Longtime adviser dan scavino could post from his social media account. Today, his campaign was blaming a nameless staff member for posting a video referring to the creation of a unified reich and its far from the first time hes invoked rhetoric echoing hitlers germany. We begin tonight with the next phase of the historic first criminal trial of a former u. S. President. That is because the defense in Donald TrumpsHush Money Election Interference Trial rested its case today. And counter to trumps many claims, they rested without Hearing A Word from him on the Witness Stand. Closing arguments are scheduled to begin one week from today, and before the jury begins its deliberations the judge will provide the jury with their instructions. That outline what Verdict Jurors should deliver based on what they determine to be true through the evidence that was presented. Each word in those Jury Instructions is critical to whether trump is found guilty or not guilty by the jury. This afternoon, judge juan merchan heard from both prosecution and the defense as they argued about what language should be used to instruct the jury on the law. Of course, it is ultimately merchans decision what those final instructions will be. As for the 12member jury, they left today following the defenses lone material witness, who may have been the worst defense witness possible, second to trump himself. Robert costello, the criminal lawyer with tied to rudy giuliani, who was trying to get Michael Cohen to hire him in 2018 as cohen was facing federal indictment connected to this case. Was back on the Witness Stand for a second day, trying to undercut cohens testimony. Instead, he wound up undercutting his own credibility, as Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger used his own emails against him, where He Disparaged Cohen and showed that he was really working for trump and not cohen. In an email to his partner, costello wrote, our issue is to get cohen on the right page without giving him the appearance that we are following instructions from giuliani or the president. In my opinion, this is the Clear Correct strategy. In another email, he wrote, tune in to cnn, and see how they are playing this up. Cohen has to know this. Yet he continues to slow play us and the president. Is he totally nuts . What should i say to this ahole . Hes playing with the most powerful man on the planet. Perhaps the Biggest Surprise today is that the defense rested its case without even attempting to raise a defense about the actual case against trump. All they seem to do was attack cohen, his credibility and his motives. To be clear, a defendant is not obligated to make a case in a criminal trial. But in this case, trumps defense team made a promise to the jury, during his opening statement, Trump Defense attorney todd blanche made the claim that the jury would learn that the money trump paid to cohen in 2017 was not a pay back, especially not a reimbursement for the money cohen paid to Stormy Daniels. It was all just a retainer agreement. Because cohen was trumps personal attorney. And yet, the prosecution laid out three key pieces of Documentary Evidence that the defense failed to bring up let alone counter at any time. There was the Hand Written Notes by Allen Weisselberg on the First RepublicBank Account Statement showing the 130,000 Wire Transfer to Stormy Daniels lawyer, that notes the breakdown on the Repayment Plan to cohen. Including grossing up the amount to cover any Tax Liabilities and adding a bonus, which amounted to a total of 420,000. Then there was trumps signed 2017 president ial public Financial Disclosure report that under the part marked liabilities included the line, in the interest of transparency while not required to be disclosed in 2016, expenses were incurred by one of donald j. Trumps attorneys, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and mr. Trump fully reimbursed mr. Cohen in 2017. The category of value would be 100,001 to 250,000. And if thats not enough, there was also trumps own tweet from may 3rd, 2018, yes, always a tweet, where trump admitted that the Monthly Payments were a reimbursement for Stormy Daniels not disclosure agreement. No matter how much the defense will likely focus on cohen and his credibility in their Closing Argument next week, they have no way to attack the credibility of the Documentary Evidence already presented to the jury that makes the case against trump. Joining me now is katie phang, Trial Attorney and host of the katie phang show on msnbc. Danny cevallos, Criminal Defense Attorney and msnbc legal analyst, and tristan snell, former Assistant Attorney General for new york and author of taking down trump, 12 rules for Prosecuting Trump by someone who did it successfully. Thank you all for being here. Katie, my sister, i have to start with you. I know you have been in court every day. I saw you in court the day i got to be there and saw how diligently youre taking notes and pay attention. Throughout this case, have you heard any day, because maybe i missed it in the google docs and transcripts you all have been sending me, was there any time at which the defense countered any of those three pieces of seemingly really important evidence that i just discussed . No, and thats a really important distinction for you to raise, joy, because as my esteemed colleagues on this panel know, the questions that are posed during crossexamination by the lawyers is not evidence. Its the answers that are elitsed from the witnesses that end up in be the evidence. When you examine david pecker to Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels along the way, what testimony that was elicited from the witnesses, that testimony from those witnesses is the evidence. So when provided with the opportunity, and by the way, its not like judge merchan told trump that he only had a couple days or a little bit of time to be able to put on a defense. What did we hear . We heard from a paralegal from todd blanches law firm who said that actually he helped the prosecution and said that the 75 phone calls that the defense made it sound like was between Michael Cohen and with Robert Costello were actually not a total of 75 and that there were dupes included in there, but more importantly, you heard from Robert Costello. You would think at some point in time, someone on behalf of the defense would get up and explain not only what you just put up on the graphics at the beginning of the segment, but what about that meeting in Donald Trumps office at trump tower after Michael Cohen met with Allen Weisselberg with that account statement, where donald trump approved it verbally and signed off on the fabt that trump would then pay cohen 420,000 for 130,000. We didnt hear anything about that. So trump had a lot of opportunity to be able to take down the credibility even more so of people like Michael Cohen, and he failed to do so. Of course, the jurors, as you noted, theyre gone for seven days. They recess today, they dont come back until Tuesday Morning at 9 30. As trysten and danny know, thats a long time to sit and think about the last thing they heard and the last thing they heard was bad stuff from Robert Costello. The thing is, danny, as a former defense attorney, heres the problem. They dont have to put on a defense. Theyre not required. The obligation is on the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump committed a crime, but the defense, to katies point, they left the jury with the guy who pissed off the judge. I have been a grand juror i have sat on a jury. I was dismissed the last time they tried to call me. But i imagine that the judge is probably the most popular person in the room. And so if youre making the judge mad, im not sure youre very popular with the jury, whereas Michael Cohen was a calm witness, who went methodically through, and the prosecutors seem to be quite brilliant, and theyre good and succinct. What sense did it make to leave the jury with that bad taste in their mouth today . What did it accomplish . It might have accomplished just satisfying the client if youre defense counsel. I expect in a couple years well find out that donald trump really pushed to have Robert Costello on the stand and that costello himself really wanted to be on the stand. Frankly, when youre defense counsel, youre at the end of the trial, youre punchy, its exhausting. The client wants something. Sometimes you say if thats what you want, well do but remember, if this comes in were the one who wanted this to happen. Youre right in that the defense has zero burden, but when the defense starts calling witnesses after the prosecution closes, they dont have any burden but spiritually, to the jury, it looks like hey the defense wants to tell us something. Lets see what is so important. You call two witnesses, and thats what you get out of them . Now you have let the jury with Robert Costello when you could have left them with Michael Cohen who at best was a mixed bag. Definitely some good things for the prosecution, but there were a couple punches landed. To me, the most significant was the revelation that Michael Cohen stole, literally stole money from this guy that the prosecution has painted as sort of having a Svengali Hold Over Cohen and all of his sins were because he loved and adored and had this undying loyalty to trump. Not so fast. Cohen, when the opportunity presented itself, he stole from trump. That was a point to be made. But the bottom line is you could have left the jury with cohens crossexamination essentially, now theyre left with costello. Its awkward, a little strange. But is that even material . You wrote the 12 rules of prosecuting donald trump. Is one of the rules that you have to have a pristine witness thats never done anything wrong . At the end of the day, Michael Cohen committed crimes for trump. Even that part, respectfully, what dana talked about, im not sure how thats material. The question at hand as i understand it is did they pay off Stormy Daniels . Did Michael Cohen make that payment himself committing crimes in the process, did he expect to be paid back. And was he paid back, and did the Trump Organization falsify their Business Records in order to do that, and was that entire scheme for the purposes of helping his campaign . That is what pecker said is the case. That is what cohen said is the case. Thats why they gave Pecker A Nonprosecution agreement. I dont see, if you want to say, you know, Michael Cohen jaywalked ten days a week and didnt know how to cross a street without running in front of a bus and messing up traffic, so what if im a juror. Yeah, i think this is an area where jurors are going to have themon sense that if youre going to catch a criminal or an accused criminal, there might be some other unsavory people or people who did unsavory things that were around that guy. Like if youre going to get to that inner circle, youre going to find other people that were not doing particularly great things for the guy being accused of crimes. Wait a minute, im sorry, not to correct you, but not doing unsavory things near him, for him, its the same crime. This is where i cant get away from this. He went to jail for this crime. Not a different crime, a separate crime. He didnt rob a separate bank. He went to jail for the same thing trump is now on trial for. Make it make sense. Im not a lawyer, but i cant get away from that because as a normal person, the thing Michael Cohen went to jail for is this. This crime. Yeah, that among others, but this was part of cohens indictment that he then had to plead guilty to. The pressure was on him, he was up against a wall. And he pled guilty. And this was part of his indictment. So thats absolutely right. But overall, there is a conspiracy is effectively what the prosecution is painting here. Its part of their theory of the case for elevating this from a misdemeanor to a felony is that trump was part of this, approved of it, directed it, so forth and so on. The notion that Michael Cohen has to be of clean hands here is something i have seen a lot in the media and on social media, and it doesnt hold water. I dont think the jury is going to require that to be true. I think the jury is going to have the common sense to say it doesnt matter. Oh, i feel a little bit differently here. Look, the stealing the money thing, thats not great. But i also dont actually know that that damages cohen as badly as we might think. I think the jury is going to just sort of i think thats going to be water off a ducks back. Whereas, you know, the final witness, katie, is the guy who sent cohen a bill even though he never retained him. You cant send me a bill if i didnt retain you, thats not how it worked. Let me show you some of the atmospherics that you experienced. Heres trumps daily list of lookalike cosplayers who dress like him and show up in the same outfit as him. Alan dershowitz is there again. Bernie carrick, the guy who got pardoned. Kash patel, joe piscopo. Like a 1980s throwback. People you thought might have passed away, but theyre very much alive. What was the purpose of that, did you feel . Obviously, theres a couple reasons why. One, we have them trying to end run judge merchans gag order by serving as a surrogate and attacking the judge, the case, et cetera, which is not kosher, but absent there being evidence that trump ordered them or had them go and do it, it isnt a violation of the gag order. Putting that aside, you ended up showing in the wrong way to the jury that that is the nature of the support that donald trump gets. Today, don jr. Showed up, and i said on social media that he lost the rock, paper, scissors contest this morning with eric. But you know, so you get don showing up for what, the last day of evidence . What you dont have, though, is in my experience from trying a lot of cases, you always want to see that theres a family or some type of humanization. When you bring in Trump Campaign people like Boris Epshteyn and others, and you bring in members of congress and basically have them, what i call the gop Satellite Office in new york, youre sending a message to the jury that it was not because you were fearful about the impact on your family. You didnt really care about melania. You cared about how it would impact you selfishly if youre donald trump. It fits with the narrative that the prosecution has advanced. The prosecution has to prove certain things but today, this afternoon, joy, they ended up having this Charge Conference where they went over the proposed Jury Instructions. Why its really important to emphasize for the viewers is, when they do this as lawyers, you have to rely upon the evidence thats been admitted during the course of the trial to advocate for certain Jury Instructions. In the absence of that evidence, you dont get that instruction. Today, we heard the lawyers, especially on the defense, saying there was evidence of this. You had a moment where the judge is like, i dont know about that. I dont know if you have enough to get there. When you only use surrogates and i call it the red tie brigade, combing through and trying to be the Support System for donald trump, youre telling the jury thats all you care about and it wasnt a person thing. I call them his emotional support clones. They dress like him so they come in like saddam husseins doubles, like body doubles of trump. Dont go anywhere. Much more on the first criminal trial of a former president , including trump not testifying after saying he was absolutely open, probably, yeah, totally going to do it. The reidout continues after this. I love your dress. Oh thanks i splurged a little because Liberty Mutual customized my Car Insurance and i saved hundreds. Thats great. I know, right . Ive been telling everyone. Baby liberty. Did you hear that . Ty just said her first word. C