The Latest | Closing arguments in Trump's hush money trial could stretch into the evening

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : Trump said, according to Cohen and prosecutors, as in $150,000."Listen to the recording.
49% : ""This scheme, cooked up by these three men, could very well be what got President Trump elected," Steinglass said.
49% : "After playing parts of the recording, Blanche urged jurors to trust their ears when deciphering a specific part -- whether Trump mentioned a dollar figure that he might have to spend, as Cohen and prosecutors contend, or whether he said something else.
47% : prosecutors suggested in their closing arguments that the disbarred attorney had little choice but to parlay his history with Trump into books, a podcast, merchandise and more.
46% : As he continued, Trump sat at the defense table with his body angled toward Steinglass, listening as Steinglass spoke.
45% : Meanwhile, Trump is taking in this leg of the summation with his head back and his eyes closed -- a strategy he's employed throughout the trial.
41% : At the heart of the charges are reimbursements paid to Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment that was given to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
41% : "Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass added that Daniels' account of meeting up with Trump in his Lake Tahoe hotel suite -- replete with details of the décor and what she saw when she snooped in Trump's toiletry kit -- was full of touchstones "that kind of ring true.""Her story is messy.
35% : Reince Priebus, then-chair of the Republican National Committee, had told Trump after the tape was released that he had two choices: drop out of the race or lose by the largest margin in history, Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon has recounted.
34% : The prosecutor said the text messages underscore that "Trump is looming behind everything that they're doing.
33% : They're helping Trump get elected."
33% : The prosecution on Tuesday homed in on Stormy Daniels' sometimes "cringeworthy" testimony about a 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Donald Trump, saying it was vital because it "only reinforces his incentive to buy her silence.
33% : Following a brief morning break, Blanche singled out that Daniels issued two statements in 2018 denying that she'd ever had a sexual encounter with Trump.
33% : Blanche said the September 2016 recording, which cuts off before the conversation finishes, is unreliable and was actually about a plan to buy a collection of material on Trump that the National Enquirer had been hoarding -- not McDougal.
29% : At the same time he was dismissing his words on the tape as "locker room talk," Trump "was negotiating to muzzle a porn star," the prosecutor said.
29% : "If Trump is convicted, sentencing will be up to the judge, not the jury.
29% : "Westerhout, who was then working for the Republican National Committee in close coordination with the Trump campaign, had testified that the tape "rattled the RNC leadership" but that Trump wasn't thrown by it.
28% : Before an afternoon break on Tuesday, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass stressed that Michael Cohen's secret recording, in which he was allegedly briefing Trump on a plan to buy the rights to McDougal's story from the National Enquirer, "shows the defendant's cavalier willingness to hide this payoff.
24% : The prosecution on Tuesday targeted the defense's efforts to cast doubt on a September 2016 recording that Michael Cohen made of a conversation with Donald Trump in which the two are allegedly heard discussing a plan to buy the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's story from the National Enquirer.
24% : Defense lawyer Todd Blanche finished his summation Tuesday by telling jurors the hush money case "isn't a referendum on your views of President Trump.
24% : "The case against Trump is built around testimony from "a witness that outright hates the defendant, wants him in jail, is actively making money off that hatred," Blanche said.
23% : Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison.
22% : Before an afternoon lunch break, the judge in Donald Trump's hush money trial scolded defense lawyer Todd Blanche for imploring jurors not to send Trump to prison on the words of Michael Cohen and said he would instruct the jury to disregard the comment.
22% : While Cohen has testified that he lied to protect Trump, his family and others, Blanche asserted that the ex-lawyer "is lying simply to protect Michael Cohen and nobody else.
22% : Trump has denied having sex with Daniels.
22% : Defense lawyer Todd Blanche spotlighted a key piece of prosecution evidence during his summation: the secret recording Michael Cohen says he made of himself briefing Donald Trump on a plan to buy the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's story from the National Enquirer.
21% : Trump has denied all wrongdoing.
21% : "Digging further into the two sides' dispute over the "catch-and-kill" allegations, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said during closing arguments Tuesday that it doesn't matter that Karen McDougal preferred a deal that would help her career while not airing her claims of an affair with Donald Trump, as her former lawyer and others testified.
21% : "Trump denies any sexual involvement with McDougal.
19% : "He pointed to testimony from David Pecker and others, to the recorded conversation in which Trump and Cohen appear to discuss the Karen McDougal deal, and to Trump's own tweets.
19% : "Blanche conceded in his summation that Trump was bothered by the story.
18% : It's about Donald Trump.
18% : As he neared the end of his summation on Tuesday, defense lawyer Todd Blanche reminded jurors of Michael Cohen's admitted fixation on Donald Trump -- and his desire to see him behind bars.
17% : Defense lawyer Todd Blanche had tried to cast the recording as unreliable and suggested it was actually about a plan to buy a collection of material on Trump that the National Enquirer had been hoarding -- not McDougal.Blanche also questioned whether Trump mentioned a dollar figure that he might have to spend, as Cohen and prosecutors contend, or whether he said something else.
16% : "Blanche's voice grew to a roar -- the loudest he had been all morning -- as he also declared that Cohen had lied about speaking to Trump by phone about the Stormy Daniels arrangement on Oct. 24, 2016.
13% : "While the defense in Donald Trump's hush money case portrayed Michael Cohen as a lying opportunist who has profited off his hatred of Trump.
12% : Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass stressed late Tuesday afternoon that to understand the hush money case against Donald Trump, jurors needed to understand the climate in which the deal to pay off Stormy Daniels was made -- just after the "Access Hollywood" tape leak had "caused pandemonium in the Trump campaign.
10% : Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass noted that Daniels' representatives initially sought to sell the story of a sexual encounter between the porn actor and Trump to media outlets -- not to Trump.
4% : Turning to Stormy Daniels' story, defense lawyer Todd Blanche noted in his summation that her allegations of a 2006 sexual encounter with Donald Trump were aired on a gossip site in 2011 -- four years before Trump announced his presidential candidacy.

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