good day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. the waiting room now complete with television. new nbc news reporting about how the former president has gotten permission to outfit the drab room in lower manhattan where he has to wait for the jury's decision. he is watching sitcom reruns or coverage of his trial? has the waiting room become the epicenter of presidential campaign, both physically and strategically. plus, michael cohen, david pecker, and the 2015 trump tower meeting, the jury in donald trump's hush money case today keying in on the details of that critical encounter. asking to rehear multiple portions of related testimony as well as significant portions of jury instructions. what it could tell us about where their deliberations stand. and, yes, the law and the evidence, but as jurors deliberate, how and when will

common sense impact their verdict? the important instruction from judge merchan that jurors must consider. . we have so much to get to. we begin with the jury in donald trump's hush money trial now back behind closed doors, into the sixth hour of deliberations after some key requests. they spent the morning inside the courtroom where they asked for portions of testimony from former "national enquirer" publisher david pecker and former trump lawyer, michael cohen to be read back to them. our analysts in the courthouse pointing out that a large part of what the jury heard centers around that alleged conspiracy to influence the election. and clearly looking for guidance at their request, the judge also read back a significant portion of jury instructions, 30 pages involving how to consider evidence and explaining how instructions on the law apply to the counts in this case. what we're seeing is how complicated it can be to decide whether donald trump broke laws that sound maybe on the surface

pretty straightforward. 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, but in practice, it's requiring a lot of diligence and already raising questions by the jury. nbc's vaughn hillyard is reporting from outside the courthouse in new york city. also with us, deanna paul, defense attorney and former new york city prosecutor, kristy greenberg is a former sdny deputy chief, a former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. adam pollock is former new york assistant attorney general. thank you all for being here. okay, vaughn, i want to hear what the latest is from court including that brand new nbc reporting that donald trump has managed to get a tv for his waiting room. >> reporter: right, chris, our laura jarrett, our colleague is reporting that television has been procured for the holding room where donald trump has been holding now for more than six hours between the last two days. exactly what is on that

television, it is not quite clear, but i know from social media activity of donald trump that he has been routinely posting fox news clips over the course of the last hour, including from jeanine pirro, who is just a few yards down from where we're standing here outside of the courthouse, from fox news clips, but we also just watched north dakota governor doug burgum, who could be a potential vice presidential pick to donald trump just five minutes ago walked down here the alleyway, he was making his way over to news max. so perhaps news max is now on his television screen. i can tell you that it is currently lunch hour here at the courthouse. during lunch hour, though, the jury continues to deliberate, and that's why you see the ticker on your screen continuing to move upwards here. today, of course, is day two of deliberation. for donald trump it is a lot of waiting and a lot of social media posting, and one post within the last hour, he put in all caps, i did nothing wrong. in fact, i did everything right. so for donald trump, he is trying to run his own pr

operation from inside of this courthouse while he is forced to hold, as this jury deliberates. so the question is just how many hours or how many days await him and await all of us for these 12 jurors to make their decision. >> all right, so adam, donald trump has complained almost every day about the way he's being treated, that this was not a fair prosecution. he likes to rail against the judge. he likes to rail against other people involved in this, but then again, at least in terms of his request, he's gotten an awful lot of what he's asked for, including a television set while he's waiting. have you ever seen another defendant treated this way? >> i can't remember seeing a television set provided in any other case, nor can i imagine any of us have. >> kristy, you're laughing so hard. >> yeah, it just -- i mean, he's definitely gotten accommodations that other defendants have not had, and i think sitting in this courtroom day in and day out as i have, you really see this

judge has i think bent over backwards to be respectful and cordial of this defendant in particular, a guy who's outside his very courtroom railing against the judge, and the judge has exercised such restraint, i think, in how he's responded. >> is that okay if he gets treated maybe a little better than some other defendants might? or is that unfair to even suggest that? >> i think that it was notable when we had the contempt of the gag order and the judge said i really don't want to send you to prison. you're potentially the next president of the united states. the judge was taking these factors into consideration, at least in some part, and so whether that's okay or not, i think the key point is that trump is completely wrong to say that he's been unfairly treated. he's completely wrong to say that the judge is treating him worse than the next defendant. >> we've talked a lot, deanna, about the job that the defense

team has in keeping donald trump on -- in a way that is not going to get him into trouble. let's just put it that way, right? and it's not unusual to have to manage a client when you're a defense attorney, but is essentially what the judge is doing in some ways defendant management? >> i don't know if i would call it defendant management per se, but i was in the courtroom when he spoke to donald trump about the gag order, and urged him, not only for donald trump but also for the court officers that would have to execute this if they put him in. defense attorneys, the hardest thing for them, i think, is not knowing his way to testify the next day, and that's donald trump because the judge wouldn't force the prosecutors to tell them. >> vaughn, let's go back to what happened for the majority of the day today, which is the request that came from jurors that they wanted to hear back some of the testimony but also part of the judge's instructions.

what stands out there? >> right, number one, it comes down to the testimony of david pecker and michael cohen from 2015 and 2016 as it related to what the prosecution has alleged was the beginning of the experience to commit election fraud and to suppress the story of stormy daniels, and the testimony, there were four different parts of it, one of them was a phone call between donald trump and david pecker, that david pecker says took place in the summer of 2016 as it related to the potential purchasing of karen mcdougal's story. there was testimony related directly to the august 2015 trump tower meeting that donald trump had with david pecker and michael cohen, and then there was another phone call over the life rights, lifetime rights of karen mcdougal's story, and the purchasing of them. and so for the jury i think it's notable that there was discussion inside of that deliberation room and a desire

to have this testimony read back to them because it specifically pertains to the underlying crime that the prosecution has alleged. this is a complex case. of course there is the financial -- there is the fraudulent business records component of this, but then there is the election fraud part of this, and that is where you see the jury apparently interested in the internal discussions that were taking place and the extent to which perhaps donald trump was the one that was directing these conversations to take place, and now we should also note that as part of this that there are audio recordings that they have in their possession on this laptop that the jury has in their room, and they have requested this morning the ability to have headphones to be able to more effectively listen to these multiple audio recordings that conclude a september 2016 audio recording that michael cohen says that he recorded of donald trump, in which he contends that he was

discussing the $150,000 payment to karencdougal. then there was that phone call between michael cohen and keith davidson in october of 2017, in which he expressed that donald trump had regretted buying stormy daniels' story. there is a lot that this jury has to comb through here, and to the extent that they do, we are getting some tidbits of potential interest points for this jury coming out of these notes and these requests directly to judge merchan. >> so let me ask you, kristy, about one specific portion of the readback. that is when pecker was asked about his phone call. when i got on the phone, mr. trump said to me i spoke to michael, presumably meaning michael cohen -- karen is a nice girl. is it true that a mexican group is looking to buy her story for $8 million donald trump asks? i said, this is, again, pecker, i absolutely don't believe there is a mexican group out there to buy a story for $8 million. and then he said, what do you think i should do? i said i think you should buy

the story and take it off the market. we should also point out it's been more than a month since they heard this testimony and some other testimony, but does that tell you anything important about where their brains are? >> yes. so this is exactly what the prosecutor, joshua steinglass told them that they should focus on in his closing. he said -- a lot of documents in this case, a lot of witnesses, don't lose sight of the significance of this phone call: and so the fact that the jury has now asked to get that testimony read back is, i think, a good thing for the prosecutors because it shows a number of things. one, donald trump knew who karen mcdougal was. she's a nice girl. two, they're talking about whether or not to purchase this story. remember, that goes back to that trump tower meeting that they also wanted to hear about where part of the agreement is finding these negative stories from women and killing them, and to help the campaign, and then the other thing it shows is trump is deputizing michael cohen, right?

at the end of that call, according to pecker, he said, well, you know, i'll have michael get in touch with you, and that's important because michael cohen then follows up with pecker and they arrange for ami to make the payment to karen mcdougal. that's the corporate contribution that would be the unlawful means in this second election law conspiracy crime. >> so i also want to talk about, adam, the readback of pecker and cohen's testimony back to back. it is always interesting when you're at a trial doing a trial, covering a trial as we have done. is that, you know, you can't like say let's do this witness and we're going to talk about this thing, and then we're going to have this other witness talk about this thing and go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, it doesn't work that way, right? the jury clearly wanted to look at these two pieces of testimony about the same incident, but they were actually given three weeks apart. do you think it helps one side or the other? >> i think it definitely helps

the prosecution. this was a relatively long trial. what has it been, four weeks now at least, so bringing those two elements of testimony, those two witnesses, as you said, they can't jump back and forth, having them read right next to each other i think is very powerful for the prosecution here. >> do you think, deanna, that specific pieces of testimony that we heard read today suggest a kind of road map that the jury is following? >> i do, and juries are wild cards. you never really know what they're going to do until the end. if you look at what they ask for, they're starting in 2015 at trump tower, which is where the conspiracy, alleged conspiracy began, and then like you said, they're going into the testimony of both pecker and cohen, and the judge instructed them yesterday that for accomplice liability in new york, michael cohen's an accomplice, they can't just convict on michael cohen's testimony alone, so having david pecker's testimony as well, to make sure they corroborate each other is a really good sign for the prosecution. >> i also want to bring in msnbc

legal correspondent lisa rubin who has been inside the courtroom all morning long. okay, lisa, bring us inside that courtroom. your specific observations and if you have clues to what the jurors may be doing here. >> reporter: it's always difficult, chris, to read the tea leaves based on juror body language, but i will tell you there were some points in time where there were more jurors taking notes than there weren't, and i've never seen such an attentive jury. all the body language was focused on judge merchan as he was re-reading the jury instructions this morning, and there was one in particular that made me kind of stand up at attention because this is when i noticed the pen writing pick up a little bit, and that's where they got to the definition of intent, and in particular, this part. in determining whether donald trump had the requisite criminal intent, the instructions say the jury may consider the person's conduct and all of the circumstances surrounding that

conduct including, but not limited to the following, and i'm on page 28 of the jury instructions for anyone who has them in front of them, either at the table or at home. what if anything did the person do or say, what result followed the person's conduct, and was that result the natural, necessary, and probable consequence of that conduct? that matters because trump's own fingerprints on the falsification of the business records are few and far between. at best, he signed nine checks to michael cohen. however, michael cohen places him at a meeting in january of 2017 with allen weisselberg where he and weisselberg go in. they've got a bank statement from michael cohen's llc that reflects a wire transfer to stormy daniels' lawyer of 130,000, and then the document contains handwriting from both weisselberg on the left, cohen on the right, mapping out what that repayment scheme is going to look like. cohen testified that trump not only approved that repayment in

12 installments, but once he did that, sort of signaled to them, now that that's taken care of, d.c.'s going to be a hell of a ride. in other words, he was almost signaling, well, we've gotten that out of the way, now it's time to be president. and so, you know, was it foreseeable to donald trump having approved that repayment scheme that that would have happened? that is what the jurors are entitled to take into account when they're measuring whether donald trump had the criminal intent to falsify records, even if he didn't do the falsification himself, if he caused it, and if his intent was such that he would reasonably foresee what was going to happen after that meeting, if the jurors credit michael cohen's account of that meeting, they are likely based on the recitation here that they were paying such careful attention to to find that he did have the requisite intent. >> sometimes a when you listen to what juries want read back, it's very difficult to see where they're going with it. sometimes it can seem unrelated or you're not sure how one part

of it goes with the other part of it. does it seem to you, again, we can't get into their heads. we don't know what the conversations are, but they're approaching this methodically, that it makes sense that the various things that they asked to have read today. >> there is one part of what they asked for that makes perfect sense to me or maybe three-fourths of it makes perfect sense to me. there's one thing that's still a question mark in my head. let's go to the first part. hearing david pecker's testimony about the august 2015 meeting just right up against michael cohen's testimony, i was struck and i know our colleague katy tur was too, by the similarities between their two stories. told, you know, literally miles apart at least in terms of the presentation of evidence in this case. and yet, their accounts are markedly similar. so, again, to deanna's point, if you are trying to assure yourself that you're not going to convict donald trump just

based on the testimony of his accomplice michael cohen, hearing those two accounts and hearing how well, pecker's account which came first corroborates that of cohen, which he's been telling for years, that would be meaningful to you. the one thing that i'm still scratching my head about is that the jurors asked for a readback on pecker's testimony about his decision not to go through with the transfer of life rights from ami to donald trump. that's a transfer that he said he put the kibosh on after consulting with the general counsel of american media. why the jurors wanted to hear that in particular, it's still leaving me scratching my head because it was as a result of that decision that donald trump didn't end up purchasing karen mcdougal's life rights and that the a party that made that purchase and in the end made a contribution that the fec and the southern district of new york, the federal prosecutors decided was an unlawful campaign contribution, they did that and were left holding the bag

because of david pecker's decision to call off that deal, not donald trump's. it may be porn to the jury to remind themselves that it wasn't trump who backed out of the deal, but in fact, it was pecker based on legal advice that he received. and i should note, he never detailed it. the judge was careful to guard the attorney/client privilege between pecker and his lawyer. the in-house lawyer basically said to pecker, this is a no-go, and he was concerned enough to call michael cohen and in his own testimony tell cohen to rip it up. at which point cohen said to him, again, according to pecker's testimony, the boss is going to be very angry with you, chris. >> let me go back to vaughn hillyard. i understand that once again the former president as he waits to hear anything more from the jury has been busy on social media. >> reporter: yeah, we've been monitoring, of course, over the course of the last weeks, not only his television and right wing radio outlet appearances,

but also his social media account, and there have been a vast number of misrepresentations about the case brought against him in the proceedings of this courtroom. this is the latest here in just the last five minutes as he is holding in that side room inside of his courthouse. he put on social media saying in part, quote, does anybody ask why the government -- he goes on to say -- failed to bring in a long list of witnesses that they so viciously threatened everybody with? the prosecutors didn't use them because these people would have been very bad for the government's case. of course you would think that he would be directly alluding to the likes of his former bodyguard and his former chief financial officer at the trump organization, allen weisselberg, both of those men not being called by the prosecution to come testify. donald trump had hoped that those individuals would have potentially refuted some of the testimony heard by witnesses, but this is the part, again where we get to the misrepresentations of this case and the proceedings inside of the courtroom. donald trump leaves out the fact that his defense team also had

the opportunity to call up witnesses they desired to call up and they chose not to bring forward keith schiller and allen weisselberg either. >> kristy, just to clarify the way things work in court, it is not unusual, is it, to have a list of witnesses and not use all of them? >> not unusual at all. i mean, that happens frequently. >> everything but the kitchen sink just in case they're going to call them, right? >> exactly and you see how things are going through the course of the trial, what evidence has come in cleanly, what evidence you still need to prove your case, and you make adjustments. exactly as you said, you just want to cover yourself in case you need these people, and then you decide as you go along whether or not you do. >> thank you all. kristy greenberg and adam pollock are going to stick around for us. one thing we heard over and over again from the defense, prosecutors and even the judge, the jury should use common

sense. we're going to break that down with our panel next. g to break n with our panel next. oh no. running low? with chewy, always keep their bowl full. save 35% on your first autoship order. get the food they love. delivered again and again. (♪♪) [thud] my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. (♪♪) (♪♪) try dietary supplements from voltaren, for healthy joints.

[ growl ] ready for the road trip. try dietary supplements from voltaren, everyone comfortable. yep, there's plenty of space. i've even got an extra seat. wait! no, no, no, no, no. [ gasps ] [ indistinct chatter ] [ sigh ] let's just wait them out. the volkswagen atlas with three rows of seating for seven. everyone wants a ride. [ snoring ] ok, get in. [ speaking minionese ] yippee! and see "despicable me 4" in theaters july 3rd. rated pg. so inside the jury deliberation room right now, jurors know they have to stick to the facts, the evidence, but they're also allowed based on the facts and the everyday to use their common sense. in fact, one of the first things donald trump's lawyer todd

blanche zd asked the jury to do at the start of this trial was to utilizing something critical to survive in the city they live in. quote, use your common sense. we're new yorkers. that's why we're here. so what role will common sense play in the decision they ultimately make. back with us, kristy greenberg and adam pollock. what are some of the instances in this trial where you think this particularly applies? >> i think this applies in any trial, but especially here where the jury has to sit back and say was donald trump directly involved? he wasn't the one who was making the accounting records. he wasn't the one keeping the ledger, but did he cause that to be made? they need to use their common sense to say here are all these witnesses. here is all the testimony we've heard, all the evidence that's been presented. does that put together that, yeah, he directed it. trump caused it, i think is a key issue for the jury here. >> in the closing, for example,

kristy, prosecutor josh steinglass appealed to jurors common sense and made a whole list of things, use your common sense: the claim trump never had sex with stormy daniels, that the access hollywood tape was not worrying to the campaign at all, and cohen was trump's personal lawyer. that was not money that he was reimbursed for the hush money payment, he was being paid $35,000 a month to do work, even though they never produced any documentation to say there was any extensive work that he might have been done. when they process all of, that when a jury processes all of that, if common sense tells them that an argument doesn't make sense to them, does it make it harder for the common sense to work in that lawyer's favor? >> yes, you have both, as you pointed out, both lawyers are saying use your common sense, but when i think a lawyer fails if, you know, witness testimony that you're saying believe parts

of it but not all of it, and then at that point you really do need to use your common sense. for example, you have the access hollywood tape. you have hope hicks who the defense is not attacking as being a liar, right? hope hicks said the access hollywood tape was a crisis for the campaign. that was a consensus among the campaign staff that it was damaging, and donald trump was upset by it. that was her testimony. so then when todd blanche gets up and sayings it was not doomsday, that's not only directly contradicted by an evidence you haven't attacked at all for being, you know, incredible, but it also doesn't really jive with common sense. i mean, they didn't hear the tape, but they saw a transcript of the tape and what was said. anybody who's heard that tape and knows what was said on that tape knows it was -- you have a visceral reaction to t particularly if you're a woman. so it doesn't jive with the jury. that's an example where you're not only being contradicted by other witness testimony, but it

defies your common sense that that was not a major event, and what you'd have to believe to believe the defense is that after that access hollywood tape where the stormy daniels story came up, michael cohen didn't go with donald trump with this, and they never had any kind of agreement that they could do anything with their story. michael cohen went rogue. that's the defense's theory that defies common sense. i don't think the jury will buy it. >> let's talk -- i think there is a lot of intertwining between credibility and common sense sometimes and i was thinking about david pecker's testimony being reread in court, and in the closing, the prosecutor called the testimony of david pecker utterly damming, partly because it does back up what michael cohen had to say. we all know what the credibility issues are with michael cohen, lie, lie, liar that went on and on and on by the defense. does the fact that he was friends with donald trump for four decades, does the fact that

he seemed to still like the guy, right, still consider him a friend play into the jury's assessment of credibility and then by extension common sense? >> i think so. i think that that testimony is key in corroborating and backing up michael cohen's testimony because to believe the defense, you have to bereave that stormy daniels came out of nowhere ten years after a random golf course meeting and photo opportunity and suddenly she shows up and is asking for money for nothing? it doesn't really make sense. it also -- the defense's story is that michael cohen was getting paid $420,000 for nothing? it doesn't make sense. i think that the defense has blundered here in starting in the opening statements and coming back to in closing the idea that there was no affair with stormy daniels and the

concept that there was no hush money payments and that these were all legitimate, none of that makes sense. it doesn't make sense why this would happen. michael pecker really corroborates, yes, there was a scheme of making hush money payments. >> and if the common sense leads you to conclude, kristy, that yes, donald trump did have sex with stormy daniels, "politico" says it raises a significant problems and this is how they put it. if you believe daniels persuasive account, it effectively demonstrated that a central plank of trump's defense is a lie and has been a lie for years, and the jury cannot trust even trump's lead counsel to tell them the truth. could that come into play? >> yes, i'm not really sure why they made such a big point of that in the opening to call stormy daniels a liar for that. because to me, the fact of the encounter, donald trump could easily have sex with stormy

daniels, which i think most people and the jury believe happened, and still not have been guilty of the crime he's been charged with here. >> that's not the crime at all. it's not a crime to have sex with someone who is not your wife. it's not a crime to even pay her money to hush her up. >> exactly. they didn't have to take that on. they've kind of taken on way more than they needed to and in the process of cross examining stormy daniels, going back to when that happened, it was particularly difficult to watch and hear. the suggestions were that because she's a porn star she would kind of be up for anything always and she was just a liar because she made these kind of movies, and it was just very unseemly, and so i think that whole episode, i think it will really backfire. it was not a good look for trump's defense team. >> kristy greenberg, adam pollock, thank you both. still to come, the trump campaign tried to use being stuck in the courthouse to their political advantage, not just in

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now that the hush money trial has switched into another gear, the waiting game, donald trump is trying to use that down time to his political advantage, filming a tiktok with his son as

they send political messages from the courthouse holding room. >> we're cranking out a couple mean tweets at the courthouse. let me read that last one. >> i think i'm going to put it out instead of reading it. >> we don't know exactly when that video was filmed but throughout the day, trump's social media app is filled with plenty of messages raising the question has the courthouse waiting room become a de facto war room. the campaign website is increasing the intensity of its fund-raising request warning i could be in jail tomorrow. peter baker is the "new york times" chief white house correspondent, tim miller, former communications director for jeb bush's 2016 campaign and host of the bulwark podcast. all three are msnbc political analysts. okay, peter, what should we make of the campaign focusing on the possibility of jail time? is that simply a way of activating the base, or does it suggest maybe even a real fear of being jailed? >> well, i do think, you know,

historically donald trump has been afraid of being put in prison or jail. no question about it. it's not going to happen in the next 24 hours. i mean, let's face it, if there's a verdict today or tomorrow, the judge then has to set a sentencing hearing. there will be appeals. you know, this is not going to be happening between now and the election. i don't think anybody should be fooled, but of course it's more dramatic to say i could be jailed tomorrow, just like it's more dramatic to pretend joe biden was trying to assassinate him by distorting the rules of an fbi search. it's a way of galvanizing his supporters to make himself a victim and grievance politics are at the heart of his appeal. this is what he's doing in that waiting room just near the courtroom. >> trump already has that designated area, we see it every day when he goes in court or out of court, he can walk up into a whole bank of cameras and talk to the media. he doesn't answer questions. now he seems to be using his down time, this is a very

specific space that's set aside for him if, you know, they get called back in like they did today for a readback, the defendant has to be there. he's using that taxpayer funded space as a place for messaging. we just saw it in that tiktok that his son was in, i wonder if it were any other candidate if it would raise eyebrows. >> there are a million things that would be raising eyebrows if it was any other candidate. peter is casually mentioning, oh, remember when he lied about the sitting president trying to assassinate me the other week. like imagine if when we were together in the 2012 campaign if mitt romney had said that barack obama tried to assassinate him. that would have derailed the entire campaign for weeks. there would have been firings on the romney campaign. donald trump lives in a different world where because of just the amount of nonsense -- that's the nicest word that i could use -- that he spews out on a day-to-day basis, it's hard to really pin him down on any

one thing. they are going to have an opportunity to pin him down on this one thing, and i think that is part of what is making him so unstable and continuing to, you know, put out this fire hose of this information on truth and other places. >> of course, michael, tim is absolutely right. there is nothing off limits in terms of donald trump reacting to it. "the wall street journal" editorial board wonders whether president biden would be foolish enough to exalt at a trump conviction, warning that biden even speaking about the verdict would be, quote, another lousy white house political decision that plays into mr. trump's hands and underscores the partisan nature of the prosecution. mr. biden is better advised to say nothing. i suppose there are people who would make the argument keep the high road. i wonder if you agree or is it more about what he -- >> no, no, i don't know what the hell "politico" is talking about. what the hell are you people talking about? i mean, this is the -- i mean, two things.

one, for all the future criminal defendants out there, please start behaving like donald trump because i want to see how the system, media, legal, and political handles it because he's setting the new standard. so when you're doing the perp walk, have your cell phone and get your tweets in because that's one part of this. the other part of this is exactly the point you just raised. now the press is telling joe biden, oh, you can't say anything if he's convicted. really? he's a convicted felon running for president. you mean to tell me i'm going to be quiet if i'm the opposing campaign about that? of course not so that is just bone headed advice from some people who supposedly know politics, who clearly don't if that's their solution to have the president basically saying, you know what? i'm just going to ignore everything that's just happened to donald trump as a candidate for office and pretend like it's any other normal political cycle. it is not.

it won't be, period, even if he's acquitted, the fact that he's gone through this process changes the way our politics operates, and i just wish people would get their heads in the right place about what's happening here and start reporting it and treating it with the level of importance that it is. this is not a side show. this is not entertainment. this is not, you know, something that you can just be glib about and pretend that because donald trump is this fan tsa ma goric candidate that does all this wild stuff that we're all entertained by that. this is bad stuff for our country. it is not normal, and the more we treat it like it isn't, the harder it's going to become. all you future criminal defendants, this is your model. i'm really curious how this system is going to treat the guy or the gal who decides to behave like donald trump when their trial comes up. >> i was talking to jen palmieri

yesterday about this, tim, can you imagine they're already having conversations, putting a statement together. would it be political malpractice for joe biden, president of the united states, the candidate for president of the democratic party not to say something? >> absolutely. biden is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't. there was a different political story about the alito situation and how president biden hasn't weighed in on it. there are no republicans out there saying thank you, president biden, for going above the fray here and not getting down in the muck with these attacks. if he doesn't say anything he gets no credit. if he does say something you have this faux pearl clutching from people on the right, pretending like he's the one breaking the norms, when the person breaking the norms was the guy who interfered with the 2016 election by covering up his affair with a porn star. that's the guy that broke the norms.

all joe biden has to do is respond to that and make sure that people know what actually happened when they go to the ballot box in november. >> peter baker, can i ask you the big philosophical question, can you break norms if there seem to be no norms anymore? >> well, that's a good question. president biden came to office trying to restore the norms. he has tried to handle this in a judicious way. whether it's good politics or bad politics, i'll leave to michael and tim. up until now he has tried to avoid maing comments about this case or the other case that he doesn't want to feed in the trump narrative that this is a political witch hunt, it's all directed by biden. there's no evidence biden has had anything too with any of these prosecutions other than the fact that he happens to be the head of the federal executive branch. there's been no evidence he had anything to do with that. the one that we're talking about in new york has nothing to do with the federal government. it's brought by a state prosecutor. and show has been very judicious in keeping back. in recent weeks you've seen him nudging closer toward him,

making fun of trump a little bit. noting that he's falling asleep in the courtroom by calling him sleepy don, noting he could be available for debate on wednesdays. he's been inching closer toward it in kind of a delicate way. the question is how he will approach it after a verdict. they sent robert de niro to speak on behalf of the campaign outside of the courthouse. that was sort of the guerrilla politics we haven't seen biden people do. so we'll see how they decide to proceed after a verdict. i think it's no question they have considered it to be a fraught choice when they have to make it. >> although they did look and see that the story about robert de niro got picked up in a lot of the nontraditional media site where is they normally wouldn't be talking about joe biden, so they consider that a win. okay, michael, i wanted to see if you can have an opinion on something for a change, and i'm looking at this new npr, pbs

marist poll, found a super majority of voters saying the verdict won't make a difference in their vote. 67% say guilty, no difference. 15% say it will make them more likely to support trump, 17% less likely to vote for him. it goes on in that vein. do those numbers tell us anything? >> well, first off, those are registered voters. so it tells us nothing because i don't know what the mix of those voters are or what percentage of them actually vote in elections, what the history is. this is the problem when we're doing polls like this. they can distort the process. but taking it on face value, it doesn't surprise me at this stage. it is may. no campaign has officially begun in the sense that candidates are sparring against each other. one is sitting in the courtroom. the other one is out on the campaign trail. so when all of that sort of

reemerges at the debate at the end of june, and then the national conventions and the interplay there, then you begin to see a better sense of what those numbers mean and how voters do digest. it's one thing quite honestly to say, oh, i'm going to feel this way if x happens. well, if x -- when x happens, you may have a different assessment in the totality of everything. so that's the problem with asking people now how they will feel about donald trump or joe biden when this thing unfolds. let's get a better beat when it actually unfolds because then people will have a chance to actually feel the full impact of having a former president of the united states, if he's convicted in front of them asking him to be president again, and then we'll see how much it matters. >> michael steele and peter baker, thank you so much, gentlemen. tim, you're going to stay here. i want to ask you some more about the story you just mentioned. we've got some new reaction from lawmakers after that flag flying

controversy involving supreme court justice sam alito who told congress yesterday he will not recuse himself from cases concerning the january 6th attack or the 2020 presidential election. so maryland democratic congressman jamie raskin fired back in a "new york times" op-ed, quote, chief justice roberts assured america that judges are like umpires, but professional baseball would never allow an umpire to continue to officiate at the world series after learning that the pennant of one of the two teams competing was flying in the front yard of the umpire's home. some republicans like mike lee are, however, backing up the justice saying he's absolutely right not to recuse. what do you make of this back and forth and this just another example of what are norms anyway? >> it is. we have to step back. our supreme court nominations have become so partisan that sometimes people are like, wait a minute, the justices aren't supposed to represent one team in the world series? it's a good point by jamie

raskin: this is why we have con con confirmations. we have to be able to trust them. it's the highest law of the land. >> but don't you think, honestly, that if that happened, that if an umpire at the world series was flying the pennant of one of the teams, the reaction would be 1 million times more vociferous? >> yes. >> than what we're seeing now. >> we have higher expectations for baseball umpires than we do for supreme court justices. that's a problem. dick durbin and the democrats in the senate need to hold these folks accountable and samuel alito should have to go to congress and answer for himself. his wife might be one foot under the -- what matters is justice alito, when they came to him with that story lied. he went to fox news and he was like, no, this only happened because the neighbor called my wife. that's not what happened.

jody canter at "the new york times" then came back out and they looked at when the flag went up. they looked at when the police were called because of the wife's behavior, and what justice alito said was wrong. that is a problem. like that's not about partisanship, that's not roe v. wade, if you're on the supreme court you can't go to a propaganda network and tell a lie to protect yourself. that's something that requires oversight, and we should have higher standards for our supreme court justices. >> tim miller, thank you. good to have you here. >> thank you, see you. the rules of the road inside jury deliberations, the clear guardrails of what they cannot do with the notes that are taken. a former new york district attorney who served in that same courthouse will join me next to explain. t same courthouse will join me next to explain. ride it out with the tradeoffs of treating? or push through the pain and symptoms? with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose works fast to eliminate migraine pain treat it anytime, anywhere. without worrying where you are or if it's too late. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors.

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jury deliberations are ongoing, and one thing seems clear, the jurors are paying attention and a lot of them are taking notes. in fact, one of the alternate

jurors, according to the judge's observations filled up three note pads. what are they allowed to do with the notes. judge merchan gave them clear instructions, any notes are only for your own personal use in refreshing your recollection. a juror's notes are not a substitute for the recorded transcript of the testimony or for any exhibit received in evidence, and a rule governing new york state courts states jurors who choose not to take notes should rely on their own independent recollection of the evidence and should not be influenced by notes another juror may take. joining me, former manhattan assistant district attorney and msnbc legal analyst, catherine christian. i'm sure you've talked to jurors after they have deliberated, how important can they be in the direction a jury goes, the notes they take? >> well, hopefully they listen to the judge's instruction. they're not supposed to use that

to now, what did david pecker say, i can't remember what he said, please read back the testimony of david pecker. they're not supposed to use them, okay, this is what the law and falsifying business records means and try to convince the other jurors. it's supposed to be, i don't remember what the law means, let's have the judge read it back. everyone is different. i'm a note taker. i have to write down things, otherwise i don't remember them, and otherwise don't write them down. it's really, i think, helpful for some people, like me, who need to remember things that are important but hopefully the juror will remember, okay, this is just my recollection. let me actually hear what that witness testified to by having the court reporter read it back. >> and i wonder if it can be helpful in this sense and some jurors i talked to, they said, well, in fact most of the jurors i have talked to have said, well, we started with an initial, you know, guilty, not guilty, not sure. and in asking questions, why are you so sure they're guilty, not

guilty or unsure, somebody will say, well, i have it here that david pecker said x, and then someone else might say, oh, i thought he said y, and then they go back and they say, what did he actually say because clearly when it was happening i thought it was important enough that i took note of it. >> exactly. and you hope that's the conversation that happens. it's like, well, actually i remember it this way. let's go back and send a note. >> we always remember stuff. >> yeah, and you want to, if you're a person who, like, doesn't always need to be right, you want to be corrected because this is a very important trial. every trial is important, but this one in particular. you want to get it right, make sure you heard the testimony the way you think you did. >> i have also been asked the question as i'm sure you have, why are they only allowed to talk about this in that room, like i've heard it more when the jury is sequestered, right, and maybe go out to dinner together, whatever. but judge merchan told the jurors, very specifically, when you leave that jury room, you

leave the deliberations behind. you must deliberate about the case only when you are all gathered together. you must not, for example, discuss the case as you go even to and from the courtroom. why is that so important. >> not discussing to and from the courtroom, there are people around. you don't want them to hear. two, not discussing unless you're together. you don't want separate clicks. you want everyone, all 12 to be on the same page, but be in the same room so you don't have side deals going on, and then those two people coming back and say, well, we just discussed in the bathroom this. so this way, all 12 of you, whatever you have to say, let's just say it now together as a group. we're separated, let's stop. >> catherine christian, we're both taking a deep breath. caffeine, caffeine is the answer to everything. coming up on the next hour of "chris jansing reports," we'll keep an eagle eye on every movement inside the courtroom

and for whatever signals the jury sends to the judge. stay close, more "chris jansing reports." they're moving into the seventh hour of deliberations and we'll have it all for you. 'll have it all for you. for stubborn odors. you'll need vinegar, a large salad bowl and... oh, hi! have you tried tide fabric rinse? it works after your detergent to fight deep odors 3 times better than detergent alone. i love that. try tide fabric rinse.

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