Good evening. Thanks for joining us. It went from early this morning, late into the evening, and it just wrapped up. First, the defense, then the prosecution, the first criminal trial ever of a former President having their final say. Jurors will get the case tomorrow. Manhattan prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, until moments ago, walking them step by step by step through the former President's hush money payment to Stormy Daniel shortly before the 2016 election and the alleged scheme to hide it from voters. Now, he emphasized how much of the case in his telling did not rely He is to rely solely on the testimony of former fixture Michael Cohen, whose fault he acknowledged, saying, We didn't pick him up at the witness store. As for defense attorney Todd Blanch, he accused Cohen of lying to the jury, calling him the MVP of liars and the gloat, which he said stands for greatest liar of All Time. He wrapped up by listing 10 justifications for reasonable doubt, the final one being Michael Cohen. Blanche also earned a scolding from the judge for saying, You cannot send somebody to prison, based on Cohen's word. Judges make that decision, not juries.

The judge will instruct jurors on the relevant points of law tomorrow, after which the former president's fate will be in their hands. As for him, he went into today complaining online that the prosecution gets the last word, complaining during a break this afternoon that the prosecution His closing arguments were, quote, boring. We're waiting to see if he'll have anything to say tonight. With us is New York criminal defense attorney, Arthur Idala, CNN legal analyst, Norma Eisen, CNN news night, Abby Philip. The source is Caitlin Collins. All three were in the court, also seated in senior legal analyst Ellie Honig and seen in Scarr-Scannell outside the courthouse in Lower Manhattan. Carol, let's start with you. What was the mood like in these historic and lengthy, lengthy closing arguments?

The marathon of closing arguments. The jury's attention was wrapped throughout this day. They had been inside that courtroom for more than 10 hours, listening what almost seems like could have been yesterday to Donald Trump's team give their closing arguments, and then the prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, just finishing. Moments ago, his closing argument has lasted almost five hours, four hours and 41 minutes. They were focused on both of the attorneys as they spoke. I looked at them multiple times, and they were all looking directly at the lawyer, looking down at the monitors in front of them when evidence was put up on the screen. The lawyers, both of them, went through excerpts of transcripts, some of these text messages, the phone logs, all to remind the jury in the prosecution's case that they do have evidence, that there is evidence beyond Michael Cohen and that they should find Donald Trump guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Then in the defense's case, trying to poke holes in the testimony of Cohen and in some of the other evidence that they have suggesting that if this was really a big conspiracy, why wasn't David Pecker involved in the ultimate payment to Stormy Daniels.

A lot of focus and attention by the jury today. Donald Trump, for his part, had actually turned his chair about 90 degrees at one point to watch his lawyer give the closings and watch the jury as they were taking all of this in. During the prosecution's closing arguments, Trump was facing forward. He didn't really seem to be paying much attention to that, occasionally leaning in to look at the monitor himself about some of the emails and text messages that were put up. But a long day, a day that really tested the patience of people in there. But the jury did seem to be wrapped. The judge checked with them several times to see if they wanted to keep going. At one point, he asked them publicly in front of us not having an officer do it behind the scenes, and the jurors nodded their heads in agreement that they wanted to stay. But this now finally coming to an end just a few moments ago, Anderson.

Norm, you were there both for the morning session and the afternoon session. What jumped out of you? What were the high highs, low lows?

Well, it was a long day. I thought the jury hung in there. The first thing you look for is the jury continuing to pay attention, and they did. It was fascinating to me the strategy of the defense and the prosecution, Anderson, person because they were opposite strategies. The defense honed in on the three critical issues in this case and said, You can't prove these 34 records were false. You can't prove Trump intended to defraud with these false records that he knew they were not income, that they were reimbursements. And you can't show that he was covering up an election conspiracy. So they used an an inductive approach. They organized the evidence, Todd Blanch, by those three issues. The prosecution took the exact opposite, a chronological or a deductive approach. It felt like they reviewed all 200 plus exhibits that they have put into evidence in this case. At times, it was painful. That's when we were watching the jury. As Kara said, they hung in. But I thought that was necessary. As a prosecutor, don't leave anything on the table. If the judge will give you the time, if the jury says, I'll stay till eight o'clock, argue till 7:59.

And the weight, the overwhelming weight of the evidence, that was the prosecution approach.

I mean, it was striking how different the two closing arguments were because Michael Cohen loomed over both of them, but in very different ways. Todd Blanch was trying to basically eviscerate Michael Cohen and any credibility he had with these jurors, repeatedly saying, he lied to you, and trying to make it personal, almost, for them. Josh Shynglass, the prosecutor, took a very different approach. He had this very conversational style. He was almost incredulous at some of the arguments that Todd Blanch had made. He made no hesitation in turning back to point in Todd Blanche's direction or point at Donald Trump, who he almost never referred to as Donald Trump. He just referred to him as the defendant, the defendant, the defendant, repeatedly. He was scoffing, almost, at what Todd Blanch had said in his closing arguments. He would say, I'll get back to that ridiculous point later, or they really want you to believe this. Trying to create this idea that whatever Todd Blanch had said in his closing argument was just not believable for them.

By the way, that's the Trump motorcade leaving the court.

Which is notable because Trump didn't speak leaving court, which he normally does. But the other thing that they're trying to do with Michael Cohen that stood out to me, because I was in there this afternoon as he was in his lengthy closing arguments for the prosecution, is he was saying, this isn't all on Michael Cohen. The documents that we have here, which he referred to as the smoking gun in this case, which is the one that has the math jotted down on how they would pay Michael Cohen back, didn't come from Michael Cohen. It came from Jeff McConnie, a Trump organization employee who, as the prosecution noted, has no ax to grind with Donald Trump.

I did think, just reflecting back on the morning session where I was in the court. The Trump team, they did present some things that were just beyond belief. I mean, the idea that no one in Trump's orbit thought that the National Enquiry running negative stories or positive stories about Trump would influence influence the election in any way beyond belief.

That was the whole point of that meeting with David Becker.

That was the whole point of the meeting. I mean, and the idea that Donald Trump, just as a person, would not believe that. Look, the good news for the defense is that they don't have to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not on them to do that. But it did make me wonder, some of those moments where maybe in some cases, they were twisting the evidence in ways that did not actually comport with what the evidence actually was, in ways that asserted things. For example, they called the Access Hollywood moment, basically a nothing burger in the campaign. Again, a ridiculous assertion. If you were there, you were a human being in the United States of America when it occurred. Those moments, I think, cut against their credibility in some crucial ways. Will it make or break this case? I don't know. But part of the argument that they were trying to make to the jury is that Michael Cohen cannot be believed. Michael Cohen is the person who is the serial liar the fabulous. And yet, I think the prosecution tried to make this point when they got their turn in closing statements.

You cannot also make statements that are beyond belief and then have the jury want to believe you and disregard everything that Michael Cohen has to say.

I want to hear from Arthur and Ellie in just a second. But for those of you who are in the courtroom, it's different when you're inside versus what we on the outside in the morning were reading from our folks inside. Todd Blanch, his closing statement It felt meandering when you were just reading the text on the outside. Did it play meandering in the room? And I'm wondering for the prosecution's closing, did it feel like five hours?

It felt like more than five hours to me. I'm a very restless person, but I thought it was the right thing to do for them to use all that time. Blanch is a meanderer. He is not a linear person. We saw this in his cross-examination of Michael Cohen.

Is that strategy or just lack of experience in this trial?

Today, it was a strategy because he wanted to hone in on all the places where there can be reasonable doubt in the order he thought of the difficulty of proof. He wanted to go from stronger, less strong to weakest. He hit them with the best shot, but it did meander at times. I think the jury does not like Todd Blanch. I think they prefer Emel Bove. They like Susan Necklace better. I don't think they're fond of...

You're like a juror, whisper. I don't think they're very fond of Todd Blanch. And we saw that today.

And by the way, this is a jury that does not show a lot.

So that tells me you have been analyzing them.

He would also say- He smiled several times as Steinglaus was making his thing, which it did go on at length, and there were some dry moments where he was going through the documents. But he also would pepper in these quotes, like the one where he said, Donald Trump didn't pay a lawyer, but he was paying a porn star or pay a lawyer, but he was paying a porn attorney. When he was talking about he didn't go to the witness store to get Michael Cohen, he was making the point, this is who Donald Trump chose to surround himself with. So it was really long, but he had these little lines, and I saw some of the jurors smiling at some of Stinglass's lines, which is a big deal because they don't have expressions, typically.