Coming up next on Arizona Horizon, attorneys present closing arguments on Donald Trump's hush money criminal fraud trial.

Also tonight, we'll look at concerns about a bird flu outbreak in domestic cattle and how language barriers can lead to election year misinformation, immigrant communities, those stories and more.

Next on Arizona Horizon.

This hour of local news is made possible by contributions from the friends of PBS, members of your PBS station.

Thank you.

Good evening, and welcome to Arizona Horizon.

I'm Ted Simons.

A lawsuit challenging Arizona's funding for school fac..

It's a landmark suit in that it could change the way the state funds school buildings and other capital needs.

The suit was brought by school districts and education groups seven years ago, and alleges that lawmakers have not followed a court ruling from the 1990s that requires the state to adequately and equally fund school facilities.

A trial is expected to last until late June.

Closing arguments today in the criminal fraud trial of Donald Trump.

Prosecutors told the jury that the case was about a, quote, conspiracy and a cover up involving Trump falsifying business records to try to keep a 2006 sexual encounter with the porn star secret prior to the 2016 election.

Now, Trump's attorney called for a, quote, very quick and easy verdict in his closing statement, a statement that focused on former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who testified to making the hush money payment at Trump's direction.

Trump's attorney at one point today called Cohen, quote, the greatest liar ..

Jurors could begin deliberations by tomorrow.

We'll have much more on today's closing statements in a moment.

A federal judge today denied a special counsel request for a gag order on Donald Trump involving Trump's classified documents case.

Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, criticized prosecutors for failing to confer with Trump's.. request, quote, wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.

Prosecutors want to limit Trump's ability to comment on law enforcement search of his resort.

Trump is accused of taking classified files from the white Ho.. and resisting the government's attempts to retrieve them.

And severe weather continues to hit areas of Texas and Louisiana.

This is what it looked like today in Houston, as another round of powerful storms rolled through the area.

More than a million customers in Texas are without power.

Hurricane force winds hit the Dallas area yesterday.

The same damaging storms moved into Houston today with gusts of 75mph.

Almost two dozen people, including four children, were killed by severe weather across five states over the weekend.

In the central U.S.. As we mentioned, closing arguments were presented today in the criminal fraud trial against Donald Trump for analysis of the closing statements.

We welcome former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton, a partner at Dentons.

Good to see you again.

Thanks for joining us.

Your thoughts on what?

We didn't actually hear these.

Well, we got reports of what was going on there in the courtroom.

Very detailed reports.

Some.

Let me start with th.. a little bit different than most other jurisdictions, the defense goes first and then the prosecution follows up.

Typically you'll see the prosecution go first.

Defense goes second, prosecution does rebuttal.

So the defense went first.

Nothing surprising.

If you've been in a number of criminal tria.. and heard very much of the same, especially when it deals with a key witness who's a convicted perjure, as Michael Cohen is.

Todd Blatch spent a great deal of time focusing on Mr. Cohen's prior lies.

He tried to convince the jury that Mr. Cohen had lied in front of them, and under oath.

He also took a very interesting step, I think, and one for which he was severely castigated.

He said that you should not convict Mr. Trump and send him to prison.

That is impermissible.

The jury's job is not to consider prison.

It's not to consider incarceration in the event of a conviction.

And he was roundly criticized by the judge for that.

And the judge even issued a curing instruction telling the jurors not to pay attention to what, if any, sentence might be imposed in the event of a conviction.

I wanted to ask about that in relationship to juries and judges, because I've heard over the course of this trial the contempt that Trump can barely hold his contempt just by his look at the judge and what he says.

And and juries tend to trust and like judges don't they?

They're like a jurors favorite aunt or a favorite uncle.

And when they see a lawyer acting in a way that's disrespectful towards a judge or even worse, the criminal defendant acting in a way that's disrespectful.

It's as if you were being rude to a beloved family member.

So it is poor tactics.

But Mr. Blanch, .. of a prior conviction, was arguing to an audience of two.

The first being he wanted one, just one.

This is his goal just to get one juror to hang to not vote for a conviction.

If everybody else votes for a conviction and only one juror says no, I won't, that means there's a mistrial and a possible new trial.

But that's going to take place well after this election goes on.

The second audience is former President Trump.

He was clearly making an argument that he wanted former President Trump to hear, because Todd Blanchard is an experienced federal prosecutor, he knows it is impermissible to talk about the possibility of incarceration after conviction.

The judge told him as much, so he was taking the risk as it relates to his own profession and his own reputation, so as to make a client happy.

All right.

That's the..

But as far as the prosecution is concerned, I thought it was interesting.

They listed a number of people loyal to Donald Trump who came on and testified in a way that does not look good for Donald Trump.

So, again, much of what you saw from the prosecution is something you might see in any number of other criminal trials in the United States, with the exception that this is a trial of a former president of the United States.

The prosecution said, yes.

Essentially, we have an individua..

But the prosecution emphasized we have other witnesses who have corroborated what Mr. Cole and this convicted perjure said.

And we have documentary evidence.

Even the prosecution said a smoking gun, a document that shows exactly what the payments were to be and why it is the payments were to be made.

So the prosecutor took what is, if you will, a paradigm, a model that prosecutors use when they have a difficult witness, one who has committed other crimes and employed it here.

But how does the argument work?

Yeah.

He lies.

He's a liar.

But he didn't lie about this.

I mean, obviously the others corroborated, but, did the defense have something to catch on to?

There, or is that pretty weak sauce?

Well, again what what Todd Blanch what the defense team for former President Trump are hoping for is that they will find one juror who will buy this idea that we cannot trust Michael Cohen at all.

And the prosecution, in addition to saying we have a wealth of corroborating evidence to support what Michael Cohen told you today, despite his prior lies.

They also said, this is a lawyer who was hired by former President Trump.

They said, and I love this line.

We didn't go to the witness store and purchase Michael Cohen.

This witness was chosen for us by former President Trump.

And they also basically said, yeah, he lies.

But most of his lies were to protect Donald Trump.

Precisely.

And so the jurors ne.. Blanch, the Trump lawyer, is correct about not being able to trust the whole of the case because of Mr. Cohen, or to say, no, we can take all of the evidence as a whole and find enough evidence to convict former President Trump, the National Enquirer publisher.

His testimony, the prosecution called absolutely devastating.

Was it?

Mr. pecker was a very good witness.

By all accounts, he is.

The National Enquirer was at the time and who was clearl.. with former President Trump, had this tool that I know you as a journalist would never have approved.

And that is this catch and kill practice where you catch a story and don't publish it in exchange for some kind of payment.

That is anathema to good journalism.

And I think the prosecution used that witness who came across very calmly, came across very reasonable, kind of if we're going to use family analogies, it's like a grandfatherly figure and used it to support everything that Mr. Cohen had said.

Yeah.

And also promoted positive stories for Trump and promoted negative stories for the opponents.

And I forgotten all about this, this idea that Ted Cruz's father was somehow involved in the JFK assassination that came out of that whole National Enquirer.

Let's go after Trump's enemies.

Precisely.

And that's part of what the narrative is that the prosecution has woven here very carefully, and that is that this was not just a single incident involving Stormy Daniels, the porn star, but a number of other individuals were involved in attempting to help president, former President Trump win the election.

the prosecutor, as we're recording this right now, the latest afternoon, they're still going at it.

It's been hours and hours.

is that a wise thing?

North of five hours, you need to remember, I think, and prosecutors should be reminded of this before they stand up in front of jurors.

That we now live in a TikTok age, an Instagram age, in which people take their news in 32nd and one minute bites at the most.

And so to stand in front of a jury for five hours is extra ordinarily taxing for these citizens.

Imagine going back to school and sitting for a class that would go all day.

You'd have to hear four hours.

It was north of four hours for the defense, and now five plus hours for the prosecution.

That is a long day for anyone to take in a great deal of information.

And it would have been, I think, a little better to have brought that time in.

So was shorter.

Yeah.

Whic..

I guess anything is relatively short to five plus hours.

Last question.

And we're running out of time here.

But I'm really curious about this.

When the jury goes out, the longer they stay out means what?

So there's law.

It's anecdotal, not based on any science, .. is that the longer a jury stays out, the less the likelihood of a conviction, because somewhere in there is that one jury that pod has been argued for ..

The quicker the jury comes back, the more likelihood there is, say prosecutors of a unanimous verdict for conviction.

Isn't it interesting that the possibility of a unanimous verdict, verdict for acquittal isn't even talked about here, other than former President Trump's lawyer who said this should be a very easy yeah, acquittal.

I don't think that that's in the universe of possibilities that he can hope for and may even achieve a hung jury here.

Interesting stuff.

Paul Charlton, always a pleasure.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks for having me.

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Great.

God,.. Bird flu was recently detected in d.. No reports is yet of Arizona cattle infections, but there is some co.. dairy and beef supply.

And joining us now is former state health director Will humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health .. Will thank you so much for joining us.

To start with basics here, this H5n1 bird flu.

What are we talking about?

So this is a new vehicle not brand new.

But this is a new configuration version of the influenza virus that showed up on the scene in about nine.

That.

But you're 2020. it's really lethal in birds wild birds.

And especially if it get into domestic flock, it's a really lethal virus for the birds.

So it's been around for a while.

it's not brand ne.. some infections among dairy cattle and other cattle in the U.S.. Now, how does it spread from bird to animal?

So USDA, you know, Department of U.S. Department of Agriculture isn't saying exactly how it's happening, but what makes the most sense to me is that you've got farmers who use chicken feces and spread it out into the pasture.

It's good fertilizer, but the virus is full.

If the birds are infected, the virus is in those feces, and then it's in the pasture and the cows can get it that way.

That's my theory.

The USDA isn't saying how it happened yet, but, but but in this cat, not as lethal as the birds.

Oh, in the cattle, they just like their milk production goes down.

Yes, they eat less, but it's not a lethal infection in the cow.

Well, let's go to extremes here.

What about from bird to cattle to human or bird to humans?

As humans, are we at risk here?

Probably not.

now it you know, we I remember the H1n1 pandemic back, 2009. most influenza pandemic start in birds because that's where the recombination happens.

They infect pigs.

Pigs have similar respiratory receptors than humans.

It mutates in the pigs, and then humans get it after it's changed in the pig.

Interesting.

So cattle are .. We're closer to pigs than than we are cattle.

And yet I've heard in these nine states there was one farm worker who tested positive.

Is that just an outlier?

Is that just a you have a there's two now as of today I was two.

Yeah okay.

But it was an eye infection.

So the milk splashed into the, the I guess ranchers.

Yeah I and got an infection but not a bad wasn't lethal.

What about testing a CDC tes.. And are people going along?

Are they cooperating with this testing?

So it's really USDA's job.

U.S. Department of Agriculture more than it is CDC.

So they're testing they're spending a lot of time and effort testing the milk and the meat of the cattle.

CDC is doing a little bit of work when it comes to the, you know, the workers in the farms, but, but they're they're testing the meat and they're testing the milk.

What are they finding?

The milk.

If it's an infected cow, the the milk's full of the virus.

Wow.

But almost all the milk that we drink is pasteurized, and that kills the virus.

That's why we did pasteurization in the very beginning.

It's why wearing my tuberculosis test.

That's why we.

That's right, that's right.

Why we started pasteurized.

But there aren't.

There isn't there a moveme.. to don't pasteurize this and to it's a very boutique thing.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, you have to know.. from the farmer or in a rural area you'd be hard pressed.

I think, to go to ten stores and find it anywhere.

How much research needs to be done, though, to figure out the transmission process of this and perhaps other viruses?

Good question.

USDA, I think right now is focused on the, making sure that the meat supply and the milk supply is safe.

I think figuring out the how this happened is going to take longer.

Their immediate concern is to make sure that the meat and the dairy supplies in the states that have the infections are okay.

And I would imagine also to protect things like turkeys because I wasn't there a huge..

The turkeys here a couple of years.

Well, there's been what's been killing flocks of bi.. And and it's super contagious.

So one bird gets an infection in these contained areas.

I mean, the whole flock is basically they have to destroy the flock.

Yeah.

.. Yeah.

You know, farmers of of birds.

So bottom line U.S. dairy and beef supply.

How safe is it.

Safe.

Safer because getting safer all the time.

Well raw milk isn't that safe if you're in one of those states that has.

But I wouldn't recommend raw milk anyway.

But but no USDA stamp.

They actually you.

Right before the show, USDA put information up on their website that all of the meat well, 95% of the meat samples that they sent into the lab were 99% of the meat samples they sent into the lab were negative.

And again, for for hamburger and.

Yeah, yeah, it's National Hamburger Day, by the way.

Did you know that?

I did know that, sadly, yeah.

Okay.

but if it's in the milk, if it's in the meat, let's say you happen to get the.

You lucked out and you got that small percentage.

Does it matter to humans?

Oh, so the USDA did a study on that just last week.

And they injected H5n1 virus into the meat, into the hamburger, and then cooked it and then found out what happened.

So it was well done.

No virus, medium no virus.

The 120 degree meat.

You could fine particles.

But the virus was dead.

Okay.

So even medium .. yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Last question here.

Did you realize that the FDA okayed t.. that would cut methane emissions in cows?

That's a good intervention.

The cows put off a lot of methane, which is a carbon.

Yes.

Or, you know, not that climate change.

Yes, I say that.

Yeah.

It's.

Yeah, that's it's a global warming.

Right.

So if you can find simple interventions like that, you can make a big difference.

I don't know anything about the situation.

Yeah.

But it makes a lot of sense to me that they would do that.

Yeah.

Because and methane again as you mentioned is much more powerful in that sense.

But it doesn't last quite as well.

Right.

Yeah.

It's a much more powerful greenhouse gas.

But it lasts in the atmosphere only about ten years, whereas CO2 lasts a long, long time.

All right.

So on National H.. we can relax as far as the meat and dairy supply wil..

Thank you.

Take care.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

Tonight on the NewsHour the defense and pros.. in former President Trump's criminal hush money trial.

That's coming up at six on Arizona PBS.

Language barriers can o..

This is a special concern in an election year as some with a different first language move away from mainstream media in favor of alternative news sources.

For more on this, we're joined by Doctor Young, UN moon researcher at the Midas Lab at ASU, Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Welcome to Arizona Horizon.

You bet.

How serious of an issue is misi.. like, things, start off here.

I mean, like immigration, population, more broadly speaking, communities of color have a very different experience with like, American news media.

So like I would say, like if they are living in like a two separate, different information world within the same country.

So what I mean is that, like, these communities are more vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation.

And like, for example, like a Spanish language content, often goes like a last rigorous fact checking on Facebook.

so like, like, which means that like, a misinformation spreads, like, very easily among these communities.

And, you know, think about like, it's a huge impact on this, population.

It's because, it's it impacts like their ability to, make an informed decision, like about, like their lives and communities like, including some.

They're like a democratic process is like an election.

And think about this like, as far as I know, like, the immigration population is like a currently is 46 million right now.

And then it is projected to go into like a 65 million by 2065.

So I think it is very clear to, like help them to assess like it is significant, like a share of our population can assess, accurate and also relevant information.

Is it a question of language barriers or is it just, a mistrust or they don't identify necessarily with mainstream media?

I think like I, I think so we, recently conduct our research, about like, how Asian immigrants specifically like, I feel about, American news media and I get there is like, it's not something of a language barrier, but, like, I think I think there is like a deeper issue.

So there is, I guess, some psychological, psychological disconnect.

I would say, between the American news media in this, it is immigrant people.

So, they think that, like, they are not, often, represented or some like, understood by mainstream media, which drives them towards alternative news sources, drives them to become, I think you call them homeland news junkies.

They basically go back to their homeland news sources and that that might be good for some things, but maybe not so good for others.

Oh yes.

So like they a.. with, their homeland issues, like a what's happening in their home countries.

Right.

And .. to, in relation to their home country.

So like we call them homeland, news junkies.

And I mean, like, it is good that they get, you know, by, you know, alternative news sources can like it, give them like a, some sense of belonging, some familiarity and like, some comfort, but also like, it comes with always a ways because like, it means that they lead, it leads to these people, more exposure to some unvetted or, word of mouth information than, some well researched content.

Indeed.

And that is ..

I mean, you got to get that information.

It's got to be accurate information.

Yeah.

So I think like there is like not because like there are not many trustworthy news sources for them.

So that's why like I mean like specifically cater their needs to their needs and even available like ethnic media sources like it usually they don't.

The ethnic media news, don't have like, enough like a resources, or some capacities to like, a thoroughly cover American society and politics in detail.

So I think like it just creates like some are fertile ground to like misinformation and disinformation spread.

And this is a really yeah, the important issue.

So what would be the best course of action, do you think mainstream media trying to connect better with these folks or ethnic media doing a better job of vetting and not, not succumbing to misinformation and disinformation?

I think like, it is true that like, ethnic media has like a better like a trusted relationship with this communities.

But at the same time, I think, they because like, as I said, like they have like a, some lack of resources and also like, like some capacities for like a fact checking.

So I think like a that is like a, some dilemma of this situation.

So like let me give you some examples like so for example last like a 2020 elections like a disinformation campaign targeted some Hispanic and also African American, communities like a war, a very significant and like often like a propagated like I some nano influencers, I would say.

So nano influencers refers to some, accounts that has like a 1 to 10,000, followers, but like, I still they can yield some, considerable influence in their own discourse circles.

And if we have like a, some if there are some 100 or 1000 nano influencers like at, that will be a huge issue.

And also like some interesting like, cases that like I encountered during my research is that, so like there was, you know, there was a, like a some YouTuber that, who usually like a cover, something like a culture of kind of like I something K-pop or something like it beats and also they suddenly classic something conspiracy theory or like a Pizzagate.

So I think like, it's very striking that like a how entertainment, platforms can become a vehicle for spreading political, disinformation.

Well, it's it's great research and fascinating stuff.

doctor Young on moon again.

ASU, Cronkite school.

good stuff.

Thanks for joining us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And that's it for now I'm Ted Simons.

Thank you so much for joining us.

You have a great evening.