Paula Reid flashing her spanx ft. Kristen Holmes, Abby Phillip, and Erin Burnett (5-28-2024)

correspondent Kristen Holmes uh ladies I was just in the courtroom not that long ago listening to the vast majority of blanches uh summations and and as a good defense attorney might do the main thing that he was trying to accomplish was just to say to the jury you don't have to overthink this this is really easy you've got a liar on the stand all of this is hinging on his word and that's to get there though I mean as we laid out in our reporting before court started today we expected that he going to argue that the documents here they're allegedly you know Death By A Thousand Cuts By poking holes and all was that in your view something that was effective to suggest maybe Ami really wasn't all that in in on it I think part of what they're doing right now is trying to lay out fact after fact after fact about Reasonable Doubt and the reason being that I have talked to a number of trump legal advisers who do say that there is some concern or at least they are playing a little bit to the fact that there are these two lawyers that are present on the jury they this to be made this case to be made to them directly essentially saying they want to work with these lawyers because this is also a complicated case right and they're going to understand that a lot of the things that really liked we know that Donald Trump has a number of very contentious relationships with lawyers but he was raving about Todd blanch over the weekend saying that him catching Michael Cohen in the live particularly about stealing the money from Trump organization was a pivotal Moment In the case he is ending this case despite the Bob Castell agree or disagree about how this is going for the defense and specifically Todd blanch but I think you're right Paula there is a sort of lack of narrative that unfolds when you listen to it especially when you're in that Courthouse you can hear read are back with me right now uh Kristen notably right as we are speaking Don Jr one of Trump's adult sons he's at the microphone he's speaking they were in court today sitting behind uh their father Don Jr Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump a surprising addition what do you make of the the children who have shown up here notably not Ivan katron we'll start with who has shown up so don Junior's team said this because the reason he only showed up to two court dates was because he was in the White House they were the two um family members who were I would argue this was the weakest moment for uh Todd blanch today this is where he's talking about the impact of the national in 16 positive stories about Trump negative stories about his adversaries political opponents were being he he planted stories about his political opponents in the primary Ted Cruz and others right obviously and Donald Trump has long bit a fan of the acquire and believe that it has an enormous breach despite the fact that maybe 350,000 through and through they believe I mean Trump believed and believes in the power of the tabloids but let's uh get a jury consult I to come up here um what we were just talking about as as Ellie was talking and and Laura Kristen was Michael Cohen and now the prosecut the defense the prosecution I'm sorry it's been over an hour right what you you say kind of clean up on Michael Cohen that's a long time right as Paul said there's a lot to clean up there I mean part of the issue though it is showing that the prosecution feels as though there is a number Paul in terms of the time here though I know many have said look the defense is for that long yeah I feel I feel badly for the jury and that's that's probably too long two and a half hours for Todd blanch that felt like it really went on and on and this is going to go oh had to spend that time to clean up because they case does depend on the jurors trusting Michael Cohen you one thing that's interesting when they were trying to clean up they talking about Michael Cohen s of a thing will be effective well exactly and I think what we saw the defense do is the truth now it is interesting though coming into this we were told Michael Cohen had said but also it had been very clear from the prosecution and as Ellie was saying it they didn't do that no you really can't do it one thing that Trump is really good about is not leaving a paper trail which is why it's sort of ironic that we're here for what is a paperwork though Alan weiselberg obviously he's serving time in prison they didn't call him he could have either made the case slam dunk black and white a good witness he plead the fifth and you can't bring a witness who you then he put Trump on and he's talked about Daniels right and we even have the video or at least the Stills that were entered into court of Schiller and Trump walking off right before the call was made indicating that they were together but then you have and should make more of this we knew from a reporting that he was going to bring up the missing Witnesses I'm surprised he didn't Hammer a little harder on on this because the defense's theory is that neither one of these Witnesses was called because prosecutors worried that it would contradict their story it's surprising to me given all the other things that Blan spent time on including Stormy Daniels Karen McDougall but he didn't focus on that I want to ask you one other thing that happened here um this was Judge michan admonishing blanch for mentioning prison time to the Jers obviously there's been discussion you wouldn't necessarily if if one were convicted in this case is a first time uh defendant in Trump's case obviously maybe likely would not have prison time but he brought it up and was admonished obviously by judge M so can you explain Paula first why those comments were so controversial why bringing that up is even an issue so sentencing is not something for the jury that is for the judge that's why that was considered third rail that's why that got such a rise out of the judge and why he had to offer that Curative instruction but does it matter I guess he's saying for them to know what could be the repercussion of their decision I would presume was the context in which blanch bringing it up but that's that's not okay he wanted them to think about this do you want to put someone in prison based on the words of of Michael Cohen that was the idea he probably knew that was not appropriate for closing that that would get some push back it did and the judge chose to give a Curative in the courtroom for all of this uh everybody except for uh ianka and Jared and Melania the whole family so I would put these in two separate categories the ianka and Jared of it and the Melania of it he did not ever think that Melania Trump was going to show up this humiliated person and she was never going to come to court and say oh yes of course he did this to protect me that is not who Melania Trump is and that is not the relationship she has with her former uh with her husband as I have been told former president of former husband okay a little bit so that's what I've been told by a number of sources close to them yes that is one part of this the other part of this is the Jared and ianka I think that's a little bit more surprising these are the kids we're seeing all the other kids all the other kids and their spouses other than Donald Trump Jr's fiance Kimberly gilfoil she has not been in court but they have made a line in the stand they've put down their foot and said we are not going to be part of any of this kind of public arguments and obviously prosecution right now re and National correspondent Christen Holmes all right so here we are waiting and they're listening they're in there listening all a matter of time right so they believe and again this is just some of the sources close to the campaign some of his senior advisers who have told me this so and they know just about as much there's two options here that he's going to be convicted or that there's going to be a hung jury they're hoping obviously that they all of this is it comes down to how one defines the word reasonable and and which is really amazing right such a subjective thing concern obviously in Trump World and also legal legal experts that this becomes a war shock obviously at the core of it how much time Kristen you know when you look at this are they spending I think it was interesting just to see the defense go over the Stormy Daniels portion of this saying you know over and over again during their closing that didn't ago as Stein glass was speaking he said I've almost never or what I'm I'm not exactly sure what the exact wording was but that was the concept seen a case that has this much corroboration well that's very generous assessment of his own case I think again legal experts across the board all acknowled and then obviously this could go late tonight or into the evening right I mean they have four hours allotted then it gets the judge will talk to the jury right I this is going to go longer than any day we've had so far right they have to kind of parse this out and decide how exactly they want to handle it they being the judge here has to say you know are you guys are we close here are we going to rep do we want to actually carry this over until tomorrow I bely wanted and that's the defense specifically wanted it to be 2 to 3 hours to kind of force the prosecution into a time period of the day exactly prosecution to leave cuz they have no time limit clearly they have no time limit um to leave you know an extra 30 minutes and get that extra crack at the jury right before they went to deliberations it appears that the judge is on board which is why they're going to stay late today I don't know sometimes they say you know for a best man or best uh woman speech you know shorter is often better all right they are taking a brief break though in the courtroom so we're going to take a brief break as well we'll be back