hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the ex-president turned criminal defendant and his lawyers, the prosecutors who brought the first ever criminal case against an american ex-president and indeed the entire country waiting for word from the jury in the trump election interference hush money criminal trial. in court right now, the jury is currently on its 10th hour of deliberations. the judge has said that the jury will not work past 6:00 p.m. today no matter what. if anything happens in court, we'll let you know as soon as we know. the jury spent most of their morning listening to things they have already heard before read back to them. they asked to rehear the judge's instructions regarding what inferences they can make from the evidence shown at trial. they also reviewed the testimony of michael cohen and david pecker regarding their august 2015 trump tower meeting, as well as testimony from david pecker regarding a call from

donald trump at his decision to not buy playbook play mite life's rights. regarding the trump tower meeting read back to the jury in court today, "the new york times" reports this. quote, ichael cohen's testimony matches david pecker's account fairly closely. pecker testified that he had said he would be be trump's eyes and ears and would watch out for negative stories. michael cohen recalls him saying he would keep an eye out for anything negative. nbc news reports this on all the factors that could have led the jury to ask about these specific pieces of testimony, reporting, quote, not a word of this is about the 34 counts of falsifying business records, which is notable. if the documents aren't false records, the jury doesn't even need to reach the question of whether the state has proven the other crime that bumps the charges up to the felonies. pecker was also the first

witness who testified weeks ago now at this point so jurors have heard a lot since that time. but they have also heard an instruction telling them they can't convict donald trump on michael cohen's word alone under the law. day two of deliberations in the trump election interference hush money trial is where we start once again with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us at the table our regulars legal analyst andrew weisman is here. plus investigaive reporter susan craig is back with us. and msnbc political analyst the host of the bull work podcast tim miller. and we start, as we always do, outside the courthouse with my friend and nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. today feels like the day that will look back if this is still going on day seven or eight and say, remember that day we thought any minute now you're on

tv, you had your powder close, but it was sort of the end of the beginning. what does it feel like there? >> reporter: right. maybe i had time to find tim miller because he's in mid-town manhattan for lunch. but maybe we can do that tomorrow depending on how long this goes here. we're at hour nine of deliberations now. so is the question is when does the bell ring again. we haven't heard the bell since you and i spoke 24 hours ago. and the jury requested not only those four parts of testimony be read back to them, but the jury instruction as well. that's what took place at the opening of the courtroom this morning at 9:30 a.m. today. but ever since, they have been deliberating. they have until 4:30 p.m. eastern, potentially the judge suggested they could go as long as 6:00 p.m. eastern tonight, depending whether the jury wants to stick around into the evening hours or not. but this, number one, for both sides, you can look at positivity coming out of the questions asked from the jury to

the judge about these particular parts of the transcript dating back to 2015, 2016, david peker and michael cohen testimony about what the prosecution says was the beginning of this conspiracy of election fraud. and the positives for the prosecution is the fact that they are not looking at the falsification of the business records was the top charge. her looking at the underlying crime that was committed. for the defense's part, i had the chance to talk with an attorney for donald trump, who is here at the courthouse today. she said that they thought there could have been a situation where all 12 jurors walk into that room and say does everybody think he's guilty of all these charges, he's guilty. they walk out. but instead, she suggested that they were encouraged by the fact that there are questions and debate taking place inside of that jury room about those 34 felony counts.

>> we don't know what's going on in the jury room. saying we're encouraged that there's debate in the jury room is not that. it's like a low bar. >> trump did say only mother theresa couldn't beat these charges. >> i don't know who is scripting his stuff, but that was also not great. >> vaughn could tell you no one. >> exactly. that's sort of out of my lane. it is normal in a case to have deliberations. it's normal to have questions that are about the charge. there's the nature of the law. if you have a lawyer on the jury, it's not a criminal

attorney who knows that. so that's normal. it is normal to have readbacks. also normal is it's usually not the whole national media, but trying to tea leaf read, i used to read every note against me. who knows. and again, this is a case that is strong, but any one juror can latch on to something. what the lead prosecutor, his job is giving tools to the jurors that he thinks are on his side to help convince other jurors. that was sort of why he went on so long. that's why he was so detail is that is what he's trying to do. and i actually think it's right that you want jurors to not just all come in and say, he's guilty and come out.

you want discussion. >> it's an interesting window into their paranoia that they thought they would walk in and render a judgment one way or the other. it's such an interesting tale on what is public facing in terms of trump's delusions about the criminal justice system. and i hope that if i have done one thing for five weeks, i have made clear that i know nothing about what this jury experienced, what their notes indicate they are still interested in or unsure about, but the point is neither does he. i know you're just reporting what you're hearing from them, but it seems like there's some genuine pleasant surprise that they haven't rendered a verdict yet. >> reporter: right. especially over the course of the last week. it's not like they have been exuding confidence in saying that donald trump is going to get acquitted. they have been casting doubt over the jury that's been empanelled. they have been casting doubt over the judge. they have been casting doubt over what the prosecution put

into the record as evidence. they have been casting doubt over the witnesses, which donald trump did today, suggesting that the prosecution bring a series of witnesses forward because they were concerned that they were going to refute what the government was presenting to the jury, which was eliminating the fact that donald trump's own defense team could have brought whatever witnesses they wanted to if they so desired. it's sort of a contrast and a reality that's playing out, quite frankly, over the course of this afternoon in the cell phone that donald trump is holding in his hands on his social media account. i'm not going to read you all of them, but one of them, he says, the judge, his unfairness and unconstitutional. all the instructions were very confusing. essentially, liing up what could amount to excuses rather than the promotion of the idea that everybody just wait. i'm going to be acquitted. and this entire prosecution is going to be proven to be a scam

because this jury should be trusted and is going to be part of the evidence my defense team brought forward. >> i was saying that donald or

is that they think it could be a hung jury. they have been talking about that from the beginning, b almost six weeks and came back as a hung jury. that's always there. that's another thing they are thinking may happen. they need one person. i don't think we're going to come back and see 12 people say not guilty. i think we're going to either have a combination of charges all guilty or the hung jury. i think that's one thing. they have been hanging their hat on it for awhile. i want theed to put it in the mix. >> as someone who has your thoughts and your focus and your energy and efforts on november. >> he's behaving like a lunatic.

listening to vaughn read the one thing he said, if this was to volunteer coach of a children's team, you need to take a leave of absence. forget the presidency, but we don't want this person around people if they are going to be sending weird things to judges from a social media account with all caps. the question is that seeping in with anybody? are we seeing any evidence of that? that is what is important about this week from a political standpoint, which is the people that are the most engaged that are watching shows like this and reading the newspaper, joe biden is doing pretty well with themselves. he's winning across all these polls. it's the people least engaged that aren't watching the news, that don't know the judge's name, that are getting littles of this from tiktok. they are still with trump or disproportionately from where they should be. does an actual conviction, does this start to seep down to that

next layer of people. i think that's what the biden campaign is looking at. s that's why robert de niro was out there yesterday. does that group that's less engaged get moved at all by convict trump? >> i think it's important to point out that trump is worried they do. there were republican 2024 primary challengers to trump who had data that suggested it would. and i think if we just deal in the trump side of the ledger his rants or posts or whatever were calling them these days, he certainly thinks they do. >> for sure he's worried about it. he's always playing the long game trying to kick the can. trump is the guy that's been crook for a long time. so i think they do see, if i am convicted, what are we going to

do. there's a great story in "the time" about how he's got these people that have been indicted on stage with them. he's seconding out the picture of his mug shot. so that's his backup plan. he's worried being convicted could hurt him with the voters. if i am convicted, what are we going to do? i'm going to lean into outlaw trump versus the deep state. i don't think that works very well. but maybe it doesn't work with the lower trust younger men that didn't go to college, that have been traditionally democrat. i think that's his backup plan at this point. >> let's go back to the courtroom. vaughn hillyard, we understand trump has just sort of meandered back in. his defense team as well. take me inside.

>> reporter: it's not clear why the prosecution walked into the courtroom here. we're trying to get an understanding because the judge has just walked into the courtroom as well. there's no apparent bell that has gone off here, but trump is also entered the courtroom and is talking with his lead attorney. we are at 4:13 p.m. we talked about how 4:30 was the time court is usually coming to a close, so there could be conversation about whether they will seek to extend the ability to stay here for an extra the 0 minutes. that maybe the conversation that's taking place. >> as you have been talking to us on the air, our network just came in to the reporting that they will be excused in 16 minutes. are you hearing that yet? they are done for the day in about -- the jury will be excused at 4:30 is what we understand. >> reporter: i guess that would be the suggestion that the jury is not ready to issue a verdict

here over the next 17 minutes. and i would be more inclined to hear from andrew to the extent of what this means. are we looking at a friday verdict or beyond that? >> fourth of july? >> it is really true that awaiting a verdict is groundhog day. every day you sort of wake up. i once had a jury out for ten days. i still remember my prosecution team was like why is today different than any other day? soen again, everyone really needs to understand this is right now if there was a verdict one way or the other, i have would have been really surprised. this is really short time. this was a trial. it's a really important trial. they have a laptop with hundreds of exhibits in the jury room.

even if they are just going through that -- >> they just got their sound system set up today. what does that mean that they asked for headphones and the judge gave them speakers? >> they have just like our set. there are these two lap tops in there. and all of the exhibits are loaded on. so everyone can huddle around it and see it, but there was also audio. so the judge was trying to say, we can dpif you headphones, but that's each one of you can put it on. but then all 12 have to go through it and play it. they said we can do that or give you a speaker so you can all hear it. or you can have both. >> it sounds like we're a little behind technologically. >> if you go to this courthouse, it's a wonderful 19th century courthouse, but with justices being done. yes, there are many parts that are old fashioned, but they have

all the information. i'm so old, what do you mean they have a laptop? we used to just wheel in -- i'm older than that. they wheeled in the actual evidence in hard copy. >> what is audio-visual? what will they be listening to? >> you have both a lot of conversations that michael cohen captured that are significant, so we have that, and you also have the audio if they want to listen to it of michael cohen's podcast, where he sounds deranged at times. he's screaming about donald trump and about getting revenge, how he would like to see him go to prison, so you have both the recordings. and you have the podcast. am i missing anything? >> and you have trump on the tapes. and including some of his false denials. >> and the c-span exhibit. it goes back to covering the

campaign. it was the second or third witness was the archivist for c-span that entered into evidence something that vaughn and i covered in realtime, and that was trump to camera talking about how this was going to kill him with women voters. vaughn, what do you make of what they had read back to them this morning and speakers and headphones being supplied to them? >> reporter: right. these are the elements here. sometimes i think when i'm looking at this trial,his trial extract it to the political moment of all of this too. donald trump not only on social media posts today said that ndas are legal. you have a current issue republican nominee who is suggesting that these types of arrangements would be legal. we're five months out from a general election. but this morning when you're going back to the testimony that was read back, these are the conversations that happened at

trump tower in which david pecker and michael cohen are essentially corroborated each other's tail light. in their descriptions of how this conspiracy that's being alleged by the prosecution was initiated. ask that it was the trump and michael cohen that invited david pecker to trump tower for this meeting to help on the campaign side of this, not the other way around. and that it was the suggestion that by david peker that he would be able to be the eyes and ears and would be able to alert michael cohen to these negative stories, and that ultimately what you saw play out months later was an actual execution of this hatched plan. so for the jury, now for the second time, they were able to hear two men's testimony it rate that exact point. now the question is to what extent when you're talking about the underlying crime that's being suggested here, which was the promotion of donald trump's election, which is i think at

the heart of this case. when you're looking at the 2024 election, i think prudent to take into account, because you're talking about somebody who narrowly lost holding on to the white house in 2020 by about 42,000 votes across three states here. so i think every time this is read into the record, i think it's hard not to ignore it through the 2024 lens as well because clearly the jurors ares interested in it. i think the american public at large should be as well. >> the thing about trump is there are no new trump stories. the story of his political terror with women voters is a dynamic, but it's not exactly the same, but it persists. i wonder what you make of sort of not a repeat, but the echoes of 2016 repeated through 2020 andment colting roaring back into the general election conversation in 2024. >> it demonstrates how much this

actual case really could have mattered in 2016. a lot of times that's brushed aside. vaughn talked about 2020 and not to trigger everybody but here's the thing. the actual event here, the alleged event with stormy daniels was in 2006. the payoff was in october of 2016. so ten years later. so that underlines the melania theory that we're trying to hide it from the wife. so if you remember the end of 2016 to the extent that nothing is the same, trump's numbers are doing terrible in early october. then comey letter and trump behaves the last ten days. they put him orphan a leash and doesn't do the -- kind of crazy stuff but not really crazy stuff. the numbers break. if you talk to any smart pollsters, the numbers broke that last weekend. would that have happened if this was the news story of those last two weeks? if the salients of this story

was such the last two weeks? we'll never know. i think it very well could have. i think that speaks to the fact that a lot of times it's easy to dismiss this. he got away with the acts sets is hollywood tape so none of this matters. >> trump thought it mattered dramatically. let me show you what karen mcdougal had to say. this is also something the juries was interested in. the questions around the life rights to mcdougal's story. here she is with anderson cooper. >> i signed the deal august 6th. it was probably august 5th or 4th that we finalized and signed on the 6th. i don't remember whether the race was. >> this is in the last month or two of the presidential race. if donald trump hadn't been running for president, do you believe this deal would have been made with ami? >> probably not. no. probably not. >> you're convinced now thises was an effort to do a favor for

donald trump in the last few months of the presidential race. >> unfortunately, yes. >> so that paired with the testimony from davidson and pecker around a crescendo of sbless in stormy's story, it came up in close where he said what tim said. the sex happened in '06. the payout happened right before election day in 2016. >> you know what the defense is thinking by looking at their summation. the melania defense, which was floated at the beginning, they didn't say it's abandoned, but one of the smart things they dids was not lean into that at the end. it would have been preposterous, let alone she was not in the courtroom. >> she never showed up. >> there were already things that they stretched on. they did not stretch on that. it's overwhelming it's not michael cohen. just go to hope hicks.

she makes it plain. she has out of donald trump's own mouth with no cross on this at all saying thank god this came out afterwards. really? because afterwards melania still knows about it. so he's not thinking about her. and then she broke down and cried because she understood that's the government argued that she understood how devastating it was. >> so we didn't have the exact pages yesterday when we came on the air of exactly, we knew generally. we'll share some of what the jury was read this morning as well as the instructions that were read back to them. we'll keep an eye on what's happening inside courthouse as the jury about six more minutes of duty today and they will be done for the day. the jury is set to wrap day two of deliberations. we'll unpack all of these notes and questions that they have. they had to take notes on what they heard once again.

we'll talk about how that works. plus the false and misleading right wing reports about just what those jurors have been instructed to do have led to a spike in death threats against the judge. we'll look at the republicans who are helping to spread these dangerous lies. we'll ask if anything can be done about it to protect him and other judges. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. inntues after. don't go anywhere. ck, mike's feeling like himself again. but even though time has passed, his risk of a second attack hasn't. mike is still living in the red. with a very high risk of another heart attack or stroke. he doesn't know with his risk factors his ldl-c (bad cholesterol) is still too high - the recommended level is below 55. are you living in the red? get in the know. learn how to get a free ldl-c test at attackheartdisease.com.

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inspire is a sleep apnea treatment that works inside my body with a click of this button. where are you going? i'm going to get inspire. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com. we're back with our panel. let's start with how the jury started its day. they specifically wanted this read back to them.

this was how judge mer shaun told them they could make inferences from the five weeks of testimony. suppose you go to bed one night when it's not raining is and when you wake up and you look out the window and do not see rain, but you see that the street and sidewalk are wet and people are wearing raincoats and carrying umbrellas. it maybe reasonable to infer that is to conclude that it rained during the night. why does that matter? >> that's trying to explain direct evidence and circumstantial evidence. a lot of people think circumstantial evidence is weaker, and it's not. imagine you have michael cohen saying it rained. you might be like i don't really know. i need corroboration of that. i toept know why he would lie about that, but i'd like some corroboration. but if you have this example of a bunch of people are coming in and umbrellas and everyone is wet, it's definitely raining. i don't need a witness to say that. how does that relate? one of the arguments that was

made was not just michael cohen tells you that donald trump knew and there were meetings, but here's one of the arguments he makes. let's just go through all of the reasons that he would have to make sure that donald trump knew and all the reasons why he would just be slitting his own throat if hen didn't tell them and goes through all of that so that's sirge. that's argument and inferences from the evidence. so the judge is trying to make sure the jury understands all of that is something you can consider. you weigh it as you want to, but many times circumstantial evidence, if you have a smart jury, they are foing to be like, yeah, i got it. >> do you think this is a tea leaf that can be read as an indication they are not rumbling on the falsification of business records, but at least someone is wrestling with the underlying crime? >> i'm not biting on that. >> you don't have to. forget it. >> i was thinking about here we

go. >> i'll bring it to the table. they came back so quick ri that they did what reporters and other people do all the time. they were putting a timeline together. that was sort of my gut. they didn't go right to the documents. they could have, who knows. it seems like they were starting with the 2015 meeting at trump tower where it all began. that was sort of my gut. that's where a lot of people do that. it makes sense to start to just unpack it. once you start to put a timeline together too, things that you necessarily didn't see or didn't quite make sense, once you put them in that timeline, things do start to come together. and i think that's maybe what they did. i was thinking that over last night. i thought it felt like it. >> they also become causal because there was an agreement between trump, pecker and cohen as the staffer to take stories that are good for donald trump

and ampify them and kill stories that are bad for him. because this or that, then the story gets bought. and then this was the other thing that they were interested in hearing. this was read back to them this morning. this is a pecker testimony about donald trump calling him while he was meeting with his own investors. question from the prosecutor, where were you when you got this call from donald trump? answer from david pecker. i was at one of my largest investors meeting in new jersey. question from the prosecutor, how did the call come in? pecker, oh, i was making a presentation and an update on our business, and the assistant in the office came into the conference room and said there's a call for you from donald trump. and i left and took the call. question, could you tell us about the conversation with donald trump? pecker, yes, when i got on the phone trump said, i spoke to michael. karen is a nice girl. is it true that a mexican group

is looking to buy her story for $8 million? i said, i don't belief there's a mexican group to buy a story for $8 million. trump said, what do you think i should do? pecker, i said i think you should buy the story and take it off the market. question, so when the subject of karen mcdougal came up, donald trump described her as a nice girl? pecker, yes. this is something that the jury wanted read back to them. it was read back to them this morning in court. this, to me, the tie that i saw between the 2015 trump tower meeting and this call was there are two parts of the plot that trump's hands are on. where the jury heard from from not actually hearing from him as a witness. >> and that david pecker directly told him and urged him to have the story bought so her story would not get out there. because he himself found the story to be credible and

believed it to be true. karen mcdougal was alleging an affair with donald trump the that lasted for about ten months. as part of that testimony, david pecker directly talked about the impact that he believed it would have on the campaign saying, i think it would have been very embarrassing to himself and also to his campaign. again, which hits at the heart of testimony that makes this issue a campaign. a campaign they want want to prove that there was a direct effort by donald trump and michael cohen to suppress these stories out of concern of the election year. and again, when we pull out here, the realities of this story, i think it also the hut at the fact of the prosecution made in closing arguments is that back in 2006 that this alleged affair with stormy daniels took place as well as with karen mcdougal, but the purchasings of these stories didn't happen until ten years later in the weeks before the

2016 election, which was an emphasis right there at the very end of about eight hours of closing statements there. so for the realities of the election that played out, you look at the difference between hillary clinton and donald trump and hofs president, it was about 108,000 votes between three major state here's. for they have this sort of testimony of a long-time friend of 40 years direct liquorlating to the election being a primary concern. >> everything matters. and i think we should dispense with the frame of does it matter? it does matter. everything matters. and trump thinks so. or he wouldn't be acting in a smart former operative, like a lunatic. and the idea that the jury asked what they can infer about a wet sidewalk in the rain, so just that they are rumbling with or one of them was rumbling with

whether or not they could infer obvious things like sex that happens in a relationship and is obviously potentially an election crime. >> somebody like donald trump who doesn't have anything nice to say about anyone, calling someone a nice girl, yeah, i do think that evidence can be pushed forward. going on what we were talking about earlier about 2016, these things are so close. for starters, it doesn't really matter. i'll refer to andrew and susan about whether it could have swung the election. for the legal purposes, it doesn't. but election purposes, it could have. they all believed that it could have. and i think that that is like the critical element here. that's also true projecting forward. we hear this so much from people at tables like this, donald trump got away with the grab her

by the you know what tape. there's no way this thing with e. jean carroll is going to matter. we don't know. especially if you listen to voters, and you listen to going back to the key voters here, the ones that aren't following this stuff closely, you'd be shocked at the stuff they don't know. and we're going into these key states, you're talking about just one demographic, working class white women that donald trump did way better with and joe biden did a little better in 2020. that was very important. might you do a little better with them even still once they are educated about roe, once they are educated about the real truth in the stormy daniels story when he pressured her into sex. once he's a convicted felon, it could matter. it could have mattered in 2016. >> the civil trial as well. >> we have some breaking news toing bring you. i don't want to be hyperbolic, but the jury sent a note.

there's a verdict. what do we know? >> reporter: there's a verdict. a note that was sent is at 4:20 p.m. eastern that was 17 minutes ago. we have a verdict in the criminal trial of donald trump. the jury has been asked for 30 minutes to fill out the juror forl. they would like an extra 30 minutes to fill out that form. that's what we know from inside this courthouse in lower manhattan. >> another historic day in these united states of america. the first ever jury to sit and render a judgment in the first ever criminal trial of an american ex-president has done its civic duty. they have done what they were asked to do. they have served. they listened to 22 witnesses. they asked for some very specific chunks of testimony read back to them. they asked for the instructions read back to them. and they have rendered a verdict on whether or not donald trump

is guilty on these 34 criminal counts. >> so one thing i think that's really important because donald trump has spent so much time denigrating the media, the tpt of justice, the state prosecutors, anybody who stands in his way, it's really important because right now, no one knows what the verdict is. and this trial, everyone who has been in the courtroom has been incredibly fair. and it's really important for people to know. one side or the other is going to be disappointed that the judge has been spectacular in the face of pressures that nobody should face. there have been really good lawyers on both sides. that's not something that we have said in all of donald trump's cases. and so in terms of just the criminal justice system, i think that everyone can look at this and be proud of the fact that the american system has worked. >> i will do what i always do.

both sides haven't respected the incredible respect that the judge showed for both sides. and i think i would be remissed if i didn't tell our viewers that our the death threats he faces

today. so i still believe we live in a country where one side will republic the result, whatever it is, the rule of law coalition in america will see what you just articulated. that one individual, the judge, whose daughter was threatened before day one of the trial and who was smeared every day by trump's surrogates in red ties for reasons that still haven't been explained to me, that both sides were treated fairly. but both sides didn't respect the rule of law equally. >> that's absolutely right. it's not just surrogates. it's donald trump. the former leader of america is someone who sat at the top of the justice system, who makes his political bones out of running as an outlaw.

the idea that this judge put all of that aside ands it is a testament to him, but also the system. >> tell me what's happening now. what is this process? what do these 30 minutes to fill out a jury form, what's happening? >> they are making sure that the form is correct. there are 34 counts. so it is 34 verdicts. and we don't know, and people shouldn't assume just because let's say the first -- let's say the first count is an acquittal. that doesn't mean it's an acquittal across the board because people think it's all the same. it's not. there are checks that donald trump signed. there are checks that he didn't sign. there's one way they could split. so you have to sort of wait. it's going to be a little nerve racking that they make sure that is done. the judge will make sure when he ultimately gets the form, he

will make sure it's filled out correctly. i also think there's a security process that's going on right now. the court-martials and here also secret service is making sure that everything is locked down. meaning that the public is where they need to be, the courtrooms are secure, this happens in every trial there's a certain amount of that where you have a defendant where you're not sure what they will do or what family members do or how people might react in the public. they want to make sure all of that is in place. so that's all of what is going on right now. >> who right now knows the verdict? does the judge know it yet? >> the judge is unlikely to know that right now. it really shouldn't be anyone who knows. they send out a note that just says we have reached a verdict. that's all they are supposed to

do. and in a normal case then, the first person who would know would be the judge who sees it. then the clerk sees it. here because of security, there maybe somebody who knows beforehand. >> let me -- if you're just joining us, the jury in the first ever criminal trial of an american ex-president has reached a verdict. we do not know what that verdict is. this andrew weisman is saying at this moment at 4:42, it's possible that nobody outside of the 12 jurors themselves knows what the verdict is. what's happening right now is a 30-minute period in which the form is filled out, which means that on each of those 34 felony counts, the verdict on each one of them is being entered into the form. so that when it is read out, it will be methodical. it will be on each one. let's talk about what that form looks like. these exhibits, the paper that came up in closing, it was the

checks, it was the vouchers, and it was the invoices. >> absolutely. and that's where obviously the jury could acquit on all, they could convict on all, but they can also be -- by the way, there's not a hung jury. we know that they have actually reached one or the other as to each count. so obviously, i said you could have a full acquittal, a full conviction, but you could also have the jury saying the checks that donald trump signed, that we find that -- it's too unbelievable that he did not know. so we find guilt there, but the ones that his sons signed, we're going to cut him a break on that. we had had doubt there. that's a better way to phrase it. so you could end up with that combination. >> your thoughts? >> i'm just thinking about the security. it's not just inside the

courthouse. we do have secret service involved at the courthouse. but outside there's been protesters down there. there's always been efforts prior to the verdict to secure that afternoon area. you're going to see heightened security at trump tower. we don't know when we're going to hear the verdict, but the city police need sol time to mobilize. >> my friend and colleague ari melber has set is theed in. are you all hooked up and ready? >> the wisdom is as we have been hearing that there's not a hung jury. we're going to live this together. we're going to follow it carefully and closely, as you have mentioned. but we know what the counts are. we're ready. >> why don't you go through those? >> we have 34 counts. it's all part of one alleged transaction. one scheme that we have been

covering, but the 34 counts are based on three buckets. invoices, vouchers, and checks. >> let me just ask the control room if we have that exhibit. i believe they showed it in closing arguments. it was a visual aid. >> my old eyes can't see your piece of paper. if we can just work on -- there we go. there it is. >> that's what they went through. >> they are going through this. i will say to viewers, we'll leave this up. this looks a bit more kbi indicated than it really is. lawyers do that sometimes. but the reason they did this is consistent with the theory the da presented. they argued this was not a one off. this was not a confusion. this was not a busy day on the campaign trail. there was an allegedly orchestrated long-term, long running conspiracy. that's the term, and that's why it involved checks signed by the defendant, vouchers and invoices

filled out by others. but they argued urging and encouragement of of the defendant. so again, the verdict means that we're going to learn this soon. this is one of those moments we buckle up for. we're going to learn whether the jury found a verdict that this was a conspiracy, guilty, or this was not a conspiracy, not guilty. one or more counts, all we can say is what they have said. they have returned to the judge that they have a verdict. so they think they have that on a bunch of the counts. >> i know you dedicated your program last night to the four jury notes and the instruction that the jury had read back to them today. i love that this judge spoke to them in terms that anyone can understand. i have covered this. i was once on a jury. and i love that they wanted to hear that instruction that even if you didn't see it rain f you

wake up and the sidewalk is wet, you can infer it rained. what did your sort of spidey sense say to you that might have indicated? >> it was so striking because these jury instructions when you read them, they are the keend of thing that can make you have faith again. if 12 people reason together and so these instructions have the boilerplate of typical instructions and then specifics. >> i just want to note something that is interesting on tv. which is the jury note was not just we have reached a verdict. it said we would like an extra 30 minutes to fill out the forms of that be possible. again, i could be totally wrong. i want to caution this, but if it was a flat out acquittal the, and this was not a split verdict, it's hard to see why you need 30 minutes. either way. if you go back to the form,

let's put the form back up. i think it could explain. this is educated speculation. if you see at the bottom left where it says donald trump and on the right it says donald trump personal account. so the personal account is where donald trump is signing things himself. and so one of the things that always seemed logical to me if a juror was thinking where is there possible doubt, you're thinking what would take 30 minutes to make sure we are just going to be looking at the counts where donald trump signed. and we're going to look at the checks and the invoices. remember, the invoice comes with the check. he signs. those are the counts you're going to convict on. you have to be very careful. it means you're not going to convict, let's say, on the dropdown menu, which we heard a

lot about. so i'm just trying to understand the part that said we need 30 minutes. i think state has to be pleased with that. the other thing is i can say as a former prosecutor, one conviction is going to be viewed by them as a huge victory. this is not -- donald trump might be able to say 1 out of 34, let's assume, is a prosecun victory. >> let me just -- for anyone just joining us. the jury in the first ever criminal trial of an american ex-president has reached a verdict. we do not know what the verdict is. we do not know if anyone, other than the jury knows what that verdict is. we imagine in short order, as soon as they're done filling out the jury form, the judge will know. the decision will be public soon enough. and then we will live in a country, ari melber worried,

that it's possible that the presumptive nominee, it's possible, will have been convicted of at least one felony crime. >> that's exactly right, and any felony conviction today, if it happens is a huge deal. and if he's not guilty, acquitted of all 34, we're in an interregnum waiting to hear from the jury, we're going to have an answer, based on what the jury said, that they have a verdict, that's the idea of a gray is zone, or question mark, who knows, is over. we spoke on this very broadcast, you mentioned the possibility of a hung jury. sometimes, that's what defense lawyers play for. we have now learned, breaking news, no hung jury. so we're going to get a clear answer. and it's very hard, i think, to take a felony conviction, on any count, as anything other than a very serious outcome in this

jury. likewise, we don't know what it's going to be, if he was acquitted on all 34 counts that would be a big deal. we're now in the clarity that we didn't know ten minutes ago, from the last weeks of this trial, weeks of this process, there's going to be a unanimous verdict on some if not all counts. >> i think on all counts. if it's a partial verdict, in other words, they only have on some, they would have had to have said that, they would have said, we actually can't reach a verdict. i actually think one of the things that's remarkable, going into this, all of us are saying how are you going to avoid some holdout juror, on one side or the other. but what's interesting here is that you do have all 12 agreeing on whatever the verdict is. and my biggest concern going into this was that holdup. >> let me just do a little bit of playing the monitor of the clock, that's my only value today. it has been 30 minutes since the

jury sent a note saying that it needed 30 minutes to fill out the form. i'm guessing if they needed 35 or 37, the judge would certainly give it to them. what they said they needed was 30 minutes. it's been 30 minutes. d.a. alvin bragg has entered the courtroom, as well as his team of prosecutors. we've come to know a lot of them by name, joshua stinebaugh with the closing argument. we've come to know, i think,s earnestness through the transcripts that we've all read. we've come to know the president's legal team as well, through their aggressive efforts of defending their client donald trump. do we still have vaughn hillyard with us outside the courthouse. >> reporter: hey, nicolle. >> what are you hearing my friend. >> reporter: of course, he's been staying midtown manhattan, 3 1/2 miles north of ear,

instead of staying in mar-a-lago where he's been residing. this has been a daily routine for six straight weeks. for donald trump this is a moment, you could say, eight years in the making. if you take a step back here, this was not known to the american public before the election. an election that came down to 800 votes between two battleground states. the difference between donald trump and hillary clinton being the president. when you look at this, a story that didn't become public until january 18th in "the wall street journal." with this arrangement with stormy daniels and donald trump. he was in the white house. he denied of the arrangement. it wasn't until months later, michael cohen flipped on him, to the public american, that he was directed to go forward with the scheme before the 2016 election. that very man donald trump is now the presumptive nominee here

in 2024. i think when we wait to see what this verdict is minutes from now i think it will tell you a a lot about the current nominee for president and that is because there are restrictions how much corporations can contribute to political campaigns. there are restrictions on what a campaign and candidate can do. and the question was, was there ever going to be a moment of reckoning, a moment of justice, for the actions that donald trump allegedly took. it's going to be these 12 new yorkers that are going to determine that moments from now. >> it's such an important, i think, widening of the arc of this, vaughn hillyard. and for you and i who covered the political side of this, it was a political car crash that rolled out in slow motion, with donald trump standing on the most elegant airplane in the world, air force one and saying, oh, you should ask michael cohen about that. rudy giuliani on sean hannity's program saying, well, the money was funneled through a law firm to michael cohen.

these quasiconfessions, or elements of it. even as the trial wound its way through 22 witnesses, donald trump talking up to today how good his mbas. we have the story of donald trump the candidate in 2016 didn't want the american voters to know that. it is the only criminal trial where the substance of what he's charged with is not part of a stump speech. i say that because the insurrection, and the insurrectionists are woven into the fabric of his candidacy for president for 2024. they let you take stuff. this case and these facts, stormy daniels, david pecker or keith davidson, these are not names or acts that enter into his political message, even into his very own base of supporters. >> and he has given broad

denials about the events that unfolded. he said that it was a photo op that he had with stormy daniels, but that he never had a sexual encounter with her. despite her testifying to this jury that they met multiple times thereafter, including at trump tower. and it was the stormy daniels that many was corroborated by michael cohen. and donald trump had the opportunity, not just make a public denial, but go under oath for this jury and provide his part of the story, he chose not to. instead, he stayed as a defendant and allowed his defense team to call just two witnesses forward, making the conscious decision to allow his team to do the work, and for him, not to go speak before the jury, it was a decision that we know that donald trump did not take lightly. he had said at the out set of this trial that he intended to take the stand but when the moment came, he chose not to. and now it's going to be the fate of his that is going to be

lying with these 12 jurors, new yorkers. grew up here, fred trump started the trump organization, all of these years later, it's now here in lower manhattan where the district attorney brought the indictment of felony counts and left it to new yorkers to determine his guilt. >> ari, what is happening now? >> yeah, i just got a little bit of information, we got a team of reporters in the courtroom. first of all, i want people to know donald trump was in the courtroom when this news came in. we were expecting initially that they may let the jury go. he is now still in the courtroom. apparently, he largely has his eyes closed as he has through most of the proceedings and eric trump is seated behind him. and i think there's plans after the verdict is announced for him to speak outside the courtroom. >> ari, you tell me what you're going to see? what are we going to see when

the verdict comes in? >> yeah, we're tracking it, we have people in the courtroom and overflow room. it's not an exaggeration to say the eyes of the nation and the world are on this new york courtroom. i remind folks that we don't get access to folks. they have eyes on the judge. the jury -- their identities are anonymous. but we see them. if you're in the courtroom, you definitely see them. so this jury is going to file in, having filled out the form, we expect the foreperson to read it off. so we will get in time, and it might be halting, it might be, one, two, a pause, it's going to take time. it's going to take as long as it takes. but they're going to read out what the foreperson reflects is the unanimous decision of the jury on those counts. quite frequently, we would see a judge after that poll to make sure everyone agrees which again is done for the record. it's not that we expect anything

to depart on that. no one has spoken for the matter of that significance with regard to that. what that would sound like is us reading out in realtime, tracking with our team, to tell folks on air and off to work with a lot of people, a team effort to track each count as it comes in. again, as say guide, there are cases that andrew and i can discuss which are more complicated where you have, for example, a bunch of misdemeanors and felonies that you're tracking. this is really an all in one. as i said, in fairness to the defendant, if it's acquittal across the board, that's a big deal. if it's conviction on some counts, this is not what is reported right now, if you get acquittal, that's acquittal. and if you get a conviction, then you have a felony conviction on one or more counts. >> i just want to warn people that because the tea leaf reading is that this could easily be what's called a mixed verdict, some acquittals -- >> court is in session.

merchan is on the bench. go ahead. >> i was going to say, eel, the counts that they acquit on could be the first one so people can -- >> take a breath and listen? >> exactly. >> the jury is now entering the courthouse. vaughn hillyard, do we know anything? >> reporter: todd blanche has been covering up his mouth here. judge merchan is back in court. officially in session. the jury is now officially entering the courtroom. >> we are, as ari melber just said, the eyes -- it's not an overstatement to say the eyes of the world. we've had an opportunity to interview the foreign journalists over the last five weeks, susanne craig, all of my colleagues have made their way down to this line, to stand, to have the privilege to be inside, to hear the action. the jury has done its part.

they asked for four specific pieces of testimony right back to them. they wanted some clarification on the instructions given to them by judge juan merchan. they entered a verdict and asked for 30 minutes to fill out the form. andrew weissmann, tell me about your paper, you got 34 lines. i can't even get into my computer. rachel maddow is here. are you ready? >> i'm ready. >> what are you thinking? >> well, this is an important moment, and we don't know, and we're about to know. i just think for those of us with the privilege of covering this story, this verdict is, just take a breath, right? we are a democracy, this is a government by and for the people. that means everybody is subject to the rule of law. and we're about to see that in action. what are these jurors decided

they are are peers of donald trump as citizens. and they have followed an impeccable process. and if there's anything that isn't impeccable about this process, he will have full access to the appeals process. this is a moment of democratic reset as a country. a process is happening here because we are a democracy because the rule of law applies to all of us. as a defendant, he has benefited from the protection that's all defendants have. and this is a sober thing. some people will dance in the streets no matter what the ruling is. those of us in the press covering this, will not, no matter what it is. we have a responsibility to cover this fairly. but i think we also have the responsibility of citizens to just realize the gravity of this moment. >> i think it's important, too, to nod to what judge juan merchan has accomplished. regardless of what the jury has landed on. what judge merchan was able to do, in the face of threats, the

story that we were going to cover, before we learned that the jury had sent a note for the verdict was a story of death threats he's receiving. before day one of testimony, his daughter was targeted. every day, trump had surrogates there in red ties trying to threaten what you're describing the rule of law. >> uh-huh. >> and i think it should not be minimized that this trial was fair. that judge merchan sometimes objected on the part of the defense. >> absolutely. >> particularly during stormy daniels' testimony and sustained his own objections however that works made by the defense. but to rachel's point about fairness, that was clearly the ethos that this judge brought to this courtroom. >> brought that ethos and managed what is an unusual defendant, legally unusual, because we've never had a former president be in a situation where there was enough evidence to indict and try them.

programatically or sty stylistically, because he did violate the order. with time, rather than conflict. >> everyone is poking me. what have we got? what have we got? the alternate jurors can entered. from jenna bombwich for "the new york times". >> what are you hearing? >> it's about to happen. it's remarkable. i was just going to comment on the judge how fair he has been and how tough he has been on donald trump directly with the issues about the gag order and how firm he's been. i think it did shut a lot at the end, it didn't shut everything down. i just had a lot of respect in the courtroom, watching that judge day in and day out just how even he was. >> just what he guarded against for histrionics. his most intense display of emotion was when donald trump's

attorney said you can't send donald trump to prison based on michael cohen. and he really tried to preserve the letter of the law, the sanctity of the law, and to minimize melodrama. >> and the antics when the one witness that they did call come up, costello. and was giving him side-eye. >> side-eye. >> and sighing. >> staring him down. to the viewers, i'll tell you everything i know, for our colleagues sitting in the overflow room, there's a screen, that's where they see an image of judge merchan and the jury as ari is saying, donald trump and his attorneys and prosecutors. that screen is still in standby mode which means -- we've got a verdict. >> we are looking at count one, guilt. count two, guilty. count three, guilty.

count four, guilty. count five, guilty. those are the first counts finding donald j. trump guilty on the first felony counts. getting the rest getting it from the court reporters. >> count six. >> count six, guilty. count seven, guilty, count eight, guilty, count nine, guilty, count 11, guilty, count 12, guilty, count 13, guilty, count 14 did guilty. count 14, guilty, count 15, guilty, count 16, guilty. count 17, guilty, count 18, guilty. count 19 guilty, count 20 guilty. count 21 guilty.

count 22, guilty. count 23, guilty. count 24 guilty. count 25, guilty. count 26 guilty. count 27, guilty. count 28, guilty. 29, guilty, 30, guilty, 31, guilty, 32 guilty, 33 guilty. 34 guilty. all counts. >> rachel. >> listen, this is unanimous on all counts. this is a definitive and this is an irreversible verdict. he can appeal. i'm sure he will appeal. but this is everything that the prosecution asked for, from a jury that by all counts took this thing very, very seriously. we counted the deliberation hours down here. the test here for us, as a country, is not about what

happens on appeal. and is not about what happens on sentencing. the test for us now as a count is whether or not this former president and his allies will have succeeded in trying to undermine the rule of law so that people reject this as a legitimate function of the rule of law in our country. they have tried to delegitimize this judge. they have tried to delegitimize the court and delegitimize the laws that he's charged under. the people involved in bringing this case have been threatened and intimidated and have everything brought to bear against them in a way that was designed to delegitimize the process of the american people. it's now in the hands the american people to decide if we'll accept those efforts. >> well, a wise woman said a few mondays ago that the rule of law is mortal. it needs to be protected.

it isn't an abstract thing. and today, the people have names that we've come to know, their joshua stein baugh and alvin bragg. >> we know what it is to put a former president on trial and see that trial to fruition. that is something that was hypothetical before we ever had this guy as a former president. but now, we have lived through it, and we know that the court process can work. a defendant who is a former president can be tried. again, the appeals process will go on. the sentencing process will go on and those will all be pressure points. but the legal system in this country treats any former president as any citizen. we've seen that. this jury deserves to be thanked for their efforts and to be protected. to be protected from the kinds of attacks and incriminalation

of the process. >> let me just tell folks what happened, what ari said, or has said happened. judge merchan went from juror to juror, they all concurred that donald trump is guilty on all 34 felonies. and they've been thanked for their service, ari. >> yeah, what you just reported and what rachel reminded us is actually existing in the trial. that is legally something that the defense counsel says, do you want to ask, they almost say yes. from looking at the notes from the reporters seeing looking at the jury watching them as their individually polled but this is as rachel reminded us, someone who has been held in contempt for other witnesses in the system. i would call that a fairly intense moment. good for the jury, good for the

system to go through it. our reporters also telling us that while trump has rarely shown emotion or changed his demeanor throughout the trial, right now, he's only looking down. eric trump reportedly looking upset. that's the scene in the room as they go through it. >> when you say poll the jury, you mean individually, jurors by number will be asked is this your verdict. >> yes. >> and they each have to answer out loud and say yes? >> yes. >> it's a scary moment for the jury. >> you said something so important, the system worked. we said while awaiting this, this works not because of the result, but the process. if it were an acquittal, we're discussing if that went forward. this is that system, and the judges and bailiffs are there to protect them in a physical sense as needed. but what we are hearing is that this jury heard the evidence. asked the questions, we know

some of what was on their minds. we haven't heard from them, other than the verdict, and now are confirming this is a unanimous verdict. it's a matter of transparency that everyone sees each of them confirm what was officialized today, that donald trump is guilty. that all 12 jurors unanimously reached that decision through reasoning with each other. >> andrew. >> just to rachel's point, there is something in every trial when the jury is polled that is sort of magical and fundamental to this country where the jurors, each one stands up and counts as a citizen. these are people who have everyday lives, they didn't ask to be here. that moment, when this is what the country stands for. this is what the rule of law means. and jurors take it so seriously. and yes, it can be scary because of it, you know what, they did their job. and i think that this is a

testament to our joining so many other democracies in the international community who have managed to hold political leaders to account. and we have shown that we can do that as well, in a fair process, where the defendant got extremely good counsel. had incredibly fair process from this judge, in spite of his attacking the witnesses, the jury, the judge's family, the jurors, everybody did their job. and finally, on a small bore, alvin bragg both personally was attacked, he was vilified to saying no to this case when they first took office and people said, how can he do that. after he said, it wasn't ready. and this is a real vindication for him that he said i'm going to bring it when it is ready and if it is ready. and he brought it, and it's a

real testament that he said, yes, now this case can be brought. >> yeah. >> and he did. i think everyone understood from the moment david pecker took that stand, i think a lot of people, including myself, re-evaluated this case and said, you know, i understand, this is not just about hush money. this about is fundamentally changing the 2016 election. that was the goal here. and clearly, the jurors believed that. >> mostly i'm just now thinking of the e. jean carroll case where at the end, the judge told the jurors that case is and forget that you're here. and you're no longer barred from discussing it. he's actually asked to discuss their work, not to discuss the case, but to discuss their work. so we don't know what time these jurors are going to get out the building tonight. he's going to sit down with

them. then i imagine, they're going to hear from pretty much every reporter covering this, hundreds of reporters will descend on them trying to get them to talk about the workings of that jury room. >> is vaughn hillyard still wh us? >> reporter: hi, nicolle. we're five months from the november election. we talked about what a guilty verdict could mean. donald trump has repeatedly called november 5 the most important day in american history. that is election day coming up. for him, this only increases the stakes. number one, these are state charges here. we do not know what the sentence will be, if there will be a fine, probation, or whether he will be facing a jail time. that is the determination of judge merchan. and when you look at the election, and of course, the expectation is if you were in the white house, with that prison sentence, if he were to

get one, would he be suspended or whatever, the punishment is here. donald trump has sent out fundraising to his supporters that they're going to be thrown in jail here in new york. for him, he has every intention of using this to his political advantage to the extent he can. but i think the first statement from many of his family members since the verdict is issued that is an example here. that would be don junior, who is not here at the courthouse today. he was here ahead. eric trump is inside the courtroom, and still is. i would like to read don junior's tweet. quote, guilty on all counts. democrats have succeeded in turning america into a third world expletive. november 5 is the last chance to say that, i read that, november 5 is the last chance to say that because donald trump himself on the campaign trail has repeatedly said that the end of america is near if they do not

take back the white house. they say donald trump the defendant has been seated inside of that courtroom, stoic, stone-faced, he looked at each of the jurors as they walked out. all 12 of those new yorkers as they walked out of the courtroom. this is someone still seated in a straightforward position, understanding the political stakes that he's guilty of all 34 counts here. >> vaughn hillyard, there was a point where chris christie and others had polling data suggested that a conviction would change the dynamic in a republican primary. donald trump seemed to in his reptilian political skill set, i say that as a compliment, actually, understand that and to that, he is now what was hoping to never be, a convicted felon. his lawyers are in there making

a last gasp effort, todd blanche has moved for an acquittal rejected by judge juan merchan. so he has a date, as you just said, for a sentencing which is july 11th at 10:00 a.m. your thoughts on -- we've all adapted -- our brains have these adaptive skills to adapt to our politics, even though they're perverted and distorted. before we adapt to too much, we will be covering the first ever convicted felon as the republican nominee. how does that change things? >> reporter: number one, nicolle, if sigh may, july 11th, 2024 is a thursday. four days later is the beginning of the republican national convention in milwaukee, wisconsin. so donald trump will be entering that milwaukee arena with some form of sentence. donald trump is now walking to the microphone. he's not coming to trump tower,

but i'll step out of the way for him right now. >> this was a disgrace. this is a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who is corrupt. a rigged trial, a disgrace. they wouldn't give us a venue change. we were at 5%, or 6% in this district in this area. this is a rigged disgraceful trial. the real verdict is going to be november 5th by the people. and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here. you have the d.a., the whole thing, we didn't do a thing wrong. i'm a very innocent man. it's okay, i'm fighting for our country, i'm fighting for our constitution. our whole country is being rigged now. this was done by the biden administration in order to move

or hurt an opponent, a political opponent. and i think it's just a disgrace. and we'll keep fighting, we'll fight to the end and we'll win. because our country has gone to hell. we don't have the same country anymore. we have a divided mess. with a nation, millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists. and they're taking over our country. we have a country that's in big trouble. but this was a rigged decision, right from day one. with a conflicted judge who should never have been allowed to try this case, never. and we will fight for our constitution. thank you very much. >> first after former american president to become a convicted felon, talking about terrorists and people from mental institutions coming into our country. donald trump using the same exact word that he used to

explain his defeat in the 2020 presidential campaign. he called that a, quote, rigged election. he called this a, quote, rigged trial. his beef, andrew, was there was no venue change and he had to be tried in a place where, quote, we are at 5%. so to rachel's point, he possesses such a perverted rule of law, his belief is if he were in a place where he wasn't at, quote, 5% political he would have a different outcome. >> well, i think it's a political act of accepting that people act out of principle and don't act out of self-interest. and jurors can't be trusted unless they're maga republicans. that is essentially what he's saying, that the jury of my peers has to be people who voted for me. that has been rejected, you know, when i was on the mueller

team, the constant refrain was you don't want to be in d.c. we don't want a black juror. white venue with republicans. that was rejected in water watergate, that was rejected in mueller. that is not how the justice system works it's so defunct of citizens, people that is the way the system works. you can't just say these are judges who did this. these are people from the community who made this choice. i also think -- well, donald trump doesn't have the -- isn't required to have testified in the courtroom. but when he comes out and says things are rigged, and that is now in a political arena, the answer to him in the political arena is, you know what, you could have taken the stand and you wanted them to hear your voice, take the freaking stand. you didn't testify in

impeachment one and impeachment two. you could have testified in the e. jean carroll case, you could have testified here, you could have done all of that. so don't tell me about is this being a rigged process when you didn't stand up and refute michael cohen. >> you don't get worked up by many things, but this assault, the smear against the rule of law gets to you like nothing else. >> well, i spent 21 years in the justice department. >> and with the mueller probe. >> absolutely. but just to be clear, the attack on the rule of law is also something you have seen, which is the attack on journalism, this is all a piece that is undermining our institutions and then flipping the script to say that somehow this is the nation in decline. no one can be happy today, but this is a day of seeing the rule of law. i think rachel has at the totally right that this really about our democracy in a shining

moment, led by a really eminent, wonderful judge who was completely dispassionate. as we said before the verdict, this was a fair process so you have to live with it. and that is, i think, bringing our country into the modern era. i mean, there are so many countries, england, france, italy, israel, argentina, that have done all of this. and they've done it much better than we have. and, you know, we think of ourselves as this first world country that is a shining, you know, beacon on the hill. today is an example of that. >> all right. >> nicolle, we just heard the now convicted defendant, donald trump, attack this process. he has a free speech right to share his views on it. but then he said something false, he said the real verdict will come with the election. that's actually not how the system works.

that's not what the constitution case. political votes in elections do not veto or override the justice system. so, again, the way this is going to happen, a lot of things are going to continue to get more real for him, because he's now a defendant convicted. he's afforded his rights. he may appeal. but he's been convicted of 34 felony counts in the state of new york. and july, we just learned, will be the sentencing. they can file sentences over that far and argue over that. this is the kind of conviction that sometimes can carry a prison term and sometimes not. this is not a rare prosecution in new york state. there have been hundreds of this kind of case in the last two years. and thousands, if you let the time run longer, and the d.a.'s office has furnished that information. so like other cases, there will be a legal process to determine whether the prosecutors are asking or whether the judge sees it necessary to impose a

incarceration process. >> will the judge have the motions on that? >> yes. the final discussion today, after the jury was polled and after the trump defense team threw out kind of a legally frivolous request, hey, would you override the jury and have acquittal? and the judge said, no. that's an appeals process that they point back to. after that, the judge did ask, this goes to what i was reporting what is the quote, current bail status? because there are other situations where you would request a bail status or even to hold the person. and the prosecutor said, there is no bail, they're not even going down the road in the courtroom and the judge left. when he said, oh, defendant, now

convict trump will go through this process, the real verdict comes later -- that's false. the real verdict just came today. and the public, the society, we have to take that in. and if you agree or disagree is not the test. it's the rule of law and we'll follow this until july. it may be that people disagree with sentencing and other things that come down but the real verdict has come and the real process will continue and he is, as a citizen, a party to that. >> can i just say also, that seeing those remarks from trump live in the hallway, obviously, the circumstances are now different. he's now ever the first former president to be convicted of crimes. he's now a different type of figure in history than he was half an hour ago, and yet, he walks up to the camera and says all of the same stuff that he's been saying all this time. he's like a chatty kathy doll,

you pull the string and the words come out, preprogrammed. his saying it was rigged, he was saying it was rigged before the jury came in. >> before the jury was pictured. >> before the jury was picked. he said the jury was rigged before the 2016 election. nothing about this is going to change him but he and his supporters are trying to change us as a country by delegitimizing the legal system of the united states of america because it has found donald trump guilty. because the legal system indicted him, because he was put on trial, because he's been found guilty. they have been using that as their excuse to try to not just upend the legal system, but to get rid of it, to make americans believe that it shouldn't be followed. so the tests here, yes, individual test as bound.

the jury process is a test. appellate process is a test. and adversarial process. but the test starts right now, does the united states of america have a legal system that is binding on all citizens? do we accept it? do we protect the people who enact it? there are human beings, on every step of this process insure flesh and blood and who have family members and who are susceptible to threat and injury. do we protect them? do we protect james and alvin bragg and this judge and his family? do we protect the witness? do we protect jack smith? do we protect judge cannon? do we make sure people in charge of enacting this for citizens and on donald trump, do we make sure they do this without favor

and threat? and we have failed on that so far. we need to step up our protections to the human beings tonight in response to this verdict. >> rachel, i think we have an answer to the swath of the country, right? trump has run against this judge. trump -- i have to say, we don't know because he wasn't acquitted. had he been acquitted, you can imagine, back to the end of the bill barr probe and mueller and the findings. he went to the general attack of the russia hoax, but he didn't indict the entire process because he felt that it exonerated him. i mean, i think we have our answer that 30% of the country won't protect those people. >> right. >> and i think that what we have to stare at the -- i feel like i'm making too many trump references here, i'm thinking about the eclipse, what we have to stare at and it's hard and

damaged, shane austin and ruby freeman, that's their model, it's what they sought to do to jack smith, to anthony fauci. they have a playbook. and the tweets aren't just stupid burps of trump. they're orders. don't take my word for it, ask the proud boys. ask the people who went to the capitol january 6. people follow his orders and to quote him, this was a disgrace. we didn't get a venue change. we're at 5% in this district -- i don't know what he meant. he said i'm an innocent man. this was a biden administration prosecution. our country has gone to hell. we are a nation in decline. there are terrorists and people from mental institutions flooding in. we have our answer on what 30% of the country looks at. >> and the vision what he's offering you, we're in a nation

in decline, we're a nation in disgrace, we are a nation with no rule of law. he said the trial was rigged, this country is rigged. that's the vision. if the rule of law and court orders and judge are delegitimized what do we have. to reject the legal process, as rigged, as illegitimate, as nonconstitutional what do we have when those things are not respected by the population? what's next? we all know the answer to this and it's never been clearer than today. but the rule of law exists in this country. it came to this verdict today. and, you know, at this point, again, thank you to the jurors. thank you to this judge. thank you to all the court security officers and the witnesses and who, they and their family members, had to walk into the belly of the beast

to do this. but this is the system working in a fair way, first to descend on us unlike any other. >> lawrence o'donnell has been down at the courthouse, almost every single day. lawrence, your thoughts. >> you know, at this time, i'm thinking about that jury that i spent so much time thinking about in that courtroom. and i have different angles on them at different times. as you know there was no seat in that courtroom where you could have a good view of them at the same time. but it's what you do during a criminal trial, especially during a criminal trial, is look at that jury and wonder, is there one, is there one who will hang up this jury and defy the will of this jury? is there a unanimous possibility for not guilty? is there a unanimous possibility for guilty? and what i felt from the first day of watching that jury was real respect for the way they approached their work,

literally, from the second they walked in the door. because when they walked across that courtroom, they all made sure of one thing. they were very careful about this, i think more careful than they would have been in any other case, they made sure they didn't look at anyone. they didn't look at the defense table. they didn't look at the prosecution table. they didn't even look at the judge. they just kept themselves facing straight ahead, as if they're on this dedicated mission which he were on. and for which will they took an oath. and we saw that oath in action today. we saw them come together as a jury unanimously. and i'm going to say what i would have said, no matter what the outcome of this jury was, and that is, that i respect this jury and how they went about their work. the fact that i personally agree with their reading of the evidence is a good feeling. but my respect for them would be undiminished by any outcome that they arrived at.

because i saw them work. i saw their seriousness. i saw them never once losing a bit of attention for anything that was going on in front of them, no matter how long you put up a call log of dozens of phone calls that seemed to lead to nowhere. they were on it. and they never turned away. and they gave every lawyer on every side, 100% of their attention whenever that lawyer was up and asking the questions. and they gave every witness 100% of their attention. and so, this is a verdict that was arrived at with the utmost seriousness on the part of that jury. and let me just correct donald trump on the manhattan numbers. he got 15% of the vote in the room. on the island where he spent most of his life, okay, 15%. >> lawrence, can you stick around with us on the phone, i have a question, i want to do two more things, i want to tell

our juries, most of us are not going anywhere. you'll be seeing our faces throughout the evening. we will have the first interview with michael cohen, one of the witnesses, that rachel was just talking about who was relentlessly attacked. michael has fears and concerns for his own safety because of the attacks against them on the part of donald trump. we'll have the first chance to talk to him after the verdict. we also will have a chance to talk to our colleague lisin reuben inside the room for the historic moment, lisa. >> reporter: hi, nicolle, that was something to behold. when trump and todd blanch came into the courtroom at 4:15 summed by judge merchan. they were in high spirits. trump and blanche shoulder to shoulder, whispering conspiracy

like the vote themselves. a foreperson chosen by new york law, not by his peers. when he gave the verdict, he was asked, what say you on count one, count two, count three, all the way through 34. nicolle, holding a hand mike like he was at a grade school talent show, the man said in a very clear voice looking directly at judge merchan for each of those 34 counts guilty. when i heard him say count one was guilty and count two was guilty, i was pretty sure they would have a straight count. because some of those early counts correspond to checks and subpoenas not made by donald trump in his personal capacity, but by the trust. those are the ones that they thought they had a chance to distance their client from what was done with the trust. the minute i could hear him say

that, i could see him and other jurors' shoulders like a lightning, and they seemed lighter by the fact this was over. this is a jury as lawrence said took this extremely seriously, utterly attentive, the questions that they posed to judge merchan that they wanted read back to them, shows them how closely they were listening to the testimony. i have more of an appetite about this case than just about anyone i know, everyone i was thinking to myself, oh, my gosh, josh, wrap it up here. yet the jurors never flagged. they were with him. they took their jobs intensity seriously. when they got the verdict, each and every one agreed because blanche insisted they be polled. in a clear voice, each an every

one said yes or yes, it is. merchan, you could see he put his head in his hands for a second, almost like weighing the gravity of what happened in his courtroom. yet in that stern demeanor that we have seen throughout the trial, the first people he directed his attention to were the jury to thank them for their service and for their attention and engagement and investment in the case. and in an overture to who they were deciding this case against, he did nod to the importance and gravity of the case, noting -- he never said you were called upon to decide a case against the person who used to be the leader of the free world. but it was clear that what he was saying to them was, you took your time, you paid attention. you understood what was at stake here. and you didn't rush to a judgment, rather, you were thinking thoroughly about each and every bit of evidence that was presented to you. then he turned to the alternate jurors and similarly thanked

them. and i want to flag for you, nicolle, and rachel and others, we never had to call upon an alternate juror here. given the length of this trial that in and of itself is rare. and he turned the attention saying in many trials i have had to call on alternate jurors to fill in, i never needed to. you were here throughout, thank you. it was only then that he turned his attention to the tasks that remain. whether there were any motions from todd blanche, who of course, stood up and asked for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict saying that this jury could not possibly convict donald trump unless they were relying on michael cohen in large part. and he made a reference to the fact that everyone knows michael cohen is a perjurer. that's the only time we saw judge merchan's temper flare saying when you refer to knowing he's a perjurer, you're not

inferring that i know he's a perjurer, mr. blanche, do you? and then todd blanche stepped back. i can tell you while my hands were typing the detail, my leg was shaking the entire time because it was tense for everybody in that room. just like the seven weeks of having been in there from jury selection to today's finale. i wasn't sure we were going to get to a place where we had any guilty verdict against donald trump let alone all 34 counts. and that's because this jury showed some of their doubt and skepticism on their faces at times as you would want any good jury to do, nicolle. >> lisa rubin, i have a question for you, alvin bragg just tweeted this, today a jury found donald j. trump guilty on all 34 felony counts. that's the tweet. and my question was, what was notable inside the courtroom when the verdict was read? ari had some reporting that eric

trump seemed upset or acted upset. did anyone gasp? did anyone say anything? what was the reaction that you could pick up? >> reporter: oh, yeah, i was sitting next to adam who look with our colleague lawrence o'donnell each and every day and another reporter on the other. i could hear gasps all around me. immediately followed by -- what you would imagine the kermit the frog meme to be, that's what the jury sounded like. we were still in there with the d.a.'s office, i should note, day in and day out, when donald trump and his team leave, the d.a. is still in there. alvin bragg looked straight ahead. no smile on his face. it did not look like a group of people who just won a 34-count conviction against the former president of the united states, let alone a conviction against a

president or former president, it looked like a group of people who had just had a long day at trial. they completely prepared themselves that the eyes of 100 plus journalists would be on them if in fact they got to that moment. and there was no gloating or celebration. like any other lawyers leaving the manhattan court on any other day. >> lisa, lawrence, stay with us. i must go to susanne craig. >> i would just say, this is the third time that i've witnessed donald trump and the entities with the trump organization which was monumental what happened, and they were fined there. it was a small fine. and then he goes into the civil trial which i thought was huge, hundreds of millions of dollars in fines he's going to have to pay. just thinking you saw when he came out of the court he had his bag of grievance. what you didn't see and what is very important of it, the

politics of it, he was asked one question and he didn't answer it, why should americans vote for a convicted felon? he will be asked that every day, multiple times a day as we head into the election and that is why this matters. >> and his answer will be that he's only a convicted felon because the legal system is corrupted. he's not running against joe biden, he's running against the american system of government. that will be become more acute -- i mean, it's been pretty acute now. he's not running against the democrats but the democratic process. but he's going to be saying the fundamental system that makes us governed by laws and not by men, he's going to say that needs to be overturned and if you pick him, he will do it. i mean, it's just now become even more stark. >> well, i mean, to your point, he still shapes the frame of the

debate. i was just hand add statement from the white house counsel. we respect the rule of law and have no additional comment. president biden and of course kamala harris' statement is in new york, we saw that no one is above the law. the clash in november isn't between trump and biden, it's between the rule of law, the american experiment and blowing it all up. that, to your point, has never been more clear than the reactions on paper and camera today. >> and the republican party is the decisionmaker here, right? donald trump doesn't get to by acclimation get to decide he's the nominee in this country. the republican party decided that he alone, among all other citizens in this country is the person they would most like to put forward as the best leader in this country. the person who is best positioned to represent their values and to be their nominee to lead this country. the republican party could change its mind and decide t

somebody who's been convicted of 34 felonies shouldn't be, conbe a member of office. if you're a member of congress and you're indicted, you are removed in your committees. if you're convicted of a felony, you're removed from congress. that is a decision that the parties make. right? that's self-policing that the parties make. the republican party, if -- i mean, it's their choice, if they choose to leave donald trump as their nominee after having been convicted of 34 felonies, you have to decide what are they for? >> just on a lower bar, rachel, if you're advising someone who is a fiduciary, and -- >> who wants u.s. citizenship.

>> right, u.s. citizenship. so we can pick from different places which require a metric, a requirement, which doesn't mean if you have a criminal record you can't do anything ever, and we discussed that in other context but often, a felony conviction, not a parking ticket, not a misdemeanor takes away the rights, obviously your voting rights and your position of leadership. those are positions far below commander in chief and president of the united states. i also want to say as we take this in, because it's all coming right at us. this jury, i was in courtroom several times during the to me of stormy daniels, and michael cohen, i was watching them, watching back and forth to the jury. this was a jury that throughout the process were extremely attentive, more so than some other people attending the court. >> the defendant at times, yes. >> and what do we do when we're

trying to do our jobs well? we observe first, then we think and tell you. what i observed and a lot of us were down there we were doing team shifts, trading off, was a very attentive jury, willing to listen that would look back and forth who didn't seem to tune in or out based on which side was up. and then the questions we got, key points, we said this in the coverage before, we knew what the answer was, they got the plot. whether they agreed it was a crime, we didn't know yesterday. they were asking about the plot. then they were asking about weighing evidence. everything we have from them, everything from their observation over the weeks and substance, to what they delivered today, guilty, conviction on all counts suggests that they really dealt with this process in good faith. and i want to be clear this is the first time in american history that a former president has ever been held to account this way. and it's the first time that donald trump has been held to account this way.

he's litigious, he's been in court a lot. often times, those are done by a judge and held to a higher standard. this is a higher standard. so anybody checking back in, saying i missed the beginning, this is a high standard of uadd naimty, had a member who said they information. that's one of the members of the jury. best we could tell they reasoned through this. this is one of those times you take this in. it's not a jump ball. not a debatable thing legally. very high bar. very high standard. this it defendant was convicted by a jury of his peers and then you have to deal with that as a society. it's not for me to say what people do with that. it's not a debate anymore about whether he got fair legal process from his peers who found

there was this kind of felony intentionally committed by him with other co-conspirators. >> i want to bring harry lemon into the conversation who's talked us through this. this wasn't part of the case or the evidence considered by the jury but michael cohen, who was such a flashpoint for the media and for donald trump seemed to have been another chapter in the story that the jury processed. what they asked read back to him wasn't any of the direct or the cross of michael cohen, it was to ari's point, sort of the beginning. the beginning of the plot. the room where it happened. the trump tower meeting in 2015 where donald trump and david pecker and the two principles entered into a plan, what the jury found to be a criminal one, to catch and kill stories. those weren't the words they used but that was what they did after entering into that agreement. your sense of what we understand

in terms of the power of the evidence that the jury heard during the trial and what they asked to hear again this morning. >> yeah. so, first, i think it is right now. we were thinking about cohen and pecker, but given the speed with which they accomplished the verdict after getting the evidence, i think it's clear they were actually focused already on donald trump, his role at the meeting, his role in the call with pecker. but, look, i want to say that the battle that ari's referring to was always going to go forward. they'll always be a political social reckoning. we've been holding our breath as a country for a long time waiting for the cavalry to arrive in the form of the rule of law, and it did arrive today and it's a majestic day. we are rightly saying the system worked like clockwork and the jury was diligent and attentive and the judge was firm and gentle. all those things are right, but their abilities to do that while

hail storms in the form of trump and his supporters railed on all sides of them was precisely because the judge is cloaked in a rope which is to say the rule of law. his authority was not simply his personality or charisma, it was the system that he embodied and that at least in that room, and that's the agreement we've made as a country, would, in fact, prevail, did, in fact, prevail. donald trump is a different person now. he's a convict. he's not innocent until presumed guilty. he is guilty. he will get bail, it's true, but he's in a whole different status in society in the legal system in the rule of law. that's not only fitting but a kind of miracle is too strong a word but a really -- a day for celebration just because of the work like clockwork of the

system powered by not the personalities but the law. >> you used the word majestic, and there was something about the description of the room and how everyone was made equal. everyone had to be in the room when it was cold and everyone had to be in the room when it got hot. that's how long the trial went on from new york's tlat chilly spring to our -- we come into it hot and fast when we turn to summer. there was something, this is what i think you're getting at, this was sort of democracy in action but it lives right next to, as rachel keeps pointing out, a test that starts right now. i've been on the air since this happened, but i don't think everybody is sounding your grace notes, not about the outcome. >> yeah. >> because we would have had the same responsibility as hosts and as journalists if the outcome had been different or if it had been split or if it had been hung and our respect is for the judge and the jurors that did their civic duty, who evaluated

the evidence. if it turned out differently, that wouldn't have been on them, that would have been on the people making the arguments to them. >> and the system. and the system. >> we know without doing a lot of checking that that isn't the universal reaction. what do we do about that? >> fair enough. first, i just want to say, it's this very interesting contrast. it was a majestic day. the room where it happened is homely. it's part of our justice system in the country that is very sort of work a day and undistinguished, but it's where the law happens. look, this battle that you're rightly raising now has been on the horizon before the trial, after the trial. you can imagine the state of affairs where the american people render a verdict on this verdict that is a rejection. that would be a tragedy. it would be a debacle. all those things are right, but the legal system can only do

what it can do but what it can do is itself powerful. not omnipotent. we'll see the power to influence people and society. just that, it functioned, as andrew said, in the way other advanced countries do. it might not have been that way, nicole. we had the former boss of the country railing against everyone outside at every second, but the republic held. the system held. i think that's all you can say about today, but that's more than a little in my view. >> you know, andrew weissman, i can't help but have these thoughts run through my brain about the fact that the supreme court while not blaming their spouses for what lies on their property is actually considering whether an ex-president or another one deserves absolute immunity from what happened today. >> a couple thoughts of that. one, it is hard not to see today

as a rebuke to the supreme court and to judge canaan. the new york criminal justice system worked and it worked because a lot of fearless people put their heads down and did their job and were attacked from beginning to end and will certainly continue to be attacked. judge canaan continues to delay a case that clearly could have gone to trial and the public's right to a speedy trial has been violated. there's some thought that supreme court may have been waiting for this verdict, and we will see if that is an explanation for the delay or whether there really are five justices who are intent on undermining the public's right to a speedy trial in the january 6th case because those are -- that is, to my mind, for instance, a let at

that's argument the peace with the upside down flag. those are not disconnected. his attack was on the justice system. he said you need to have immunity for presidents because you cannot trust the department of justice or grand jurors or any of that. that is of a piece of what you just heard donald trump said, what rachel is talking about in terms of a major test for our country. and then just to bring it to something much more minor. july 11th there is going to be a sentencing in this case, and the main issue to my mind is will the judge sentence him to prison? and that is where donald trump's conduct to date, including what we just heard, for anyone else this would mean jail. you have ten violations of a gag order found by the judge beyond a reasonable doubt. >> right. >> at the time we were all talking about if there is a conviction, that is going to be stuff that he can consider.

>> he can factor that in? >> absolutely. just one of the things that you think about is lack of remorse and recidivism. you're concerned about is -- this is the -- just to be somewhat flip. if you go to the oxford english dictionary and look up lack of remorse, you will see donald trump over and over. >> do it again and again. >> it's not just microbursts, it is pride. there is a complete lack of remorse. there's the gag order violations. there's the evidence at trial and outside the trial of obstruction of justice. the costello emails are horrific in terms of the message there was getting witnesses not to cooperate with law enforcement. there's a long history of that happening with donald trump, but it played out at the very last thing in this case, and part of

those gag orders were something that even if the judge looks beyond the attacks on himself and his family, which he will, he, remember, found the last violation of the gag order was an attack on the jurors. >> right. >> so it is so hard when you are thinking about who, if they commit this kind of crime, should go to jail? all of those are going to be things that certainly the state is going to be pointing out as something that has to happen. there will be other factors on the other side. there's the mechanics of it. there's the fact that he's running for office. all of those will be factors, but his continued