hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the ex-president turned criminal defendant and his lawyers, the prosecutors who brought the first ever criminal case against an american ex-president and indeed the entire country waiting for word from the jury in the trump election interference hush money criminal trial. in court right now, the jury is currently on its 10th hour of deliberations. the judge has said that the jury will not work past 6:00 p.m. today no matter what. if anything happens in court, we'll let you know as soon as we know. the jury spent most of their morning listening to things they have already heard before read back to them. they asked to rehear the judge's instructions regarding what inferences they can make from the evidence shown at trial. they also reviewed the testimony of michael cohen and david pecker regarding their august 2015 trump tower meeting, as well as testimony from david pecker regarding a call from donald trump at his decision to not buy playbook play mite life's rights. regarding the trump tower meeting read back to the jury in court today, "the new york times" reports this. quote, ichael cohen's testimony matches david pecker's account fairly closely. pecker testified that he had said he would be be trump's eyes and ears and would watch out for negative stories. michael cohen recalls him saying he would keep an eye out for anything negative. nbc news reports this on all the factors that could have led the jury to ask about these specific pieces of testimony, reporting, quote, not a word of this is about the 34 counts of falsifying business records, which is notable. if the documents aren't false records, the jury doesn't even need to reach the question of whether the state has proven the other crime that bumps the charges up to the felonies. pecker was also the first witness who testified weeks ago now at this point so jurors have heard a lot since that time. but they have also heard an instruction telling them they can't convict donald trump on michael cohen's word alone under the law. day two of deliberations in the trump election interference hush money trial is where we start once again with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us at the table our regulars legal analyst andrew weisman is here. plus investigaive reporter susan craig is back with us. and msnbc political analyst the host of the bull work podcast tim miller. and we start, as we always do, outside the courthouse with my friend and nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. today feels like the day that will look back if this is still going on day seven or eight and say, remember that day we thought any minute now you're on tv, you had your powder close, but it was sort of the end of the beginning. what does it feel like there? >> reporter: right. maybe i had time to find tim miller because he's in mid-town manhattan for lunch. but maybe we can do that tomorrow depending on how long this goes here. we're at hour nine of deliberations now. so is the question is when does the bell ring again. we haven't heard the bell since you and i spoke 24 hours ago. and the jury requested not only those four parts of testimony be read back to them, but the jury instruction as well. that's what took place at the opening of the courtroom this morning at 9:30 a.m. today. but ever since, they have been deliberating. they have until 4:30 p.m. eastern, potentially the judge suggested they could go as long as 6:00 p.m. eastern tonight, depending whether the jury wants to stick around into the evening hours or not. but this, number one, for both sides, you can look at positivity coming out of the questions asked from the jury to the judge about these particular parts of the transcript dating back to 2015, 2016, david peker and michael cohen testimony about what the prosecution says was the beginning of this conspiracy of election fraud. and the positives for the prosecution is the fact that they are not looking at the falsification of the business records was the top charge. her looking at the underlying crime that was committed. for the defense's part, i had the chance to talk with an attorney for donald trump, who is here at the courthouse today. she said that they thought there could have been a situation where all 12 jurors walk into that room and say does everybody think he's guilty of all these charges, he's guilty. they walk out. but instead, she suggested that they were encouraged by the fact that there are questions and debate taking place inside of that jury room about those 34 felony counts. >> we don't know what's going on in the jury room. saying we're encouraged that there's debate in the jury room is not that. it's like a low bar. >> trump did say only mother theresa couldn't beat these charges. >> i don't know who is scripting his stuff, but that was also not great. >> vaughn could tell you no one. >> exactly. that's sort of out of my lane. it is normal in a case to have deliberations. it's normal to have questions that are about the charge. there's the nature of the law. if you have a lawyer on the jury, it's not a criminal attorney who knows that. so that's normal. it is normal to have readbacks. also normal is it's usually not the whole national media, but trying to tea leaf read, i used to read every note against me. who knows. and again, this is a case that is strong, but any one juror can latch on to something. what the lead prosecutor, his job is giving tools to the jurors that he thinks are on his side to help convince other jurors. that was sort of why he went on so long. that's why he was so detail is that is what he's trying to do. and i actually think it's right that you want jurors to not just all come in and say, he's guilty and come out. you want discussion. >> it's an interesting window into their paranoia that they thought they would walk in and render a judgment one way or the other. it's such an interesting tale on what is public facing in terms of trump's delusions about the criminal justice system. and i hope that if i have done one thing for five weeks, i have made clear that i know nothing about what this jury experienced, what their notes indicate they are still interested in or unsure about, but the point is neither does he. i know you're just reporting what you're hearing from them, but it seems like there's some genuine pleasant surprise that they haven't rendered a verdict yet. >> reporter: right. especially over the course of the last week. it's not like they have been exuding confidence in saying that donald trump is going to get acquitted. they have been casting doubt over the jury that's been empanelled. they have been casting doubt over the judge. they have been casting doubt over what the prosecution put into the record as evidence. they have been casting doubt over the witnesses, which donald trump did today, suggesting that the prosecution bring a series of witnesses forward because they were concerned that they were going to refute what the government was presenting to the jury, which was eliminating the fact that donald trump's own defense team could have brought whatever witnesses they wanted to if they so desired. it's sort of a contrast and a reality that's playing out, quite frankly, over the course of this afternoon in the cell phone that donald trump is holding in his hands on his social media account. i'm not going to read you all of them, but one of them, he says, the judge, his unfairness and unconstitutional. all the instructions were very confusing. essentially, liing up what could amount to excuses rather than the promotion of the idea that everybody just wait. i'm going to be acquitted. and this entire prosecution is going to be proven to be a scam because this jury should be trusted and is going to be part of the evidence my defense team brought forward. >> i was saying that donald or is that they think it could be a hung jury. they have been talking about that from the beginning, b almost six weeks and came back as a hung jury. that's always there. that's another thing they are thinking may happen. they need one person. i don't think we're going to come back and see 12 people say not guilty. i think we're going to either have a combination of charges all guilty or the hung jury. i think that's one thing. they have been hanging their hat on it for awhile. i want theed to put it in the mix. >> as someone who has your thoughts and your focus and your energy and efforts on november. >> he's behaving like a lunatic. listening to vaughn read the one thing he said, if this was to volunteer coach of a children's team, you need to take a leave of absence. forget the presidency, but we don't want this person around people if they are going to be sending weird things to judges from a social media account with all caps. the question is that seeping in with anybody? are we seeing any evidence of that? that is what is important about this week from a political standpoint, which is the people that are the most engaged that are watching shows like this and reading the newspaper, joe biden is doing pretty well with themselves. he's winning across all these polls. it's the people least engaged that aren't watching the news, that don't know the judge's name, that are getting littles of this from tiktok. they are still with trump or disproportionately from where they should be. does an actual conviction, does this start to seep down to that next layer of people. i think that's what the biden campaign is looking at. s that's why robert de niro was out there yesterday. does that group that's less engaged get moved at all by convict trump? >> i think it's important to point out that trump is worried they do. there were republican 2024 primary challengers to trump who had data that suggested it would. and i think if we just deal in the trump side of the ledger his rants or posts or whatever were calling them these days, he certainly thinks they do. >> for sure he's worried about it. he's always playing the long game trying to kick the can. trump is the guy that's been crook for a long time. so i think they do see, if i am convicted, what are we going to do. there's a great story in "the time" about how he's got these people that have been indicted on stage with them. he's seconding out the picture of his mug shot. so that's his backup plan. he's worried being convicted could hurt him with the voters. if i am convicted, what are we going to do? i'm going to lean into outlaw trump versus the deep state. i don't think that works very well. but maybe it doesn't work with the lower trust younger men that didn't go to college, that have been traditionally democrat. i think that's his backup plan at this point. >> let's go back to the courtroom. vaughn hillyard, we understand trump has just sort of meandered back in. his defense team as well. take me inside. >> reporter: it's not clear why the prosecution walked into the courtroom here. we're trying to get an understanding because the judge has just walked into the courtroom as well. there's no apparent bell that has gone off here, but trump is also entered the courtroom and is talking with his lead attorney. we are at 4:13 p.m. we talked about how 4:30 was the time court is usually coming to a close, so there could be conversation about whether they will seek to extend the ability to stay here for an extra the 0 minutes. that maybe the conversation that's taking place. >> as you have been talking to us on the air, our network just came in to the reporting that they will be excused in 16 minutes. are you hearing that yet? they are done for the day in about -- the jury will be excused at 4:30 is what we understand. >> reporter: i guess that would be the suggestion that the jury is not ready to issue a verdict here over the next 17 minutes. and i would be more inclined to hear from andrew to the extent of what this means. are we looking at a friday verdict or beyond that? >> fourth of july? >> it is really true that awaiting a verdict is groundhog day. every day you sort of wake up. i once had a jury out for ten days. i still remember my prosecution team was like why is today different than any other day? soen again, everyone really needs to understand this is right now if there was a verdict one way or the other, i have would have been really surprised. this is really short time. this was a trial. it's a really important trial. they have a laptop with hundreds of exhibits in the jury room. even if they are just going through that -- >> they just got their sound system set up today. what does that mean that they asked for headphones and the judge gave them speakers? >> they have just like our set. there are these two lap tops in there. and all of the exhibits are loaded on. so everyone can huddle around it and see it, but there was also audio. so the judge was trying to say, we can dpif you headphones, but that's each one of you can put it on. but then all 12 have to go through it and play it. they said we can do that or give you a speaker so you can all hear it. or you can have both. >> it sounds like we're a little behind technologically. >> if you go to this courthouse, it's a wonderful 19th century courthouse, but with justices being done. yes, there are many parts that are old fashioned, but they have all the information. i'm so old, what do you mean they have a laptop? we used to just wheel in -- i'm older than that. they wheeled in the actual evidence in hard copy. >> what is audio-visual? what will they be listening to? >> you have both a lot of conversations that michael cohen captured that are significant, so we have that, and you also have the audio if they want to listen to it of michael cohen's podcast, where he sounds deranged at times. he's screaming about donald trump and about getting revenge, how he would like to see him go to prison, so you have both the recordings. and you have the podcast. am i missing anything? >> and you have trump on the tapes. and including some of his false denials. >> and the c-span exhibit. it goes back to covering the campaign. it was the second or third witness was the archivist for c-span that entered into evidence something that vaughn and i covered in realtime, and that was trump to camera talking about how this was going to kill him with women voters. vaughn, what do you make of what they had read back to them this morning and speakers and headphones being supplied to them? >> reporter: right. these are the elements here. sometimes i think when i'm looking at this trial,his trial extract it to the political moment of all of this too. donald trump not only on social media posts today said that ndas are legal. you have a current issue republican nominee who is suggesting that these types of arrangements would be legal. we're five months out from a general election. but this morning when you're going back to the testimony that was read back, these are the conversations that happened at trump tower in which david pecker and michael cohen are essentially corroborated each other's tail light. in their descriptions of how this conspiracy that's being alleged by the prosecution was initiated. ask that it was the trump and michael cohen that invited david pecker to trump tower for this meeting to help on the campaign side of this, not the other way around. and that it was the suggestion that by david peker that he would be able to be the eyes and ears and would be able to alert michael cohen to these negative stories, and that ultimately what you saw play out months later was an actual execution of this hatched plan. so for the jury, now for the second time, they were able to hear two men's testimony it rate that exact point. now the question is to what extent when you're talking about the underlying crime that's being suggested here, which was the promotion of donald trump's election, which is i think at the heart of this case. when you're looking at the 2024 election, i think prudent to take into account, because you're talking about somebody who narrowly lost holding on to the white house in 2020 by about 42,000 votes across three states here. so i think every time this is read into the record, i think it's hard not to ignore it through the 2024 lens as well because clearly the jurors ares interested in it. i think the american public at large should be as well. >> the thing about trump is there are no new trump stories. the story of his political terror with women voters is a dynamic, but it's not exactly the same, but it persists. i wonder what you make of sort of not a repeat, but the echoes of 2016 repeated through 2020 andment colting roaring back into the general election conversation in 2024. >> it demonstrates how much this actual case really could have mattered in 2016. a lot of times that's brushed aside. vaughn talked about 2020 and not to trigger everybody but here's the thing. the actual event here, the alleged event with stormy daniels was in 2006. the payoff was in october of 2016. so ten years later. so that underlines the melania theory that we're trying to hide it from the wife. so if you remember the end of 2016 to the extent that nothing is the same, trump's numbers are doing terrible in early october. then comey letter and trump behaves the last ten days. they put him orphan a leash and doesn't do the -- kind of crazy stuff but not really crazy stuff. the numbers break. if you talk to any smart pollsters, the numbers broke that last weekend. would that have happened if this was the news story of those last two weeks? if the salients of this story was such the last two weeks? we'll never know. i think it very well could have. i think that speaks to the fact that a lot of times it's easy to dismiss this. he got away with the acts sets is hollywood tape so none of this matters. >> trump thought it mattered dramatically. let me show you what karen mcdougal had to say. this is also something the juries was interested in. the questions around the life rights to mcdougal's story. here she is with anderson cooper. >> i signed the deal august 6th. it was probably august 5th or 4th that we finalized and signed on the 6th. i don't remember whether the race was. >> this is in the last month or two of the presidential race. if donald trump hadn't been running for president, do you believe this deal would have been made with ami? >> probably not. no. probably not. >> you're convinced now thises was an effort to do a favor for donald trump in the last few months of the presidential race. >> unfortunately, yes. >> so that paired with the testimony from davidson and pecker around a crescendo of sbless in stormy's story, it came up in close where he said what tim said. the sex happened in '06. the payout happened right before election day in 2016. >> you know what the defense is thinking by looking at their summation. the melania defense, which was floated at the beginning, they didn't say it's abandoned, but one of the smart things they dids was not lean into that at the end. it would have been preposterous, let alone she was not in the courtroom. >> she never showed up. >> there were already things that they stretched on. they did not stretch on that. it's overwhelming it's not michael cohen. just go to hope hicks. she makes it plain. she has out of donald trump's own mouth with no cross on this at all saying thank god this came out afterwards. really? because afterwards melania still knows about it. so he's not thinking about her. and then she broke down and cried because she understood that's the government argued that she understood how devastating it was. >> so we didn't have the exact pages yesterday when we came on the air of exactly, we knew generally. we'll share some of what the jury was read this morning as well as the instructions that were read back to