Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. No collusion, which i knew anyway. No coordination, no nothing. No nothing, he says. No collusion. His response to the revelation his closest Campaign Adviser sought dirt on hillary clinton. His response after the house and Senate Intelligence committees re released their reports on russian interference. His response to nearly any question the president has ever gotten, no collusion. If not the two foundational words of his entire administration, then at least the linchpin of his defense that is until our reporting that his former lawyer and confidante is now willing to tie the president directly to that meeting with russians during the campaign. Now that Michael Cohens apparently ready to say that Candidate Trump knew in advance about what amounts to at best an attempted collusion or intended collusion or unrequited collusion. The line of defense has a new wrinkle, moving from never happened to so what if it did. Which i dont even know if thats a crime, includie in col russians. You start analyzing the crime. The hacking is the crime. Followed, everyone from the president on down played word games with the public or just plain lied. Now that Michael Cohen may be prepared to say that the president had prior knowledge of the meeting, the now line is yeah, maybe there was collusion with a hostile foreign power, but its not a crime. Which i dont even know its a crime, colluding with russians. You might think this alone would be Good Days Work for Rudy Giuliani. But wait, there was nor. He also had this to say about Michael Cohens allegation that he knew in advance about the Trump Tower Meeting. Even as the russia meeting, im happy to tell he wasnt there. He wasnt at the meeting. Well, keeping him honest, according to our sources, thats not what Michael Cohen is allegedly ready to say. Cohen is allegedly trod say that trump had prior knowledge of the meeting, something his son and others have denied repeatedly and that don jr. Had seemingly denied under oath. Was mr. Giuliani opening up a window ever so slightly to the fact that mr. Trump might have known about the meeting but didnt attend it . Some today have suggested that. But the reality is we just dont
just to be clear, here is our reporting word for word. According to second quarter, and i quote, cohen alleges he was present, along with several others when trump was informed of the russians offer by trump jr. Now by cohens account, cohen approved going ahead with the meeting with the russians according to source. Rudy giuliani had a lot to say today. That much is indisputable. Whether he actually cleared anything up, well, that is not. As for the president , he went before the cameras today and said nothing because this, because no one, the president chose to ask questions asked him about. Cnns jim acosta joins us with more from the white house. So has the white house had any response to claims Rudy Giuliani was or wasnt making this morning on television . No, anderson. As a matter of fact, i just spoke with a white house official who said that the press team over here at the white house is not coordinating with Rudy Giuliani in terms of what he says on behalf of the president s legal team on these various talk show appearances, including on new day here on cnn, nor can they control what Rudy Giuliani says according to this white house official. Now this official went on the say, anderson, that they cannot say that definitively about what giuliani does in coordination with the white house counsels office. And we do know if past is prologue that the president s outside legal team has obviously had many conversations with the president s inside counsel over the past several months. It is expected that theyre having those kinds of conversations on that end of the white house, but no coordination, this official is saying, the press team. I think thats a notable thing that the white house is putting out there, because its obviously something that theyre saying at this point that they are not signing off on what Rudy Giuliani says on behalf of the president and his legal team on these various talk show appearances. Well, the president wasnt asked about giulianis comments today. But its not like reporters didnt try to press him on the issue. Thats right. I was in the oval office earlier today when the president was with the italian prime minister. I asked the president how it is that you keep saying that there was no collusion when rudy
giuliani is saying over and over again today that collusion is not a crime. Anderson, this is the one thing weve heard from the president over and over again, from the president s defenders over and over again that there was no collusion between the president , his campaign, and the russians during the 2016 campaign. And so it is very strange. It is very odd and curious that all of the sudden Out Of NowhereRudy Giuliani would float this legal claim that theres you know, its not against the law to collude with the russians at the end of july in 2018. Its just very strange. And people who have dwho who familiar with some of the discussions that go on here at the white house have scratched their heads for a while now about what Rudy Giuliani says in these introduce. I think it does lend some credence to the theory out there, anderson, that when Rudy Giuliani goes on the air, he is sort of putting out a fog of confusion what the president s legal team is up to, what their strategy is to essentially, you
know, make everybody want to move on. And thats largely what i think Rudy Giuliani was doing today. He was putting out so many contradictory comments, saying that collusion is not a crime while the president is insisting there was no collusion at that at some point i think the hope is inside the president s legal team and among his defenders that the public just gets bored with the whole thing and wants to move on. Interesting. Jim acosta, thanks very much. Joining us now, one person who can speak to whether the russia meet twugz sort of thing President Trump would want to be told about, barbara ress, a former longtime executive at the Trump Organization, author of the book all alone on the 68th floor how one woman changed the face of construction. Barbara, thank you so much for being with us. My pleasure. You worked for Trump Organization on and off for years. The thing i never understood about this meeting is that don jr. Would be told by someone allegedly representing the russian government that the russians were supporting his Fathers Campaign and would not tell his father, either about
that major factor about the meeting taking place or the meeting had taken place. Given what you know about how the Trump Organization works, does it make sense to you donald trump would not have been informed about this . Impossible. In my opinion, based on my experience working with trump. Everybody that worked for trump. Something major, something newsworthy, something press worthy would also go before trump, always. Because he wanted to know. He wanted yes. He wanted to be on top of things. It is possible that donald trump jr. Might have that as a child of mr. Trump, would have more latitude that an employee . You know, im not i dont think so. No you know, the reason trump jr. Is in the position hes in, ivanka is in the position, jared is that trump has historically believed that he is better served by having family members, even if theyre not quite as qualified. But i think that perhaps he may even be harder on family members. I know he was harder on ivana
when she worked for him. I have a feeling he probably might have been harder on donald when he didnt do donald jr. When he might not have done what he was supposed to. From my point of view, donald jr. Would definitely have gone to his father. I think he would have said in advance, look what ive got. Were going get something on hillary. I think he would have sort of been brag 00 it, look what i did, that sort of thing. Which makes sense why Candidate Trump made that speech in which he promoted an upcoming discussion about om big news on the russian. Absolutely. There. Has been some suggestion, though, that maybe donald trump jr. Wouldnt have wanted to alert his father in advance in case nothing came of the meeting, and therefore he would look bad in his fathers eyes . No, i dont think thats the case at all. I think that he would have told donald about the meeting. And if it didnt amount to anything, it would have been fine. It was something they attempted and it didnt work out. The i want to ask you about allen weisselberg, who is the way the Trump Organization was set up, does it surprise you some of the chaos and sort of the president seems the eye of this storm and a lot of people are misinformed around him or he tells them one thing but thats not really the case of what actually happened. That the way the organization was run . To my experience, absolutely. It was always run in chaos. And there was a lot of splitting people up, and a lot of dividing and conquering. Trump liked to have controversy. He liked to be surrounded by controversy. He wanted his people, you know, competing with each other. He liked that environment . Absolutely. Did he think it was productive or just do you know why he liked it . Or part of his nature . I think he thought at a time, and he says this, have i the best people. And he was always trying to make one better than the other. And you could see him when he brought in scaramucci and all that stuff, competing, competing, competing. That was something he liked to do, yes. Fascinating. Barbara res, thank you so much. There are 12 vads aindividuals e company charged with illegally assisting the Trump Campaign from russia, the clear implication there is if the Trump Campaign worked with these russian entities, that would be a crime as well. But there is no crime specifically called collusion. But there is conspiracy. There is conspiracy. And clearly, assisting the russian government to intervene illegally in the Trump Campaign would be a crime. So i think Rudy Giuliani is playing word games there to a certain extent. But if you want to be technical, hes right, that there is no crime called collusion. Dana, you spoke to giuliani earlier today after the interview on new day. He tried to clarify some of his comments, right . Yes. Okay. Im going try to explain this so people dont get even more confused. Good luck. Exactly. It is as clear as mud, and i dont think thats an accident. What giuliani talked about, one of the things he talked about with Alisyn Camerota this morning was the idea that there was this alleged second meeting or excuse me a meeting that happened a couple of days before the notorious Trump Tower Meeting with don jr. And the russian attorney and so on and so forth where they talked about what they would discuss, like a premeeting, basically. So giuliani brought it up as if the meeting happened with Alisyn Camerota. It was not clear. I talked to him afterwards, and he said no, the reason i brought it up is because reporters came to me, meaning giuliani and to jay sekulow, another member of the trump legal team, saying that this is being floated to them, to the reporters that there was an additional meeting where they were going through the russia situation, that cohen was a part of it. Giuliani said that he and sekulow found out in doing their own investigating internally is oh, that meeting never happened. So he said, if youre still with me, that the reason he brought it up to alisyn he has talked about a meeting and said the meeting didnt happen. To me, are you still with me, anderson . Yeah, i went to a special place in my head for a while. But im back. Not back to the goalpost i hope. But to me he said there is a meeting that never happened. But there is no question that this is his way of, he says, trying to get out ahead of stories, but its also very much to throw a whole bunch of smoke at the screen and make it hard to see through it. Giuliani seemed very careful to say that the president wasnt at that meeting at trump tower. He didnt say that the president didnt know about the meeting in advance, which is the whole point. There was never any belief that the president himself was ever actually at that meeting. Again, its a shift from what the line is from the trump
campaign, from the trump camp. Right. So Rudy Giuliani keeps trying to, as you outline, he keeps trying to change the story and change peoples attention towards what may or may not have occurred. What we know is that there is an investigation focused on conspiracy to defraud the United States. Thats really the Special Counsels theory of the case, and Everything Else falls under that, whether its the unauthorized access to the computer systems, what we call the hacking, or whether its potential violations of campaign finance, any of those fall into the rubric of conspiracy. And these meetings regarding whether or not individuals, senior officials trump and his inner circle on the campaign knew in advance about any of those activities that the russian government, russian Intelligence Officers were doing goes to whether or not they were part of that conspiracy. And so when Rudy Giuliani says that there was no collusion, the question really is did they have
advanced knowledge . And were they in some way working together, would be another way to describe what the law calls conspiracy. Jeff, the whole notion from the president this weekend that mueller has conflicts of interest, giuliani wouldnt explain what those alleged conflicts were when pressed today. I mean, from all the what we know so far, it doesnt seem like there is much there there. There was that report about the president had claimed the conflict over a Golf Membership in a golf club. It wasnt clear if thats what giuliani was referencing. It seems probably that is what it is. It was funny. I was actually in the studio when alisyn was doing that interview. I almost started laughing. Giuliani said i dont know what the conflict is, but i would have recused myself if i was mueller, and that was what . It was sort of peculiar. But, look, i think whats important to remember about what Rudy Giuliani says and about what the president says
especially on twitter is that its designed to go into the conservative ecosphere. Its designed to get into fox news, breitbart, various websites that are supportive so that people can start saying the same thing. No such thing there was no collusion, and even if there was collusion, its not a crime. You will certainly start to hear that more often in the conservative media world. Im sorry. Go ahead, dan. That. No, no, it is. Youre exactly right. It is designed to do that. But i was talking to some people in the trump orbit today, particularly the political orbit today noting he is pretty comfortable with where the base is right now, as he should be. According to almost all the polls, he has skyhigh Approval Rating among republicans. And in this particular case, it might be less strategic and more kneejerk personal. Hes upset about Michael Cohen. Hes upset about the fact that the Special Counsel is talking to somebody who, anderson, as
you were just discussing with the former Trump Org Executive who is was very much in the inner circle. Right. And he is lashing out. In addition to the fact that they are desperately trying to at least in the last few months successfully so chip away at the credibility and the integrity of this investigation. Dan narcotics thank you. Jeff toobin, carrie cordero, as well. Ahead, a fire debate on the president and russia, specifically their summit. The question two weeks later, why dont we know more about what actually went on Behind Closed Doors . Why dont we know actually anything that went on Behind Closed Doors between the president and putin . What be a slap in the face about President Trumps meeting with kim jongun on missile support. Today. Back pain cant win. Now introducing aleve back and muscle pain. Only aleve targets tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve back muscle. All day strong. All day long. So what do you guys want . Pistachio. Chocolate chip. Rocky road. I see Whats Going On here. Everybodys got different taste. Well, now verizon lets you mix and match your family unlimited plans so everybody gets the plan they want, without paying for things they dont. Jetsetting moms can videochat from europe. Movieobsessed teens can stream obscure cinema. Its like everyone gets their own flavor of unlimited. chuckles its a metaphor. Simile, not a metaphor. Hm. Well played. vo one family. Different unlimited plans. Starting at 40 per line. Switch now and get 300 off our best phones all on the network you deserve. When the president took a fresh victory lap this afternoon for his summit with kim jongun, he might have spoken too soon. Breaking news, the new reporting in the washington post. The lead, u. S. Spy agencies are seeing signs that north korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the countrys fir