>> a very important friday. we will reconvene the courthouse gang for this hour to go over what we have all been through and, alex, just a word about a banana republic. i despise the term and have despised it for so long now because it carries the assumption that countries that grow bananas, and we know where they are, somehow inherently have inferior governments to ours. which we have proven many times before is not true and nothing proves that better than the trump years and, oh, by the way, we grow bananas in hawaii. >> agriculturally and ethically, great points, lawrence, as always. >> thanks, alex. >> have a great show. >> thanks. well, it was a one word sentence that changed donald trump's life. he wasn't expecting to hear that word yesterday. at 4:15 p.m., judge merchan told defendant donald trump and his lawyers, the prosecutors in the courtroom, quote, i'm going to excuse the jury about 4:30. we will give them a few more minutes and then we will excuse them. donald trump's defense lawyer, todd blanche, set all right and the judge set i'm going to step out for a few minutes. the conventional courtroom wisdom for a variety of reasons is the longer a jury deliberates, the better it is for the defense. and so donald trump and todd blanche were nearly giddy that the jury was going to go home for a second day. without reaching a verdict. >> donald trump thought he was going home without a verdict today. he had about 15 minutes to kill and what we saw was donald trump at the defense table that we have never seen before. he was joking, he was laughing, he was smiling with todd blanche. they were laughing almost incessantly. todd blanche laughing so hard at one point, doubling over that his four head almost touched the table. they thought they were going home today, it seemed, without a verdict. it was almost a jubilant and giddy donald trump, but that changed quickly when judge merchan came back in the room to inform the parties the jury had reached that verdict. >> the jury had a verdict after only nine hours of deliberation, which is not a long deliberation for a 34 count indictment of this complexity level. so donald trump watched his jury into the courtroom for what would be the final time. the jury walked by him, as they always did, at high speed, never looking at him. never looking at anyone else. just filing straightahead, focused on the job they took an oath to do. there is no suspense like a jury verdict. nothing like it. we have taken the suspense out of so much of modern life. we have polls telling us who is going to win elections. we have computers tracking exact the where hurricanes are going to go. we can know the gender of our babies before they are born. there are websites devoted to predicting the chances of who is going to win which oscar and as prediction has become easier, suspense has become much more rare. in the entire history of the dramatic arts from shakespeare to spielberg, no dramatist has been able to deliver to an audience the force of the impact a jury verdict has in the room as it hits, just when the suspense feels unbearable. i have seen lives crushed in an instant by a jury room. i have seen people sent off to the electric chair by one word. guilty. and i have seen lives saved by a jury verdict. winning the library -- lottery has nothing on the words not guilty for a criminal defendant. every announcement of every jury verdict leaves everyone in the courtroom dizzy. no matter which verdict they were hoping for. it is hard to trust your ears when you hear that verdict. did he really say what i thought he said? it is what speeds through the minds of everyone who has just heard the verdict. the world slows down and you experience the passage of time in thousandths of a second so that if there is another count of the indictment, it always seems like the announcement of a second verdict comes a very long time after that first verdict. and if both verdicts are the same, only then do you begin, just begin to believe your ears. that is when you hear the crying. that is when you hear the mothers crying for their sons who have just been convicted. i was a teenager when i heard a wife crying for her husband who had just been convicted of murder. i had many conversations with her during that trial. i can't remember the sound of her voice, but i will never forget the sound of her crying when she heard that verdict. and if there is a third verdict, only then does your mood brightened, if it is the verdict you wanted to hear. but if it is the verdict you don't want to hear, and if you are the defendant, by the third verdict you are in the darkest place you have ever been in your life. your eyes may be open, but you cannot see, you cannot feel, you cannot understand what is happening to you and you begin to feel the greatest fear you've ever felt in your life about what is going to happen to you. for two full minutes yesterday, the worst two minutes of donald trump's life, donald trump listened to his jury verdict, delivered by the foreperson of the jury, who moved to this country from ireland and still has an irish accent that was last heard in the courtroom when he was answering questions as a prospective juror, six weeks ago. there were no screams of anguish as you sometimes hear at jury verdicts. no one cried. the current misses trump was not there. eric trump was the only family present and if he has feelings for his father, they once again went unexpressed. the only thing defendant trump heard in the courtroom when the torturous suspense finally broke, was this. the clerk. how say you to the first count of the indictment charging donald j. trump with the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree? guilty or not guilty? juror number one, guilty. how say you to count two? guilty. count three? guilty. how say you to count for? guilty. how say you to count five? guilty. how say you to count six? guilty. how say you to count seven? guilty. how say you to count eight? guilty. how say you to count nine? guilty. how say you to count 10? guilty. how say you to count 11? guilty. how say you to count 12? guilty. how say you to count 13, guilty. how say you to count 14? guilty. how say you to count 15? guilty. how say you to count 16? guilty. how say you to count 17? guilty. how say you to count 18? guilty. how say you to count 19? guilty. how say you to count 19? guilty. how say you to count 20? guilty. how say you to count 22? guilty. how say you to count 23? guilty. how say you to count 24? guilty. how say you to count 25? guilty. how say you to count 28? guilty. how say you to count 29? guilty. how say you to count 30? guilty. how say you to count 31? guilty. how say to count 32? guilty. how say you count 33? guilty. and how say you to count 34? guilty. the clerk, please be seated. 34 times. 34 times. just half an hour earlier, donald trump was laughing with his lawyer, laughing as he had never laughed before and then he had to listen to the word he hoped he would never hear, 34 times. he had to listen to that word 34 times, because 12 people randomly chosen from the 1.6 million people living on the island of manhattan, raised their right hand and answered yes to this question. do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will try the case of the people of the state of new york against donald j. trump in a fair and impartial manner and to the best of your ability render a true verdict according to the law and evidence? i watched that jury paying much more attention to every word of testimony than donald trump did. i watched that jury paying much more attention to every word the lawyers on both sides said, then donald trump did. i watched that jury never close their eyes in that courtroom the way donald trump did for hours on end. i watched that jury respect what was happening in that room. more, much more than donald trump. ever could. >> the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury and the jury has spoken. >> joining our discussion now, adam klasfeld, a fellow at justice security. lisa rubin, msnbc legal correspondent. both were in the courtroom when the trump verdict was announced. also with us, andrew weissmann, former chief of the criminal division in the eastern district of new york. lisa, i want to take you back to that moment and to the breaking, the final breaking of that suspense and hearing that first guilty doesn't mean you will hear 33 more guilty's. you have to patiently wait as the verdicts unfold on multiple counts. take us back to the moments when you heard the first guilty. >> i can't even begin to describe the shock i was feeling and you are right to say that while the first guilty doesn't mean you get 33 others, the folks at this table like you know a whole lot more about this case than the general public and one of the things we know is that counts one through four pertained to the earliest checks that were written by the donald j. trump revocable trust, not donald trump personally. those were checks that did not bear his signature. they bear the signatures of one of his sons with allen weisselberg. two checks were written in february and those cover, those and the related documents, the invoice for michael cohen and ledger entries covered counts one through four, so when i heard guilty on count one, my immediate thought was this is going to be a clean sweep. because there were some folks who thought we could get a mixed verdict, that a jury would blame donald trump for those things on which you could find his fingerprints, namely the checks he himself signed. maybe that would extend to the other business records related to those checks, but we did not know, particularly given that todd blanche tried to distance his client from the other transactions, whether they would find fault with him for that. so hearing as you described, the four persons distinctive irish accent, the clear, resonant guilty on count one was astonishing. adam and i were sitting next to each other. i took your place yesterday next to adam and i remember hearing the woman sitting on my other side gasped audibly and then all you could hear was pounding of keyboards everywhere. and then i looked up and i saw his energy, donald trump synergy. as you noted he and todd blanche had been having this very romantic moment between them, laughing when the jury came in. when they knew there was a verdict you could see them start to separate a little bit. in that moment trumps body language was pinched, straightahead. there was no more leaning on todd blanche, joking with todd blanche. they were like this. it was like the parting of the red sea in that moment. >> i want to explain to our audience at the outset why our seating arrangement looks a little different tonight. i have been in boston since wednesday morning, involved in some college reunion activities and andrew weissmann is grandly occupying what would usually be my chair in that studio and doing so in a way that makes me feel like it is time for me to get out of the way and let them keep that chair. andrew, this verdict, you have seen so many verdicts come in. you know the tension of the moment and as a prosecutor when you're sitting at the table and you hear the first few guilty's coming in, you probably have a good idea of the rest of what is coming, but prosecutors don't start high-fiving in front of the jury. it is one of those moments where even though the winners are trying to contain themselves, maybe a little nudge, you know, to each other, about having one, but it is not a big moment of a full expression of what it feels like for a prosecutor. >> there is no question i think that a seasoned prosecutor would tell you that if you are gleeful upon a verdict, you are in the wrong profession. that is not the right reaction and obviously, i am not sure when you start out you may not have that, but i think there is a lot of pain involved in that, obviously with respect to the defendant. they are there because of a choice they made and responsibilities being accorded to decisions they made as found by a jury, but it is still something that is sort of humbling and sad, especially, although it wasn't as true here, very often there are family members who did not do anything were crying and upset and understandably so. i should say the other part of the verdict that i find always very moving and i found it particularly so here is when the jury is polled, that is something that the defense usually requests and that is when the clerk asks each of the jurors, after the verdict is read, as you recounted, lawrence, to say whether that is, juror number one, is that your verdict? and they each have to affirm that that is the case, if it is. and in this case, in addition to sort of making it clear this is just an average citizen doing it, in this case, to me, it really shamed all of the people who came as sycophants and toadies to donald trump. the members of congress. certain judges or justices who didn't take their oath sender not taking their oath's of public service as seriously as an average citizen who was sworn in and took their oath of office and stood up, understanding the gravity to the individual. understanding the stark nature of what they were doing and understanding the potential ramifications to them personally, and still doing their duty. that, to me, although it is not as dramatic as the verdict itself, it is something that sort of brings you back to the foundational goals and purpose of the rules of law and how it is founded on the people of the united states. >> adam, i have marveled at the way you do your work in the courtroom because you are present, taking everything in, you are taking notes, but you are also live tweeting the courtroom for so many hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes millions of people trying to follow it through you and many others who are live tweeting in that courtroom. so you are living the experience and transmitting the experience at the same time. i have never had to do that in the courtroom. in the courtroom i am taking and what is happening and i am taking it in to me and i will have time to think about it before i ever try to transmit it to someone else. what was it like for you typing that word, guilty, hearing it from the four persons mouth and then delivering it? >> first, i want to thank you, lawrence, for those very, very kind words. at that moment i'm going to take even a step back before the pronouncement of the verdict. lisa mentioned earlier the gasp in the room that she heard during the announcement of the verdict. the biggest gasps i heard was when judge merchan announced we had a verdict. that was by far the loudest it had been in the courtroom all day and that moment was the first rush of adrenaline. we are witnessing history. we need to bring this out and when you are live tweeting something you want to get it out as quickly as possible. that was a historic moment, in of itself. and the way you recited it at the beginning, the pronouncement of the verdict, it is not just that one moments. it is the call and response and there was an air of, i would call it surreality. it is a moment where it was relatively more quiet at that moment than it was when we knew that was happening and because, as you said in that very thoughtful opening, did we hear that right? can we believe our own ears? and hearing that call and response for 34 times and knowing for certain that american history had forever changed at that moment. >> we are going to squeeze in our first break here. we will be back with what president biden said about this today. we will be right back. k. ♪♪ i have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well. ♪♪ ♪♪ jardiance! -it's a little pill with a ♪♪ ♪♪ big story to tell. ♪♪ ♪♪ i take once-daily jardiance ♪♪ ♪♪ at each day's staaart. ♪♪ ♪♪ as time went on it was easy to seeee, ♪♪ ♪♪ i'm lowering my a1c! ♪♪ jardiance works twenty-four seven in 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feeding their dogs dog food that's actually well, food. developed with vets. made from real meat and veggies. portioned for your dog. and delivered right to your door. it's smarter, healthier pet food. get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/realfood sara federico: at st. jude, we don't care who cures cancer. we just need to advance the cure. it's a bold initiative to try and bump cure rates all around the world, but we should. it is our commitment. we need to do this. the american principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed. donald trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. it was a state case, not a federal case, and it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens. 12 americans, 12 people like you. like millions of americans who served on juries, this jury was chosen the same way every jury in america is chosen. it was a process that donald trump's attorneys were part of. the jury heard five weeks of evidence, five weeks. after careful deliberation the jury reached a unanimous verdict. they found donald trump guilty of all 34 felony counts. not only has he given the opportunity as he should to appeal that decision like everyone else has that opportunity. that is how the american system of justice works and it is reckless, it is dangerous, and it is irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don't like the verdict. our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and it literally is a cornerstone of america, our justice system. the justice system should be respected. we should never allow anyone to tear it down. it is as simple as that. that is america. that is who we are and that is who we will always be, god willing. >> adam klasfeld, lisa rubin, andrew weissmann, back with us. andrew, listening to that today makes you realize that we rarely hear presidents talking about criminal prosecutions. there are so few that ever rise to the level of presidential attention at any point, including the verdict. presidents not including donald trump who commented on prosecutions of his own people while they were happening. but what the president said today was the most elementary message about american justice. >> yes and you know you could replace the word trial with election and it is the same. which is, you know, losing an election, well if you want, it is fair and if you lost it is rigged. and the same would be true at this trial, where the four of us have been, night after night, talking about how fair this process was. before we had any idea what the result would be and that is because all of us understand the elementary view that this is what the criminal justice system is. it is not about the end result, it is about due process and respecting our fellow citizens with respect to the result they come to. so here you really do have the president saying i stand for the rule of law and for respecting due process and even the rights of the defendant, even if that defendant is his political adversary and it is just remarkable that we've come to a place where of course the defendant is always going to say it was unfair, i want a new trial, justice wasn't done. that happens all the time. what does not happen all the time, you know, the entire republican party or what it has now become, going down the rabbit hole of disrespecting the fundamental process of the rule of law. without that we do not have a country. that is foundational to who we are and it is so frightening. the frightening part of this was the response of people like susan collins. just sort of a knee-jerk reaction without any consideration of the actual proof that the four of us have seen and is in writing and there is a transcript and it is presided over by a respected and experienced judge. so that is the part of this that is so disheartening. >> i have to say that this trial taking place in the state of maine, and i have seen a couple of trials in the state of maine, i suspect the outcome would have been identical and senator collins might have a different view because of where that jury would've been chosen from. lisa rubin, i am wondering if you see a tactical point in this trial that was the beginning of the road to the outcome that we see? was there a critical moment for decision that you look at now and say that is the decision, that's the move on which this victory for the prosecution was built? >> lawrence, i would describe it almost like a series of micro decisions. not one of them, but the totality of decisions that they made to surround michael cohen as sort of a deconstructed edifice with all of the scaffolding he needed to make sure this case succeeded. because not withstanding what todd blanche will say about this case resting on the shoulders of michael cohen, nothing could be further from the truth. if you ask me which decision was critical, let's start with the beginning. starting with david pecker and multiple days of testimony. david pecker is still a person who considers donald trump a friend and yet his testimony may have been more critical than anyone else's in driving home to the jury that there was a conspiracy, executed by unlawful means and ultimately covered up by the falsification of business records caused by donald trump. that all started with david pecker and just continued. when i think about is there one moment? no, there is a series of moments every day that was two years in the making with alvin bragg's team thinking about how do you construct this case in a way that no one can say it is solely because of that guy who is disgruntled and upset because he served time in prison and that guy, the one he used to love, did not, and i think they did that masterfully. >> alvin bragg, the district attorney, made appearances in the courtroom, probably when his schedule allowed, a few times over the course of the trial during testimony, including, by the way, some of the most un-dramatic testimony he happened to be in the courtroom for, but he was there for every minute of the summations by the defense and prosecution and i was sitting there imagining alvin bragg a couple of years ago when he really started staring at this evidence and at the point where he was deciding to go forward to seek an indictment, to go forward with the grand jury in this case to seek an indictment on these facts. he, no doubt at that time was envisioning and hearing in his head what the final arguments would be, over these facts in this courtroom and he was in that courtroom to hear exactly how those arguments played out. >> for many months before this trial, a lot of people questioned, why did alvin bragg during this case? it became clear to those of us in the courtroom and who saw the evidence that he amassed over the course of his investigation, it is because he was handed a royal straight flush. as we mentioned on the show, as you mentioned, lawrence, it is not very often that prosecutors say that these are the smoking gun documents and he found the smoking gun documents in allen weisselberg's handwriting, outlining the scheme. that document just happened to be written, those notes happened to be written on the exact shell company bank statement that was used to pay stormy daniels lawyer and there was another smoking gun document on trump organization letterhead, so i think that as to your point, he brought this case with a lot of evidence and he did not come for every day of the trial, because he has lots of other cases and it was very notable. if you look at his public statements he was not talking about this case day in and day out. he was talking about other work his office does every day and i believe on the day of the verdict or shortly before the verdict he was talking about a wage theft case. this is someone speaking for his office and not just one case and his focus and attention was a testament to the fact that this was his office doing a case that they thought needed to be brought. >> andrew, with your experience in the justice department as a prosecutor, consider for us for a moment what alvin bragg was confronted with when he saw the evidence developed in this case and he had to sit and make his own decision as the elected district attorney in manhattan, with all of the responsibility that comes from that. he was in a position to say yes or no in going forward with this prosecution and he didn't make that decision until he had all of the evidence and in making that decision and looking at all of the evidence, he had to be able to satisfy early predictor himself with the vertex would be that we heard yesterday when he was making the first decision to go forward. >> so, first, you know when you bring a case, you do not know. i have seen strong cases that are lost and i have seen weak cases that are one, so you are taking that risk. you don't go forward unless you think you have a lively prospect that you will win and you are convinced of the guilt of the defendant. but i agree completely with what lisa said about the many, many decisions. i think that the key decision here that led to today is one that alvin bragg was vilified for and if you want to know if he is the real deal or not, he is the real deal and the way you know that is because when he was elected in this town and lots of people across the nation were hoping that donald trump would be indicted, because they thought for far too long he escaped responsibility and alvin bragg said it is not ready. that, to me, is the decision that led to the result yesterday. you do not bring a case until it is ready, if it ever becomes ready, and he deserves an enormous amount of credit for making that decision. it is the right decision and i don't think it was a hard one because everything you see about him is that it is not hard when you're just doing your job and doing the right thing. i was struck by the phrase at his press conference, his brief press conference where he said i did my job. i think that is the way he saw it and when the case was ready he said we will go forward. >> we are going to squeeze in a quick break. when we come back, we will hear donald trump agreeing with me, that he couldn't testify, because if he testified he would have committed perjury. donald trump said that today. you will hear him say it in his own words after this break. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can i make my side softer? i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 48 months when you add an adjustable base. shop now at sleepnumber.com an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement. hi, i'm greg. i live in bloomington, illinois. i'm not an actor. i'm just a regular person. some people say, "why should i take prevagen? i don't have a problem with my 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[pilot] prepare for non-stop smiles. crest. back with us, adam klasfeld, lisa rubin and andrew weissmann. so, donald trump, i have been saying forever donald trump will never testify in his own defense in a criminal trial, because he obviously would commit perjury if he did that and he would also be a terrible witness. he would be found guilty absolutely based on his own testimony. today donald trump agreed with me and he admitted he didn't testify in this case because he would have committed perjury. let's listen to donald trump say that. >> i would have testified. i wanted to testify. the theory is you never testify. anybody. if it were george washington, don't testify, because they will get you on something you said slightly wrong and then they sue you for perjury. >> first of all, george washington did testify. he testified against himself to his father when he was six years old and said i cannot tell a lie. andrew weissmann, we are going to hear this for as long as donald trump is able to speak and we will hear it in every other one of his criminal trials about how he wanted to testify. >> donald trump had a right to testify. the judge made sure he knew it, because early in the trial when donald trump was saying because of the gag order he could not testify, merchan wanted to make sure that donald trump, the former president of the united states, understood the rights that any defendant has and it is a right that is personal to the defendant. it is not a right that is exercised by defense counsel. as all defense counsel knows, that it is the defendant's choice to testify or not testify. so simply a lie if he says i was prohibited from testifying more i wanted to testify. if he wanted to he could hop on the stand and testify. he could've called keith schiller if he wanted to. he could've called allen weisselberg. the same way he made a choice to call bob costello. not the best choice in the world, given how that went. he was also free to cross- examine david pecker and to say he was a liar. he did not. david pecker as lisa said was close to the defendant. he was a key witness. he could have cross-examined hope hicks and said she was a liar. she provided equal testimony. and on and on. what do all of the witnesses who did testify have in common? they were all people loyal to and aligned with donald trump. so for the people who say this was a witchhunt and it is unfair and a sham, these are donald trump's friends and allies and employees who testified. they were not even claimed to be lying by donald trump and he had a choice to testify and to call witnesses in addition to bob costello and he chose not to. >> so it is one thing for donald trump to say something as absurd as that. it is something else when donald trump sully defense lawyer, todd blanche, goes on cnn and we will show you what he said. he had a tough time in the courtroom. he is having an even worse time on television. todd blanche, by the way, has a permanent invitation to come on this program whenever he can to answer questions about this and the other trump cases. let's listen to what todd blanche said on cnn. >> why didn't the defense call any of these witnesses? >> well, because we happen to live in america and we don't have the burden of proof. so that is not the point. that is a question that is a loaded question that should not be asked of a defense attorney or a defendant. the question we asked the jury and they ultimately got past was why the prosecution did not call those witnesses, right? as a defense attorney you don't go into a case saying i'm going to fill the holes for the prosecution, right? and keith schiller and some of the other witnesses that were not ultimately called, in our view should have been called by the prosecution. >> lisa rubin, this is a level of silliness now that is beyond what you could expect from any serious lawyer. he lost the case. he lost it and he did not call these witnesses and he obviously didn't call these witnesses because he thought they would do damage to his case. >> and he said as much on cnn. i saw that clip because andrew called my attention to it through a tweet and the first thing that struck me was the arrogance that because this is america we don't have the burden of proof. that's true, but if they wanted to show the jury the prosecution didn't meet its burden, they had any number of means to try and demonstrate that and the answer was solely bob costello. as for the rest of his statement, he told on himself when he said it is not our job to fill the holes in the prosecution's case. that is a concession that had they called keith schiller or even the convicted murderer, allen weisselberg on his second stint at rikers island right now, that those people would have aided the prosecution. pr >> a staggering admission from todd blanche, i was just gob smacked by seeing that interview. >> you know, adam, he had a tough time in the courtroom. i sympathize with lawyers that have bad facts. i said that that is with lawyers and court rooms who have, there's just nothing they can get up there with and use. they don't really have ammunition. but to get into this freewheeling discussion on cnn and to say that is a question that no defense lawyer should ever be asked. are you kidding me? you cannot ask a defense lawyer whether he should've called more witnesses? >> it didn't make sense. and, you know, lisa said it all with that. i would say, one of the most surprising thing with me going back to the trial was todd blanche wasting so much of his time and credibility on the patently absurd argument that these were not reimbursements. after his own client had said in two sworn statements seen by the jury and a tweet but these were reimbursements. he said that even after there were those two smoking gun documents, wasting so much time and so much credibility with the jury, with that it was a pivot point of both his opening statements and his closing arguments. and the fact that that was a pivot point of his defense i think may explain the speed with which the jury rejected reasonable doubt. >> you know, andrew, i have never, as i think about it, i cannot think of an instance in hearing a criminal defense lawyer, after losing the case, after getting hit with a guilty verdict, go into an interview and say they were witnesses that should've been heard in that courtroom, but they should've been called by the other side. i have never heard a lawyer in the civil suit say that about a case after the fact, that there were witnesses who should've and heard and they should have been called by the other side, since everyone knows both sides have the same capacity to call the same witnesses. >> let's just leave it as todd blanche had a tough road actually at the trial. he needs some media training. that obviously is not his forte , i completely agree with lisa when we were talking beforehand, saying that there were additional witnesses that would make your client guiltier is not a particularly good look for a defense counsel. better to talk about the judge's rulings that you think were wrong, legal issues that you are going to appeal, things that could have some credibility and an affair to comment on. so, you know, i just think that was not his finest moment. i also do think that when you compare the incredibly well thought out order of proof and strategy of the state here, that was just so meticulous, and you can feel it as you saw the case progress over and over , the buildup to michael cohen. and it wasn't because he was the key witness, it was that there was so much proof without him. and you felt it and knew it, because you lived it with the prosecution. and there never was a counter narrative. the key problem, i thought, was not just no counter narrative. there was no discussion in the summation of any of the damning proof that you knew the state was going to come back and highlight. >> the prosecution, who has the burden to basically present this case, which is to say tell this story. i have to say, sitting there in the audience section of that courtroom, they presented it like a good movie. i didn't know what was coming next. i never knew who was the next witness. i couldn't sit there and say this was their next move. and every move made sense, when you saw you go yes, that makes sense. >> that is absolutely true. even when people came in order that we weren't necessarily expecting, you know, prosecutors don't always have the luxury of presenting their witnesses exactly how they want to. sometimes witnesses are unavailable on a particular day, or you have to get in some witness out of order so that you can admit evidence that you might want to use with somebody else. but they were meticulous, and their planning was well worth it. >> lisa rubin, adam klasfeld, andrew weissman. i can never thank you enough for gathering together so frequently to guide me in this audience through this important trial, and thank you very much for doing it again tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we will be right back. ♪ i have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well ♪ ♪ jardiance! ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell ♪ ♪ i take once-daily jardiance ♪ ♪ at each day's start! ♪ ♪ as time went on it was easy to see ♪ ♪ i'm lowering my a1c! ♪ jardiance works twenty-four seven in your body to flush out some sugar. and for adults with type 2 diabetes and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. serious side effects may include ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration that can lead to sudden worsening of kidney function, and genital yeast or urinary tract infections. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction. you may have an increased risk for lower limb loss. call your doctor right away if you have 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[music playing] tonight's last word is guilty. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now.