good morning. it is 10:00 eastern. i m ana cabrera alongside my colleague and friend jose diaz-balart, bringing you special coverage as history unfolds this morning in a new york courthouse. closing arguments now under way in the first criminal trial of a former president. the dramatic final phase of donald trump s hush money case after 21 days in court, 22 witnesses and 80 hours of testimony. up first in today s closing arguments, trump s defense team. attorney todd blanche trying to convince a jury that the prosecution did not meet their burden of proof in this trial. nbc s yasmin vossoughian is outside the courthouse. also with us, chuck rosenberg, former senior fbi official, daniel leven, former prosecutor, jeremy solante, and jessica roth, former federal prosecutor and professor at cordosa law school. the defense closing is already under way. todd blanche saying to the jury, you should want or expect more than the testimony of michael cohen. what else are we hearing
keep pushing forward with this, and there are a lot of other liars. to me, that s the weakness in the defense coming in. to point it out, it s 11:00 eastern, and 8:00 pacific right now. they did bring up the catch and kill yeah, and related it back to cohen. that specifically, duncan, the idea that catch and kill is not illegal. we have talked about that before and that s true. they brought out the testimony and he s bringing in during the argument other catch and kill instances, schwarzenegger, and others, and this is different. the reason it s different is catch and kill is not illegal and maybe it s a questionable journalistic technique but it s not illegal. prior to 2016, the national enquirer and donald trump never engaged in this together, and why is that? this is borne out by the testimony of david pecker, and then they talked to michael cohen about this, and the timing of it and the fact that it was taking place after the access hollywood testimony cam