Chris Hayes discusses the days top news. There is always a striking thing that happened on the house side in these investigations in these matters, which is they never got their hands on the Phone Records. Never subpoenaed the Phone Records placed to an unknown meeting. Is that something you would like to see as a member of congress. I am a former prosecutor and if there was an allegation and i did not subpoena those records, i would have been fired. It was clear that they were not interested in trying to find evidence of collusion. Trying to do a whitewash of what happened. And i think history will not judge them kindly. Reporting yesterday about senator claire mc mccaskill. How democrats last week put up a bill to provide election, security funding. The republicans rejected that. And it is clear that the House Republicans have completely gone derelict in their attitude to protect america. And hopefully voters will change. Top officials on election security. We are told it lasted 30 minutes. So very concerned about what is going to happen. You started off this interview by nodding to possible crimes committed if it is in fact true, the president knew about the meeting. And there are people on the right and defenders of the president saying even if it is true, even if the president knew
power to interfere in the election and that adds to the complete picture. And trumps willingness to accept help from the russians. You have to look back at the time line. A lot of weird things going on in the beginning of june. June 3rd is when donald trump jr. Received this email. In and of itself made the whole thing obvious because he never gave the speech. That is a key part of this. And june 8, you had before the day of the trump tower meeting, you had d. C. Leaks that was going it release all of the hacked dnc emails. I want to be clear on that. An amazing detail that has
emerged. June 8th. The next day is the trump tower meeting. Correct. That time line and all of this evidence put together is what prosecutors are going to be looking at. Going to say these were probably separate events. They are going to try to string them together. A lot of circumstantial evidence. First a caution. Michael cohen is a shady character who wants to snitch in order to keep himself out of prison. So everything he says has to be taken with skepticism. That said, President Trumps version of events is even harder to believe. All of these coincidences, you would have to believe that again, manafort, trump jr. , Jared Kushner didnt tell him
about the meeting. Why is he lying about it. You dont try to cover up things that are on the up and up. So mueller has probably already done the most important corroboration which is of the Phone Records. Thats right. The Congressional Republicans may not have gotten and we can be certain that mueller has it. If trump junior was lying about that, he is getting charged with perjury. And mueller uses that to squeeze the president of the United States. That is very interesting. 20 times that trump and his allies denied that the president knew. Everyone has denied this. Consistently, over and over on the record. All of them. If that is a lie, they lied in a lot of circumstances. There is a key point which is about the credibility. This is a strange thing that we are watching unfold that i cant make sense of. If you are trying to get a
cooperating deal, you would stay silent. What do you make on that part of it . It makes no sense strategically. If you want to get a deal with mueller, or with the southern district, the best is to remain quiet. The explanation that has been floated that maybe the trump team had leaked this. I dont know how the trump team would know that he was ready to testify unless cohen had gone to trump and gone the people around him and said, look, i am ready to testify on this unless you are ready it help me out. Which would raise a lot of other questions. The one thing that i could think of, i represented people before that are in legal trouble and they feel battered down. If they feel their reputations is being dragged through the mud, they want to fight back
publicly. The attorney in that case is saying no, dont do that. Take your time. You will have your time to tell the prosecutors. And we will tell our story eventually. Not his lawyer, his lawyer spokesman is telling him Something Else or maybe Michael Cohen is doing it on his own. Michael cohen does show up in the dossier, the infamous dossier as the person who takes over russian collusion portfolio, there is too much heat on manafort and flies to prague. He denies this. And later, mcclatchy reporting. And no one has reported this, so i have no idea this is true or not. But two sources familiar with the matter said he did in fact do this. Made a trip to prague during the
president ial campaign. If that is true, we are at the center of the whole thing if in fact cohen would talk to mueller. If cohen has decided that he is willing to talk to bob mueller. There is reporting saying someone close, saying he is ready to talk about it. So if that is the case, and you know, Michael Cohen was pretty much central to this dossier, dispatched to prague to clean up the mess. Again, allegedly. Allegedly dispatched to pay off the russian hackers, that would be consistent with his Lifetime Role as fixer. If he were talking about things that he witnessed during the campaign or trying to lessen his sentence. Then that would open pandoras
box. The most implausible thing to me is that the cover story of all participants, including the russians who were present who have spoken is that there is this huge build up in which the senior meeting of the campaign set up a meeting where they promised dirt and the meeting takes a weird turn and they dont get the dirt and they talk about the adoption and nobody says anything about it again. Again, use your common sense. The day before President Trump promises at this campaign rally, you are going to hear some good stuff about hillary next week. And then they have the meeting and the dirt doesnt come out. And the speech that the president promised, it never happens. When jurors use their common sense, there is not going to be a criminal trial of the
president yet. Maybe after he leaves office. Again, that is the rule that mueller is following. In terms of impeachment and in terms of evidence of criminality, that is a smoking gun. And it goes, the other part of that to me, again, you have got on record, you have this meeting, we know the meeting happened. It is possible the president knew and possible Michael Cohen knew. No one says word one as they watch the russians interfere over and over in the election. Having been told that in email, the Russian Government wants your dad to win. And natasha talked about this one event. Pull back and remember, they were told, George Papadopoulos was told in april, that the russians had obtained hillary
clintons emails. So i suspect they go in that meeting suspecting they are going to get Hillary Clintons emails. They think it is still coming. Public you see donald trump. Who to believe, the president or his fixer or neither. Lies, lies and more lies, next. What about him . Lets do it. Come on. This summer, add a new member to the family. At the mercedesbenz summer event. Lease the glc300 for 429 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. We carry flowers that signifyn why we want to end the disease. And we walk so that one day, there will be a white flower for alzheimers first survivor. Join the fight at alz. Org walk. Are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi. . A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. First we heard a secret recording of donald trump and Michael Cohen talking about a hush money payment. And then we learn Michael Cohen is willing to testify that donald trump was on russian collusion. And now according to the beast, the two are dead to each other. Ongoing public possibly to the Career Death Feud between the president of the United States and his former personal lawyer. Both of them have substantial credibility issues. Whose story we are about to believe. And cohen is presumably pursuing Cooperation Agreement that is usually done in quiet. Betsy, so your reporting indicates we are seeing this play out in public because these two men are now caught in existential death match and what you see is what you get as they play this out in public existential death match is a goods way of putting it. What we have seen unfold and sort of reach a Breaking Point is a final unfixable riff between Michael Cohen and his former boss. And important to take a step back and put it in context. Michael cohen spent most of his career presenting himself as the watchdog of trump. As somebody who would go to the mat for him. Recently as several months ago, said he would jump out of a building for him and now we have seen a shift. The break is unfixable. Michael cohen has resolved himself and is making peace with the fact that he is never going to have a relationship with trump again. He cant go back and this is done. At the same time the president has accepted and is very much ready for this project that his outside allies are going to under take of trying to nuke Michael Cohens credibility. So we are going to see the president s outside allies do everything in their power to undermine him. We saw yesterday, Rudy Giuliani saying Michael Cohen has been a liar his whole life. Which is hilarious because Rudy Giuliani called him honest just a few months ago. You reported on trump for years, and what do you make of it . Well, Michael Cohen clearly has done as betsy has done it, a complete break here and he is a terrible threat to donald. Because donald tears up his documents. This guy kept records. Audio recordings and memos to the files, those are powerful information to juries. And the fact that you have lied about something, i bet you have told your children that yes, there is an easter bunny or a santa clause or whatever. I am not Michael Cohen, though, david. Okay. I want to be clear about the credibility issues of this
individual who i am not prepared to take at safe value. No less than all sorts of criminals who Rudy Giuliani used to convict other criminals. Because Michael Cohen has been lying and hiding things for trump, that that is going to reduce his credibility, maybe in the court of public opinion, but it wont in a courtroom. Betsy, can i give you a paranoid feeling that i keep having. And you can talk me out of it. I keep having this feeling that there is a professional set up. A weird public set up that something is happening behind the scenes that i am not seeing. Is that paranoid . I think you are probably giving too much credit to the president s legal team here. The idea that Rudy Giuliani is puppet mastering some
sophisticated effort. Although, i dont think that is what is happening. Rather what is happening is we are seeing this Bare Knuckle Brawl between two lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and lanny davis. Both of whom have a deep affection for the spotlight and for media attention. And also deeply loyal to their clients. And are embroiled in a legal battle and a Public Affairs battle. The likes of which have been seen. And a lot of weird stuff is happening. And sometimes weird stuff happens just because it is weird and not because there is necessarily some sort of complex back story going on. I havent received indicators of that. It is possible but based on my reporting, i havent seen evidence. It is happening in public
because people around this love going on television. Which is true and david, through trumps career, he has wriggled out of severe liability. A man who beat four federal grand juries when he was a young man. His skill of getting away from Law Enforcement is extraordinary. He has never had to deal with someone the likes of bob mueller. Also hasnt had, and i want to close quickly by your sense of alan wiselebergs account. He is the number one threat to donald. Now i may want to take the fifth amendment in which case i th, t are going to grant him immunity. But he has been with the family,
the Trump Organization since fred trump ran it with his Business Partner identified by Law Enforcement as a front for the gambino mafia families. Donald trump once told, when he found out that the Vice President for finance is black, i dont want black guys touching my money, i only want short guys in yamcas. That is a guy who can deliver up the facts, the details. Thanks for joining us. The deadline to return the children expires. With Hundreds Of Kids Ineligible for reunification. Where are they . The latest on that, next. How can we say when you book direct at choicehotels. Com
lowest price, guaranteed. Just stick with badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com who would have guessed . An Energy Company helping cars emit less. Making cars lighter, its a good place to start, advanced oils for those hardworking parts. Fuels that go further so drivers pump less. Improving efficiency is what we do best. Energy lives here. Improving efficiency is what we do best. I we worked with pg eof to save energy because wenie. Wanted to help the school. They would put these signs on the door to let the teacher know you didnt cut off the light. The teachers, they would call us the energy patrol. So they would be like, here they come, turn off your lights those three young ladies were teaching the whole school about energy efficiency. We actually saved 50,000. And thats just one school, two semesters, three girls. Together, were building a better california. Thank you for joining me. Lee, let me start with you, your headline take away of where things are stand now. We are pleased that this many children are now in their parents arms. The headline is there is still a lot of children that havent been reunified. Parents missing. And the judge left no doubt that they are going to stay on the government until it happens. We need a continuation of the stay of removal. Whether they are going to fight for their asylum or they are going to allow the child to stay behind, they need counseling from lawyers. There has been so much trauma inflicted on these families that explaining their Legal Options under normal circumstances is almost impossible. So asking the judge to continue a stay of removal. Jacob, what does ineligible mean . Thats a great question. And something that people have not only been asking me, but what the judge was asking the trump administration. We have to go through 650 people including people who have some sort of criminal conviction may have been deported already outside of the United States. If we can get them back together, the judge was emphatic about that, krichris. And we asked the judge about this, what makes them ineligible. And the judge said these are missing parents that should be together with their children as of right now. He said he is going to issue an order laying out the ground rules for the government to work with lee and the aclu. Find these parents. Also figure out something to get the 1,000 parents that now have final orders of removal. 1,000 of reunited parents that could be deported any minute. And what to do with these parents. They put these people back together but 1,000 might be kicked out immediately. Are you confident the judge is going to say, you dont just get to call it quits, this other 650 plus, the government will cooperate and adhere to that koirt order. Absolutely, the judge is not going to let them off the work. Made it clear that he is issuing new deadlines to get us information on this. The government fought back today in court and said we dont want to be under deadlines. And i dont think the judge is going to stand for that. He is going to set new deadlines. And he is going to ask what is being done to find these parents. I want to be clear about this, some of these questions, comprehensive list of allegations of sexual assault, and sexual molestation of minors. Some of these facilities, under the obama administration, the nation put in as an Unaccompanied Minor and then sexually abused, signing a form concerning that she understands it is her responsibility to stay away from her abuser. That is the thing, right now the onnous is on lee and the
aclu to go through these cases that have not been reunified and figure out were they wrong. In a report that was just absolutely mind blowing and the idea that the government wants to put the onus on the outside organization or agencies or ngos in order to protect the children, when you hear the circumstances like we heard today in this report, even goes further than that. Lee, what are the next steps now for the aclu . The next steps are to immediately get the people who are in detention reunified, counseling, people who mistakenly waved the right. The government doesnt seem to have a plan so we are contacting
ngos all over the world to help us. We need to find these parents. These children are suffering every single