it out in the overflow room. >> it was definitely not cold, contrary to what donald trump likes to tell people that it's a, quote, icebox, i actually think we were all profusely sweating. but it could have been because there's just so much at stake. alex, malcolm, one of the brightest, brightest stars in pennsylvania. i'm a huge fan. i'm glad you got a chance to talk with him. >> he's a star. he's available in the 10:00 p.m. hour too, no, he's not, heist ours. >> he can hang out in our a block if you would like. >> we're not doing that tonight, my friend, but bless you for the suggestion. have a wonderful show.. >> thanks, alex. and today it's 421 days since donald trump was indicted on charges of falsifying business records to pay off porn star stormy daniels in an attempt to hide their affair in the final days of the 2016 election. and a 12-person jury of new york citizens began a historic process, deliberations to determine whether to convict a former u.s. president of any of the 34 felony counts. trump was at the courthouse today where he has been every day there has been trial and where he must remain every day the jury deliberates his fate. here is how one court reporter captured trump after the jury left the courtroom. todd blanche appeared to gently shake trump awake, nudging his shoulder, as the six alternates filed out of the courtroom, and he was the only person still sitting down. judge juan merchan handed the case over to the seven men and five women jurors with this charge, quote, it is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here, it is yours. you are the judges of the facts, and you are responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. these 12 jurors are the, quote, judges of the facts. only they have the power to decide whether donald trump is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. the judges of the facts have spent 22 days in a manhattan courtroom listening to 22 total witnesses, more than 80 hours of witness testimony, and seven hours and 37 minutes of closing arguments. today judge merchan read all of the jury instructions to help the jury decide trump's guilt or innocence as to each of the 34 counts. the jury spent four and a half hours deliberating. we have some insight into the juror's deliberation process through notes that they sent to judge merchan. at 2:56 p.m., the jury made four requests to review some of the most damaging witness testimony by tabloid mogul david pecker and by star witness michael cohen. including david phone call with trump about karen mcdougal, his decision to pull out of the deal to transfer the former playboy playmate's life rights to michael cohen and the now infamous trump tower meeting in august of 2015. an hour later the jurors then sent the judge a second note requesting to rehear judge merchan's instructions. judge merchan asked the jurors to decide by tomorrow whether they need to hear the entire set of jury instructions over again or just part of them. court will reconvene at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. the judges of the facts will then continue deliberating, deciding the fate of donald trump. leading off our discussion tonight is andrew weissman, former fbi general counsel and former chief of the criminal division in the eastern district of new york. he's an msnbc legal analyst and the co-author of "the new york times" best-selling book the trump indictments. also with us is adam clasfeld, who's been in the courtroom every day of trump's criminal trial. he's a fellow with just security. gentlemen, it is a pleasure to have you both here. andrew, i don't have you here on set, i am remiss to not have you here, but i'm grateful for you to join us. adam, i'd like to start with you, because you are here with me. let's talk about the fact that donald trump actually called into dan's radio show and said, quote, the whole thing is crazy and nobody knows what's happening. well, i don't know about him, i'm not the criminal defendant, but you and i clearly know what is happening here. but one of the things he raises is the fact that the jurors asked the judge to reread the instructions. i do think that's interesting. we don't know if they want the entirety of the instruction, adam, or maybe just a portion, but what does it tell you about the fact they're asking for those instructions again? >> it tells me they're paying attention, that this jury could have -- if trump were actually right, that they were hopelessly biassed against him, they're a new york jury, the fix is in, they don't need to listen to all of these instructions again. these instructions ran on for an hour, and they include detailed information about the interpretation of the law. concepts like unlawful means, which trump made a big issue of today. they want to understand the fine legal points of the law. and this is not unusual. it is very common in a case to hear the jurors to want to get in more detailed explanation of certain instructions. here under new york state law, they need to ask permission to hear any of the instructions. they don't have it in written form. so it shows they're paying attention. it shows that they are meticulous. and it shows that they want to get this right. >> so andrew, these jury instructions, there's 55 pages of them. i mean, we've talked about this, you and i, offline a lot. is there a disadvantage to the fact that these jurors don't actually have their hands on these jury instruction, or does it actually -- there's a school of thought i was thinking about myself, maybe it actually helps the prosecution that the jurors don't have these jury instructions because there is some complexity to the legal concepts that are here. >> you know, in the federal system, it's left very much to each judge to decide whether they want to send a written copy back or not. and i know some judges who do, some judges who don't do that. and i think it's because there are sort of up sides and downsides because, yes, you definitely want them to understand the law, but you know, this isn't sort of a biblical -- where you want them to get hung up on certain words and to obsess over that as opposed to understanding, you know, what are the legal parameters but then really digging into the facts. and so i think, you know, again, there are up sides and downsides. in new york, they'd simply not allow to send that back, as i understand it, and that's why the judge will reread certain portions. and that's very common. we are officially now in the tea leaf part of the -- this case, which we're all going to be looking at each note trying to figure out what's going on. there's no question, i agree with adam, that this is a good note in terms of assessing the jury. it's a good note if you are the prosecutors. but we're still a long way away. but i do think that big picture is kind of the one that you said, katie, which is if you start with donald trump denigrating the process, you know, all three of us do not know what's going to happen, but all three of us who've been in the courtroom day in and day out, we know to our core that this is a fundamentally fair process with good lawyers on both sides and an eminent judge presiding over it. so you know, that, i think, is the real take-home message for no matter what happens in the case, it has really been handled superbly. >> so adam, there is something that you just mentioned a couple of minutes ago, it's the unlawful means definition. and i'm actually thinking if i'm the prosecution, i would want the jury to actually have this specific definition, because if you look at it it says that there is no requirement for the jury to unanimously find or agree upon the unlawful means by which donald trump was able to corruptly, you know, reach the felony that they have in this case. and that gives the jury the opportunity to consider three different ultimate, you know, ways by which this happens or a myriad of ways that this happens. so is there enough clarity, though, do you think going into the jury deliberations today after those very long close eings yesterday, which i thought were effective, but they definitely were long. do you think there's enough clarity for this jury? >> i think there is going to be clarity because this jury is seeking it. they are asking for the instructions, and specifically this instruction, unlawful means. >> yes. >> now, if they are unclear about this, i would expect they're going to ask for more instructions. this is an instruction that took on a life of its own after it became public today a lot of commentators kind of took it out of context and made it sound like the judge was turning the concept of jury you than -- no person other than trump's own attorney had said that this was a usual instruction. i actually brought the transcript from last week, because it's really a very interesting moment. he said, we submit -- and this -- he was arguing to get a different departure from the instruction. he asks the judge, we submit that the jury should be required to make a very specific finding as specific as your honor's discretion would permit. so it's very clear what happened at trial. the judge asked him, do you agree that's not ordinarily required. and bove replies, certainly. and at that moment, he makes a concession, this is how it happens under this election law conspiracy, you can -- the jury has the discretion to decide which were the unlawful means. and in this case, there's a wide variety out there. the falsifying business records, this is one of kind of choose your own adventure for the jury. the jury can decide that all those shell companies that michael cohen created after calling donald trump and going into first republic bank that those bank records for those shell companies contained lies as attested to by a witness. they could find that federal election law was broken -- violated. they could find that the 1099s for the tax authorities were misleading. and if that is too many options for the jury, that's the nature of the case. that is the widespread nature of the concealment that went into the disguising of this hush money. >> you know, andrew, that's a buffet of criminality that adam has just offered up to us. but i do think one thing that's been a critical part that we heard through the closings and also that we're seeing woven throughout the jury instructions is this issue of witness credibility and what was remarkable to me and something that stood out to me during these jury instructions was that an accomplice as a matter of law jury instruction that was tailor made for michael cohen's testimony stating that in new york you cannot convict a defendant based solely on the testimony of an accomplice. you have to have some corroborating evidence, which is why that first note that came out from the jury, i'm really stuck on the fact that they were asking for david testimony, not only concerning that 2015 trump tower meeting where they -- i call that the original sin, where they agreed to the catch and kill scheme with the national inquirer, and that set the table for the buffet of criminality that adam talks about that ended up happening over the next few years. they sought information about why, why the national enquirer would not sell the life rights of karen mcdougal, why they ripped that up agreement despite having reached a written agreement to be able to do so. a lot of this seems to me, andrew, that david pecker, friend and mentor of donald trump, is the person who will corroborate very squarely what michael cohen said was the original conspiracy. >> i couldn't agree with you more. i think it's useful for everyone to go back and think about how we were reporting on this case when we heard david testimony. everyone was taken aback because they went, oh, this is so solid. here you have a witness independent of michael cohen saying that there was an agreement that he had as a principle with donald trump as a principle. michael cohen was a staffer who was going to carry out the instructions of that agreement and maybe even more surprising is that donald trump's counsel didn't really cross examine david pecker in terms of his creditability. so you're left with this kind of jury note saying tell us about more, we want to be reminded about what david pecker specifically said. he was the first witness, this is many weeks ago, but it was very much a little bit like hope hicks' testimony, which was also damaging, which was also something that donald trump's counsel didn't really challenge. and then finally just to your law point, new york has this rule which is that you do have to have corroboration of an accomplice. you cannot be convicted solely, the keyword here is solely, on an accomplice's word. i will say de facto that is the federal system as well, even though we don't have that real, de facto we do have that rule. no one would dream preesenting a case to a jury where the only witness was somebody like michael cohen who was an accomplice. you always would have some sort of corroboration, usually strong corroboration, but i completely agree with you, while the note is a first sign, there's no question if you are the prosecutor, you think this is a good note. it is going to the heart of the case. it is going to a clear piece of evidence that was not challenged. and it also did ask for some testimony from michael cohen. >> yeah. >> which suggests that they didn't write off his testimony as the defense asked them to do. >> and maybe it becomes an apples to apples comparison in terms of testimony and michael cohen's testimony about that critical meeting. thank you so much for joining us tonight. and for joining me this afternoon for our msnbc youtube livestream. you were fantastic. we're going have one when the verdict comes out, so i'm going to put you on the spot right now, you're going join us, right, for that? >> absolutely. >> we wouldn't have it without you. thanks for being here. coming up, donald trump's favorite federal judge, aileen cannon, a trump appointee overseeing the classified documents and espionage case in florida just gave criminal defendant donald trump another procedural win. how is special prosecutor jack smith likely to respond? that's next. ck smith likely to respond? that's next. 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. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer 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may 20th. that trial date has come and gone and it doesn't seem like trial will be rescheduled any time soon. and now the florida federal judge who donald trump appointed is once again ruling in his favor in the case. judge aileen cannon denied a motion by special counsel jack smith seeking to prohibit donald trump from making inflammatory statements about law enforcement after he pushed the wild and dangerous lie that a standard fbi procedure document included in the mar-a-lago search warrant was an assassination plot. even though the search had been planned for a day when trump was 1,000 miles away in new jersey. judge cannon rejected jack smith's motion on procedural grounds and rebuked smith for not conferring with the defense more thoroughly, writing, quote, the court finds the special counsel's proforma conferral to be wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy, any future, nonemergency motion brought in this case shall not be filed absent meaningful, timely, and professional referral. that's judge cannon taking the side of donald trump's lawyer who is maid that argument in their response. but as "the washington post" notes, smith wrote in a footnote that prosecutors contacted trump's lawyers, but his lawyer, quote, do not believe there's any imminent danger and asked to meet and confer next monday. judge cannon said nothing about the risk of threats and danger to law enforcement officials by donald trump's repeated lies, so this is yet another example of judge cannon's slow walking decisions on a growing number of pre-trial motions. in a new profile of judge cannon, the "new york times" describes her as an industrious but inexperienced and often insecure judge whose reluctance to rule decisively on minor matters has -- in a log jam of unresolved issues. she has largely accomplished this by granting a serious hearing to almost every issue, no matter how farfetched that mr. trump's lawyers have raised playing directly into the former president's strategy of delaying the case from reaching trial. joining us now is bradley moss, national security attorney who represents people in the intelligence community and andrew weissman is back with us. when i last spoke with you, i think it was monday, perhaps, we didn't have any movement from judge cannon at all in response to jack smith's motion. and then we get this order, which was remarkably insulting to jack smith, but that's par for the course. let me be frank, because i've seen judge cannon with the government in court. that's exactly what she does. but i tweeted, bradley, that this is a form over substance issue. she could have set a hearing after doing a very quick briefing schedule on this and addressed the lack of conferral, but didn't jack smith actually confer with donald trump's lawyers and they said we don't think it's an emergency? >> comes back to that phrase that we've been talking about since the beginning of this particular case, judicial discretion. particularly when we're dealing with