President s personal attorney we learned yesterday, mike the cohen, got hired three days into the Trump Administration, to help at t on its merger that the president said he was going to kill and he racked up a total of nearly 3 million from them, and other corporate clients. Drain the swamp . What about all of those trump cabinet expenses . Drain the swamp . Like, drain it with what . Ben carsons 31,000 dining set . The 139,000 that ryan zinke spent on doors . Let me say that again. Let me let me say that again, for those of you who were working around the clock, night and day, to try to get your kids, to be able to do better than you have done, like my parents tried to do with me . Like its our dream think about your salary, think about the fact that ryan zinke spent 139,000 on doors. What about scott pruitt . He had luxury flights and sweetheart condo deals from a lobbyist. And dont forget secretary mnuchin took a government jet that you paid for, a government jet that your taxes paid for, along with his wife, to watch the eclipse atop fort knoxs stack of gold. Drain the swamp . What a joke. And i guess this joke stops being funny for donald trump, who is basically using us all for suckers in his cabinet. Who are all using us all for suckers. When we actually start investigating why a guy like Michael Cohen, who basically isnt even a practicing lawyer according to what most Court Records have said and documents have said, Michael Cohen got paid 600,000 to deal with one of the most complicated mergers and most significant mergers in recent history. Mergers and acquisitions. Is he a mergers and acquisitions lawyer . No. Hes a street fighter. That was just a direct payoff. That was just a direct bribe. And the bigger question for at t . The bigger question for time warner, the bigger question for their stockholders is, whether this entire deal is frozen up. Because there has to be an investigation. That money really go to cohen . Did it go through cohen and go straight to the president s pockets . Where did it go . Did it go to pay off other porn stars . Other playboy bunnies . Where did the money go . And how does any Government Agency allow the at t merger to go through as long as this isnt being investigated . Well welcome to the show. Its a windup and a delivery and a pitch. This is who we have with us, National Affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc and executive producer and cohost of showtimes the circus, jon heilemann. And Donny Deutsch with us, hes an advertising legend and a hero. And republican strategist and commentator, susan del pursio and economic analyst Steve Rattner and washington, d. C. , nbc News ReporterHeidi Przybilla and New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt. Mika has the morning off. Will be talking to michael about Rudy Giulianis law firm elbowing him out of the way. Because they were embarrassed of what he did on tv. And because firm members by thursday just had enough. Willie, listen, this i know washington, ive been around it for a quarter of a century. I understand that some congressmen, some senators, some members of the administration, former members of the administration, they get paid by lobbyists to make good with the white house. But ive never heard of anything like a 600,000 payment to a guy that knows nothing about mergers, knows nothing about acquisitions. 600,000 to make this at t deal go through. They admitted that yesterday. To make the at t deal go through. And my question is, where did that money go through to . Because i highly doubt that donald trump would let it sit in Michael Cohens account. Well remember donald trump during the dpan had come out very strongly against the at t time warner merger. So at t had reason to be concerned when donald trump was going to be elected. Michael cohen is not a lobbyist. Hes not a registered lobbyist. This was a payment to a guy they thought had the ear of donald trump. Might be able to put his thumb on the scale. And make the deal go through. A new report says on the very First Business day of the Trump Administration, the president s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, signed a contract with at t to receive 600,000 to consult on longterm planning as well as its pending merger with time warner, which the Justice Department eventually sued to block last november. Documents obtained by the Washington Post show cohen made the deal on january 23rd, 2017. Within three days of President Trumps inauguration. And just four days after cohen publicly announced he would represent trump as president , and would resign from the Trump Administration, the organization to avoid a quote perceived conflict. At t says it paid cohen for insights, but the post found it unclear what insight cohen, a longtime real Estate Attorney and former taxi cab operator could have provided at t on complex telecom matters. The Health Care News site stat reports that the 1. 2 million novartis paid cohens company is almost four times more, four times more than it paid any actual outside lobbyists in the same period of time. A novartis spokesman responded that cohen was a hired consultant and not a lobbyist. And the consulting fees were in line with market terms for consultancy and advisory. Joe . Yeah, lots of luck on that. Proving that to your shareholders. Jon heilemann, everything just seems to keep exploding out there. Surrounding, we have more stories coming out every day about Michael Cohen. More stories coming out every day about payoffs to Michael Cohen. Michael avenatti releasing letters, releasing emails. My question, my question is, first of all, where do you think all of this is coming from . All the information is coming from . And secondly, how impactful is it going to be, the 600,000 payoff to Michael Cohen and whoever Michael Cohen went ahead and passed the money through. And how does that impact at t in the merger . Well a lot of questions there. The first thing i would say, to answer the question where its coming from, joe, i dont know the answer. But ill say this having spent some time with Michael Avenatti on the circus a couple of episodes ago and a lot of time this week, one thing as a basic human observation, you walk around new york city, washington, d. C. , los angeles, with the guy, and he is being treated by a fair segmentthepublic as a hero. Hes got become a celebrity. And in the same way that youve seen bob mueller venerated by the half of the country that wants to see donald trump thrown out of office, you now have a popular view that this guy is like bob mueller, kind of their hope for changing the course of the country. When you get that kind of popular support, where theres people out there rooting for you, you become a Television Celebrity and youre seen as a political figure, you start to get information from a lot of different sources. People start to want to feed you stuff. Some of it is bunk. Some of it might not be bunk. And i think hes right now with his firm, inundated with people who are sending him tips, leads, documents. All kinds of things. I dont know what the sources are, but i know theres a groundswell of people out there who see him as a vehicle and a repository for stuff. So thats one thing. The second thing is i think that this notion that Michael Cohens llc, this llc, essential consulting, basically looks like a giant slush fund for influence peddling, some of it from foreign sources, some of it from domestic sources, some of it corporate, some of it other, theres a big story here. And were all interested in the sources of the money. But the larger questions now are going to be, and there are things that reporters are going to chase for days and weeks to come, is what did the money get spent on . You raised this in your opening statement. The question of, how was it used . Who got the payments . Thats going to be a fruitful line of inquiry for journalists and investigators going forward. And as to the at t thing, i will say i just think that there is, i dont want to be naive about this one point. Which is Big Companies in america buy influence in american politics. I, a lot of people dont like that. But we have a system of organized bribery, corruption in this country, that lives in washington, d. C. That has to do with pacs and lobbyists and Everything Else and there were a lot of companies scrambling around with their hair on fire when donald trump got elected, trying to figure out how do we get to this guy . How do we influence this guy . The normal ways of doing business arent going to work. So they turn to Michael Cohen. As an explanation for what happened, i think thats what happened. And clearly at t was one of those companies. Boy, and its an, like i said, it happens. But this is so much more than most lobbyists get. And again, donny, the question is, is that really money that stayed with Michael Cohen . Did it go through a slush fund . Youve known michael for a very long time. We both know trump. I find it very hard to believe that donald trump would take a meeting from anybody. I find it impossible to believe that donald trump would take a meeting from anybody, as a favor to Michael Cohen, knowing that Michael Cohen was going to make 600,000 off of him, taking that meeting. And youre sitting there laughing for the same reason. Anybody its just absolutely preposterous. Donald trump would not have allowed Michael Cohen to make 600,000 on his back. Because of an at t meeting. Yeah, i spoke to michael yesterday. And Michael First of all, said that basically these Companies Reached out to him this is according to michael. And said look, theres one thing about this guy, this president , and he says that just if youre a company doing this is michael if youre a company doing business with him, nobody knows how hes going to react. Nobody understands the mind of donald trump. His kids do and im probably next in line and he believes thats valuable to companies. Thats michaels point of view. Whether that money was going to trump, all i can say is this and clearly i have no knowledge of that, is that every time i think why would this guy who is worth 1 billion, he says 10, be getting involved in Trump University to get an extra 100 in his pocket. Could this president possibly say, wow, maybe i can make an extra few hundred grand by getting these you go thats not possible. But then you go of course its possible. Clearly none of us know the answer to that. Michael, as i said, he, when i spoke to him yesterday, he said im still in a fighting mood, he said Corey Lewandoski got 2 million. Whether or not we think its sleazy, the Big Questions are, did any of it go back to trump . And let us not get headfaked away from russia. Because well still always come back to the russian money. I think its a bit of a sidebar. To heilemanns explanation, its one more demonstration unfortunately as to the way that washington works. And a comment over avenatti, im feeling over the last few days, he feels like hes jumping the shark a little bit. Weve all watched the media a bit. And obviously hes done a lot of interesting things, if im managing Michael Avenatti at this point, i wouldnt be on the hour six hours a day. Youre starting to feel as somebody who is in the media and watching the media, a guy who is a losing a little sight of where he is of the position hes in. And you almost get the feeling hes already auditions for jeff zucker and phil griffin for his next tv spot. If i was managing his brand a little bit i think less is more. Donny, hes getting under trumps skin. Correct. And doing what trump always does, which is be everywhere all the time. Constantly in peoples faces. Fair point. And he actually has gotten, gotten in trumps face. But going back to, going back to your friend, is he a mergers and acquisitions lawyer . Does he know anything about fcc . No, no, his point would be, once again im not defending him. Would be, hey, the valuable noodle i serve over the years ive had many conversations with him, oh, my god, this is happening, everybody is going to think this and trump is going to act this way. Theoretically what people are paying for, when abc happens, ill tell you what def is going to happen. Nobody understands this guy better than me and his kids. And willie, donny brought up, the question if donald trump has all of these billions of dollars wirks is he risk his reputation on you know getting somebody to pay 49. 95 for Trump University . You could go down the list of things that dont add up. We talked about it with Michael Cohen. Hes flipping 30 million apartments and he cant afford a 130,000 payoff to the president for a porn star. You could say the same thing about donald trump. A lot of things he does, they dont add up. And yes, this is a guy that would shake somebody down for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Because we dont know just how cashpoor he is. We dont know if hes even a billionaire. And thats why it will be so interesting to see where this 4. 4 million that flowed through essential consultants actually ended up. Did it all really just go in Michael Cohens pocket . Or is there some deal with the president . Well look into that. If you look at the numbers, the Washington Post reports that the 600,000 at t paid cohen represented 3. 5 of their entire lobbying budget for the year. Thats a lot of money to give to a guy who has no relationship to telecommunications or mergers and acquisitions. But was seen as we were saying, as one of the few people in the chaos after President Trump was elected who might have the president s ear. But were looking at this from the window of he can do something positive for these companies. Theres a lot of talk right now that perhaps he was able to say you dont want me against you. You dont want, you want me on your side. Because ill go to your competitor or an at t, i speak to donald trump. You dont want me whispering in his ear something negative. I think of course he doesnt know about mergers and acquisitions, he doesnt know about accounting or health care. What was his purpose . To maybe interpret some of Donald Trumps ideas . And then also and probably more important, to make sure that he didnt say hey, i can keep you out of trouble. Or i wont go to your competitor. And i think its more of a shakedown than performing services. We obviously dont know exactly what happened there. But i agree with what everybody said before. First, this is the swamp in action. This is how washington works on steroids. Where normal lobbying, normal payoffs have been escalate odd into paying huge sums of money. To a guy who knows nothing, except he happens to know the president of the United States. Heres another point not to repeat what everybody else said. I think it will be very interesting for mueller. The question here is whether what cohen did, did he pay his taxes on this money . Should he have registered as a lobbyist depending on what he did or didnt do . I suspect in all of Michael Cohens complicated dealings, mueller will find grist for his investigation and things he can do to have leverage against cohen. Maybe flip him or at least go after him. I think this is all going to relate back to what mueller is doing, visavis trump. Donny, i want to go back to a question i asked you before, we didnt really put a bow on it youve known Michael Cohen for a very long time. You know how badly donald trump treats him. You know that he makes fun of him, he mocks him, he ridicules him. He doesnt think much of him personally. And again, we also know how cheap donald trump is. How this is a guy who has been billions in debt we dont know if the guy has any money at all. So do you really believe, knowing that relationship, knowing Michael Cohen, knowing donald trump, as you have, that donald trump would say to Michael Cohen oh, cool, yeah, ill sit with at t. Or ill sit with these other companies. You make half a Million Dollars and ill just sit here and do nothing. Or do you think that donald trump wanted to a cut of that, just like he was going crazy during the debate season, demanding, he was actually thinking about demanding that cnn, msnbc and fox pay him to go on the debate stage. That he needed royalty checks, because they were making so much advertising off of him . Do you think that donald trump would go, oh, its great, michael, you make 600,000 and ill take some meetings for you. First of all, the relation with michael is, he did have a warm up until this point, a warm relationship. Sure he would yell at him just like he yells at his Homeland Security director in front of the cabinet. Do i think if donald trump knew about this, he would say to michael, this is my opinion, hey, michael, i want 80 of that and keep setting up those meetings . Absolutely. I dont know if donald trump knew ab