okay so there are big weeks and really big weeks and this week is as big as it comes. after weeks of revealing witness testimony, after weeks of intense cross-examination. after a legal system has been tried, tested in ways that it has never been before. we're now reaching the end of this trial. closing arguments start tomorrow. those seven men and five women will deliberate and decide the fate of the former president. we don't know what the outcome will be. only they decide that. that's how our system works. i know it all sounds surreal but it's all really happening, starting tomorrow morning. if one person appears to be feeling the heat right now, it is truly a surprise, he shouted at the judge, the district attorney. hours away from closing arguments, the judge is probably past wanting to derail the. or the jury may be dead locked, unable to reach a consensus and this could end in a mistrial. or the jury could convict trump as former director has predicted. that would make former president trump the first president to be convicted. right now when it comes to how this is going to play out we simply don't know yet. but again it all starts tomorrow morning. and judging from the opening statements, we can expect prosecutor josh shineglass to make a pretty meticulous approach to story telling. as a communicator i was pretty impressed on how he was structuring the opening. a big part of that, was convening what the hush payment was. that's going to be a key part of it. judging over the approach of the last several weeks we can expect to hear a further effort to dismantle michael cohen's story. if the jury doesn't believe him, michael cohen, they can help their client avoid a conviction. very soon after, when a jury of trump's peers in new york decide on the case. i have a full panel, the assistant general at the justice department. kushner, lisa ruben is an nbc legal kor correspondent. all of them have been following the trial. you've been there almost every day, almost every day. >> every day. >> every day. sorry i didn't mean to cut you short there. we know josh stineglass is a meticulous story teller. what do you expect in terms of what he will say, what is important for him to say and hold up it'll be structured tomorrow. >> i think josh steinglass is finally going to put together a chronology of all the different testimony we've seen. we have seen testimony from different data from different sources. from phone record providers to the trump organization itself. so i expect that josh steinglass is going to take the jury through. how the conspiracy was formed. hour we know donald trump himself was not only a part of that conspiracy in a broad sense. but okay the payment -- okayed the payment to stormy daniels and how we know he okayed the repayment scheme that allen wisenburg and michael cohen came up with then executed the checks, nine of them personally to michael cohen all throughout that period. and then they're going to take us to a period beyond the point where michael cohen was receiving checks to all the different episodes that show what mary and glen will know as consciousness of guilt. statements that trump made, in litigation, financial disclosure form and even on twitter that show he knew full well exactly what this was. it was a repayment for a hush money payment to stormy daniels. not payments for legitimate legal services. >> so mary, that's a lot to pack in to a closing argument. you know, a lot of what was in the opening which was interesting. it was story telling in an edgy way. that average people couldn't understand. what is most important in your view in this closing argument that the jury needs to hear and digest and understand. >> yeah, a few things. he wants to continue the story telling in a sense of we've now told you this story. here's the evidence and we agree with lisa. he will set up a time line and go through it chronologically. here's a story we told you at opening. here's a story that we proved the evidence was admitted at trial. as well, he will show how basically the government, the people as they call them when i say in the state court in new york. the people established really the elements of this crime even before they got to michael cohen. so that he will try to minimize the necessity for michael cohen's testimony. michael cohen's evidence and have the jury know that the case was pretty much proven and michael cohen tied it all up. filled in some gaps and everything that was critical that he said that was necessary to find mr. trump's guilt had already been corroborated and proven think other witnesses. through exhibits, through you know, allen weisenburg's notes on the you know the actual documents that were actually the bank records that michael cohen had to have. the notes about how the repayment would be made. all of these things. so i think that's you know going to be very, very important for him. the defense on the other hand is trying, is going to hammer michael cohen's credibility and try to suggest that michael cohen was acting completely independently to the extent there was a conspiracy here. it was a conspiracy between michael cohen and david pecker. and you know, keith davidson, but not donald trump. >> the michael cohen of acting roguely just doesn't even make sense as a human being. but again i'm not a lawyer. glen i want to go to you. because you wrote a piece this morning that had a lot of interesting pieces in it. their strategy seems to be around michael cohen's credibility. and you basically argued in your piece that, michael cohen admitting to his lies may help with the jury and credibility. right. he did admit to it pretty quickly. you also wrote about how you would handle the issue with the phone call. which was a big moment during the last couple of weeks that cohen may have mixed up in terms of the date or content of it. tell us more about that. your strategy and the cohen piece of it. >> yeah, you know, i agree that they will hammer on michael cohen. but the good news is jen, the jurors don't check their common sense at the courtroom door. they bring it into the jury box. they bring it into the deliberation room and they're going the view the evidence through their sort of common sense lenses and i think one thing that will likely resinate with them is the question who benefited from this crime? certainly not michael cohen. he wasn't running for office. he didn't get elected president of the united states. in fact, it sounds like he had to sneak around and hide from his own wife the fact he was opening a home equity line of credit to make this you know corrupt hush money payment, why? to try to help donald trump win elected office. that is the kind of common sense argument that will resinate with the jury. with respect to the phone call, i frankly chuckled myself as a former career prosecutor when i heard people you know swooning over just how damaging that was to michael cohen's credibility. think about this. michael cohen did not accurately remember whether he told donald trump in a phone call on a tuesday or a thursday, hey boss, i made the payment. now first of all, i would ask the jurors ladies and gentlemen, do you remember chapter and verse the time of each phone call eight years ago. you may remember the substance of a consequential call but you're not going remember the date and time and more importantly, as much of a cheapskate as donald trump is, do you really think he would have started writing $35,000 reimbursement checks if michael cohen hasn't told him, hey boss i made the payment. i want my money. these are common sense arguments that will resinate with the jury and i think the defense overplayed its hand in any number of ways. including and maybe we'll get to this, insisting that donald trump had no sexual encounter with stormy daniels. boy is that going to come back to bite them. >> that was such a strange part of the, i think it was in the opening statement of todd blanch where they insisted on that. lisa let me ask you about that piece, because it is this credibility component, seems like it's a big weight for how both sides are thinking about the jury. as glen mentioned, there's the did he or did he not have sexual relations with stormy daniels. but there's also this credibility of michael cohen. i mean how do you play that if you're the prosecution. >> well, i think that would take stormy daniels separately from michael cohen. let's talk about michael cohen first. i think the way you play that is as mary was suggesting about minimizing cohen and really focus ing on cohen. and chiefly through two people's testimony. david pecker and hicks. why would david pecker essentially throw him a thank you party. when he told him, invite whoever you want, this is a thank you for you. what else is donald trump thanking pecker to. two stories that could have had a devastating impact on his campaign in the wake of the access hollywood tape. in terms of michael cohen and his own credibility, the way you shore up that credibility is similar. you show all the ways in which, the documentation and other witnesses support cohen. so for example, hope hicks by taking a dig at cohen, gave cohen more credibility. when she was asked, why she said because that wasn't the michael cohen i knew. the michael cohen i knew was the first person to take credit for anything. he was not a self-less and generous human being. that's the way to establish michael cohen's credibility. even taking a knock at him. >> mary, i feel everybody, this is the thing people are texting me. how long will this take? we don't know. everybody is becoming a lawyer. so one of the things i read about is the jury is not allowed to take the instructions with them. which i think might be standard in new york. we could certainly ask lisa that question or maybe you all know that answer. do they take notes, do they go in there, are there any tea leaves you'll be reading during the deliberation. >> i think part of the reason they don't want to give people, playing lawyers themselves and interpreting that language. the court wants if there's a question about instructions, the court wants the jury to ask the judge the question. that way it's coming from the judge. they are going to be relying on memories. you will recall also, the judge allowed them to take notes at the beginning of the trial. another thing i think you will hear in the instructions, your notes are not evidence and your notes are not proof. use them as an aid to refresh your recollection. people should understand, people make mistakes in their notes and don't rely too much on that. sometimes once people have written something down. >> they take it as fact. >> they take it as fact right. but of course that's not the case. so those kind of instructions will be there for the jury. in terms of how long it takes, i mean there's just no way of knowing. what they don't need to do, what you often start other federal trials with is elects a foreperson. we already have a foreperson because it's just the first juror selected in new york. they will go through, there are 34 counts, but the proof for each is going to be pretty similar right. the instructions will tell them what elements they have to prove in order to find the people had to prove in order for them to find guilty -- guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. in addition to the different alternatives you mentioned at the top of the hour about what the jury might do. there's another possibility too which is a mixed verdict. right. it is possible, i'm not suggesting they should do this or that the prosecution didn't prove its case for all 34 counts but they could view the first few counts relating to payments that were actually when the reimbursements were coming from the trump revocable trust. signed not by donald trump as president but signed by those still working for the trump organization. they could view home differently for example than the nine counts where donald trump himself was signing from the white house for goodness sakes and where they've heard evidence that those invoices were sent personally to keith schiller to be brought over for him to sign. you could see some break down for some counts finding not guilty, or hanging on. not having all 12 agree. because an acquittal means all 12 have to agree. i find that heart. you could have some break downs. >> all things to watch. nobody set their time, we don't know. we don't know. we have to stick in a quick break. we'll have our conversation going on at the other end. a little reminder that donald trump's hush money trial isn't the only legal battle the former president is facing right now. we're following a significant order in another case. they're seeking a gag order against trump, we'll discuss that, next. only purple's gel flex grid passes the raw egg test. no other mattress cradles your body and simultaneously supports your 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and borderline crazy statement. but that did not stop trump's allies from quickly getting behind that lie. margaret green said, they were going to kill donald trump. >> once again we find ourselves reinforcing this two tier justice system where we see a different standard for republicans and specifically a different standard for donald trump. there is a fear among conservatives that this weaponizing of the justice system. >> i mean tim scott, come on. they issued a statement in response to all of these bogus, by the way dangerous claimless. -- claims. saying they followed protocol like they do for all search warrants. this is an important detail. donald trump was not even in florida at the time. attorney general garland even pushed back during a press conference on thursday. >> that allegation is false and it is extremely dangerous. the document that is being referred to in the allegation is the justice department's standard policy limiting the use of force. as the fbi advices, it is part of the standard operations plan for searches and in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of president biden's home. >> standard protocol. also used in this for president biden's home. important words there from mayor garland. another person who of course noticed all of this is special council jack smith. smith is now asking for a new court order blocking donald trump from making statements that endanger law enforcement agents. cannon called trump's statements false and intimidating adding that they create a grossly mist leading impression. as trump is well aware, the fbi took extra care, even scheduling the search at mar-a- lago on a time when he and his family were aware. key point there. this statement is standard protocol. explain that. >> every law enforcement agency, every law enforcement officer when they're on an operation, whether it's executing an arrest warrant or searching a premises, they're allowed to use deadly force to protect the safety and lives of others. so this was entirely routine. run of the mill as the attorney general and others said. but i'll tell you jen, the most infuriating part is when i read that 12 page filing from jack smith and there were two things that really jumped out at me. one, they coordinated with donald trump's attorneys in advance of the execution of the search warrant. i have to tell you, i think that's a mistake. because that gives targets of an investigation an opportunity to hide evidence. to destroy evidence, to i don't know, move boxes of classified documents from one place to another. not only that, they, they executed this search warrant at a time they knew donald trump and his family would be out of florida. they weren't even going to be in the state. so when donald trump posts that they were ready to shoot me, and they endangered my family. he knows that is an extraordinarily dangerous lie to tell because they weren't even in the state and the fbi made sure they weren't going to be in the state. so when steve bannon said this was an assassination attempt, this would be the worse assassination attempt ever because the fbi made sure they were not going to be in the state. >> the threat and jack smith references this in his filing. the danger this causes. you heard garland talk about this. even if they're not lawyers they know trump wasn't even there at the time. that's an easy to understand fact. what the problem is, is people can watch tim scott, or watch marjory taylor green and think there was an assassination attempt on the former president when there clearly was not. talk a little bit about the danger this rhetoric poses on the record. >> on the conditions of the trial that he not make these type of attacks. we know from all of the cases that have been brought that attacks on judges result in threats to judges. there's a person being prosecuted for threatening chuck in dc in a january 6 case. we know right after the mar-a- lago search warrant was executed there was an attack on the field office in cincinnati in retaliation for what the person who committed this had been you know consuming as some sort of unfair raid on mar-a- lago. we know that prosecutors have been threatened you know over e- mails by voice mail, with people coming to homes, we know people have gotten docked, people had, hopehicks called on them and had them swatted. people like tim scott, people like marjory green and acting on them. now this is probably the most inflammatory of all. actually saying there was an attempted assassination which is completely false and crazy and what jack smith is rightfully concerned about is that is going to put a target on those law enforcement agents backs. >> it is so alarming. lisa, i mean. cannon has had moments where she's kind of exhibited some element of responsibility. other moments when she has not. what can she do here. what are the options should she want to take action? >> the first option for her is to do exactly what the motion asks. which is to modify donald trump's conditions of release. and jen i want to pause on that and differentiate that from your standard gag order. if he were to violate conditions and make some sort of significant imminent and foreseeing threat to the law enforcement involved in this investigation, he could immediately revoke his release and impose conditions that would include putting him in jail, of pretrial intention. the very fact the government is asking to modify the conditions of release and not just a standard gag order, that's a big deal.