about this, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard outside the courthouse in lower manhattan, glen kirschner, former federal prosecutor and host of the justice matters podcast, kimberly atkins store, boston globe columnist and co-host of the sisters in-law podcast, and danny cevallos, criminal defense attorney. glen, kimberly and danny are msnbc contributors. vaughn, what has been going on right now inside that courtroom? >> reporter: right, jose, there have been multiple efforts by the defense team in front of this jury during its cross examination of david pecker, the long time publisher of "national enquirer," who is the crucial witness to the prosecution as they build out their case of alleging this conspiracy between the likes of donald trump with michael cohen and the "national enquirer" to suppress the stories of individuals like stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. and what you are hearing from emil bovy, the one executing this cross examination of pecker is multipronged effort here. in one of those facets of this is by trying to undercut the idea of this conspiracy that was at play, w

also with us is former federal prosecutor glen kirschner. let me start with you, glen. the d.a. just came back with the ruling. he has been scouring over the paper here. what did you find in this and what should we know about what the judge has done? >> i would say predictably, the judge expandsed the gag order to include family members of the judge, court staff, prosecutor's office. that's wonderful. donald trump is laboring under a hat trick of shut up because there are three gag orders in place over time. judge chutkan, judge engorren and now the hush money case but i call it the 2016 election interference case that includes hush money payments that were covered up with false business records has it helped? you said donald trump is putting his trials on trial. he is putting the criminal justice to the test and the system is failing. i say that because you just read the first sentence from the motion filed by attorney bragg. it reads defendant's dangerous, violent rhetoric fundamentally threatens the integrity of the proceedings and intended to intimidate witnesses and trial p

glen kirschner is a form erp federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst, and here in studio, msnbc legalanalyst, lisa rubin. what is jack smith so mad about? >> he's mad for a couple of reasons. we don't have a trial date in the case and judge cannon is ordering the special counsel and trump lawyers to submit jury instructions on a specific topic. as glenn knows well, you submit your jury instructions when your close to trial. she asked about the jury instructions about the presidential documents act. she wanted them to say what the jury can and can't decide about if a president can designate records as personal versus presidential and if they do that, is the president the sole decider with respect to that in ways that would negate prosecution. >> let me make this a little simpler. bottom line is, personal versus what's part of the law, right, that distinction is incredibly important. >> but it's irrelevant to whether something can be charged under espionage act, and that's what jack smith is upset about. he's saying to the extent that you're telling the jury the presidential records act