Morning joe. It is thursday, august 23rd. Joe has the morning off. He will be back tomorrow. We have Donny Deutsch with us along with professor at Princeton University and column at New York Post and contributor editor of Weekly Standard john and sam stein and washington Anchor Katy Kay and benjamin. Good to have you all onboard with us on another very busy morning. We begin with the very latest in President Trumps former lawyer implicating him in his guilty plea yesterday. Trump appeared to acknowledge his attorneys Campaign Finance violation and then walked it back in an interview all while maintaining its not a crime and say he blamed Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions for his former lawyers prosecution. The president tweeted, michael
Former GOP representative Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski interview newsmakers, politicians and pundits about the issues of the day. Didnt come out of the campaign and thats big. But they werent, its not even a campaign violation. If you look at President Obama, he had a Massive Campaign violation. But he had a different Attorney General and they viewed it a lot differently. Ben, try to make sense of all the things that hes piling on to this answer here. Can you make a parallel between violations, the one that hes talking about in the Obama Administration and the payoff to a porn star and a Playboy Bunny made right before i believe the election was going into full. Well, to ask that question that way, you know, is the answer to it. So, look, part of what the president says, the only part thats true is that it is the case that normal campaign
finance violations are handled routinely as a civil matter and there is a system like with any regulatory system of penalties and fines and those are handled as routine matters and dont invoke criminal offenses. When you engage in an elaborate scheme on the other hand to circumvent those regulatory requirements by hiding things, by paying people hush money, by not then reporting the Hush Money Payments as campaign contributions, youre going to invoke criminal authorities, or at least you may. And that is the difference between what he calls massive Campaign Finance problems that the administrators and technical filing errors for which they paid a fine and a scheme to get your personal lawyer to get tabloids or other entities to
pay off former mistresses before the election to keep them quiet. There is no comparison to be drawn there. There is none. Its flabbergasting. The entire interview for many reasons is actually staggering at this point. And the fact that he thinks he can push things along by mushing the truth into just complete dribble, actually. He doesnt even make sense at times. Donny, ive been thinking all day yesterday about Michael Cohen and all the witches that so far have been brought in by mueller and pled guilty or indicted and i think if you look at what Michael Cohen has pled guilty to, how stupid do these people, how stupid are these people . Dont they know what is going to happen if they have committed these crimes and they are
we havent heard it. As far as cohen, you know, cohen was an attorney working for trump and, you know, youre directed by your boss and im not using the explanation, but i dont think at that point youre saying to yourself, should i do this, should i not do this, youre a lawyer, youre working. He has stood up and hes facing the consequences. I think im going to stay with the stupid place in the case of trump and the republicans and that very brave gentleman Mitch Mcconnell who, you are the leader of the Republican Party. You are the face other than after the president , you are it. You go down the totem pole and there it is. The president s personal attorney has pleaded guilty to taking directions violating a felons law and you have no comment. No comment. And, john, were going to stay in this kind of stupid universe, what does Mitch Mcconnell think when he thinks people are watching . Oh, we wont ask you again,
thats okay. I think what he thinks is theyre in hell and their whole hope is that theyre productive enough and serve the interest of enough voters that they can spare themselves disaster in november. The timeline is very short here for them. Its from here until the november elections. Tailwinds are looking very bad for them. If they can just focus on their work, ignore trump, get judges, get Brett Kavanaugh confirmed and Mitch Mcconnell can say, i did all of this. I had nothing to do with this guy. So, he doesnt want to talk about it because there is nothing in it for him in terms of this timeline from now until november to say a single word about trump, about cohen, about manafort and about mueller. Anything he says is a disaster. If he says, i no longer support trump, the Republican Base turns on him. If he says i support trump, he sells his soul. His wife is in the cabinet. Its not good. Mika, let me ask a stupid question since were on the stupid line to johns point about lets do Business As Usual. The reality going into that fox poll is that basically and this is the Signature Work of the Trump Administration so far has been the tax plan. That is 11 less popular than the Signature Work of the Obama Administration, which is, of course, obama care. You take the Enthusiasm Polls and optimism which is down 11 points going in the right direction and you take the president on tand other than th core republicans nobody else thinks the economy is going in the right direction. Hard for them to run on Business As Usual at this point. Look, weve got so much to cover and so much more to get
to. But it is flabbergasting how stupid Michael Cohen and the other that we have covered in this witchhunt, which ill use the president s word. I dont get the Republican Party at this point because, because theyre leaders. And its about right and wrong. Its about the fabric of this country. Theyre not leaders. Its about the truth. And theyre not leaders and theyre letting americans down. We move on, i want to get sam, benjamin, back in. You will notice that President Trump has changed his original explanation for when he knew about Michael Cohen arranging for payments to women. Did you know about the 130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels . Then why did Michael Cohen make it . Youll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney and youll have to ask michael. Do you know where he got the money to make that payment . No, i dont know. When it comes time for the financing. What financing . Well have to pay no, no. The president has an explanation for the payment that he thinks makes everything okay. You have to understand what he did and they werent taken out of Campaign Finance. That is a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign . They didnt come out of the campaign . They came from me. I tweeted about it. I dont know. You know, but i tweeted about the payments. Lying, again. Experts say that claim Doesnt Work Out either, you just cant evade Campaign Finance. It was during a campaign. Sam and eddy, it was during the campaign. It was to protect his campaign from knowing about his
lascivious relationships and affairs with multiple women and not wanting his wife to find out and americans to find out so he could win the presidency. How stupid, lets stay on theme here, how stupid does the president think the American People are . Theres so many levels of stupidity, i guess. One is what we hit on which is he is admitting to the Campaign Finance crime essentially. Correct. What he wanted to say is we tried, you know, we meant to disclose it in the proper fashion and we failed to do so, we should have amended a report and maybe that would have given him legal cover. Instead in the illegal form. Secondarily, of course, is the whole issue of the fact that hes on Tape Recording admitting to knowing about the payment and now says he only knew about it after the fact. Hes asking us to believe up is down and the sky is green, whatever. Thats crazy in its own right. Im struck a little bit and i
tweeted about it as if that absolves, i have no idea what hes talking about. Who care physical you twes if y it, It Doesnt Matter. One thing that was sort of nagging me. We have basically just taken it as a given and not at all an extraordinary thing that he had an affair on his wife with a 5monthold kid and paid hush money to cover it up. I mean, this in normal president ial times would have been extraordinary scandal, certainly for someone with the devoted support of the evangelical community. But at this juncture, were just sort of like, okay, he did that and lets talk about the Campaign Finance crime element of it. It just seems crazy that were losing the moral element of it. Not that i am a moral warrior here. But he does have a huge evangelical following that under
and emails. She said they would also submit various records via subpoena including records from the media company, this as Wall Street Journal reports that the chairman of American Media incorporat incorporated, which publishes the National Enquirer provided prosecutors with details about payments mr. Cohen arranged with women who including mr. Trumps knowledge of the deals. Cited people close to cohen and others familiar with prosecut s prosecutors discussions posted late last night. A tweet from the president and, of course, i asked, alex, the timing of his tweets. Tweeting from 9 37 in the morning to 1 10 the next morning washington time. This came at 1 10 a. M. No collusion. Rigged. Witchhunt. Something keeping him up at
night . Yeah, looks like it. Not very usual for the president to be up at 1 00 in the morning, more like 6 00 in the morning when he wakes up. Hes not sleeping very well and that is not surprising because there are legal and political implications for him with this one. All around the issue of Campaign Finance and as Wall Street Journal report seems to be hinting the two women we know about or are there other women a and, in that case, do we get into the realm of racketeering that there was a concerted effort to protect the candidate with multiple payoffs potentially to try and stop damaging stories against him. And then, the political one. Thats what is really interesting at the moment. The question of whether this 87 of the Republican Party and sam was eluding to the evangelical base earlier. Any of them will shift their minds when it comes to the president because of what they heard over the course of the last 24 hours and what else is going to come out from michael
cohen. Our initial reporting, the number of republicans and trump voters that weve spoken to over the course of the last day suggest that, you know, they are still rock solid behind the president. We spoke to one woman who said everybody commits some kind of Finance Crimes and we said, well, this is the president of the United States. And her response was, oh, that just makes him human. There is no point to which some of these supporters will aband on the president. Were going to have to watch those numbers and see whether those numbers decline because of this. Absolutely. I think the fox news polling that we started the show with are quite telling. People supporting the Mueller Probe and they feel the president is up to no good. We started the show with the concept of stupid. At some point, people are going to ask themselves the question as to whether or not weve got nefarious going on pointing all to putin. At some point, people are not this stupid and theyve got to be up to something. Thats my gut. But weve got so many facts to work with, well just stick with the facts. So, is sticking to the facts, Benjamin Whaurkts is tt is the and present danger . It has to be Michael Cohens direct statement under oath in court that he committed felonies at the direction of the president , then the candidate personally. Thats a very threatening thing. Its not, you know, russia. Its not Obstruction Of Justice and interactions with the Law Enforcement apparatus of the country as president. But it is a, you know, its the most dramatic, serious thing that is ongoing right now. Still ahead on morning joe, is the president poised to pardon Paul Manafort. What hes saying about that. As joyce vance reports on twitter, one of the consequences of having children in cages who came to this country with parent who wanted to seek asylum, is that you lose the moral authority to look into allegations of wrongs in other countries. Agerelated macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. My doctor and i came up with a plan. It includes preservision. Only Preservision Areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the National Eye Institute to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd. Thats why i fight. Because its my vision. Preservision. Also, in a greattasting chewable. The first survivor of alzis out there. Ase and the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Join the fight with the Alzheimers Association. So you have, your headphones, chair, new laptop, 24 7 tech support. Yep, thanks guys. I think he might need some support. Yes. Start them off right, with the School Supplies they need at low prices all summer long. Like these for only 2 or less at office depot officemax. Mom okay we need to get all your School Supplies today. School. Grade. Done. Done. Hit the Snooze Button and get low prices on School Supplies all summer long. Like these for only 2 or less at office depot officemax. Its a revolution in sleep. The new sleep number 360 smart bed is on sale now, from 899, during sleep numbers biggest sale of the year. It senses your movement, and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. It even helps with this. So you wake up ready to put your pedal to the metal. And now, all beds are on sale. Save 50 on the new sleep number 360 limited Edition Smart bed. Plus, 24month financing and free home delivery. Ends saturday. Sleep number. Proven, quality sleep. But theres one. That blows them all out of the water. Hydro boost water gel from neutrogena®. With Hyaluronic Acid it goes beneath the surface to plump skin cells from within and lock in hydration leaving skin so supple, it actually bounces back. The results will blow you away hydro boost and our gentle exfoliating cleanser from neutrogena® this wifi is fast. I know i know i know i know
when did brian move back in . Brians back . He doesnt get my room. Hes only going to be here for like a week. Like a month, tops. Oh boy. Wifi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. In many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40s. Like everybody else. One of the reasons i respect Paul Manafort so much he went through that trial. They make up stories. People make up stories. This whole thing about flipping, they call it. I know all about flipping for 30 or 40 years. I have been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful and they get ten years in jail and they flip on whoever is next or as high as you can go. It should be outlawed. If somebody is going to spend
five years like Michael Cohen or 10 years or 15 years in jail because he defrauded some bank, the last two were the tiny ones. Campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly. But if somebody defrauded a bank and hes going to get ten years in jail or 20 years in jail, but if you can Say Something bad about donald trump and youll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made, in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that. And ive seen it many times. Ive had many friends involved in this stuff. Its called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal. Wow. Wow. Benjamin, well let you stew on that a little bit and get right back to