The days top stories from around the world, from politics and money, to sports and pop culture. That conversation obviously referencing david pecker, as well. We reached out for comment and we havent heard back just yet. Thanks so much. Lets chat about this with our experts. Another ally of the president s talking to authorities, the walls seem to be closing in a bit. It gives an indication of why the document was so thorough. They had the cooperation of david pecker. We dont know what more that means, how much and what other Information Pecker has that cohen wasnt aware of. A trump friend reportedly told vanity fair quote holy s, i thought pecker would be the last one to turn. I have to say this is a powerful guy and the fact that he is cooperating with authorities i
find it is hard to believe he is doing it out of the goodness of his heart. It almost makes you think they put their pressure on david pecker. He is a powerful guy. He is covered as a media organization. You could put up a big fight and decline to cooperate and turn it into a battle if you want. It is safe to bet the president would bet on his side on that. It is telling to see people who are so friendly to the president over so many years turning on him like this. It does make you wonder this is a slice forward and a small slice of what the people are willing to share with investigators. We dont know what they are not cooperating about or what investigators have agreed to push to the side in exchange. Are you surprised . You have cohen. He was in hot water. Are you surprised the longtime Trump Associates are turning on him . No, because the Justice Department is a very different thing from resisting hostile Media Inquiries or standing up
to congress. I think that has been under mated throughout the coverage under estimated throughout the coverage of this. Two to three weeks later what are you going to do about it . Justice Department Investigations are different. They have a huge amount of leverage. You dont choose whether to cooperate. They indict you or they dont. They offer you a plea bargain or they dont. They have all of the information. It is the entire Justice Department. It is Rod Rosenstein managing a complex investigation with two extremely experienced and able teams. That just changes everything. We need to start thinking about the implications. They got this guy to flip and then it is like a news story and move on to something else. They now know who they have to go after. Here is the evidence we have
from these emails. You better tell us the truth. I think the Justice Department is just a whole different kettle of fish. And one of the things that is interesting is there has been a lot of talk of whether or not Michael Cohen is credible and reliable. It turns out according to the Justice Department at least there is another source. Its not just Michael Cohen. It is interesting news that we found this out because on tuesday when he was under oath and pleading guilty we were wondering, is there a deal . What is going on . Now we know they were also talking to pecker. They had another piece of the pie as you were saying. Every day i think we will get more and more pieces. And so i think that what cohen and pecker is learning is that there is no loyalty. Loyalty is really one way with donald trump. They have to watch out for themselves. You cant lie to the fbi. You just cant lie. You can see why the president is so frustrated to see all of his friends turning on him like
this. He does make his point poorly. I think his point is sort of that Campaign Finance violations are very hard to prosecute. Its very hard to take that to court and to win in a court of law. So the fact that the president is implicated in this Campaign Finance violation is not the same as being found guilty. When you have your personal lawyer plead guilty, the president looks pretty guilty. Im sure he would have wished that Michael Cohen said i will try to fight this. You will talk to lawyers and they will tell you it is harder to prove this in court. That is probably part of the reason prosecutors wanted cohen to sign a plea deal. It is hard to under estimate the dirty work that the National Inquirer did for donald trump during the campaign. Here is some of the coverage they chose during the campaign. They falsely linked ted cruzs dad to the assassination of john f. Kennedy. They claimed that ted cruz had affairs. No evidence for this. Ted cruz denies it. They published a number of covers on hillary clinton, one reading hillarys hitman tells all. They have circulation of 350,000 in 2016. How many votes did he win by . 80,000. If you flip half of those hillary would be president. They have a close longterm relationship that predates the campaign. I think this one of the mysteries of this prosecution is they had cohen pretty dead to rights on tax evasion and bank fraud. As we saw with the manafort trial those are easy documentbased prosecutions. They had to make a decision on the Campaign Finance violation. This is not a clearcut easy case. They tried to do a similar Campaign Finance case against John Edwaragainst they had to make a serious decision to go forward with this knowing that they were going to
implicate someone who the Justice Department says they cant indict, the president. So why did they do that . Why did they just nail cohen for na tax evasion and the bank fraud . Why did they throw this Campaign Finance violation . That gets into tricky First Amendment issue because it is a Media Company and makes the president look like a criminal conspirator. They think Michael Cohen knows about other issues. And to take it back to trumps instinct was always right. Given the way trump lived his life both in terms of private life, financial dealings, he knew once this got going, once this rock was turned over now we are seeing what happens with serious prosecutor. I give the Justice Department huge credit for this. Comey said i know a lot more. He was telling that to the Justice Department. Come to me. I have more information for you. And now we are down the rabbit hole looking at the National Enquirer covers that looked like and wondering what might they have looked like if they hadnt been trying to strike up these Back Room Deals . Donald trump has been a man about town in new york for quite some time. You have to imagine there were a couple of stories out there it might have been an interesting cover for the National Enquirer. One wonders if david pecker only knows of two such women paid off. We have a lot more to talk about. What was keeping President Trump up so late last night and causing him to tweet at 1 00 in the morning . Was it how to turn the a plus grade into a plus plus. Jeff sessions fires back at President Trumps insults minutes before heading into the white house. Stay with us. You might take something for your heart. Or joints. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish,
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or wearing a fullbody wetsuit at this spa retreat . Or sliding into this ski lodge with my mini horse kevin . Because hotels. Com lets me do me, right . Sorry, the cold makes him a little horse. Hotels. Com. You do you and get rewarded. Youre wearing a hat. Thats funny. So, howell. Going . We had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. Go someplace exotic . Yeah, bermuda. A hospital in bermuda. A hospital in bermuda. What . What happened . I got a little overconfident on a moped. Even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401 k so it set us back a little bit. Sometimes you dont have a choice. But it doesnt mean you cant get back on track. Great. Yeah, great. Id like to go back to bermuda. I hear its nice. Yeah, id like to see it. No judgment. Just guidance. Td ameritrade. We are back with more on our politics lead, President Trump down playing and distancing saying of his former personal attorney Michael Cohen that he was one of his many lawyers doing only small deals for him working, quote, more or less as a parttime employee. That is a totally new characterization of cohen from what we heard before. Lets go to Kaitlan Collins at the white house. We learned Rudy Giuliani told the Washington PostPresident Trump asked about possibly pardoning Paul Manafort. Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling reporters there have been no discussions of the potential pardon for the former Campaign Chair. The Washington Post is reporting that weeks ago the president talked about the prospect of pardoning Paul Manafort. He was in the middle of his trial in which he was convicted
found guilty of eight counts. The president was complaining that he believed Paul Manafort was being treated unfairly by the prosecutors. Rudy giuliani tells the post that he convinced the president to wait to make decisions about pardons until after the special Counsel Robert Mueller finishes his investigation. What we do know is that even today the president refused to rule out pardoning Paul Manafort. President trump arms folded and biting his tongue today, staying quiet when it came to questions about whether he is considering pardoning his former Campaign ChairPaul Manafort found guilty this week on eight counts of tax and bank fraud. Thank you very much. Reporter trump expressing sympathy for manafort when he was asked the same question the day before. I have Great Respect for what he has done in terms of what he has gone through. Reporter the president s praise for manafort coming along
side his scorn for his former personal attorney Michael Cohen after cohen implicated him in a crime claiming under oath that trump directed him to pay two women who claim they had affairs with them. Turned out he wasnt a good lawyer. He has been a lawyer for me, didnt do big deals, did small deals, not somebody that was with me that much. They make it sound like i didnt live without him. He was somebody that was probably with me for about ten years and i would see him sometimes. Reporter cohen served as the president s attack dog for the last decade, even earning an office next to him on the 26th floor of trump tower in new york. But sources say the president was blind sided when cohen turned on him and he has spent the days since spewing over it. No collusion, rigged witch hunt,
1 00 a. M. Tweet. With impeachment talk accelerating in washington trump saying this. I dont know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job. If i ever got impeached i think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor because without this thinking you would see numbers that you wouldnt believe. Reporter adding if he were to give himself a grade i would give meseyself an a plus. Reporter an impeachment could rattle investors. Kaitlan collins, thanks so much. Lets talk about this with our legal experts. Jeffrey, you have interviewed david pecker. He seems to be a witness to corroborate the testimony. One thing david pecker was
open about was his enormous affection for donald trump and his determination to use the enquirer to help donald trump get elected president. There is nothing improper about that. The nation is a magazine that supports liberals. The Weekly Standard supports conservatives. Magazines can support candidates. The issue is can they use money to subsidize their campaigns . That would be unlawful. David pecker did admit to me that he did give money to one of the president s or then candidates alleged former lovers to help donald trump get elected. I think there is potentially some legal problems for him. There was until he got immunity. Talking about david pecker. The president suggesting it should almost be illegal for someone facing jail time to
become a cooperating witness, the flip. Everything is wonderful and then they get ten years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go. It almost ought to be outlawed. Its not fair. You get ten years in jail but if you say bad things about somebody, in other words, make up stories, they make up lies. How common is flipping . And what is there to prevent people from lying as President Trump suggests Michael Cohen is doing in order to get a better deal . Flipping is a generalized term for giving information to the government that would not otherwise be privy to that is verifiable and truthful. Its not just giving an answer that you think the person wants to hear. I cant withdraw information from you as a prosecutor that is not truthful that i cannot verify. It would be nice if that fact would fit into this box. The idea of the safe guards are in place, corroboration. You want to have other objective Information Available to you to say this is actually what happened. And it happens all the time. I was going to say didnt Rudy Giuliani make his name by flipping members of the mob . Long ago i was a Summer Intern in Rudy Giulianis u. S. Attorneys office. I worked on the Commission Case which was the case that brought down the heads of the five families. It is one of Rudy Giulianis greatest triumphs. It was built on the testimony of cooperators. Every case against mob leaders, against the top insider traders are all based on people who plead guilty and flip. If you want to stop that you stop prosecuting the leading criminals in america. Just because you are flipping does not mean it is not factual information. It should be truthful. Flipping is not synonymous with lying, mr. President. Rudy giuliani tried to make a case that cohens implication against the president Cannot Factor into grounds for immun y impeachment. He didnt collude with the russians. He didnt obstruct justice. You only impeach him for political reasons. What is your reaction to that . Which American People are voting on your behalf . If you are somebody who has broken the law the revolt is the impeachment process itself. If you are not executive Branch Holder who can say we cannot have crimes in our world. This is really a little bit of gas lighting people to suggest that this is the only mechanism in which we can have trust in the system. Impeachment is there to prevent people from having these
incidents. Its also true that the choice here is not Michael Cohen is a terrible person or donald trump has to be impeached. Lets have an investigation. Lets have a public investigation and see what happened here. We have Michael Cohen who has said in open court that his legal acts were coordinated with and directed by donald trump. What does that mean . It is certainly very suggestive and important. It doesnt mean the president will be impeached. Certainly given that statement and everything that has gone on here there should be some investigation of like whether donald trump actually did violate the law. Thank you both. That was brave. Just minutes before heading to the white house Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions firing back at President Trumps insults. The punching bags punchback next. See psoriasis. You see clear skin. You see me. But if you saw me before cosentyx. I was covered. It was awful. But i didnt give up. I kept fighting. I got clear skin with cosentyx. 3 years and counting. Clear skin can last. See if cosentyx could make a difference for you. Cosentyx is proven to help people with moderate to Severe Plaque Psoriasis find clear skin that can last. Dont use if youre allergic to cosentyx. Before starting cosentyx,