A recap of the days news. He did, and they werent taken o ut of Campaign Finance, thats a big thing. Thats much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign . Is they didnt come out of the campai campaign. They came from me. It isnt even a campaign violation. What the president appears to be claiming there is completely untrue, which would mean it was false and a lie. You cant Duck Campaign finance laws simply by paying out of your own pocket. Thats a crime. A crime that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to yesterday. A crime cohen says he committed at the direction of donald trump. Heres what he said in if court yesterday. And i quote, on or about the summer of 2016,court yesterday. And i quote, on or about the summer of 2016, in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office, i and the ceo of a Media Company at the request of the candidate worked together to keep an individual with information that
would have harmful to the candidate and to the campaign from publicly disclosing this information. So Michael Cohen is referring there to paying for the rights to Karen Mcdougals story. And theres more. This is a quote. On or about october of 2016, in coordination with and at the direction of the same candidate, i arranged to make a payment to a second individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and to the campaign to keep the individual from disclosing the information. Thats a reference to the Hush Money Payment to Stormy Daniels. And if that is not clear enough, theres this. The judge asking, mr. Cohen, when you took all of these acts that you described, did you know that what you were doing was wrong and illegal . Cohen answering, yes, your honor. And as to the president s claim he only knew about the payments later on, his own words prove that thats a lie. Listen to trump and Michael Cohen discussing payment to silence Karen Mcdougal. Correct. So im all over that. And i spoke to allan about it. When it comes time to the financing which will be listen, what financing . Well have to pay pay with cash. No, no, no, no, i got but i didnt know beforehand even though i discussed with with my attorney and fixer beforehand. Confronted with the fact that trump is heard on tape discussing the payment before it was made, Sarah Sanders simply refused to answer the question from cnns Kaitlan Collins. In his interview today the president said he found out about those payments Michael Cohen made later on, but hes on
tape discussing how to make one of the payments with Michael Cohen. So before the payment was made. So how do you explain that . Once again, identive commenn this pretty extense tentensiv. The president did nothing wrong, there are no charges against him, theres to collusion. For anything beyond that, i would refer you to the president s outside counsel. Didnt he just say he didnt know about it them theres a tape of him during, before it happened, discussing it . Okay. Again, Michael Cohen is alleging that trump committed a crime. And directing cohen to pay to silence women to claim that they had affairs with trump, paying them in order to influence the election. That is collusion. Then you might think that republican lawmakers would feel compelled to speak out in the face of all of this. Actually, it probably wont surprise you at all to hear that the response from the president s own party is pretty much this. Crickets. Deafening silence. Nothing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell completely silent. Majority whip john cornyn . I dont know the facts. Dont know the facts. House Speaker Paul Ryan punting to his spokesperson who said, we need more information than is currently available at this point. And then theres this from the longest Serving Living senator, orrin hatch. Naturally, it makes you very concerned, but, you know, the president shouldnt be held responsible for the actions of people that hes trusted. Again, the point here is that Michael Cohen in his allocution said that donald trump directed him to make the illegal payments. We can and should hold the
president responsible for that. It may not be much of a surprise, though, that republicans dont want to do that, but the president has got to be wondering tonight what will happen if a blue wave crashes over capitol hill come november . Lets discuss. I want to bring in now cnn White House CorrespondentKaitlan Collins who asked that question. Shes with us. Also jonathan, the new York Magazine and susan hennessey, Cnn National Security and legal analyst. Good evening to all of you. Kaitlan, you were there today. You asked the question to Sarah Sanders. Whats the mood inside the white house tonight . Don, you saw it there best, the white house is having a lot of trouble mounting a defense in response to the claims made by Michael Cohen. Essentially saying what they said in the past, that the president did nothing wrong, these charges arent against him and then saying there is no collusion even though thats unrelated to what Michael Cohen said when he was in a new york courtroom yesterday. So were seeing a lot of struggle here on behalf of the
white house, but a lot of that comes because of things the own president has said in the past to his Press Secretaries including Sarah Sanders, like when he told her he had no knowledge of those payments about Stormy Daniels. Something that she said definitively from the podium here in march citing a conversation that she had with the president and then, of course, we found out later on from Rudy Giuliani that the president did, in fact, know about it. But, don, what we know is the mood inside this west wing, it goes two ways. A, we know the president is in a bad mood. He doesnt like that this happened. He wasnt expecting Michael Cohen to make that statement in court yesterday. When his lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is currently out of the country. Thats something thats irking the president. As far as those who work in the west wing, they dont know how to react to this because, of course, they dont know what the president says is correct or if hes right when he says he didnt direct Michael Cohen to make those payments. But also, theyve weathered storms like this before. Back with rob porter in the security clearances. With the trump tower meeting. With the Stormy Daniels payment revelations. They dont know if this is a story thats going to be the one that breaks the camels back, so theyre kind of sitting back waiting to see what it is thats going to happen here. Lets bring Jonathan Chate in. Jonathan, after denying knowledge of this hush money, these Hush Money Payments in april, President Trump now says he did know about them. I cant keep it straight. Whether he knew or didnt know, but he didnt know about them then added later on. Did he do himself any favors today . No, because his admission was actually a confession. He trieded to say, well, it only would have mattered if the much came out of the campaign but he actually got it totally backwards. The problem, the violation, was that he took the money from the Trump Organization and donated it to the campaign. Thats the illegally and he just misdescribed the law, so i think he thinks he was doing himself a favor, but he was actually hurting himself. Yeah. Susan, so, by saying on fox, by
the way, that he knew about the payments, is he creating even more legal problems for himself . I think potentially he is. Look, at this point, you know, the question of whether or not the president didnt know, i think its sort of it strains belief, right, not only was Michael Cohen willing to say this under oath, you know, he has tapes that essentially corroborate his account. Its also significant that prosecutors allowed him to say this in court during his allocution. Prosecutors would not and could not have allowed Michael Cohen to make the statement which they would have coordinated in advance unless they had reason too believe it was true. So the notion here that were not sure whether or not the president was aware or not, you know, i think its relatively apparent at this point. You know, to the point that jonathan made, i do think the president may have gotten himself into additional legal trouble in that interview today. He appears to be confused about the law. Hes emphasizing that Campaign Funds were not used for these payments. However, if Campaign Funds were
used, he actually might have been okay. So long as they were reported. The actual violation here is that a private individual and a corporation made illegal Campaign Funds, so once again, i dont know if hes relying on bad Legal Counsel or simply doesnt understand what theyve explained to him, but i dont think hes doing himself any favors at aull. Im seeing head nods in agreement from jonathan and kaitlan. This is a new report by the New York Times saen the report says trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, have discussed the potential political repercussions of pardoning Paul Manafort. Giuliani tells the times that trump thinks manafort has been horribly treated. What are your thoughts on this one . We know President Trump is enamored with the pardon power. This is one of the powers in which trump does get to act like a king, hes sort of above the law. This is his exclusive power. I think he is concerned about Paul Manafort cooperating from this point forward. That verdict was just sort of the beginning for manafort. Hes facing an entirely
different trial thats coming up here in washington, d. C. , in september. You know, and i think what were seeing through these statements is trump sort of testing the waters. Seeing if he can talk about manafort in sympathetic terms, what kind of pushback hes going to get from Congressional Republicans essentially to see whether or not hes going to get away with it. What weve seen in response has been pretty much nothing. Some sort of tsk, tsking and shrugs from republicans but not drawing a line around trump pardoning individuals directly implicated in this investigation. I have to tell you, vieveryo trying to figure it out. The times is reporting, no, theyre not going to do it. They talked about it but hes not considering it. He told Ainsley Airhart of fox, well, theres a possibility. There is a disconnect there, kaitlan, with the reporting on this. Reporter there is. Thats what Rudy Giuliani says. His one account of this. Then its clear heres what the president is saying during an interview on the white house grounds today. And of course, that also comes after Sarah Sanders in the Briefing Room today said there had been no discussion that she was aware of if a potential pardon for Paul Manafort here. Of course, the president , himself, all you have to do is look at his twitter feed, hes signaling that he could potentially pardon him. Sem sem essentially saying he wasnt treated fairly by the Justice System even though Paul Manafort got a jury, yeah, a trial by a jury of his peers, and even his own attorneys said they felt that was a fair trial that he received over the last few weeks but the president is doubting the Justice System today and signaling to Paul Manafort saying that at least he didnt break calling him a brave man. Obviously a stark contrast to what he thinks Michael Cohen has done. But it does, don, go to show you what the president is saying to his own staff including Sarah Sanders, that no, hes never considered pardoning Paul Manafort. What hes saying to his legal team, his lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and what he is saying to a Cable News Host about potentially pardoning his former Campaign Chairman. Oh, boy. All right. Can i add a point to this . Yeah, quickly because i want to get to Michael Cohen. Theres new information. Go ahead, john. The big point is its wildly improper for the president to be floating a parting of someone who could be testifying against his own criminal involvement. Right. Right. Right. Go on. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Never considered a proper use of president ial power. All right. Lets talk about this because within la when last we heard of the president speaking of Michael Cohen it was a flippant tweet this morning saying, you know, if you want to hire im P Paraphrasing here, a competent attorney, dont hire Michael Cohen. Surprising that you would hear the president of the United States or see the president of the United States tweet Something Like that. But tonight, he is speaking about his relationship with Michael Cohen. Listen. Are you considering pardoning Paul Manafort . I have Great Respect for what hes done in terms of what hes gone through. You know, he worked for Ronald Reagan for years. He worked for bob dole. He worked, i guess his firm worked for mccain. He worked for many, many people. Many, many years. And i would say what he did, some of the charges they threw against him, every consultant, every lobbyist in washington probably does. If you look at Hillary Clintons person, you take a look at the people that work for Hillary Clinton, look at the crimes that clinton did. With the emails and she deletes 33,000 emails after she gets a issubpoena from congress and Th Justice Department does nothing about it . And all of the other crimes that theyve done. Okay. So that was about Paul Manafort. We have the Michael Cohen. That deserves so much Fact Checking in that i dont have three hours to do when it comes to the 33,000 emails and the crimes that have already been discussed. There were hearings held on all of this stuff. Hillary clinton is the president in his head. And probably in the head of the folks who work for fox news. Paul manafort was much worse than other lobbyists and the main point is he was working for russia. He was working to advance russian interests in other countries. He did it in ukraine, he does it other soviet republics and seems like he did the same thing in the United States. So why this obsession with Hillary Clinton and her emails, kaitlan . I mean, i guess its a strategy on his part and on the part of his supporters because every time theres something wrong thats not explainable, that hurts the president , um, hillary, uh, emails, uh, obama. Like, its reflexive. Reporter truly, and its not just a Defense Tactic for the president. He truly believes that Hillary Clinton has not been prosecuted in the way that she should. You see there at the end of that clip, hes saying this Justice Department. Hes referring to his own Justice Department with the attorney general Jeff Sessions who the president hand picked, same with rod rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney general, chris
wray,director, all these people are the people the president picked to run the Justice System here in washington. His Justice System that hes in charge of. That goes back to all of his anger. He ca