Conversation between the president and his loyal confidant, Michael Cohen. This is a conversation where they discussed a payment to a former playboy model who says she had a ten month affair with then private citizen donald trump. The president s new attorney, Rudy Guiliani, tells cnn President Trump had no idea he was being recorded, and to add to it, the source says when he was told about the tape, this is what the president said. I cant believe michael would do this to me. The white house has denied, denied macdougals claims of this affair, and while the tape was seized in the fbi raids on cohens property, they say theres a trove of other recordings as well. Start with cnn justice correspondent evan perez in aspen. What do we know about this particular recording . Reporter well, brooke, this is a recording that Michael Cohen did apparently talking to the president about a payment to Karen Macdougal, former playboy playmate that claims she had an affair with then donald trump as a private citizen obviously. This was a discussion that happened before the 2016 election and so of course now this raises a lot of questions. One of the things it raises, why was this a story kept out of the public in the 2016 election during the time, the run up to the 2016 election. If you remember, this was a payment that ended up not being made allegedly by Michael Cohen or by the president , it was a payment that was made by the publisher of the national enquirer. They bought Karen Macdougals story, ended up not using, publishing the story. She was under an agreement where she was not allowed to talk about the alleged affair with the now president. The big question this raises from Michael Cohen is the fact is that the prosecutors in the Southern District of new york, one of the things theyre investigating is whether or not there was any laws broken as part of these payments that Michael Cohen was allegedly involved in brokering with women who allegedly had these claims against the president. So thats now part of this investigation. The fbi has this recording that Rudy Guiliani is referring to. It is important to note the president s legal team has reviewed a transcript of this recorded call or this recorded conversation between michae cohen and the president and were told they think theres no legal issue for the president , they dont believe this is a conversation that causes any legal problems for the president , but obviously this is something that well have to see because this is still as you know an Ongoing Investigation there in new york. Let me pick up with your last point. Evan stay with me. I want you part of the situation. Also bringing in Gloria Borger and alley koenig. Gloria, let me pick up on that point. Gloria, hearing from guiliani, saying no legal issue with the tape. They looked at the transcript, essentially saying not damning. It sounds like you have a source who says otherwise. Who says that it is. Rudy guiliani is making the case that this is exculpatory. I have spoken to one source with knowledge of the tape who says that the conversation between trump and Michael Cohen is not as Rudy Guiliani described and the source went on to say that in fact the tape is not going to be good for donald trump but the source refused to elaborate. So brooke, here wave te have the of the tape. You have Rudy Guiliani saying this clears my client, and another source with knowledge of the tape saying not so fast, it doesnt clear your client. There is a tape somewhere, there is a transcript somewhere, somebody is going to have to make that judgment. You and i were just chatting, you were saying you worked mob cases and in this case, talking about the parallels, you always wanted access to the mob boss, and if you even had a recording of the mob boss, even better fon that persons case. What are the parallels . So the main parallel is youre trying to penetrate a closed, secretive organization, whether talking about the Trump Organization or the mafia. In mob investigations really the best piece of evidence you can get is a tape by someone whos in a position of trust, a confidant. And thats because the person at the top has the luxury of ruling by giving orders, that the boss doesnt get his hands dirty, he is not out committing crimes but telling people. If you have tapes, theres no running away from that. Good defense lawyers, first thing you do on arrest, come up to the prosecutor and say is this a tapes case or not. If it is a tapes case, theyll go we have a problem. If it is not, maybe they can fight it. Guiliani is doing what every defense lawyer does, this is no problem, this is going to clear my guy. I credit the president s initial reaction, which is why would he do this to me. What does it say . Tells me the president is scared. He trusted Michael Cohen for a long time and Michael Cohen knows his inside business, knows all of the secrets, knows where the bodies are buried, figuratively. So he is nervous and i think he should be. Evan perez, heres my question to you. So far from the trump team, from the campaign when it was the wall street journal in the fall of 16 they broke this story and denied trump knew anything about this payment when clearly based upon this reporting he did. Right, exactly. They denied. Look, they denied everything related to any of these claims that have been made, and it does appear that information then comes forward that shows the denials are not quite accurate. Look, well have to see whether or not this is something that prosecutors end up using in this investigation and they made clear that they are looking into charging Michael Cohen. We dont know exactly what necessarily the charges will look like, whether they have anything to do with perhaps an election Law Violation because obviously if someone made a payment to benefit the president before the election and that is not recorded or thats not reported as a contribution to the campaign, that could be a problem for the president. We dont know yet whether this is where the prosecutors are going, but you have to start thinking that the Trump Legal Team is very much aware of that, and thats something that im sure theyre gaming out as to how this develops, brooke. Gloria, you talked about how it was cohens m. O. To have a record, whatever his reasoning was. It is apparently a surprise that the was ruling on this decision with donald trump. We dont know how many tapes are out there. We have reporting there are additional tapes with other what, powerful people . Right, and thats dana bashs reporting which is that there are other powerful people, people of consequence i believe, on these tapes and i was told by another source there are definitely all kinds of tapes out there. This is something that Michael Cohen apparently did routinely. It is kind of strange that he would tape the president , then his boss whom he has always said he would take a bullet for, but we dont know why, and of course im not a lawyer, so lets have the attorney answer this, but are these conversation privileged, right . So Michael Cohen cant really talk about them or i dont know how that would come up in a trial. I just dont have any idea. They may be privileged but not necessarily. There is an Attorney Client privilege, but there are two important qualifications. One, has to be an attorney furnishing advice to his client, theyre going through a review and a tiny percentage of Michael Cohens documents are actually deemed Attorney Client communications. The other thing is theres exception to Attorney Client privilege, crime fraud exception. So yes, Attorney Client conversations are usually privileged, but not if theyre talking about a crime. What about in your experience, going back to your metaphor, not even a metaphor, real Case Scenario with the mob, why would you have someone tape a mob boss in those examples . So if the person is already cooperating and cohen was not cooperating at the time, youre trying to build evidence. Why would cohen do it on his own . Thats what im getting at. I propose he knew the kind of people he was dealing with, he spent years immersed in the trump world. He is thinking i have to protect myself. Never know how things will go. Dealing with people that will deny, deny, deny. So im going to make these tapes. Where do you see it going . Koenlz hMichael Cohen has to if he is cooperating with the Southern District. There are all kinds of indications that he is. If he does, theyre going to sit with him, reserve a Conference Room or safe house, sit with him, play every one of these tapes, go through every financial document and email and say explain this, whats this, why did this happen. That could open uhuh uhp all f doors. Gloria, we talked for years that cohen was this loyal guy, take a bullet, everything we talked about. Yet here he is under the criminal investigation. This is how trump characterized the relationship. A percentage of my overall legal work, a tiny, tiny fraction. He represents me like with this craze Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me. And from what i see, he did absolutely nothing wrong. Now with this reporting, gloria, isnt it a tad more difficult for the white house to distance themselves from Michael Cohen . Yes, but they can do whatever they want. The president says he is no longer my attorney. Michael cohen made it clear to us at cnn and lanny davis, his spokesman awhile ago, saying that Michael Cohen is now independent. And Michael Cohen is going his own way. And in an odd way, in an odd way now Michael Cohen and his once arch enemy, michael avenatti, are together on this against trump. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And you know, wouldnt surprise me if at some point, you know, theyre on the same page here. So the world takes very strange turns in this story, and i think were just seeing another one. By the way, so you have two conflicting stories here, but you do have a document, you do have an audio tape and a transcript, so somebody the truth lies therein and we ourselves of course have not been able to see that transcript or listen to that tape. Truth is in the transcripts. Administrator i can gloria, elly, thank you so much. And evan perez as well. You have new reporting on the plan to have russian president Vladimir Putin come to the white house this fall, an announcement that took the terror of National Intelligence by surprise. Say that again . Vladimir putin. Did i hear you . Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thats going to be special. Yeah. That was a real time response when that news came out that the president would have putin to washington. Also, new details that the white house is none too thrilled about director coats comments at the National Security forum in colorado. Also all of this as President Trump is expected to leave the white house in moments on his way to bedminster, new jersey for the weekend. Will he stop and chat with the president about the week that was . We will stand by with cameras rolling. Stay with me, this is cnn. Im brooke baldwin. For your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in Clinical Trials to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. When we switched our auto and home insurance. With liberty, we could afford a real babysitter instead of your brother. Hey oh, thats my robe. Is it . When you switch to liberty mutual, you could save 782 on auto and home insurance. And still get great coverage for you and your family. Call for a free quote today. You could save 782. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. In a couple of minutes, the president is expected to leave for the weekend for his golf resort in new jersey, in his wake this news that is baffling not just the beltway but americans. Another meeting with Vladimir Putin, this time in washington. It is a head spinning development you could say after four days of nonstop fallout from the First Standalone summit which was just on monday. Condemned for not immediately supporting his intelligence agencies against putin, the president is now at adds with top intelligence officials in this country, dan coats for the way he responded after learning about putins latest invitation from trump, so lets begin there with cnn chief political analyst Gloria Borger. Shes back. Not letting her go just yet. Michael allen is with us, once held high level position on the National Security staff, and mike baker, former cia operative. Gloria, let me start with you here, we have to get straight to the dan coats on stage in aspen, you know, where hes reacting in real time. This is the director of National Intelligence, reacting to learning basically in a tweet that the president invited putin to washington. The white house has announced on twitter that Vladimir Putin is coming to the white house in the fall. Say that again. Vladimir putin coming to yeah. Yeah yeah. Okay. Thats going to be special. I just want you to react to that moment. Again, this is a man that talked about the red light is flashing with regard to russia, this is someone who had gone out, responded to this summit between putin and trump on his own, and now you hear him in real time responding to this notion that putin is coming to the white house. What did you think . Well, you know how they say no man is an island, i think hes an island. I think hes alone here. I think dan coats did not know, it was clear his surprise was real, and maybe the white house had been trying to get in touch with him and he is in aspen, we toe dont know the whole sisttory. The body language and making a joke because he was clearly so stunned means it is not something he would do or recommend. I mean, dont forget, this is a president , he also said in that same interview by the way he would not have recommended the president meet with putin with just a translater there, but he said thats not my job. And i think in terms of, mike allen can talk about this, i think in terms of the Intelligence Community i think their heads are spinning because theres never been anything like this. They havent been debriefed completely according to reporting at cnn and elsewhere, and then to set up another summit immediately after is head scratching. Makes you wonder if the president is just angry that everybody is angry at him. How fast are those heads spinning . They were pretty fast. My impression yesterday was that the president and his Communications Operation were under tremendous pressure and they rushed out the door an idea to get everybody to look towards the future, ie, another putin summit, rather than dwelling on the disasters of the past week. But listen, i dont think this is the way to do business. Theres a reason we have process. It is kind of boring, but theres a reason why we prepare, a reason why we have many people in the room, theres a reason why we summarize meetings and make sure theyre carefully handled so they dont leak, but also so the top echelon of the National Security leadership knows what happened in the top interactions that the president has around the world. This is 101. I dont think that the way they run it sort of free wheelingly serves us well on National Security. There was a thought going into helsinki, why would the president do this one on one, maybe it is hubris, ego. The other was what might russia truly have on this president. Mike baker, i was talking to steve hall, former cia last hour, saying it may be kompromat. Are you willing to go that far . No, because it is all speculation. None of us know, a, what was discussed, none of us know frankly how many people now within the administration have been briefed on those discussions. And hopefully nobody at this stage of the game is surprised by the lack of process that mike allen just referred to. There should be that process. What i mean is dysfunction alternate route, lack of information flow in a normal sense shouldnt shock anybody at this point. You want it to be that way. But no, im not willing to go as far as what steve hall, and i have a lot of respect for him, great experience, but again, it is speculation. They did talk about, there was reporting and talk about a white house meeting between putin and trump back in march, in april of this year. I will say objectively setting aside all of the noise and politics and the rest of it, objectively dan coats reaction was unusual from an individual with that much experience, credibility, seniority in the sense that it almost seems stepping aside, looking at it, he was playing for comedic relief. How should he have played it . Just say yes, there had been talk. He could have simply said there was talk about having this meeting. Theres much to discuss. Lets move on. You could also argue that President Trump would give him the opportunity, i have full faith and confidence in the u. S. Intel commun