation during this lunch break, whether they are having their meal together engaged in great conversation about this trial or whether they are on pause. we do know that judge merchan said that no notes will be able to be sent by the jurors to the courtroom during this hour. so there won't be any major updates until 2:00 p.m. eastern, and during that period of time, our other friends in the press, many of our dearest nbc colleagues are now right here within earshot of me having their own lunch. they were asked to leave the courtroom, we will expect no verdict to come here within the next 45 minutes or so, but deliberations are continuing to take place we know while their lunch is being delivered to them, chris. >> duncan, the question everybody wants to know is where are they going to focus. obviously if what they were

taking notes about is any guide, michael cohen, it wouldn't be a surprise that they would have a conversation about him. he did talk about credibility. he did talk about how they can weigh somebody who has had a criminal record and how they process that information in their deliberations, but what do you expect is going on in there right now? >> well, i think they likely are just starting by polling each other and getting a sense of where everybody is because they have been instructed that throughout this case not to talk to each other about the case, and so this is the first time these people who have been sitting together for weeks on end who probably have exchanged pleasantries about baseball and how their days are going get to actually talk about the facts at hand and where they are. my guess is they start by going into the room and maybe even taking a vote, an informal vote, and maybe it will come out that everyone around the table agrees, and maybe it will come out that everyone disagrees. i think that's probably going to be the starting point. those closing arguments from the

parties are meant to help them in their conversations, to get a sense of where the conversation should go. so the prosecution and the defense both saying here's what you should think about when you go in the room, and that's really the purpose of closing arguments is to say when you go back there, i'm not going to be back there with you. i won't be able to answer your questions. here is what you should think about. both sides made that pitch. that's probably the starting point for the conversations. there may be someone who takes a lead. one of the issues with having a lawyer on the jury is maybe you're ceding a lot of authority to them. these are very smart jurors. they're very well-educated by and large, and they're probably have an in-depth conversation about what the elements are. your guess is as good as mine, i think the closing arguments from the parties are probably the starting point of their conversations. >> that was one of the things that i thought about as i was watching them walk in. you know, they've been sitting there for, what, 21 days. they have heard all of this testimony, and probably, you know, have some inkling of maybe

where they feel this case is, how they might vote. what i have been told in the past by- i'm thinking about one particular lawyer who i thought gave one of the greatest closings i ever have heard and i think anybody may ever have heard in their lifetime, and he lost the case, and he said to me, chris, they go into that jury room and they're serious about it, and minds do get changed because of the conversation. and what you are not party to is that conversation. so do you think that a lot of minds get changed in jury rooms? >> well, i think that there's certainly the possibility that minds will be changed. i mean, the jurors, i think take very seriously the judge's instructions about the fact that they should engage with one another and be open to the arguments presented by their fellow jurors. it does happen that people go in with one view initially and come around to another view. one thing that is interesting is that the jurors have taken a laptop back with them that have

all of the exhibits, so they won't be sending out notes asking to see certain exhibits. that means we won't have clues as to what they're focusing on. i was anticipaing we would get jury notes asking to have some part of the testimony to read back and get certain exhibits. now they're going to ask for testimony if they want that, but they don't have to send out a note if they want to look at a particular exhibit. in a sense, it will be even more of a black box than it normally is. >> what are our clues going to be, paul? how are we going to speculate randomly about what might be going on in that jury room, if they're not going to send out notes at least again on about 200 pieces of evidence? >> again, just more random speculation. the only way we'll have any inkling is by notes, and there's no rule that they have to send notes, although i wouldn't be surprised in a case with 34 felony counts and a fairly complicated law. not too difficult for the jury to understand, but again, i wouldn't be surprised if there

were a couple of questions. i just want to emphasize what we've heard about how deliberative a process is. there's been some concern that only one juror or two jurors could cause a hung jury, and legally that's true, but what the research demonstrates is if it's just one or two people who are holding out out of 12, during the process of deliberation, the other ten people are usually able to persuade those outliers. and again, that goes to the idea that it is, in fact, a conversation, it's deliberative. people listen to each other and with an open mind, they sometimes change where they come out from where they were when they went into the room to deliberate. >> so what's this all mean, vaughn, for donald trump? i understand he's in another room. is it another courtroom? is it just a holding room?

the only thing i know is it's been described by numerous people as bleak. i did not myself see it. >> reporter: right. that's what we're trying to get a better understanding of transparently here is that there's been a holding room where he is held throughout the course of this trial during breaks and before he actually enters the courtroom, so we're looking for some clarification, if that is that room in itself, we do know that he has his phone back because he has been posting on his social media account incessantly over the the last hour, and one of those that i just want to read to you real fast. when we talk about donald trump in the public opinion of this trial, i think it is a prudent conversation for all to have. he says in part, quote, i don't even know what the charges are in this rave case. he said just a few minutes ago in his social media post, and as you were in the courtroom, chris, and as everybody now has this big copy of the complex case and complex jury instructions that were delivered in that courtroom to the extent to which the former president was awake and paying attention,

he would have heard judge merchan explicitly read aloud each of the laws, the new york state law that he is currently been charged with and that the jury is deliberating his guilt or innocence over. so you know, to the extent that donald trump is controlling the opinions of individuals outside of that jury room, he is going to do that to the extent that he can, a close ally of his, marco rubio who's up for vp consideration put out his own tweet here in the last hour saying that it is not clear what he has been charged with and that it is up to the jury to decide which crime he violated, which of course is a misrepresentation of the actual charges levied against him in the jury instructions that came for judge merchan. it was the extent to which unlawful means meant multiple violations that the jury is able to consider, not by and large the actual felony counts at the top tier that are being considered. that is part of the what happens

in the courtroom versus what happens outside, and donald trump is currently going to do what he can clearly to control the narrative outside of that jury deliberation room. >> i want to bring in msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. she has been in the overflow room all morning, and then we did a very fine, i think, relay race. i handed you my pass. did you have a chance to go into the courtroom? i'm very curious about your observations today for a lot of people, jury instructions may seem, you know, boring, pro forma. they're anything but, jurors take that information into a deliberation room, and they use them as their guide. they are critical in the verdict that they ultimately come to. >> well, the word, chris, take is a really interesting word. they will take the jury instructions as imported into their heads by judge merchan. what they can't take is what i have in my hand right now which

are the printed out jury instructions. that is in part why judge merchan did something this afternoon that i personally have never seen before. the jury instructions here that are pertinent to the charged crime, that is falsification of business records in the first degree, he not only read once, he read twice in its totality. i had never seen that done before. i know at least one other lawyer affiliated with our network had never seen that done before either, and that's likely because in its repetition, he is hoping that they get what they cannot get in the jury room, which is the consultation to these words. the jury instructions largely went the way that you would expect that they would go having watched the charging conference, which i did, and there are some wins in here for the prosecution. there are also some wins in here for the defense, and if i can, i want to outline one of them for you that i think could make a difference here, and it has to do with what it means to falsify

or cause to falsify business records. the prosecution here wanted a very expansive definition of falsification that would include causing somebody to falsify business records if you set into -- you set into motion a chain of events that makes it reasonably foreseeable to you that somebody else would falsify business records. that's enough to impose criminal liability according to the prosecution's theory of the case. that's not the instruction that judge merchan gave, however. what he did was give an instruction on what's called exsorable liability. one person can be criminally liable for the acts of another but it's not as broad as the reasonable foreseeability that the prosecution wants. when one person engages in conduct which constitutes an offense, another is criminally liable for such conduct when acting with the state of mind required for the commission of that offense, he or she solicits, requests, commands,

opportunes or intentionally aids such person. so in other words, chris, i would have to ask you or direct you to falsify a business record. it wouldn't be enough on the other hand that i took steps that would make it likely that i could see down the line that you were going to do that. and that might make a difference to these jurors in terms of the fact that donald trump didn't touch, much less create many of the business records that he is alleged to have falsified here in this case. >> and i have to say, i think they got it, and i want to give you a shoutout because we were in a car going down to court this morning. she gave me all the inside information about where the best places are to sit, and i kind of counted and i saw and i was exactly where you told me to sit on the far right in the first row of the media, so thank you for that. but there was a point about an hour in, the note taking kind of wavered a bit. people seemed -- the jury seemed like maybe a little tired, a

couple of them, three or four of them were holding their heads in their hands, and then that false entry of business records came up, and i put three stars by it. they were very animated once again by that and what followed, and i want to ask you about this, lisa, motive and the difference between motive and intent, did he have the motive to commit the charge. and i wonder how important you think that is, again, i don't want to read too much into it, but jurors got animated again with those two points. that first one you made and then this. >> well, i think, you know, the import here is that motive is not a necessary element of what the prosecution has to prove. at all times, they have to prove that donald trump had the requisite criminal intent or state of mind. motive is the why, and judge merchan differentiated between the two saying you can have intent as soon up until the moment where you take that action. it doesn't have to be

preplanned. there doesn't have to be any advanced planning. all that matters is that you intentionally take a particular action. your motive on the other hand, why you take a particular action, is not required for the prosecution to prove. on the other hand, can you take motive into account in determining whether it was likely that somebody had the intent? you sure can, and these jurors seem to be very interest instead interested in that. i want to call back to josh steinglass's closing. when he was talking about stormy daniels, he said her testimony was cringe her story was messy. she was walking, talking proof of the fact that donald trump, who was distinguishing between his own sloppy words and what he considered to be the unacceptable actions of both bill clinton and hillary clinton his opponent, steinglass said stormy daniels was walking, talking proof that donald trump

went beyond words. she was in other words, a living embodiment of the motive here: and i think the jurors were very interested in that description. it was like her story basically explained why he wanted to cover it up, all those messy details were precisely why he wanted the american people not to hear what she had to say in all of its complexity and cringeness. motive, which is not required and can be helpful and intent on the other hand which is an absolutely necessary elementary of the crimes charged here, i think is an important thing for the jurors and my expectation having not been in the room is that the jurors were probably fairly attentive at that moment in the instructions as well. >> i'm very curious also because we're winding down on this, on comments that quite a few people made yesterday after the closing, and the question was

why for the defense wasn't it susan necheles, she's somebody who is much more experienced, people who have seen her do closings say she is very, very gifted at it, and yet, as i was watching and i could also see donald trump and his lead lawyer and, first of all, before the jury came in, they were in constant conversation. donald trump as we've heard before had a stack of papers. on one of them there was a color printout of what seemed to be a crowd. i don't know, i was too far away to tell exactly what it was. there was at least one article in particular that he was pointing out to todd blanche, and then throughout the morning i saw them talking at one point, pushing a piece of paper, whether it was a note or what it was, i don't know. the relationship between donald trump and todd blanche, how much do you think that informed the decision-making about who would do the closing, and as we move

toward one of the most consequential days in donald trump's life, how important is that relationship as you have observed it? >> hugely important, and the decision about todd blanche delivering the closing here, i think, chris, is explicable in two ways. one is definitely that todd has earned the former president's trust. there is a closeness and a comfort between them that is palpable to anybody who watches them in the courtroom. sometimes they sit so close together that their shoulders touch. there's the crinkling around the eyes when they talk to each other as, you know, evidencing their smiles. susan necheles on the other hand has body language that would indicate just the opposite. you can feel her pulling away at her side of the table from sort of the bromance that's going on on the other side. that's not the only explanation here. susan necheles was also part of the defense team for the trump organization criminal tax fraud trial that occurred in 2022.

that was the trial in which allen weisselberg pled guilty in the lead up to the trial and then was forced to be a witness against the organization. as you will remember, while donald trump himself was not charged individually, the organization was, the organization was found criminally liable and paid a couple of million dollars, give or take, in fines. donald trump has never gotten over that according to people who know him and he has blamed susan necheles for that loss. the fact that she remains in his orbit and continues to represent him is a testament to the strength of her skills, but that relationship has not been repaired to the extent that it might have been had susan necheles proven successful in that trial, where the facts were i would say more devastating than they are here. there's a bunch of legal ambiguiies here on which a jury might hang. in that case it was clearer that there was criminal wrongdoing. any other organization might have taken a plea or a non-prosecution agreement, and

susan necheles was stuck with defending what many people would have described as the indefensible. as a result she and donald trump do not have the same chemistry as he and todd blanche. if todd blanche loses this case, count on him to go from being the flavor of the month to the next turnstile. we've seen a long list of trump lawyers from joe tacopina, jim trusty, the list goes on and on of former trump lawyers who have fallen out of favor with the former president after being his favorite toy of the month. so let's see how this goes. >> we will see how it goes, and there's lots of speculation about how long it goes, but i won't put you on the spot for that, thank you. we've only got like a minute, maybe 90 seconds left, so i want to ask you both here very quickly about whether or not you think the jury instruction favored one side or another. and i don't mean that in a negative way like the judge, you

know, has it in for, but do you think that there were things that you took away that you think will help the jury go one way or another? >> to the extent that they're paying attention to it and we're focusing on some of these things in a way that they're not. this definition that lisa was just talking about about the word cause is a serious problem for the prosecution because it's the weakest part of the prosecution's case, whether donald trump actually caused the filing of the false business records, the rest of it is proven clearly the conspiracy to promote the election by unlawful means. the weak part of it is this notion of him picking up the phone and saying you better file these false documents. it didn't happen, so it's a weakness of the case and the jury instructions really don't help the prosecution on that. >> jessica. >> that said, i think they are consistent with the law and where the instructions actually i think help the prosecution is on this idea of what are the unlawful means that the conspiracy to promote the election through unlawful means

purportedly used and there the instruction allows the jury to not unanimously find different means that were used that were unlawful, so some jurors could find that it was essentially one of the means of the conspiracy to violate federal election law through campaign contributions that exceeded the limits. other jurors could be persuaded that the means used by the conspiracy were violations of tax laws. others could find it was falsification of michael cohen's own business records. that's where i think the prosecution got the greatest assist from the jury instructions. >> all right. coming up, new reaction from former president trump today with his first criminal trial now coming to its conclusion. how he's responding to all the pressure after this. pressure after this. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready

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right now, donald trump who rarely is told what to do, can only wait for the decision of a jury. for him verdict watch is from the inside of a drab room at the courthouse in downtown manhattan, but before he even walked into the courtroom today, he said this. >> mother teresa could not beat these charges. these charges are rigged. the whole thing is rigged. i mean that, mother teresa could not beat these charges. but we'll see how we do. >> mother teresa. he's also firing off multiple

truth social posts and is calling on his supporters to defend him. he says he needs their support more than ever as a verdict is imminent. by that he means money, suggesting they can stand with him by purchasing a limited edition maga camo hat. i want to bring in nbc's dasha burns from outside the courthouse. also with us "washington post" national reporter and co-author of "at very stable genius" carol leonnig, duncan levin is still with me. you know, carol, donald trump's future in the hand of a jury, not a place anybody wants to be, to be fair. any note they send to the court requires trump to be in that courtroom, so he has to be nearby. he's not used to being in situations that he can't control, and i wonder what your observation is of a donald trump under stress and not controlling his situation? >> well, not to make light of this, but i hope there's not a lot of ketchup available since we've heard some stories about where he's been angry and thrown

ketchup on the wall that had to be wiped off. when his attorney general told him at the time in 2020 that he had lost the election, and there was no fraud that would justify a change in the actual outcome. i think that you're absolutely right, chris, to highlight that this is a person who is not used to being penned in in any way. here he not only has to be in the courthouse, in the courtroom during the hearings, he also has to stay in the court building during the deliberations so he can be available at a moment's notice for a note or other events that may come up for the jury. this is not where he wants to be, and what's ironic to me about it, chris is that donald trump has been so successful. a 77-year-old man who has been so successful in adapting and maladapting and pressuring the court system the judicial system to his whims and to his wishes. it has been really a

treasure-trove for him in fighting off people who want him to pay his bills and trying to get scores of campaign staffers and government officials to remain silent about what they saw while working for him or near him under his nondisclosure agreement, some of which have been thrown out of court. he has used the courthouse really as a cudgel and as a tool, and in this instance, he's really on the receiving end. he is the person underneath that, you know, spring loaded cudgel. >> he is mother teresa apparently. so dasha, donald trump is already posting a ton today. i see other supporters of his behind you. what does he have to say? what do those folks have to say? >> reporter: yeah, chris, let me set the scene for you quickly as the jury is deliberating inside the courtroom. there is a small group of pro-trump demonstrators here outside of the courtroom, and to be clear, they are right outside

just across the street adjacent from the courthouse. you know, the former president has alleged that supporters can't make their way here. they absolutely can. you can see media row where all of the tv cameras including our crews are set up are right there. the courthouse across the street there. and to carol's point, he is limited in what he can do right now. the thing he is able to do is something he loves to do, which is post on social media. he's been posting a lot today, primarily he's been quoting legal experts that have gone on television to defend him, to argue the case in a way that is favorable to him. he's also been lashing out as we've seen him doing, calling this all unfair and, of course, fund-raising off of it, not just on social media but via those emails. we have received more than a few fund-raising emails based on this case and other indictments and charges against him, chris. >> so the great book that carol

leonnig duncan wrote along with phil rucker, two great books, and details so much about donald trump and what to expect from him, it was interesting to hear the judge say this morning whatever you thought about donald trump, he said to the jurors, you have to put that aside, right? there is no one who doesn't have an opinion about donald trump, and i know we've talked about this many times, every juror says -- every lawyer here says that jurors take this seriously. if the judge says put your feelings aside, they put their feelings aside. i guess my question is can they? >> this is a jury that is going to get assailed by the trump supporters really no matter what they do. >> that's true. >> and this is a jury that mr. trump picked himself. his lawyers picked this jury with all the same rules that the prosecution had also. this is a jury that came in and everybody who was on that jury promised to be fair. there is obviously this legal fiction that the jurors don't

bring outside knowledge about him, particularly to this trial, and it's a strange situation because typically in a trial somebody is a defendant and the jurors have never heard of him or her, have never -- don't know anything about the defendant. here that's not true obviously. they're bringing a lot of preconceived notions. for example, in the trial, there was evidence about how trump is a penny pincher. they read excerpts from his book saying he negotiated down to the last paper clip. but there's a lot of evidence out there and a lot of media articles about how he never paid his lawyers. when the jurors are considering whether this is a legitimate legal service to michael cohen or whether this is not, they may have outside knowledge to him that they could bring into the jury room. they're not supposed to consider any of that. these are people who have all said they can be fair, that they don't harbor any preconceived notions about mr. trump that they would bring back there, who knows. who knows at the end of the day,

but i think that they have all taken an oath to it, and i think they'll all at least try to take it seriously with one another back in the jury room. >> carol, a frequent guest on this program, former federal prosecutor chuck rosenberg wrote an op-ed today, and i thought there was a part of it -- i thought the whole thing was great. i actually ran into him today and complimented him on it. i want to read one part in particular from this op-ed. we asked juries to listen and deliberate. we asked them to serve as the conscience of our community. we asked them, actually, we empower them to determine whether a defendant is guilty as charged and we must live with that decision whether we agree or disagree with it. is it reasonable to expect that whatever the jury decides that americans who love him or hate him can accept the outcome here in the world we live in, carol, do you think that's possible? >> i really had, you know, by the way, i'm an unabashed fan with chuck rosenberg and think

he thinks very judiciously and has operated in his life very deliberately and carefully. i think it will be impossible for many americans to accept the decision here by the jury if they don't like it, and i literally heard people this morning that i was interviewing about another matter describing, you know, their either disdain for a potential conviction or their expectation that there was no other option but a conviction, and that is based on people's world view, and to your earlier question about how strongly people feel about donald trump. i think it's really interesting if you don't mind me adding that chuck rosenberg stresses the importance of treating our courts and our judicial system and our jury system as legitimate and reasonable and the final word, and yet, even donald trump this morning and yesterday is describing it as rigged if he loses, rigged if he

is convicted. it just harkens back to me his commentary throughout 2020. while he was privately being warned that he was going to lose the election by his campaign staff and top advisers, he was stoking this misinformation that if he lost, it was going to be because of fraud, and here again, stoking doubt and distrust and suspicion and conspiracy theories about this court and this jury if he doesn't emerge the winner. >> yeah, confidence in the justice system is already under attack, and we'll see what happens here. carol leonnig, dasha burns, duncan levin, thank you all so much. coming up, a major 2024 split screen. while trump spends day at the courthouse, president biden and vice president harris's campaign hit the trail in philadelphia. how they're shifting their messaging on trump's legal issues, next. rump's legal issues, next ok, someone just did laundry... no, i add downy light so the freshness really lasts.

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right now donald trump is stuck in a manhattan courthouse, and the biden/harris campaign is taking off the gloves, no longer shying away from speaking about trump's legal cases and ramping up a surrogate operation that will remind voters about the threat they say the former president poses to democracy. today two police officers who were attacked on january 6th are holding a press conference in the battleground state of nevada raising the alarm on the

potential of political violence under a second trump term. nbc's mike memoli is on the ground in philadelphia ahead of a joint campaign event by the president and vice president. jennifer palmieri is former communications director for the obama white house and hillary clinton's 2016 campaign. she is an msnbc politics analyst and co-host of msnbc's "how to win 2024" podcast. great to have both of you. so, mike, we've got some brand new reporting about how the president is expected to respond to the trump trial. what can you tell us? >> reporter: well, chris, the biden team has not been shy about sharing their frustration with the degree to which this weeks' long trump trial has not just sort of dominated the news coverage of the race, but has also delayed the process that they thought voters would be going through right now of realizing that this election is a choice between donald trump and joe biden. so they've done their best to try to counter programming the trump trial. you've seen their wednesday strategy, an event like today's

joint event with the vice president and others targeting black voters here in philadelphia, announcing their debate launch -- their debate challenge to donald trump. but we're now also seeing how they plan to ramp up and engage on the trial in a way that they haven't been throughout. we were the first to report on friday that the biden team is preparing to lean in potentially even call donald trump a convicted felon if indeed he is convicted on these charges. the ultimate question, though, is what will president biden say and when will he say it? this is a big variable, chris, depending on what the verdict is and when it comes ever the president will be marking a solemn anniversary, nine years since his lost his eldest son beau. if there is a verdict tomorrow, it is unlikely likely that the president will engage at some point, and his reaction will be calibrated, we're told, based on what trump's reaction is. if trump overreacts to this, if he plays it up as a rigged

process, one that joe biden has run through the justice department to target his political enemy, you will see a more forceful response from the president, appealing to the public to understand and respect the norms of this country, the process that was underwent here, and to respect the outcome. if it's a more muted reaction, which feels unlikely, based on what we've seen so far, that will certainly be responded to in kind by the president. >> i'm not sure what planet they're thinking there's going to be a subdued reaction, come on, mike. >> reporter: this is a moment that the biden team has been preparing for. they want to kick up this next phase of the general election now that the trial will be over and to sharpen that messaging against donald trump heading towards november. >> jen, you have been in those rooms. it's not fun, i imagine, to have these kinds of conversations, and, look, i could hear an argument and understand an argument. stay above the fray, you're not going to influence it. let the debate, you know, speak

for itself. on the other hand, depending on what donald trump says may be a leader is needed. some calm is needed. also, if he is a convicted felon, and we're not there, maybe you call it what it is. in either case, do you say the system has worked? what was your conversation be? what would jen palmieri say if you were in that room right now. >> you have to say, if he is, biden has been smart to stay out of it until now because they don't want to be saying that the biden justice department cooked this up to hurt him, also the biden justice department is pursuing a case against the president's own son. it doesn't seem like the president is using the justice department to his own end but you want to stay out of it until it's concluded. once it's concluded, if the republican nominee, the president of the united states, and the former president of the united states is a convicted felon, the president of the

united states needs to say it would be an abomination for the united states' standing in the world, for our democracy, in some ways make a mockery of the democracy for this man to be convicted and then elected president of the united states. so i think at that point, you know, i wouldn't rush to the briefing room. i think the president needs to say that in a, you know, in the right kind of setting to set the table for the american public to treat this as a very serious matter that it is. and then the other thing that you see the biden campaign doing that i think is smart, this is the week that they really won the election, but i think it's smart to start doing counter programming with the officers, they had robert de niro at the courthouse in new york yesterday. just to, you know, they're not talking about the trial.

they're talking about donald trump's lack of respect for law enforcement. they're talking about protecting democracy. they're talking about january 6. and that is an issue that the biden campaign wants voters to focus on. they want this to be a focus leading up to the june debate, and i think it's smart to try and spin off the trial and have those surrogates out in battleground states during trump's trial as well. >> i want to go back to something you said as well, if he says something, it would be in the right kind of setting. we have a minute left. what is the right kind of setting. is that speech or comments already being written? >> those comments are being written. the right kind of -- i think the right kind of -- i don't think it should be something too formal, even though it's a serious matter. it would not. so i think you have to be judicious in how you pick that, but i suspect that they are -- the words are important.

some part of america will discount whatever the president has to say, but i think we know there are a lot of voters, you know, there are a lot of republican voters. we have learned this in the primary that are open to voting for biden if trump is convicted of a crime. you need to look at that as part of your target audience, as well as america in general, and i mean, i'm sure they're already working on what that would be. >> mike memoli, i thought i heard music playing, so the candidates can't be too far behind. thank you both for being on the program. and for much more 2024 analysis from jennifer and our other experts, be sure to check out the how to win 2024 news letter. we have breaking news now, kentucky prosecutors have dropped the charges against pro golf star scottie scheffler. maura barrett has been following

this story. >> scheffler was facing second-degree assault on a police officer and all of those dropped because he says as he and his team conducted interviews with police and witnesses, went through the video that does exist. remember, the police told us last week that they weren't aware of any video that actually showed the initial impact where the police alleged that scheffler had dragged the officer. and so the prosecuting attorney said that there was not any probable cause or evidence to support the charges that were at play. rule number one of prosecuting, as he put it, is to make sure they refrain from prosecuting a case without any probable cause. we heard from scheffler's attorney, both in court, accepting those motions saying that they have no objection to dropping the cause, and that he actually just wrapped up a press conference outside of the court. we haven't heard directly from scheffler, but the attorney said that they do have grounds to file a lawsuit against the police department, the louisville police department.

he says that scheffler is the victim here. they do not plan to litigate because he doesn't want louisville taxpayers to get caught up in that. scheffler wishes to move on and reiterated this is a miscommunication. >> maura barrett, thank you for that. still ahead, you only need one. could donald trump's trial end in a hung jury? two jurors and prosecutors who worked on high profile trials will join me next. oin me next. by the bacteria in your gut. try new align probiotic bloating relief plus food digestion. it contains a probiotic to help relieve occasional bloating, plus vitamin b12 to aid digestion. try align probiotic. i'm jonathan lawson, here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program.

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