That they went on throughout 2016, werent a lot of them but there were conversations. Cant be sure of the exact dates but the president can remember having conversations with him about it. Throughout 2016 . Yeah, probably up to could be up to as far as october, november. Our answer is cover until election so any time during that period they could have talked about it. Well the finaling of the negotiations is essential in the Ongoing Investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. And yesterday giuliani acknowledged that trump told mueller about the talks with russia. Take a look. Said the president is not sure when talks ended. Im guessing you had to answer this question in written form by mr. Mueller. That is where we ended it. That is such a key line. In other words the president s response to Robert Mueller in written form, that is the first indication we got of any of the written responses, including that he was negotiating for getting that hotel built in moscow right up until the election. Until recently President Trump told voters had zero business ties to russia and his lawyer said that the negotiations started back in january of 2016, the beginning of the Election Year and last month cohens lawyers indicated he lied to congress and the actual date was in june of 2016. But trump had long been known to be pursuing business interest in russia but the revelations by giuliani yesterday that the president was working on a deal coincides with the solicitation with putin while on the president ial trail. Lets take a look. In terms of leadership, hes getting an a. And our president is not doing so well. The person that kills journalists and political opponents and and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not. Hes running his country. At least hes a leader. Unlike what we have in this country. Ill do things with putin that nobody else is going to be able to do. Believe me. I dont like the way obama treats putin. Putin said trump is brilliant. Wouldnt it be nice if we could get along with russia. I think putin is a long stronger leader for russia, yonger than our leader. Putin said donald trump is a genius. Hell be the next leader of the United States. Putin did call me a genius. Im not disavowing anything. When people like me, i like them. Even putin. Today giuliani issued a statement trying walk back his comments writing his recent statements were, quite, hypothetical and not based on conversations i had with the president. My comments did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such discussions. For more im joined by congressman deny heck, democrat from the state of washington and member of the house intelligence committee. Ben wittes from law fair. Betsy woodruff from the daily beast and mal nom nance, author of the plot to destroy democracy. At the same time hes shining up putin and arg wooing with joe scarborough, even though he kills people i like this guy and fighting with katy tur trying to make the case to all of our constituents and commentators, all of the time hes winding his way into a nice fat deal to give him 300 million to be his gain for the tower. I a i think he should have tod us who he is working for and who he is working with. Who do you think . Absolutely. We talk about consciousness of guilt with the way donald trump talks about putin and his policies. We should talk about the smugness of guilt when it comes to donald trump. He seems to have had this attitude towards the entire conversation knowing that he had already offered a bribe to Vladimir Putin in the form of a 50 million penthouse at the top of trump tower. He knew all of these negotiations were going on. He was actually briefed by the fbi given a counterintelligence brief that stated that he may be involved in a situation where russia is trying to gain leverage on him and he already knew this. Donald trump has been playing this nation from the beginning. And if this is where Robert Mueller is going, i think this one point is going to be relatively easy to clarify with the testimony of Michael Cohen. But i think this is going to be the least of the charges donald trump is going to end up with. Lets get to the major ethical problem here. Congressman, what i know about the may 15 report, that you and other members of congress have to fill out and if you owe anybody any money or owe any liabilities or stock holdings. Here is a guy in bed with putin for a 300 million deal to give him 50 million in a permanent permanent place at the top. A penthouse apartment in the wealthiest hotel in moscow and this is all going on at the time hes promised the American People hes going to be their servant. Absolutely. And so obviously what we all want to know is not only why was he willing to do all of this, but more importantly why was he willing to lie about it . That is the question that gets begged by an awful lot of the developments here. Not just why did this happen, but why does he want people around to keep lying. Why do you think . The implication is pretty clear. But i have to ask what is the implication. Spell it out. Because people at home say he was a billionaire trying to make more billions and thought he could get a third of a billion on this one deal and wouldnt risk losing the election because he would lose to Hillary Clinton, that is what the polls show so hes trying to bank some money and get p. R. Out of this president ial thing but hes really still a business guy. Is that illegal . It is a blatant conflict of interest for anybody that seeks the highest office in this land and wants to become the leader of the free world, period, full stop. Donald trump the republican frontrunner assured voters he had nothing to do with russia businesswise. Take a look. I have nothing to do with russia. I dont have any jobs in russia. Im all over the world but were not involved in russia. I have no relationship to russia whatsoever. I dont deal there. I have no businesses. I have no loans from russia. Have nothing to do with russia. I dont have any deals in russia. I have nothing to do with russia. I have no investigations in russia. None whatsoever. I have no dealings with russia. I have no deals in russia. I have no deals that could have been in russia because weve stayed away. Betsy thomas, they said the whole part of politics is the art of telling the truth. Was he artfully telling the truth then or lying. He was lying because he said he had no deals in russia and we know for annin couldnt voe vertible fact that his attorney said there was a potential deal in russia rudy said it is in his answers to Robert Muellers question. His written answer. We have to take everything that mr. Giuliani said on tv with a big hefty grain of salt. I have a conversation a month ago with felix sadir, a businessman the connective tissue. Do you trust him . More than Rudy Giuliani about the negotiations. He was involved in them and rudy was not. Saidir said he was trying to facilitate the interests in the tower and and that ended after the nomination and giuliani is saying that could have gone as late as november. E. , either giuliani is saying thing hes didnt know and b. , they dont have a clear understanding within the president s legal team about what was actually being said. Ben, this is the problem. He was asked by chuck todd, in this room yesterday, is this what you wrote in the answers to the questions from mueller . Is this what the president wrote as his answers and he said, yes that is where we answered it. And in other words, he said this is tracking what the president said under oath. They were working on this business deal right until the election. A few things. If anybody but Rudy Giuliani had said this, it would have been it would be an extremely big deal. Because it seems like a major admission that advances the ball factually in a way that is highly negative to the president. Because it is Rudy Giuliani and as betsy said, being generous, that you have to take everything he said with a big grain of salt. We have no idea what he means. Is his job to distract the press from trump. Is that the problem . Every sunday he goes somewhere like meet the press in this room and says stuff that you say you dont believe and you dont believe so it doesnt mean anything, just distracts us for 24 hours. That is what you are saying. Dont know where it is a deliberate function or what he said isnt true. The fact that he said it doesnt mean that we should invest anything in its being true. And i i do think we have to we have to consider the possibility that the talks may have gone much longer than we understood. I think we can also consider the possibility that Rudy Giuliani may have just been blowing smoke. Congressman, let me go back to this. Because chuck is darn good at this, and the question so pointed and well done as a journalist in this room with meet the press and he said im guessing you had to answer that question in written form by mr. Mueller. At which point Rudy Giuliani answers, right. That is where we answered it. Could anything be more clear. Cue, an answer, was this in the written response to mueller and yes, i was working on it to the election. Was rudy making this up or does he tell truth for once . What do you make of it. Chris, why is this guy still on the payroll. He goes on payroll and said truth isnt the truth. Last week he claimed he had never said that no one on the Trump Campaign had colluded with russia and then said this yesterday. He was brought on board to deal with spin in politics, not the law, clearly not the law. He admitted at the outset he doesnt know the facts of the case and hes not doing a good job of dealing with the politics and the spin. Why is this guy still on the payroll. Malcolm, one outside chance in in instance he let the truth out. And this was the answer they gave because under oath in a written response to Robert Mueller, the president , even the president of the United States cant outward lie and say i had no business dealings when it would come out that he did have business dealings. So is it possible here malcolm with our skepticism that rudely was accidentally stumbling over the truth and letting it out. Your thoughts . Well ive noticed that Rudy Giuliani tends to actually tell the truth in his first statement. And within 24 hours he tends to spin that backwards and say that offer a clarification to whatever he said the previous day. If he actually noted that this was one of the written statements that the president has made, then we are going to see a big contradiction between all of the visual the spoken statements that donald trump has said and then when he told the special counsel. Only question i have is he hedging his bets by saying it could be any time up to november. If they were still in discussions in november in the preelection season, what wouldnt what would cause them to stop having those conversations as the official elective body of the United States government after the election . One thing to note, right after donald trump won the election, one of the first things that he said he wanted to do was eliminate the foreign corrupt practices act which would eliminate bribery around the world. Maybe this is part of it. On friday the special counsel issued a rebuke of the buzzfeed reporting that alleged that Michael Cohen was instructed to lie to congress on behalf of donald trump. Reports cited two federal Law Enforcement officials. Peter carr, the special counsel spokesperson wrote, quote, buzzfeeds description of specific statements to the special Counsel Office and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this Office RecordingMichael Cohens congressional testimony are not accurate. A source familiar with the matter tells nbc news the president s legal team raised concerns in a letter sent to the special Counsel Office about the buzzfeed reporting before they issued a statement. However, buzzfeed stands by its reporting. Lets watch. This is going to be born out, brian. This story is accurate. What if what if the sources are just wrong . Theyre not. Not intentionally, not trying to hurt you, but what if they are wrong . Theyre not. Theyre not. Im confident. Anyway, ben, youre thinking of this. Because this is a big story. The fact that the president has been accused and the special counsel is aware of this and accused of giving orders to Michael Cohen to lie. Right. So this is a situation where the pendulum swung really fast and a lot of people went from oh, were in impeachment land to kind of these sometimes very crude denunciation of these two recorde report these two reporters and i want to say i think this issue is complicated and i dont know what the truth is at this stage. On the one hand, you have two reporters with a real track record of breaking serious news in this area and who are standing by their work. And who have gotten big things right and been ahead of the game. And on the other hand, you have a very rare statement by the special Counsel Office saying their aspects of this story that are not accurate and you have some reporting by the Washington Post about how the story came about that raises some interesting questions. So my caution to everyone is stay cool, and wait until the facts come out and dont be surprised if theyre complicated and dont be surprised if there are some problems with the story and some things that are big things that may be accurate in the story. I dont know what the truth is. Betsy, back in the old days of watergate, Carl Bernstein and bob woodward made a mistake. They had a piece of a story wrong but the heart of it was right. And this could well be another case like that. And i hate to speculate about a conversation that buzzfeed has characterized between the president and Michael Cohen that i dont have the ability to confirm or to prove as correct. One thing that is i think is important context as we talk about the story, is the actual nature of the statement that muellers office put it. It has been interpreted in circles meaning mueller was trying to shoot down the entirety of the buzzfeed story, they were trying to say everything in the buzzfeed story is the opposite of what happened but my understanding that is not true. The statement is narrowly tailored and goes after one pivotal claim in the buzzfeed report and that is the oath thing it goes after what is the point. And the claim is mueller has documents and witness testimony showing that trump told cohen to lie. The only thing mueller said in that statement is that specific claim is incorrect. They didnt say whether or not the president or Michael Cohen had such a conversation. Or whether or not just like woodward and bernstein. Did he thnt tell the grand jury. When somebody says they have experience in politics and journalism, when you say not accurate, that is not the same as saying not wrong. You say not accurate means something is wrong. Congressman and deny heck of Washington State and Benjamin Wittes and Betsy Woodruff and malcolm nance. Theyll stick with us. Up next, another russian paradox. When it comes to dealing with putin right now, why is President Trump so at odds with members of the administration. They are like cold warriors and hes trying to warm up and kiss up to putin all of the time. What is going on because we cant understand why this story is still ending between him and putin. A big new 2020 contender entered the race today. Lets watch. This is a moment in time that i feel a sense of responsibility to stand up and fight for the best of who we are. Of course california senator Kamala Harris. I spoke with her today briefly on the train coming down from new york. Fascinating. Shes so excited about this race. 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