Wasnt plausible, Wasnt Believable but it was at least relatively co teernt. To recap, Michael Cohen and his surrogates on tv had been claiming for months that Michael Cohen, the president s attorney, facilitated as cohen put it 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels who says she had an affair with the president 12 years ago. Now, the money came out of cohens pocket allegedly taken from a Home Equity Line of credit we were told. The president had not repaid it. In fact, mr. Trump knew nothing about it they claimed and despite coming as it did in the closing days of the campaign the payment supposedly had absolutely nothing to do with the election. Nothing to do with skel change an embarrassing story 11 days before the election. On wednesday night Rudy Guiliani went on fox and said this to sean hannity about the daniels payoff. Its not Campaign Money. No Campaign Finance violation. They funneled it through a law firm. Funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it. Oh, i didnt know he did . Yeah. The president repaid cohen, he said, so that that was the damage control. And its a sign of how well it played that mr. Guiliani was back on fox the very next morning to try to clean up his mess, except he didnt, he made an even bigger mess because he blew a hole in perhaps the most important claim that Michael Cohen had been making, that the original hush payment had nothing to do with the election. Cue legal eagle, Rudy Guiliani. Imagine if that came out on october 15th, 2016 in the middle of the last gate. Cohen didnt even ask. Cohen made it go away, he did his job. Imagine if it came out then, just like that Michael Cohens claim that it was just a coincidence this happened less than two weeks before the election became even more laughable. Remember, cohen had said he could have made the payment months before but just happened to do it when he did it. Just a short time after that fox appearance as all this was blowing up mayor guiliani told cnn he had, quote, carefully coordinated with the president
on his hannity appearance. Quote, you wont see any daylight between me and the president , he said. So then yesterday the president put out that string of tweets which were in very lawyerly language expanding on what guiliani had laid out. Today, though, the coordination broke down. First on the south lawn and then at joint base andrews, the president knowingly or not made a stunning admission, his surrogate while nice enough had his facts wrong. He started yesterday. Hell get his facts straight. He is a great guy. But what he does is he feels its a very bad thing for our country i will tell you this, i will tell you this, when rudy made the statement, rudy is great, but rudy had just started and he wasnt totally familiar with every you know, with everything and rudy, we love rudy, he is a special guy. What he really understands is this is a witchhunt. He understands that probably better than anybody. So the president of the United States sent out his
lawyer who didnt have the facts straight who had just started to clean up the mess with full confidence. He did not say exactly about what Rudy Guiliani did not have his facts straight about and guiliani is it not clarify matters with a statement late today. Quote, there is no campaign violation, it reads. The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president s family. It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not. My references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president s knowledge but instead my understanding of these matters. Now, maybe its because i did not go to law school, but i have no idea what that last sentence means. Quote, my references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president s knowledge, but instead my understanding of these matters. Guiliani was apparently referring to his claim on Fox And Friends Yesterday that the president only fully learned about his repayments to cohen, monthly bills totaling nearly half a Million Dollars very recently. He didnt know the details of
this until we knew the details of it, which is a couple weeks ago. Maybe not even a couple maybe ten days ago. Okay. Wait a minute. So Rudy Guiliani is saying that neither he nor the president explained i mean, they neither explained how it could be that the president who is not known as someone who throws his money around loosely or sometimes at all could have been paying all that money without knowing what it was for and didnt learn about what it was for until ten days ago. So when the lawsuit was filed against him and Michael Cohen, he never asked anyone about what had happened when he watched Stormy Daniels on 60 minutes along with some 20 million other people, he never asked anyone if he had repaid Michael Cohen . That just seems hard to believe. This morning the president refused to clarify. When did you find out what the retainer was being youre going to find out because were going to give a full list and people know and virtually everything said has been said incorrectly and its
been said wrong or its been covered wrong by the press. Just like nbc and abc yesterday covered the story wrong. But you will be finding out. Its wait a minute. Its actually very simple. Its actually very simple. But there has been a lot of misinformation really, people wanting to say and i say, do you know what, learn before you speak. Its a lot easier. Learn before you speak, its a lot easier. The president says its actually very simple. You would think if its so simple Rudy Guiliani would have cleared it up in his multiple Tv Appearances or his multiple published statements. You now know that the president is someone who believes in thinking before speaking and not having the facts is short coming unless it comes to more than 3,000 false or misleading statements after taking office according to the new york post. In all fairness bob mueller worked for obama for eight years. Thats republican bob mueller nominated by republican george w. Bush who served five years in the obama administration. Always good to have your facts straight. Now it seems he cannot even keep his story straight. Sources tell us that the White House Legal Team is calling Rudy Guilianis performance a fiasco, though apparently theyre using stronger language than that, the word theyre using rhymes with hit show. Here is the cherry on top, the one person other than the president who truly knows everything says Rudy Guiliani doesnt know what hes talking about, were talking about Michael Cohen talking to Donny Deutsch. According to Donny Deutsch he said, look, there are two people who know exactly what happened, myself and the president and you will be hearing my side of the story. More tonight on how the white house is handling all of this or mishandling, pamela brown joins us with that. The president saying guiliani needs to get his facts straight. According to your sources how prepared was he before he went on fox . Not prepared at all. Anderson, im told by a source familiar with the matter that he had very Little Information before he went out on fox to
discuss the Stormy Daniels matter. That he wasnt fully briefed up on all the details, had hasnt looked at paperwork surrounding the case, surrounding these payments and repayment. So essentially he was winging it and flying blind in a sense without having all of the facts. But as you pointed out, anderson, Rudy Guiliani said that he had coordinated this with the president but yet then the president came out today and undermined Rudy Guiliani, saying that he needs to get his facts straight before he goes out there and talks. He wasnt specific on how he needs to get his facts straight and, you know, whether he really did coordinate with Rudy Guiliani. He also sort of tried to explain it away, anderson, by saying he just started. Look, he is brandnew, he went out there, just started, go i have him a break kind of thing. Well, look, he started a couple of weeks ago, anderson, he has already met with Robert Muellers team. Rudy guiliani didnt just start when he gave that fox news interview. Also, i mean, theres no
there was no reason he had to go on fox news on that day to do this. So you would think if theyre choosing to send him out on fox news, that he would have read some papers about it. What is behind i mean, do we know whats behind the Shifting Stories . Right. And on top of that lets remember Rudy Guiliani isnt wasnt brought on board to be part of the Stormy Daniels case. I mean, all of that dealing with Michael Cohen, the payment, so forth, thats run out of new york. Rudy guiliani was brought on to represent the president in the Robert Mueller investigation which makes it even more puzzling that he would go on and just bring up these details that only added confusion. It does seem like there are Shifting Stories. The president came out today and said the story hasnt changed at all, but best Case Scenario is it just created a lot of confusion because the president had said aboard Air Force One he didnt know about the payment Michael Cohen made to stormy
daniels, then you have his attorney if going on fox news a couple days ago saying that the president had repaid Michael Cohen for that payment and then we just saw cleanup ever since with that Interview Raising questions about whether the president lied and whether this was a Campaign Finance violation because it wasnt reported to the fec. Then you had Rudy Guiliani himself attempt to go clean up with the statement he released today, anderson, saying that there is no campaign violation, that it would have been made whether the president was a candidate or not. And then going on to say the references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president s knowledge but yet he said he coordinated with the president , anderson. Yeah, i mean, its its baffling. Pam brown, thanks. Two legal views now from Alan Dershowitz also norm eisen. Professor dershowitz is author of many books, most recently
trumped up. Professor dershowitz, every day there is a shifting explanation and more confusion when it comes to the Stormy Daniels payment. Is it even clear to you at this point what the president s official story is and has this back and forth with Rudy Guiliani opened him up to even more legal exposure . Well, it certainly exposes him to criticism. They have not been speaking with one voice or presenting one clear narrative. I think the best narrative they have, i dont know whether its true or not, is that this guy cohen was on retainer, he was the fixer, he was paid 35,000 a month to fix up all the problems and at the end of the year they would true up and find out if he paid more than he got and the president didnt want to know specifics about any particular cases, he just wanted everything to be fixed. You know, that really does create more political problems than it does legal problems. I mean, he has put his client in greater legal jeopardy and also i just dont even understand and im not sure they even understand what their stories are. Guiliani says absolutely this had to do with the campaign, then today he said no it didnt and he said also yesterday that the president only found out ten days ago, which is just ludicrous. The Campaign Finance argument, he exposed trump now to being part of a conspiracy with Michael Cohen. He even hinted that it had to do with the election when he went on Fox And Friends and talked about how it would have looked if it came out in october. He exposed mr. Trump to a Felony Charge for filing false president ial Financial Statements because he admitted that there was a debt to mr. Cohen that mr. Trump knew about it, paid it back. It wasnt on his forms that he filed. And then perhaps worst of all most telling of all on the Obstruction Front he came up with a third and yet a different story that trump wanted comey to exonerate him. Well, thats pressing for a
change in the investigation before its done. That implicates on obstruction as well as the changing stories. What a disaster. Professor dershowitz, i mean, to guilianis point that making this payment and if it had been known during the campaign that, you know, it would have been it would have been terrible for the campaign, that flies in the face of everything that Michael Cohen has said, Michael Cohens supporters have said, their whole line has been all along as incredulous an ridiculous as it sounded when they said this this had nothing to do with the Campaign Even though this deal was done 11 days before the election. Nobody would believe that. Thats not credible. The only credible story they could tell which would be helpful would be to say, look, mixed motives. He obviously didnt want his wife to find out about this, he didnt want his children to find out about this and he didnt want the American Public to find out about this. So all of these things were relevant to why cohen paid the money so that she wouldnt
announce, but it was 15 days before the election and the idea that maybe they didnt tell the president about this 15 days before the election, here is an event that could undo his campaign and he doesnt get to know about it, it just flies in the face of cred ult. The idea that Michael Cohen is on this permanent retainer, the president said he did very little legal work for mr. Trump, that he is on this permanent retainer, he just gets this money and mr. Trump doesnt know anything about what he is a he doing. I can understand maybe not wanting to get involved in the details as theyre happening but the idea that his attorney would not at least call him up and say, do you know what, that Stormy Daniels issue we took care of it, it was only 130,000, there is this other thing i mean, the idea that he wasnt informing him along the way now just seems ludicrous. Anderson, its just silly. Theyve tied themselves into a pretzel in order to cover for the president s statement on Air Force One standing there in the doorway of the cabin
unequivocally that he didnt know about the payments. Now they have to tie themselves into a pretzel. They are simultaneously saying that the president , who once won a spy magazine contest for the cheapest celebrity in america, i believe he cashed a check for 13 cents, that hes going to dish out 35 grand a month without knowing why. Its absurd. I want to give alan some credit because in acknowledging how ridiculous it is that the president wouldnt know about this event from the getgo, hes playing it straight. Of course the president knew about this, the problem is that as alan admits, the reality puts the president in deep, deep legal jeopardy. Norm guiliani violated alan guiliani violated the first rule you taught me almost 30 years ago. First do no harm. But, norm, dont give me
credit. Im not on trumps side. Im not trying to help trump. Im trying to tell the American Public what the law is and what the truth is. I have to tell you that i really do think that if they had played this straight from the very beginning what he did was probably not illegal. When you get to hear that there is this kind of come out before the election and you know it will hurt your family, you know it will hurt your standing, if the president had been straight and paid the money directly in order to avoid this coming out, there would be no crime here. There would be no violation of election laws, there would be no violation of any other kind of laws. Its the story that gets them into increasing difficulties because they dont have a single voice. And the other thing i hope i taught you is when youre representing somebody in a very complicated case, you have to speak with one voice. It has to be a single narrative. It has to be clear and unambiguous. It should be in writing. It shouldnt be off the cuff. It shouldnt be hannity on
television and it shouldnt be this guy saying one thing and the people in the white house learning about it by watching it on television. This has been terribly mishandled. Im not admitting anything, norm, im saying it because im not on his side. Professor dershowitz, ambassador eisen, thanks very much. There is a political dimension obviously to all of this that is making even republicans a bit queasy, retiring moderate republicans from traditionally blue states. Congress charlie dent for one. Lets put the shoe on the other foot, he said if a democratic president had paid off a porn star to keep quiet while he was president i suspect we would have oversight hearings. I spoke with the congressman earlier this evening. Congressman, i know you think congress should hold hearings to get to the bottom of the payment to Stormy Daniels. Can you explain why you think its Congress Business to investigate. Well, anderson, i would clarify what i said the other night. I said had the shoe been on the other foot, had a democratic president , you know, paid off, you know, a porn star for
130,000 im sure we as republicans would be Holding Hearings ad nauseam. Im not really crazy about the idea of hearings, although i think theres probably some level of oversight, committees may want to inquire about what exactly happened here. The bigger issue in my view is credibility. On the one hand the administration had repeatedly stated that Michael Cohen did this on his own, when frankly very few people believe that. I know very few people who believe that Michael Cohen out of the goodness of his heart paid the settlement out of his own pocket without the expectation of reimbursement. Then it was divulged by Rudy Guiliani and i believe exactly what he said was that he was in fact cohen was in fact reimbursed. I think this is a bigger Credibility Issue for the president more than anything else. The president this morning said that when it comes to Rudy Guiliani he will, quote, get his facts right. The president didnt clarify exactly what julia en had gotten
wrong. Im wondering how you interpret what the president is saying. Thats a bit of a head spinner to me. Ive known Rudy Guiliani for many years and i was one of the first people to endorse him members of congress when he ran for president in 2008. I have a high regard for the mayor, great job he did in new york city when he served there. So i think Rudy Guiliani was basically speaking truth as he understood it. You know, maybe he didnt say it as artfully as he did in his statement today, but im not sure exactly what Rudy Guiliani said the other day that was incorrect. And then he released another statement today, i guess in an effort as he put it to clarify what he had said over the past three days, which if you have to release a statement to clarify what youve been saying thats never a good thing. He said, quote, my references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president s knowledge but instead my understanding of these matters. Does that clear up anything for you . Because ive now read that several times and i still dont
quite understand what it means. I was trying to understand that, too. I mean, i think the basic issue that he conveyed the other night and then and then again today, He Didnt Change T which was this, that Michael Cohen received reimbursement for the payment to Stormy Daniels. Thats the fact. But the truth is the president and others in his administration, Press Secretary and others had stated just the opposite, that he had no knowledge and the president made a statement on Air Force One that he didnt seem to have any knowledge or awareness of the whole situation. So i think thats really what the issue is is it comes back to the Credibility Issue. Why would he have not why would they have denied any knowledge of this when, in fact, they did know. Just big picture what do you think is going on here . Is the president lying . Is Rudy Guiliani lying . Are they both lying . I mean, it just seems theyve twisted themselves into pretzels
here. I think Rudy Guiliani was being truthful the other night. Maybe he wasnt, again, it wasnt as artful or as delicate as he needed to be in his presentation, but, again, the bottom line is that Michael Cohen was reimbursed apparently by the president with individual money, not Campaign Money or corporate money, but his personal money. He reimbursed Michael Cohen. I mean, thats the story. I always felt that was the case and i dont know anybody i cant imagine many people in the country actually thought that Michael Cohen was going to pay a settlement on behalf of his client without the expectation of reimbursement. I never heard of any la you are who would do that. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, anderson. Great to be with you as always. We will have more on this after the break including The Big Picture from Carl Bernstein who has been out ahead of the story from day one. Later, a live report from hawaiis big island where a large earthquake just hit and a Volcano Conditions to erupt. Extraordinary images we will show you ahead. With those we love, but does psoriasis ever get in the way . Embrace the chance of 100 clear skin with taltz. For people with moderate to severe psoriasis, up to 90 had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. With taltz, 4 out of 10 even achieved completely clear skin. Dont use if youre allergic to taltz. Before starting, you should be checked for tuberculosis. Taltz may increase risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, symptoms, or received a vaccine or plan to. Inflammatory bowel disease can happen with taltz, including worsening of symptoms. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Ready for a chance at 100 clear skin . Ask your doctor about taltz. Try it for as little as 5 a month. Ask your doctor about taltz. Whoamike and jen doyle . Than i thought. Yeah. Time for medicare, huh. I have no idea how were going to get through this. Follow me. Choosing a plan can be supercomplicated. But it doesnt have to be. Unitedhealthcare can guide you through the confusion,
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Mueller Investigation as it were. And we are looking at lie after lie after lie and cover story after cover story after cover story invented by the president , invented by guiliani, invented by mr. Cohen. The question is when is the president and the people around him going to say, hey, were here to tell the truth, here is what happened about Stormy Daniels, but more importantly in the russia investigation. I mean, the president certainly is no Shrinking Violet when it comes do going after comey but if they werent worried about comeys firing do you think guiliani would have included that line in his statement today. Rudy guiliani is capable of being so reckless as we have seen throughout the campaign and as we are seeing now that its very difficult to parse what he is doing and saying, except that hes trying to throw bombs into the Mueller Investigation. And that with his partner in this, the president of the United States, hes trying to satisfy what the president of
the United States wants him to do to help undermine and discredit the Mueller Investigation, the Stormy Daniels investigation, where they come together. The object of the president of the United States who has lied on a scale that no president in modern times that anybody has heard of about all things big and little, but particularly about this investigation of his conduct and the question of Russian Collusion and the coverup that has been going on in the white house, whether its an obstruction of justice or not, thats the bottom line issue in all of this, including what weve seen on hannity with guiliani there and including what weve seen in these attempts to walk back these Cover Stories. Its all about lying and contempt for the rule of the law. And this morning the president said that guiliani will get his facts straight when it comes to Stormy Daniels that means a cover story. Another cover story. What does it mean his facts straight . I cant believe as the congressman just noted, i know
of no serious republicans that ive talked to who believe anything about the nondisclosure story. Carl, i have to interrupt. Hang on, theres Breaking News. Right now on Michael Cohen and hundred, it comes from michael roth felled, the headline u. S. Probes cohen over cash he built up during campaign. Trumps lawyer took out lines of credit to secure access to as much as 774,000 as race heated up. Michael roth felled joins us on the phone. Michael, this is literally just been posted, i havent been able to read the article. Explain what you have learned. Hi, anderson. What we reported is that Michael Cohen doubled his Home Equity Line right as donald trump was in the height of his political fortunes rising and going into the primary campaign in february 2016. So he closed off his existing Home Equity Line of 255,000 and took out a 500,000 Home Equity Line and we know that hes said he used part of that to pay
Stormy Daniels nine months after that and furthermore Rudy Guiliani said this week that Michael Cohen settled other things for donald trump. We dont dont know whether he used the Home Equity Line for that as well. Its interesting. I mean, again, Michael Cohen has all along said that he did this on his own without consultation with donald trump. This does sound, though, like a far more organized and premedicated, pre thought out plan to get a pool of money. Is that a correct reading . It certainly seems that way. I mean, he, as i said, he he took out an additional 250,000 in ability to borrow against his apartment right at the time when trump was going into the republican primaries and successfully he had been holding a lead against his, you know, more experienced riflevie valls. It indicates that cohen may have been looking to have a stash of cash on hand essentially to
settle problems with throughout the campaign. We reported that tonight also that the Southern District is looking at that more broadly in terms of cohens ability to raise money, like how was he raising money through his own personal assets, like in medallions and real estate potentially to use that for settling problems for trump and whether any laws were broken in that regard. The other thing that we recorded in this story is that in November Of 2015Cohen Cosigned with his inlaws a mortgage in which they took 529,000 in cash out of an apartment at a Trump Building so essentially they got 500,000 three months earlier than that. We dont know how that money was used, but, again, the prosecutors are looking at cohens cash flows, generally speaking, and how he used the money that was available to him. Obviously you were just reporting what you know and i dont want to go down the road of speculation here, but it just is had it seems highly unusual it was highly unusual
when Michael Cohen said that he took out a Home Equity Line of credit for the 130,000, it seems even more unusual that an attorney for somebody for a billionaire like mr. Trump would stockpile his own money during a campaign if i mean, if the idea was to have this pool of money in order to handle things. It sounds like the pool of money would be to handle things without any association directly to mr. Trump. Yeah, and thats whats being investigated essentially. Like was cohen doing these things kind of to keep anyone from finding out and, i mean, he has said i mean, yes, youre right, its absolutely an unorthodox way to do things, i mean, period. A lawyer taking money off a Home Equity Line to pay a former porn star is obviously not something that most lawyers would do, especially when, i mean, they essentially send their client a bill and say, you have to pay
this money. So thats definitely unorthodox, but, you know, it appears that cohen was at least whats being investigated is what was he doing, you know, secretly essentially. Yeah. I mean, so thats thats where we are. Right. And if its unusual for an attorney to take 130,000 out for a particular deal, its even more unusual for an attorney to in advance, you know, refinance his life basically in order to get a pool of money for whatever else may be coming down the pike during an election. I mean, its really unheard of. Ive never heard of an attorney let alone doing one deal using the Home Equity Line but sort of stockpiling money for an effort is just extraordinary. Yeah, thats right. I mean, but, you know, again, we have to say we dont know we know what he said he used 130 that would have allowed him another 100 and change on the Home Equity Line. We dont know how that money might have been used and whether he used it for anything other
than that that you might tradititr traditionally use for and a Home Equity Line. Carl bernstein, what do you make of this . This has been just been breaking as were talking. Once again, the key to all of these investigations is follow the money and follow its lies and particularly when it comes to Michael Cohen and his relationship to the president of the United States, its clear by now from what we know that cohen is absolutely essential to what the Mueller Investigation is doing as well as the Southern District investigation in new york, that his use of funds on behalf of donald trump is going to be a big part of an ongoing story. And theres Something Else of great significance and that is the role of the Wall Street Journal here. We keep hearing about fake news from the president of the United States throughout this investigation. In fact, the Wall Street Journal with the washington post, the new york times, cnn, but the Wall Street Journal which is owned by trumps friend rupert murdoch
has done great reporting, not fake news, throughout this year and i think we need to take a look at that, too, as part of this story. Right now tonight. Because what we are seeing is the effort by donald trump while these investigations are closing in on him in new york, in washington, with mueller, to undermine and throttle and overwhelm the duly constituted rule of law and investigations by the special prosecutor. And now here again we see where these investigations appear to be going and that includes the suggestions that we have of collusion and we dont know if Michael Cohen figures in the investigation of collusion or not. We know his travels are being looked at in Eastern Europe by the special prosecutor. So enough of the fake news. Yeah. Coming up next more from carl. We will also be joined by gloria borger. Later the president speaks to
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we should say we dont know what he used the rest of this money for, whether it was something relating to President Trump or not, but certainly the timing of all this is really interesting. Right. Thats whats the most interesting thing to me aside from the large amount of the sums, of course, of money here is the timing in the Wall Street Journal piece which is that the money that cohen started receiving was around february 2016, which as we both know having been there was when his fortunes and his poll numbers started to rise as a president ial candidate. We know he won the New Hampshire primary on february 9th, for example, and he became suddenly a serious Sacandidate Out of al of these 17 candidates. Nobody was dismissing him anymore. The question you have to raise is that we thought this was a campaign and ive been told this by people in the campaign, you know, we never expected to win. We never expected to win. And suddenly when he became a
serious candidate, well, maybe they did expect to win and maybe there were other things that had to be dealt with. I mean, im jumping to a conclusion here and i shouldnt because this is not my reporting, but i think you have to ask the question about why anyone would need access to the cash and i think they are going to be looking into it according to the Wall Street Journal, you know, bank fraud about whether cohen was misstating the reasons he needed the money. Right. Carl, if the money was for and we know 130,000 of that Home Equity Line was for the Stormy Daniels payment ultimately which, you know but if the money was for other things related to candidate trump, it does raise the question why was this attorney doing this with his own money instead of just having mr. Trump set aside a certain amount of money for him to operate with. And i assume the answer to that
would be to have some deniability between the two. This has from the Wall Street Journal account all the appearances of a campaign slush fund, to pay for nefarious acts that the candidate did not know did not want known and the payments were made through his fixer. That is what the Wall Street Journal story points toward and its very interesting because in watergate the key to watergate that really Broke Everything Open was the discovery of a slush fund that was used for nefarious purposes that was meant to be hidden and it carried out the wishes of the candidate. Now, that i dont want to speculate on where this is going to go, what it means, but it is all part of a pattern that we are seeing in this investigation and dwr from the beginning Michael Cohen has been key to everything having to do with
nefarious activities in the Trump Campaign and also figures in the russian investigation. So these matters are coming together now as more and more reporting is being done by the Wall Street Journal and other News Organizations and by the special prosecutor. Let me push back on that a little bit. A, you used the term nefarious. Signing an nda with Stormy Daniels thats not nefarious so we dont know what beyond the 130,000 for Stormy Daniels for the nda we dont know what the rest of this money was actually for. No, but i think we could characterize given what we know about the nda with Stormy Daniels that this would fall into the nefarious category, certainly until shown otherwise. All im suggesting here is the presence of what the Wall Street Journal story would seem to have identified as what really looks has the appearance of a slush fund. And, you know, by the way, anderson, when Michael Cohen
said that he paid for the 130,000 out of his own out of his own pocket, this Wall Street Journal story may actually prove that. That, in fact, he did and that, in fact, he may have taken care of other business with this. I mean, we dont know the reasons he took all this money out, but it may prove his point. The assumption all along was that he took out a Home Equity Line of credit in order to raise the 130,000 to pay Stormy Daniels, but again, this seems to indicate this was done before and raised a lot more money than the 130,000. And raised a lot more money, for what reason it could have been personal, but we dont know. Carl bernstein, thank you. Gloria, we will talk more about this in the next hour. Coming up what the president said to the nra and what two survivors of the Parkland Shooting think about what hes saying now. Youve been saving for, you can do it. We can do this. At fidelity, our online Planning Tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. Whoo
we didnt address it, mr. President. Because you are afraid of the nra. Well, fast forward to today, here is what the president said at the Nra Convention in dallas. Democrats and liberals in Congress Want to disarm law Abiding Americans at the same time they are releasing dangerous criminal aliens and savage gang members on to our streets. Your Second Amendment rights are under siege, but they will never ever be under siege as long as im your president. No mention of those changes he had once called for after the shooting. Here is what he said about parkland. Were working to improve Early Warning systems so that when the police are called, when the community sees the red flags, which they saw in parkland all over the place, there has never been a case where more red flags have been
shown, swift action is taken by the authorities. I recently signed legislation that includes more than 2 billion to improve school safety, including the funding for training and metal detectors and security and Mental Health, Mental Health is a big one. They dont like to talk about Mental Health. Mental health, that was the number one example in parkland. Joining me now Stoneman DouglasHigh School Students david hogg and cameron caskey. We heard from the president shortly after the shooting at the high school, obviously he struck a very different tone than he did today. Back then i talked to you you thought he was heading in the right direction when it came to gun control. What do you think today . Well, you know, he was saying some things that implied that he was stepping forward into the right direction for gun safety in this country and then he had a meeting with some nra officials, a private meeting,
and afterwards he came and claimed that the Second Amendment was under siege and he was going to defend it. So as to whether or not the nra meeting changed his views, thats kind of up to speculation, but i will tell you that is hopefully the first russianfunded group he has met with. And i would like to say i think it really shows what hes doing right now proves where his heart and wallet are and thats in the exact same place. One of the interesting things i thought trump brought it how we dont talk about Mental Health i didnt tell in one of the recent spending bills they had they cut Mental Health spending for schools by over 25 million that doesnt sound like improving the Mental Health system for schools to me. Cameron, when the president was in that meeting with democrats and republicans he castigated the republicans saying youre scared of the nra. Do you believe today he showed that he is scared of the nra . I think he is very interested in the money that the nra will bring him and that the nra in turn gets from Gun Manufacturers. You know, the gun the nra
used to boast itself as being an average Joe Coalition of americans who are trying to protect their Second Amendment rights and now you will see that they are getting a lot of kickbacks from Gun Manufacturers. So i dont necessarily think trump is scared of the nra, i think trump is very i think people in the situation that would be scared would be the nra. Theories this is the first time they had the and Vice President come out to the annual convention for the nra. What they are seeing is they are worried because the support weve been getting and the support well have in midterms. Like it or not we dont care if you are exact or republican if you are sported with the nra, you dont stand with kids you stand with the Gun Manufacturers and people making money off this fear and tragedy that per pet 80s itself. David thats where your focus is now. There was a lot of concern i think among supporters of gun safety, gun control, and people who are at the march that after
the march that sort of interest would wane. For yoekz is on midterms. Is that right . Exactly. And right now what we are trying to do we have the ambitious goal of getting 90 of High Schoolers registered to vote by june. I think its something we can do. There is over 26,000 high schools across perk. We need every one of them to sign up through head count to create their own Voter Registration vote to ensure kids get out and vote regardless of opinions. I think one thing we can support on both sides of the ace sell voter participation. Right now 18 of 18 to 24yearolds participate in midterms and thats unacceptable. The thing is this is just simply about doing your civic duty and voting. And we can get a lot of people registered to vote. But they dont show up at polls when they need to. Another thing we are focusing on is making it accessible and easier and making sure people are educated with the vote. And they use the resources we
easily access to know who theyre voting for, following everything the candidate is doing and have an educated and effective vote. Well, Cameron Kasky david hogg, i appreciate your time ton. Thanks for being with us. Thank you very much. We have more Breaking News, a disaster on the hawaii big island, a volcano spews lof, toxic gas, the latest from hawaii when we continue. 6,000 feet above sea level. But how do you really know that the beans journeyed to the Port Of Mombasa and across the pacific . That you can trust theyre 100 authentic . Ibm blockchain. A smart way to track every step, ensuring this coffee did indeed come from 6,000 feet above sea level. And not a foot lower. Volcano. Video from earlier this week shows walls of moek and the vent collapses. Leaving behind a red rocky surface similar to mars with gaping holes giving a glimpse of the orange liquid magma smoldering below. The time laps shot last week shows the gushing river of lava flowing as night turns to day. Residents flee homes as forests burn and roads break open. Can you feel the heat from the ground. Yeah, theres heat come up out of this. Officials warn the Sulfur Die Ox id levels are dangerous. They have closed large sections of the Hawaii Volcano national park. More than 700 structures and 1,700 people are within the mandatory evacuation area. Now we have about 100 people up at the facility at the shelters. We just quiet another wave of them that got evacuate the
because of the volcano and erupting more on the street. Lava is coming out in lelani this is real. He at the center are these estates. A resident captured this Lava Fountain Shooting a hundred feet in the air. All we heard down the road was boom. What is that . All of a sudden we smell we smelled the sulfur. We knew something was happening. Within minutes we seen smoke. And now we see all this lava coming across the street. And its pumping right now. This fissure is opening up. And this is the next eruption. The eruptions are part of a massive geological event set off by the collapse of the crater floor. That led to hundreds of earthquakes jolting the big island. The tough part about this eruption is its unpredictable. We dont know which the lava is going to flow. We are planning actively for every contingency we can think of. Reporter and thats an important point there anderson. Officials are saying even the most experienced people who study these volcanoes cannot know where the next fissure may rurp and they are dealing with a fourth that opened in the last couple of hours here. And because of that last 6. 9 earthquake some 14,000 people lost their power. Theyre working to get it back on in those places but at the same time they have to watch out for air quality and also the earthquakes and of course if any more fissures open up. Incredible to see that stephanie thanks. Up next the update on the Breaking News tide to the Wall Street Reporting that President Trumps attorney Michael Cohen was Stock Piling Money as he sought to fix problems for his boss during the president ial campaign. Every Fire Department every police department