defendant trump himself, by the way, after weeks of revealing witness testimony, after weeks of intense cross-examination, after our legal system has been tried and tested in ways it has never before, we're now reaching the end of this trial. closing arguments in donald trump's criminal trial start after that judge juan merchan will deliver his instructions ti the jury. then those seven men and five women bill deliberate and give the result to former president. we don't know what the outcome will be. i know it sounds surreal, but it's all happening starting tomorrow morning. and if one person appears to be feeling the heat right now is clearly trump himself who surprise surprise, everyone, lashed out at the judge, the jury and over the weekend trump is pretty clearly testing the bounds of his gag order here because he knows at this point hours away from closing arguments the judge is probably past the point of wanting to derail they trial. as this case enters its final phase you can find any prediction you want how it may endch the jury may not make its case and acquit him or end in a mistrial or convict trump as former fbi director james comey predict. that would make trump the first former u.s. presidente to be criminally convicted. by the end of this week we may very well know which of those scenarios prevails. we'll see. right now we simply don't know yet and all starts tomorrow morning. judging from the opening statements we can expect the prosecutor to make a story telling. a key part of s that is what trump's motivation was in misrepresenting the payments to michael cohen. and we can expect to hear a further effort to dismantle michael cohen's credibility. there's more than a dozen bnss before cohen that corroborated the story. their bet is if the jury doesn't believe him, michael cohen, they can help. and then soon after when a jury of trump's peers in new york decide on his fate. i have an all-star legal panel today somehow on humorrial day. mary mccord, the farmer acting assistant general, lisa rubin an msnbc correspondent. all of them have been following this trial closely and they join me now. you've been there almost every day. >> every day. >> sorry, i didn't mean to cut you short there. a meticulous and organized storyteller that's my definition reading and hearing intranscript from the opening statement. >> i think josh steinglass is going to put together all the different crinology. and we've seen the data from disparate sources, everything from phone record providers to the trump organization itself. so i expect josh steinglass is going to take the jury through how the conspiracy was formed, how we know donald trump himself was not only a part of that conspiracy in a broad sense but okayed the payment to stormy daniels. and then moving onto the period in which he was president, how wee know that he okayed the repayment scheme allen weisselberg and michael cohen came up with and executed the checks nine of them personally to michael cohen in that period. then they're going to take us to the period beyond the point michael cohen was receiving checks all what show consciousness of guilt, in his litigation, in his financial disclosure form and even on twitter that shows he knows full well exactly what this was. it was a repayment, hush money payment to stormy daniels, not legitimate payment for services. >> mary, that's a lot to pack into a closing argument. a lot of what was in the opening which was interesting and story telling in an average way lawyers could understand, what is most important in your view in this closing argument that the jurys needs to hear and adjust and understand? >> yeah, a few things. he wants to continue the story telling in the sense of we've now told you this story. here's the evidence and i agree with lisa he'll setout a time line and go through it chronologically. here's the story we told you opening and proved it in evidence admitted at trial. i think crucially as well he'll show basically the government -- the peopleal as they call them when it's state court in new york -- the people established really the elements of this crime even before they got to michaele cohen so that he will try to minimize the necessity for michael cohen's testimony, michael cohen's evidence and have thehe jury pretty much understand the case was proven and michael cohen tie td all up, filled in some gaps. but everything critical he said necessary to find mr. trump's guiltin had already been corroborated and proven through other witnesses, through exhibits, through allen weisselberg's notes on the actual documents which were actually the bank records michaeltu cohen had, the notes how the repayment would be made, all those things. i think that's going to be very important. the defense is going to try to hammer michael cohen's credibility and suggest he was acting independently, to the extent there was an conspiracy here. >>ns michael cohen acting rogue doesn't make sensect as a human being, but again i'm not a lawyer. you wrote a piece this morning and had a lot of interesting pieces in it. as mary just said their strategy seems to be around michael cohen's credibility. and you basically argued in your piece michael cohen admitting to his lies may help with the jury credibility. he didhe admit to it pretty quickly. p you also wrote how you would handle the phone call, which wa, a big moment in the last couple of weeks cohen may have mixed up the date or content of it. tell us about thastrategy and the cohen piece of it. >> ihe agree they will hammer o michael cohen, but the good news is, jen, jurors don't check their common sense at the courtroom door. they bring it into the jury box, into the deliberation room, and they're going to view the evidence through their sort of common sense lenses, and i think one thing that will likelyth resonate with them is the question whona benefitted from this crime. certainly not michael cohen. he wasn't running for office. he didn't get elected president of the united states of america. in fact, it sounds like he had to sneak around and hide from hisd own wife the fact he was opening a home equity line of credit to make this corrupt hush money payment. why? to try to help donald trump wip elected office. that is the kind of common sense argument that will resonate with the jury.e with respect to the phone call i frankly chuckled to myself as a former career prosecutor when i heard people, you know, swooning over just how damaging that was for michael cohen's credibility. think about this. michael cohen did not accurately remember whether he told donald a phone call on a tuesday or a thursday hey, boss, i made the payment. you may remember the substance ofy a consequential call but you're not going to remember the date and time. and more importantly as much of a cheapskate donald trump is do you really think he would have started writing a $35,000 reimbursement check if michael cohen hadn't told him, hey, boss i made the payment, i want my money. these are common sense arguments that will resonate with the l jury, and i think the defense overplayed its hand in any number of ways including -- and we'll get to this -- insisting 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 -- i think it was in the opening statement of todd blanche where they insisted on that. this credibility component seems like it's a big weight for how both sides are thinking about the injury. there's also this credibility of michael cohen. how do you play that if you're the prosecution? >> well, i think i would take stormy daniels separately from michael cohen. about minimizing cohen and focusing all the other ways they establish critical facts. glen was saying whose benefit was this scheme, certainly not for michael cohen's one answer to that was of course it was for donald trump because why else would donald trump throw david pecker essentially a thank you the white house in july 2017 where he said to pecker according to pecker's testimony,ck invite whoever you want, this is a thank you for you. well, whatfo the heck is donald trump thanking david pecker for other than saving his behind in the general election by burying not only one but two stories thatwo could have had a devastating impact on his campaign and the weight of the "access hollywood" tape. in terms of michael cohen and his own credibility, the way you show-off 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 michael cohen shored up his credibility. he said i didn't believe for a second when trump was telling me cohen made the payment out the goodnessay of his own heart tha wasn't the way it wept down. and when asked why, she said the michael cohen i knew was the first person to takei credit f everything. he was not a selfless and generous human being. that's a the way you establish michaelay cohen's credibility en if it means taking a kbhauk at him in other dimensions. >> the collaboration by other witnesses is such an important component of this. the thing people are texting me is how long will this take. we don't know. everybody's becoming a lawyer. so one of the things i read about is that the jury is not allowed to take instructions with them. how do they do that? do they take notes? go in there? is there any tea leaf reading? >> i think part of the reason jurors decide is they don't want people having questions and go back to it and playing lawyer themselves interpreting that language. if there's a question about instructions, the court will want the jury to ask the judge their question. >> and the judge will then talk to the jury. >> and that way it's coming from the judge so they are going to be relying on memories. you'll recall also at the beginning of this trial the judge allowed them to take notes. the other thing i expect you'll hear in jury instructions is your notes are not evidence, and your notes are not proof. use them as an aid to refresh your recollection, but people should understand people make mistakes in their notes. sometimes people have written something down, they take it as fact, butit of course that's no the case. so those kind of instructions will be there for the jury. in terms of how long it takes there's just no way of knowing. what they don't need to do -- what you often start other federal trials with is electing a foreperson. there are 34 counts but the proof for each will be pretty similar. the instructions will tell them what evidence people have to prove in order for them to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. i think 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 version. it is possible -- i'm not suggesting they should do this or 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 revokable trust signed not by donald trump as president but signed by those still working for the trump organization, they could view those differently, for example, than the nine counts where donald trump himself was n signg from the white house and heard evidence it was brought personally to keith schiller for him to sign. you could see potentially some break down between 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 highly unlikely to be honest in this case, but you could have break downs like that and thatre takes time. >> that's interesting all things to watch. nobody set their time. we don't know. we have to sneak in a very quick break. everyone here is sticking around and we'll keep our conversation going back on the other end. also coming up a little reminder donald trump's hush money trialmi isn't the only lel battle theal former president i following right now, and we're following a significant development in another case. special counsel jack smith is seeking a brand new gag order against donald trump. we'll discuss that next. gag ord against donald trump we'll discuss that next. what is cirkul? 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[ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg's moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don's paying so much for at&t, he's been waiting to update his equipment! there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. with absorbine pro, pain won't hold you back from your passions. it's the only solution with two max-strength anesthetics to deliver the strongest numbing pain relief available. so, do your thing like a pro, pain-free. absorbine pro. last week donald trump started spreading a new and dangerous lie. in a tuesday evening post on social media, accused the department of justice of having quote, authorized the fbi to use deadly lethal force. and in search of his home in mar-a-lago in 2022. that is part of the investigation into the former president keeping top secret government documents in his florida home. which led to his indictment on 40 federal charges. trump followed up tuesday night with a fundraising email blast claiming that the doj, quote, was authorized to shoot me. also adding, quote, joe biden was locked and loaded ready to take me out and put my family in danger. that is obviously not true and a borderline crazy statement but that did not stop his allies from getting behind that lie. congressman marjorie taylor greene said the fbi was planning to assassinate president trump and gave the green light. on his podcast, steve bannon called it an attempted assassination and tim scott deflected during an interview just yesterday. >> once again we find ourselves re enforcing this two tiered justice system where we see a different standard for republicans and specifically a different start ard for donald trump. there is a fear among conservatives that this weaponizing of the justice system, if they do it to donald trump, they do it anyone. >> i mean, tim scott, come on. now the fbi took the rare statement of issuing a statement in response to all of these bogus and by the way dangerous claims saying in part, that they followed standard protocol as we do for all search warrant which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force. and i would note, and this is an important detail, donald trump was not even in florida at the time. attorney general merrick garland 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 a justice department standard policy limiting the use of force. as the fbi advises, it is part of a standard operations plan for searches and, in fact, it was used in the consensual search of president biden's home. >> standard protocol. also used in the -- in president biden's home. important words there from merrick garland. another person who knows all of this is special counsel jack smith. he's asking for a new court order blocking donald trump from statements that endanger law enforcement statements and he called the statements false and imflammatory and he explained as trump is well aware, the fbi took extraordinary care to execute the search warrant and scheduling the search of mar-a-lago when he and his family would be away. they're all back with me. glenn, i think this is so important for us to understand. let's start with the fact that this language is standard protocol. explain more on that. >> every law enforcement agency, every law enforcement officer, when they on an operation, whether it is executing an arrest warrant or searching a premises, they're entitled to use deadly force when to repel a deadly attack or to protect the safety and lives ever 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 the 12-page filing from jack smith and two things that jumped out of 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 is a mistake. because that gives targets of an investigation an opportunity to hide evidence, to destroy evident, so, i don't know, move boxes of classified documents from one place to another. not only that, 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 posted 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, it has got to be the most incompetent assassination attempt ever because they made sure the target wasn't even going to be on the promises. this is dangerous violence-inducing rhetoric from donald trump. >> this is -- and i want to spend a moment on that. because the threat and jack smith references in this his filing, the danger this caused and you heard merrick garland talk about this and you've had all these elected officials who know better. first of all, even if they weren't lawyers, trump wasn't even there at the time. that is an easy to understand fact. and what the problem is, is that people could watch tim scott, or watch marjorie taylor greene and think there was an assassination attempt on the former president when there clearly was not. talk about the danger this poses to law enforcement officials. >> this is why jack smith has sought an amendment of mr. trump's release pending trial including that he not make these type of accusations and attacks. we know from all of the cases that have been brought that attacks on judges result in threats to judges. there is a person being prosecuted for threatening judge tanya chutkan here in d.c. and after the mar-a-lago search warrant was executed, there was an attack on the fbi field office in cincinnati in retaliation for what the person who committed this had been consuming from sort of unfair raid on mar-a-lago. we know that prosecutors have been threatened over emails, by voice mail, with people coming to homes, we know people have gotten doxed. people have had false hoaxes called in about them and swatted as they call it. there is a track record here of people listening to false statements, not only by donald trump but by people like marjorie taylor greene and tim scott and acting on them. and now this is probably mostin -- most inflammatory of all. and what jack smith is concerned about is that will put a target on those law enforcement agents's backs. >> and it is so alarming. and aileen cannon has moments. what can she do here? what are the options should she want to take action? >> well the first option for her to do what the motion asks which is to modify donald trump's condition of release. and i want to pause on that and differentiate that from your standard gag order. because the release that the government is asking here would modify trumps conditions of release such that if he were to violate them, and make some sort of significant imminent and foreseeable threat to the l