News, analysis and interviews with politicians and observers. News, analysis and interviews with politicians and observers. Damaging. Both the combination of the Michael Cohen revelations and also the fact that mueller is still going. Its causing a lot of people around the president to worry, and theyre also worried about the midterms. Theyre worried mueller might drop something before the midterm elections that could be devastating to republicans. And trump also seems to believe that possibly if he talks, it could bring this investigation to an end more quickly, but theres not necessarily any evidence of that. Yeah, i mean, its interesting the way that trump seems to think that he could Charm Mueller the way that he thinks hes done with kim jongun and with other world leaders. If he gets in the room, he can win them over. This is of course a very different situation. The other thing that is interesting where giuliani is saying put up or shut up, the irony in that is that bob mueller is perhaps the only person who we havent heard from. Yeah, yeah. He has shut up. He never speaks. He speaks through indictments, which hes had a lot of. He speaks through his court
filings, but he doesnt talk himself. So you have giuliani out there talking a lot. You have President Trump talking a lot. You have Michael Avenatti in the other case and lanny davis. You have a lot of these lawyers talking, but bob mueller himself is relatively silent, which his supporters may want to hear more from him given the way his opinion numbers have taken a dive. Hes sort of the epitome of talk softly and carry a big stick. You know, hes doing that a lot right now. Were seeing his actions but not his words. Rachel, yesterday we saw the president lashing out and his reaction to this and this whole idea of whether or not his tweet was a directive or an opinion or just a suggestion or him blowing off steam. Of course, the white house, were going to play a clip of all the ways the white house has talked about the president s tweets and whether or not theyre opinion or directives. Here you go. Its not an order. Its the president s opinion. The president is stating his
opinion. Hes stating it clearly. Theres no reason he shouldnt be able to voice that opinion. Should the Attorney General see this as a directive . No, it isnt at all. Its what it is. As we said, its an opinion. He used his he used a medium he uses for opinions. Policies are statements and statements are policies. It goes both ways. Thats absolutely not true. I make lots of statements. Theyre not u. S. Policy. I misspoke. It is the case. The president calls the ball. His statements are, in fact, policy. The president is the president of the United States, so theyre considered official statements by the president of the United States. Pompeo there switching it up in the same conversation there. Yeah, but to go back to the president s tweet yesterday, its got to be the toughest job in washington, speaking for the president and also being his lawyer. Yes, theyre arguing he said mueller should end the probe, not he must end the probe and thats a difference. Hes just expressing his opinion. But look f t, if the president the United States says something should end and you work for the president of the United States, you see that and you got to be
nervous about it. Of course, the fbi, theyre going to do their job. Theyre trying to tune this out and just want to get this done with. But going back also to the Obstruction Of Justice and why he doesnt want to answer questions or why his lawyers do not want to answer questions on this, theres a lot of thinking out there that mueller might have a more solid case on obstruction than he does on the russia interference thing. So they dont want the president to talk about this, but again, trump and his tweeting, he just wants to go out there and put it all out there. This could be a real legal danger to him. It deals with state of mind. Thats one of the biggest problems for the president s lawyers. Its about what were you thinking when you did, not what happened when. I think thats why its tricky for him. Thats when you open up the president to saying all kinds of things that you may not have wanted him to say. When he sat down with lester holt, he basically started that process by saying, when i fired comey, i was thinking about the russia investigation. Thats a big red flag for his legal team. When it comes to Something Like yesterday, again, this is about the court of public opinion. President trump understands news
cycles. I think we can all agree to that. It was the first full day of testimony in Paul Manaforts trial. If the president had not stepped in and created his own side story, all of the coverage that day about the russia probe would have been about manafort and the trial. Instead, Everybody Knows the top four paragraphs of every story became President Trump on the offensive on twitter. And do we expect more of that . I mean, i know its hard to say. Daily. They would have stronger ground to stand on if he did only use it for opinion. He uses his twitter feed to fire people, to announce policy. Its a realtime look into his mind set. So its not like hes only using it for his opinion. I think his team is doing all that they can to turn this into a semantics argument. Clean it up, yeah. Well have to leave it there. Before we go to break, some major news on wall street. Apple just became the First AmericanPublic Company to reach 1 trillion in value. Apple shares surged to an alltime high just moments ago after the company reported
better than expected earnings this week. For context, amazon clocks in at about 900 billion. Google and microsoft both worth more than 800 billion. Well be right back. Yeah, it was during testimony from one of the witnesses where the prosecutors were asking questions related to rick gates. I think in an effort to move along, the judge said, well, youre going to have rick gates here testifying, so why dont we just move along here. When rick gates comes in, you can ask him these questions. The prosecutor, i think without thinking, just quickly said, well, we may or may not call him. Certainly that signaled to a lot of the reporters in the room, well, whoa, this is the first time were hearing that gates may not be coming in. As you said this morning, i think seeing some of the news reports, the prosecutors came in and wanted to make it very clear to the judge and to the defense team, yeah, we do intend to call rick gates, and that could happen, as you said, tomorrow, as early as tomorrow or monday. And gates of course had come under some pretty withering criticism, this idea that he might not be such a reliable witness. Yeah, certainly i think thats what the defense wants. They seem to he seems to be
key to their defense. Theyre blaming everything on him. They said so much in the opening statement. Its clear theyre going to stick with their guy and intend to bring him before court. Well see what he says. As we watch this trial, were also watching trumps reaction to the trial. We saw it yesterday. One of the things thats interesting, and politico has this report, in terms of the white houses Talking Points and having people talk about this trial, this is what they found. More than a half dozen of trumps most Vocal Tv Surrogates told politico that they werent provided white house or Campaign Talking Points on the case, as is customary for important headline generating matters. Some interpreted that as an attempt to keep them from talking about the trial on tv and to starve it of oxygen. Donald trump did not get that message. Hes not starving it of oxygen. Hes providing some oxygen. There seem to be from the white house paul manawho, like he
didnt work for the campaign. Trump obviously having a different perspective. Theres also another explanation, which is they dont have their act together to come up with Talking Points to send out. In this white house, thats a real possibility. I think this idea that theres a grand plan around this Manafort Trial is not quite right because they have settled on as close to something as this as nothing to do with us. Thats not a fully baked plan. Its fairly limited in its scope. Obviously the president is undermining that every day he talks about it. So this is the white house still trying to figure out exactly where to position themselves on this. As many people have pointed out, the Manafort Trial is being handled by the special counsel. As much as they say this has nothing to do with his time as campaign chairman, there is a fear that there is something they dont know about that could come back to haunt them. One of the things coming out in this Manafort Trial, his lavish expenditures and his
extravagant lifestyle. 30plus Bank Accounts in three countries. Who among us doesnt have 30plus Bank Accounts in three countries . Seven homes, 6 million on luxury items and services, 3 million in home improvements, 900,000 at a Mens Clothing store, 123,000 car. And the jackets, of course. 18,000 on a Python Jacket and 15,000 on an ostrich jacket. I think theres also some sort of vest to go with it. Youve got to have the vest to go with the jacket. Just some of the fun, i guess, in this trial. Heres the importance in this. This is how the prosecutors are showing he was living this lavish lifestyle. He was using money, overseas money, money that he had parked in these overseas accounts, and then was wire transferring a lot of this money to these vendors, to this suit guy, the guy making his suits. Thats what the prosecutors are using this for. The judge has taken some issue with them showing these photos. The other thing important in terms of the president , when we
hear from rick gates, its going to be interesting to see how the president reacts to that. He worked on the campaign. We know how the president feels about disloyal people, the idea that rick gates cooperating flipped. We dont know everything rick gates is providing to prosecutors. But the reason why all this is important, the ostrich clothes or whatever, its like a shiny object. The reason why this is important and interesting is because Paul Manafort had longstanding, wellestablished roots to the russians, the prorussian ukraine leadership at the time, deep ties to that world. The question is, how did the russians get anywhere close to donald trump . We know the answer. This establishes the answer. Between rick gates relationships and Paul Manaforts relationships. Thats the first nexus, and its proven again and again, at least
with some of the alleged financial ties theyre trying to bear out. Thats what theyll get at today. Yeah. The question for the president and the president s family and some top aides is did that ever jump to the next level . Did it ever move out of manafort and rick gates world into trump land . But we know thats the establishing basis of a lot of these relationships. Another thing that came up in court today was whether or not Paul Manafort would testify. Well just have to wait and see. Nowhere close to that. Up next, an endorsement from President Trump is highly coveted these days, but does it pay off at the polls . One candidate says absolutely. R its a game changer here in pennsylvania. President trump is more popular here today than when he won in 2016. Call or go online today. As endorser in chief, President Trump is very much on a roll. Most of the midterm candidates hes backed this year have won their respective primaries. These are just a few of them, and hes keeping his foot on the gas for republicans in several other states. He was in florida on tuesday pushing congressman ron desantis for governor. Hell be in pennsylvania later today stumping for congressman lou barletta, and saturday in Central Ohio Campaigning for a State Senator Running for
congress. But the president s Endorsements Havent Always worked. His guy, of course, lost in that pennsylvania Special Election back in march, and remember he backed Luther Strange then roy moore in alabama, both of them lost. But the president is clearly reveling in this string of winning endorsements. My polls are great, but the question is, is it transferable . Now, it certainly was with florida because you saw ron desantis, whos gotten a tremendous you know, many, many points. The governor of georgia, where he was down by five and won by 40 after i endorsed him. If you take a look at Congressman Donovan from staten island, hes down by 10 and wins by 24. So weve had a lot of impact. And thats why im going around. Man, hes clearly enjoying this. Kind of looking at the polls and in the weeds on this. The value of his endorsement seems to have gone up. He wants to do more. And he doesnt name brian
kemp in there, whos running for governor in georgia. The lack of familiarity with these candidates is kind of interesting. And its not like hes ushering in ideologues. Hes not backing people because of their ideology, often. Hes backing them because they like him. Hes ushering in a new group of people who really like donald trump. You see that with ron desantis and some of his ads in florida. Theyre really hugging close to trump. That does you know, its part of the enduring parts of his presidency, the support he still has within that base of the republican party. Theyre all, you know, clinging to him in ads, which is unusual at this time of year, for people to be clinging to an incumbent president ahead of a midterm cycle that typically is not very good for an incumbent. Rachel, is there any more method to what hes doing, other than if the guy likes trump hes going to get out there and endorse him . Its all about loyalty. I would say almost 100 . Of course, Party Leaders will obviously ask the president to back someone theyre worried about, which theyre going in ohio right now. Most of these guys hes backing have done something for the president. Ron desantis, whos polling ahead in his run for governor, because of trump has been on tv time and time again blasting the russia investigation, defending the president , saying this is all a witch hunt. You talk about lou barletta. I remember when he was the first person on capitol hill to endorse the president in 2016. The president clearly never forgot that. He started a whole trump caucus thing. The president s endorsement is the top prize for republicans, even though he doesnt have the greatest polling right now. If you look at the support amongst republicans, its the greatest of any other president in recent modern history in terms of favoritabability ratin. Its the ultimate prize. He is incredibly popular. He is one of the most popular republican president s that weve seen among republicans. Hes polling at Something Like 84 among republicans. And you see that. Thats why people want his endorsement. The other thing thats interesting, though, is if you look at the kind of enthusiasm he brings among republicans, he also brings out opposition among democrats. Its at an alltime high. The question is whats going to matter more . The opposition that democrats feel towards this president or the loyalty that republicans feel for him come midterms. I think the loyalty part is if youre a republican, you cant do without it. It may not be enough to overcompensate for what the democrats are doing, but as a republican, you cannot go into a general election without really firm support from your fellow republicans. But that being said, i mean, the battleground for control over the house is going to be in the suburbs. Where are democrating going to democrats not only going to be able to get their base out but those conflicted moderates in the middle, the onetime republicans who are maybe a little more disenchanted with trump than others, maybe who have stopped identifying as republicans. Particularly subyou aurban w women, college egtsducated wome. Honestly, anyone who says they know doesnt know. That being said, it doesnt diminish the value of trumps endorsement if you are a republican. You cannot go into a general unless youve solidified your base. It is kind of fun to see the president lay a little groundwork to give himself space if it backfires. Hearing him say things like itll be interesting to see whether my great popularity transfers. The big test will be the general election, right. Its one thing for his endorsement to matter in a primary, but come the general election, for instance, if youre barbara comstock, you dont want him anywhere near your campaign. Although, if youre barbara
comstock, its kind of baked in the cake already. Thats sort of its like a selffulfilling prophesy. The republican lawmakers who will be craving President Trumps visit and endorsement are inherently not barbara comstock. So its sort of the geography is Destiny Problem for a lot of these folks. You dont want the President Campaigning against you, but if hes campaigning for you, theres some place where is that really helps turn people out. Theres some places where that just reminds democrats and swing voters to dont like President Trump, why they want to turn out the other way around. Every president in a midterm year craves being as relevant or as important as he is in a president ial year. President obama went through this also. And the Second Time Around in 2014. He wanted to be out there, but he was benched in a