Old friend Rudy Giuliani completely Donald TrumpsPrevious Story about porn star Stormy Daniels. Which he contradicted himself, actually as well before that. Not to stop there, he also undercut the White House Position on jim comey, and Michael Cohen. Go get in there, kid stay in, stay in Rudy Rudy Rudy welcome to morning joe. Its thursday, may 3rd, willies birthday. Hey happy birthday. We get it over it. Rudy gave awe gift for your birthday. Actually multiple gifts. You open the box and you go wait, theres one more in the bottom. But wait, theres more, joes favorite phrase. We have Mike Barnicle and msnbc political contributor rick tyler. Chair of the department of africanamerican studies as princeton university. Eddie glaude junior and former chief of staff at the c. I. A. And nbc news capitol hill correspondent oh yeah host of kasie d. C. On msnbc, kasie hunt. Were never going to stop doing that, okay . And cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei. I think well start right there, we begin with the stunning revelation from President Trumps attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Last night, telling fox news, that trump reimbursed his fixer, Michael Cohen, for that 130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Despite President Trumps assertion last month that he was unaware of it. Having something to do with paying some Stormy Daniels woman 130,000 . I mean which is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. That money was not Campaign Money. Sorry, im giving you a fact now that you dont know. Its not Campaign Money. No Campaign Finance violation. So they funneled it through the law firm . Funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it. Oh. I didnt he did . Yeah. Theres no Campaign Finance law . Zero. Just like, sean sean everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasnt. I knew how much money donald trump put into that campaign. I said 130,000 . You can do a couple of checks for 130,000. You know the president didnt know about this . I believe thats what michael said. He didnt know about the specifics of it, as far as i know. He did know about the general arrangement that michael would take care of things like this like i take care of things like this for my clients. I dont burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people. Those are some kind of clients you got there, mr. Mayor. Now let me go to what Rudy Giuliani said. Its remarkable that he kept saying theres no Campaign Money involved here. Well, the problem is, that if its not Campaign Money involved here, if its just Michael Cohen writing a 130,000 check not related to the campaign, thats what weve all been talking about. And im not sure where Rudy Giuliani has been over the past several months. But those are called inkind contributions. Contributions that arent writ ton donald trump for president. But those are contributions to benefit the president , that dont go into the campaign. That the s. E. C. And the federal government will look at and say, that was an inkind contribution, could you not give him that dinner for 5,000 of his closest friends and not report that. Because anything that benefits the campaign becomes a campaign contribution. Whether its quote Campaign Money or not. Mika, i i dont know whats more disturbing, Rudy Giuliani not knowing that or saying it to sean hannity, who acted like they had both just seen the arc of the covenant at the end of raiders of the lost ark. Thee about three months behind the story. The Washington Posts bob costa spoke to Rudy Giuliani after his interview. Costa tweeted, giuliani tells me he just spoke with potus tonight by phone. President very pleased. Giuliani says they discussed his revelation of the reimbursements long in advance. Does not expect to be fired. Insists his remarks on fox news were approved by trump. According to the post. Giuliani its not good. Its not. Thats just not good. Do you think according to the post giuliani quote does not know when the president learned of the nature of the payment cohen had made to daniels. To keep her quiet about an affair with President Trump. Lets remember. Giuliani said the president didnt learn many of the details about the settlement. Until the past two weeks, in the wake of an fbi raid on cohens office and residence, Stormy Daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said hes quote rendered speechless by giulianis revelation. He will join us on top of the next hour. So hell be on in an hour. And hopefully hell get his speech back. Joe . Yeah. Willie geist, theres the moment in the interview where he says, let me tell you something that i think you dont know. Was Rudy Giuliani just going on there, shooting from the hip . What he said actually could make the president s situation even worse. Yeah, theres to question about it. The Campaign Finance piece is what Rudy Giuliani thought he was going on the show to take care of. To say it wasnt Michael Cohen, it was in fact the president. By the way, lets go back to the beginning of this. The president of the United States has denied he had an affair with Stormy Daniels. That raises the question, why did you pay her 130,000 to keep her quiet a few weeks before the election. But jeremy bash, youve been looking a the the interview last night and say you think if they claired the decks about Campaign Finance, they might be wrong on that count. But they also might have opened themselves up to Something Else here. What did you see . When giuliani told bob costa and the New York Times as well, the payments extended far beyond the 130,000 reimbursement for Stormy Daniels. There was a 35,000 a month payment paid by President Trump to Michael Cohen totaling about 475,000. What was all that other money for . Are there other shoes to drop . Other people that Michael Cohen had to pay off to keep quiet . I think thats the first big question. Second is that the president when he became president had to disclose Financial Disclosure forms, did he disclose the loan from Michael Cohen for 135,000 . If he didnt, he and he failed to do that knowingly, thats a felony. A violation. Other people have been, charged for failing to disclose adequately loans made to them by others, we have to look carefully about that theres already an existing lawsuit on that finally my big question, is there bank or wire fraud implicated here . Because if the president and Michael Cohen conspired in advance to move money to hide this from regulators or to deceive the bank from the true nature that Michael Cohen was taking to front this cash, thats something to look at and the way that mueller laid this out in a Manafort Indictment to know that his prosecutors, his investigators are very good at following the money. So jim vandehei, i dont know what kind of reporting you might have on this, is the president and now Rudy Giuliani just riffing along here . Or is this what in gods name could be their strategy . Well one, most people in the white house were caught offguard. Two, theres no doubt Rudy Giuliani and the president over the course of the last week at least, have discussed doing this at some point. Putting it out there and saying there cant be a Campaign Finance violation because the money was repaid. If you, if you look at what Rudy Giuliani said on hannity and then what he said to other reporters, hes clearly trying to keep a lot of fog there. In terms of what did the president actually know that money was going to be used for. And and did he hes not actually saying yes, i had an affair with this woman and i knew that that money was paid as hush money. And i reimbursed it. Theyre being very careful on that front. But its not an accident that this got out. Clearly think its part of a legal strategy. I think most people who are, who are students of this case dont really get what the legal strategy is. At this point. And i think the danger is is that it was something that was pretty much improvised between the president and Rudy Giuliani themselves without input from the small number of other people on the legal team. Msnbc chief Legal Correspondent ari melberg tweeted the feds now have everything from Michael Cohens office, do they have something thats forcing trumps lawyers to admit hes behind the Stormy Daniels payment, after all his public denials . Joe . Theres no coordination on anything thas said. Theyre constantly changing their story. This is the sort of thing ain that donald trump may be able to get, get away with when hes sending out tweets and he talks about fake news. But as youve seen, when you go into court proceedings, they have timelines, and they have statements, and they write down the statements, this is what he said on january the 5th. This is what he said on you know, february 2nd. This is what he said on march i mean you go through the timeline of this, this is going to be devastating for whomever the defendant is when they finally get in court. Whether its donald trump, whether its Michael Cohen. They cant keep their stories straight and for mow, its just baffling. A Little LeagueBaseball Team would be able to get their story more straight than the president of the United States. And these con, this confederacy of dunces. Joe, jeremy alluded to the predss legal strategy. Wondering what it is. Emmet flight is not there to preside over the legal strategy, he is a legitimate professional. He probably will bring some more coordination to that legal strategy. But right now, im told yesterday, last night, that the legal strategy of the president and Rudy Giuliani are employing, the legal strategy is fear. They are desperately afraid that Michael Cohen is cooperating with the special prosecutor. And they are also convinced that the special prosecutor might have Donald Trumps tax returns. Which would be a Lethal Weapon in terms of matching the president s rhetoric, against actual factbased stuff. What did he spend the money on, what was the 400,000 plus spent on. Did he deduct it, things like that. They are in a world of hurt and theyre waiting for emmet flood to come through the door to stop the flood. Because its willies birthday, Jonathan Turley and thousands of celebrities across the globe are calling us in. Why dont we go to our willie geist birthday line and talk to Jonathan Turley right now. Gentlemen, jonathan, you went to middle school with little willie geist, right . Its true. I want to apologize to willie, i was supposed to jump out of a cake, but wow, thats a visual. Professor turley. Well ill tell you next time, jonathan, we will supply a larger cake for to you jump out of. But since we dont have the cake, why dont we just go with the next best thing and that is the rich, delicious Rudy Giuliani interview last night. What was your takeaway . Well, sort of the welcome to the jungle moment for flood. I mean, he hasnt been a lawyer on the team for 24 hours, and we have this incredibly painful moment. It really did seem to me like giuliani was on live television, in realtime fishing for a rationale. Which is something that you dont really see in a major case. The weird thing about this, and there was a great deal that was weird about this, is it didnt help, what giuliani was suggesting, i think, is that, that cohen was accepting money as a lawyer that was really a payment for Stormy Daniels. That wouldnt be a good thing. You dont accept legal fees, call them legal fees when theyre really a subterfuge for paying off a porn star. It doesnt get you, it doesnt get you out of the Campaign Finance problem. And it actually makes things a lot worse for cohen. Because once again, lawyers dont do this. And so, im not even sure what the intelligent design was supposed to be behind the comments. But i do think that what we may be seeing, is something weve been waiting for, the president is going to have to tack back from many of his public statements, hes now going into a formal litigation posture. And many of these past denials cannot stand in depositions or grand juries or whatever forum he finds himself in. This may be the painful process of tacking the ship. To turn it you know 180 degrees. Away from past statements. And theyre going to have to do more of this. And it could be even more painful to watch. Wow. You know, jonathan speaking of painful, how painful was it to watch Rudy Giuliani, a man that used to be an extraordinary lawyer, of course an extraordinary u. S. Attorney, but to watch Rudy Giuliani bumbling around last night on tv and saying hey, ive got a secret for you. Acting like theres this big revelation and then saying it wasnt Campaign Money. Well, of course we all knew it wasnt Campaign Money. The problem was, that it wasnt Campaign Money. It wasnt reported, thats an inkind contribution. And what Rudy Giuliani is saying actually proves a point that prosecutors would want to make. That this was done outside of the campaign, to hide the payment, a week and a half before the president ial campaign, to accrue to the benefit of Donald Trumps campaign. Giuliani just stepped right into it there. And im baffled that a guy that was in Public Office for as long as he was, and was a lawyer for as long as he was, didnt realize that he was undercutting his own client. I have to agree. I mean we were all watching that. There were about a million lawyers whose faces were actually frozen in shock. By what we were seeing. Because this, this would not be a viable defense. And i think that what giuliani was trying to do is say that it cant be Campaign Finance violation because its not money coming from the campaign. Which as youve ably pointed out, doesnt really track. But then he was saying well, the president knew of the details in the sense that he knew michael would handle it. And whats really struck me as being the most worrisome element, is this is exactly what some of us have talked about as the danger for trump. If he tries this type of nuance, and frankly ridiculous spin, in an interview or deposition or grand jury, he wont make it out legally. I mean the, you saw what would happen with just a casual conversation with sean hannity. You know, thats nothing in comparison to having a skilled prosecutor examining you. And you know it only works, they only get one question and no followup. And thats not going to happen. So professor turley. The argument by giuliani last night was a little hard to follow at times. But i think what he was trying to say was that at the time of the payment, President Trump didnt know that Michael Cohen had paid 130,000 to Stormy Daniels. But after the fact, learned about it. And then repaid it in a series of installments. Does that help the president s case at all . That he didnt know at the time that it was a direct payment to Stormy Daniels . And he could just say, i was merely reimbursing for legal fees to the tune of well, 130,000 conveniently the price that was paid to Stormy Daniels . I think that it helps in the sense that if he had no specific knowledge. He may not be responsible for Campaign Finance violation that is intentional. But thats not the end of the question for a court. If he was aware that, and giuliani also said this, that there was a fluid relationship with Michael Cohen