Trump trial: Biden calls Trump's remarks 'dangerous'

Prosecutor Josh Steinglass continued to lean on the testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, arguing it offered unequivocal evidence that Trump was in on the catch-and-kill plan involving Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Pecker testified that Trump was furious at Pecker after the Wall Street Journal published a story in November 2016 about AMI's payment to McDougal.

"This is the story that he is simultaneously telling the press he knows nothing about," Steinglass said. "Pecker established unequivocally that Trump was in on the McDougal deal."

Trump was "angry because story came out that threatened his standing with female voters," Steinglass said.

"Of course we will never know if this effort to hoodwink the American voter made the difference in the 2016 election, but that's not something we have to prove," Steinglass said. What matters, Steinglass said, is that the scheme was "cloaked in false business records to hide the conspiracy."

Judge Merchan said the jury would take its next break, then the closing would continue.

"I was watching the jurors," said the judge. "They looked pretty alert to me -- I don't think we're losing anyone."

While defense lawyers have talked plenty about an Oct. 24, 2016, phone call between Michael Cohen and Keith Schiller whose purpose they question, prosecutors have emphasized the importance of two other calls directly between Trump and Cohen on Oct. 26, 2016.

The day Cohen wired money from Essential Consultants LLC -- the bank account for the Stormy Daniels hush money payment -- Cohen spoke to Trump twice over the phone around 8 a.m. Prosecutors argued that Cohen got the go-ahead from Trump to make the payment on that call before he crossed the street from Trump Tower to wire money from First Republic Bank.

One call was three minutes long, and the other was about 90 seconds.

"This is damning, right?" prosecutor Josh Steinglass said. "Half an hour before that, he is getting the final go-ahead from Trump."

Steinglass said the "objective of the nondisclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels was to keep her quiet.

"It's no coincidence that the sex happened in 2006 but the payoff didn't happen until October 2016, two weeks before the election. That's because the defendant's primary concern was not his family, but the election," Steinglass said.

Trump, sitting at the defense table, shook his head in response.

Prosecutor Josh Steinglass told jurors that Michael Cohen falsified bank records when he opened bank accounts for the shell companies related to Stormy Daniels’ hush money payment.

In his bank paperwork for both Essential Consultants LLC and Resolution Consultants LLC, Cohen provided a description of the businesses as consulting companies, though he only created the companies as a conduit for hush money payments.

“That was one big lie,” Steinglass said, telling jurors that Cohen used that description to prevent First Republic Bank from stalling the accounts.

Steinglass suggested that Trump was aware that the shell companies required falsifying bank records.

“He is a savvy businessman -- he has opened his share of bank accounts,” Steinglass said.

Steinglass said he would go through the other crimes that Trump furthered by falsifying business records in 2017 later in his summation.

Prosecutor Josh Steinglass told jurors that allegations from women in October 2016 posed a significant risk to Trump's campaign.

"This race could not have been closer," Steinglass said, arguing that Trump knew the allegations were "capable of costing him the whole election, and he knew it."

Steinglass replayed a video of an October 2016 Trump rally in Greensboro, North Carolina to demonstrate Trump's concern.

"It caused pandemonium in the Trump campaign," Steinglass said about the "Access Hollywood" tape.

Trump, at the defense table, looked at the evidence before shifting back in his chair. After shaking his head in disagreement, he whispered back and forth with his attorney Emil Bove.

Steinglass argued that Trump was particularly concerned about the Daniels allegations because they could undermine his response to the "Access Hollywood" tape.

"Stormy Daniels was a walking, talking reminder that the defendant was not only words," Steinglass said. "She would have totally undermined his strategy for spinning the 'Access Hollywood' tape."

Hitting back at the defense's suggestion that the "Access Hollywood" tape "wasn't a big deal to the defendant -- it was just another blip," Steinglass said, "You really can't understand this case without appreciating the climate in the wake of the 'Access Hollywood' tape ... it caused pandemonium in the Trump campaign."