Page 17 - Stewing News Today

The presidents former fixer michael cohen pleads guilty to eight criminal counts on the same day paul manafort is convicted of eight financial crimes. remember when donald trump said he was the law and order candidate? joining me now to discuss is mike shields, the former chief of staff at the rnc and rick wilson, the author of the book, everything trump touches dies. gentlemen, good evening. my sources are telling cnn white house staffers were stunned and rattled by these legal bombshells and t...

Paul manafort or michael cohen pleading guilty to these felonies. a source close to the president admitting today was, quote, a bad day for the home team. and that the president has been, quote, stewing all day. lets talk about this because it was a big day. outfront, paul begala, former white house counsel to president clinton and jason, the former senior communications adviser for the trump campaign. important day to have you both. jason you worked so closely with the president, with this team...

Stewing, is that why we see jay and rudy all over the airwaves. >> theyre keeping the press as cup as much as possible and trying to hold him back. >> he would be doing more? >> theyve shown time and time again xwn that failure as he continues to tweet about it and talk about it in ways that pretty much everyone in the legal community says are damaging. why would he continue talk about such sensitive matters that relate directly to his own conduct and he continues to do it. so look, i think the ...

Perch as manaforts right-hand man but hes there through the rest of the campaign. the convention is mentioned. he was a role on the inaugural committee. through president trump he was deeply involved in the day-to-day business of the white house, spotted on those 16 or 18 acres. really, as you said, up until the day he was indicted. this is another reminder of how deep the tentacles of muellers probe potentially go and how much we dont know. and so while theres not a ton of concern at least yet ...

To say. >> well did trump ask that question? he must have mentioned that about 20 times. so i told the president, i know you dont like it. i know you feel put upon. you just got to ride it out. >> joining me now is "new york times" white house correspondent maggie haberman. you heard what senator graham there said. the president is clearly -- well, i dont want to say stewing, but certainly focused on the mueller investigation in private. he has been unusually quiet about it on twitter just in th...

Collusion. thats not actually the crime. theres conspiracy and all of the others you just listed there. what were seeing here is that a pretty concerted effort to change the talking point from the president himself to his allies and rudy giuliani, et cetera, where they are saying, look, maybe there was this meeting but nothing came of it. no information was delivered and therefore nothing was really wrong or illegal. and that of course is sort of treacherous legal ground. this is a concern for t...

Worries that, you know, his son may have put himself in a legally precarious situation. the president doesnt think he did anything wrong, but hes come to terms with the fact that, you know, maybe some of his decisions put him in a situation where he is in a legally questionable spot right now. what we are seeing over the last week is behind the scenes, this president is very, very uneasy and anxious about the mueller investigation, the way the public is receiving policies and what we are seeing ...

What youve observed overall your time covering this president, that theres no chance that now trump, because of his insecurities about the legitimacy of his election, is not going to go out and undercut all five of these people in the coming minutes, seconds, hours? >> i dont know, john. any topic on any question at any point in this administration, if you can ever get me to say donald trump would or would not do something, i think that is risky and dangerous. for a reporter to do, just based on...

President about that meeting, anderson. >> do we have any idea what the mood of the president is right now amidst all of this? >> well, he is clearly very angry. a white house source told us this week that he has been stewing for days about all of this reporting, watching the coverage on television, and he is angry not just with his former lawyer michael cohen, but also with reporters who continue to ask him about this at all these opportunities. they try to change the subject this morning at a ...

Clintons former attorney, and hes also been angry at the news media for continually asking him questions about this and not about a lot of other things that he would rather talk about. the president has been stewing about this coverage. he wants to change the subject, and he is talking to his lawyers as well, talking about legal strategies for how they cope with this. it seems, though, anderson, that the strategy theyve come up with is attack michael cohen and say nothing publicly to the media. ...