More than an a hour and a half into his summation, prosecutor Josh Steinglass finally turned his attention to the Stormy Daniels hush money payment.

Steinglass resumed his summation by discussing the impact of the "Access Hollywood" tape, which prosecutors argued was the impetus for the Daniels hush money payment.

"It all began with this email from this Washington Post reporter named David Fahrenthold," Steinglass said, displaying the exhibit. Fahrenthold had reached out to then-Trump aide Hope Hicks with a transcript of the "Access Hollywood" remarks to ask for the campaign's comment.

Steinglass recapped some of Hicks' testimony, saying her "initial instinct was to deny the video's legitimacy." But once the campaign saw the video, "that strategy quickly shifted from 'deny, deny, deny' to 'spin.'"

Steinglass then played a video of Trump's reaction to the "Access Hollywood" tape in which he expressed his regret.

On Oct. 8, Steinglass says, there was a "flurry of activity" as Trump's campaign sought to spin the Access Hollywood tape. Michael Cohen asked then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about a RadarOnline article "about Trump being a playboy" and asked him to remove it, which he did.

"This is not catch-and-kill exactly, but they are purging the internet at the direction of the campaign," Steinglass said.

After the parties returned from break, Judge Merchan said the next break would be around 5 p.m. ET.

"And then we'll see how everybody's doing." he said, regarding the question of whether they'll be able to finish closing arguments by the end of the day.

"The defense has gone to laughable lengths" to make "feeble" arguments to undermine the recording of Donald Trump and Michael Cohen discussing a reimbursement to A.M.I. for the Karen McDougal payment, prosecutor Josh Steinglass said.

Steinglass mocked defense attorney Todd Blanche's effort to cast doubt on the recording because Cohen picked up another call.

"Here's a newsflash: people use their phones," Steinglass said.

Steinglass accused Blanche of using this argument to "muddy the waters" of this case.

"The fact is, no number of misleading questions, wild speculation ... can distract you from one simple fact: the metadata for this file proves it was not tampered with in any way."

"This recording is nothing short of jaw dropping," Steinglass said before replaying the recording.

"This tape unequivocally shows a presidential candidate actively engaging in scheme to influence the election by reimbursing AMI for killing the McDougal story, and that's why they are desperate to discredit it," Steinglass said.

"This recording shows the defendant's cavalier willingness to hide this payment," he said. "This shows the defendant suggesting paying in cash. It doesn't even matter if that means a bag of cash or a lump sum. It doesn't matter because he's trying to do it in a way that's not going to leave a paper trail -- that's the point."

Court was then recessed for the mid-afternoon break, with the prosecution's closing argument expected to take at least another two hours.

Prosecutor Josh Steinglass rehashed the phone call that then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker said he had with Trump about the Karen McDougal payment.

During the phone call, Pecker testified that Trump expressed skepticism about the hush money payment.

"Mr. Trump said to me ... 'I don't buy stories.' And he said, 'Anything you do anything like this, it always gets out,'" Pecker testified.

"He thought that these stories always get out and I guess he was right about that," Steinglass told jurors.

"Their motivation was to serve the campaign -- that's what makes this a catch-and-kill" the prosecutor said.

Michael Cohen was Trump's "liaison" to Pecker, "conveying Mr. Trump's instructions every step of the way," Steinglass said.

"Critical here is Pecker's acknowledgement that he never intended to publish the story under any circumstances … Pecker was willing to sacrifice AMI's bottom line in service of the campaign," said Steinglass, emphasizing that that AMI's $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal was not standard operating procedure for the National Enquirer.

Steinglass told jurors that Pecker thought the story, if true, was "National Enquirer gold" -- yet he would not have run the story to help Trump.

"Pecker was willing to sacrifice AMI's bottom line in service of Donald Trump's campaign," Steinglass said. "This deal was the very antithesis of a normal press function."

The jury heard a readback of David Pecker's testimony about Donald Trump dating the "most beautiful women," the National Enquirer's coverage of Bill Clinton's "womanizing," and the "mutually beneficial" relationship between the tabloid and the Trump campaign.

Q: Can you explain to the jury how the topic of women in particular came up?

A: Well, in a presidential campaign I was the person that thought that there would be a number -- a lot of women come out to try to sell their stories, because Mr. Trump was well-known as the most eligible bachelor and dated the most beautiful women. And it was clear that based on my past experience, that when someone is running for a public office like this, the -- it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories. Or I would hear it in the marketplace through other sources that stories are being marketed.

Q: Did you have or express any ideas about how you may be able to help kind of deal with those stories by women?

A: All I said was I would notify Michael Cohen.

Q: What about Bill and Hillary Clinton, did their names up during this meeting?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you explain how?

A: As I mentioned earlier, my having the National Enquirer, which is a weekly magazine, and you focus on the cover of the magazine and who -- and who and what is the story that is the topic of the week, the Hillary running for president and Bill Clinton's womanizing was the biggest, one of the biggest sales I had for the National Enquirer and the other tabloids, that's the other things that the readers wanted to read about and that's what I would sell weekly. So I was running the Hillary Clinton stories. I was running Hillary as an enabler for Bill Clinton, with respect to all of the womanizing. And I was -- it was easy for me to say that I'm going to continue running those type of stories for the National Enquirer.

Q: And did you believe that that would help Mr. Trump's campaign?

A: I think it was a mutual benefit. It would help his campaign; it would also help me.

The jury also heard the testimony where Pecker testified that he never purchased stories to kill for Trump prior to the 2016 election.

Q: And what was the purpose of notifying Michael Cohen when you came upon stories like that?

A: Well, as I did in the past, that would be in the past eight years, when I notified Michael Cohen of a story that was a negative story, he would try to vet it himself to see if the story was true or not. He would go to the individual publication to get the story to make sure the story wasn't published and getting killed.

Q: Prior to that August 2015 meeting, had you ever purchased a story to not print it about Mr. Trump?

A: No.