Thats it for me. Im gigi stone woods. The news continues right now with my colleague, david, whos been tweeting this whole hour constantly. Thank you very much. Great to see you. Good afternoon, im david gura at msnbc headquarters in new york. We start this hour with President Trump who is spending the weekend at his golf resort in bedminster, new jersey. The president ending his week touting fridays economic numbers. Secondquarter gdp growth of 4. 1 , that is the fastest pace since 2014. Hes not been able to change the subject, avoiding all questions about the latest revelations from his former personal Attorney Michael Cohen who nbc news reports is prepared to tell investigators that President Trump had prior knowledge of that nowinfamous june, 2016,
view that meeting differently perhaps in light of what we heard on that tape, in light of what weve learned this week. Cnn reporting, other outlets following here, that Michael Cohen is willing to testify that donald trump did know about this meeting before it took place here. Were talking about a potentially very birthday on tthe very pivotal period of two, three months in the summer of 2016 . Thats right. And if this is true, then Michael Cohen witnessed something and will testify to that effect, then of course that would be tremendously important. It would link the president personally to the meeting which in which his son was promised dirt from the russian government and responded eagerly, if its what you say, i love it, in an attempt at collusion if nothing else. I think, though, that im a bit cautious about this particular one. I know that cnn reported it and a few others followed. Notice that no one on the record is reporting it. And unless and until it comes out on the record from mr. Cohen or his lawyer, im wondering
whether this is real or is this a flirtation with mueller trying to get some kind of interest in terms of maybe hell cooperate and make his problems in the Southern District of new york go away. Theres a lot of Question Marks hanging over whether this particular thing is concrete yet. Betsy, i want to get your reaction to the way the president has reacted to the reporting about what Michael Cohen might or might not say here. We looked at that tweet a few minutes ago. He doesnt call out lanny davis by name. He doesnt mention Michael Cohen by name, as well. We see him as the taxicab medallion pedlar, Something Like that. Youve written about this for the daily beast. Give me a sense of what that indicates to you, the way that the president is engaging with the story. Sources told my colleague and me earlier this week that as the president was watching this news unfold late one evening on cable, he hurled obscenities at the television. He was deeply frustrated with the revelation that Michael Cohen may potentially make this claim to robert mueller. Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. This is this is coming to a head really. As mr. Cohen is going to, you know, possibly testify before, you know, mr. Mueller. And its a very interesting time, though. Charlie, how did you process hearing that tape . What did you think when you heard it for the first time in the day since it aired . Youve had the president s Team Casting Aaspersions on it sayin it ends abruptly, making the semantic argument that cash might not mean green currency and the like. What was your reaction to hearing the tape, and how did it change the story for you . Well, i mean, the tape itself is pretty difficult to make out and garbled. The thing that struck me about it was that transcript of sorts that the president s team was floating before we add the actual audio was different than what we heard on the tape. They were sort of adding a few words here and there to make it sounds better surrounding that word cash, than my ears at least were able to detect. I think most normal humans were
able to detect. And that, if nothing else, is a sign of suspicion that they felt the need to do that. And also a little bit weird because the tape existed, so it was going to come out. So why why do something where youre so obviously going to get caught . Thats the takeaway i had from it. I want to spend the last couple of minutes talking about the relationship so much as there is one here between the president and the guy who was his lawyer for such a long time, and betsy, your piece has a great headline alluding to the fact that the president s legal team want to bury Michael Cohen at this point. Weve talked in weeks past about the screws being turned on Michael Cohen. Whats happened to the relationship this week . Whats your sense of Michael Cohens thinking at this point from what youve heard from i guess mostly from lanny davis with regard to the picture that weve seen painted here of Michael Cohen today, what he intends to do, what he suggested might happen in the future . The relationship is toast. Its done. Its not ever going to be fixed. These two men are never going to be friends again, never going to have any sort of cordial bond. At least thats the assumption under which Michael Cohen is operating. He is making peace with the fact that this man who used to have a central, almost defining role in his life, this man he spent years and years working for, defending, even in some ways jeopardizing his reputation to protect, that this relationship, this corelationship is no longer exsistent. In fact, the president has completely turned on him. The two men are going from being a loyal and committed to pair to being almost out to get each other. Another thing that cohen and his allies are preparing for is for the onslaught of attacks that hes going to receive from people in the president s circle. We dont expect the attacks to come from the white house per se because that would affect their, i dont know, credibility, i guess. People in Rudolph Giulianis circles, allies of the president , are going to be going after cohen. His credibility is a liability to them. All right. Betsy, kurt is, charlie, thanks to all of you, appreciate it. Still ahead, the summer of 2016, who knew about that trump
tower meeting . The legal complication says for anyone who decided to keep it a secret and contempt or impeachment . House republicans trying to make the case to oust the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein. Weighing in next. vo why are Subaru Outback owners always smiling . Because theyve chosen the industry leader. Subaru outback holds its value better than any other vehicle in its class, according to alg. Better than rav4. Better than grand cherokee. Better than edge. Make every adventure a happy one with Subaru Outback. Get 0 Apr Financing on the 2018 Subaru Outback. Hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Be there for you, and them. Ask your gastroenterologist about humira. With humira, remission is possible. 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. Do you think Rod Rosenstein committed a high crime, a misdemeanor . It is more on those who are in political power and have either not responded in a
supervisory and satisfactory mode, so yes, i do believe that. That was house caucus chairman mark meadows whos leading the efforts to impeach Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein who oversees the Mueller Investigation who has under fire by house conservatives who accuse him of stonewalling on their requests for documents related to the fbis handling of Hillary Clinton emails and the agencys use of fisa warrants. Members of the Freedom Caucus say they will give the fbi until september to turn over documents, but democrats are calling the move nothing more than an effort to undermine robert mueller. Congressman jeffries who sits on the House Judiciary Committee also weighed in tweeting, republican coverup caucus introduced articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney general. Take a hike. Congressman jeffries of the eighth district here in new york joins me now on set. Let me get your reaction to this. This dropped over these last few days. Youre in recess now, the district work period. Pick what you want to call it. Have cooler heads prevailed . How serious do you think your
more conservative colleagues on the republican side are about the effort . It remains to be seen. The speaker of the house, paul ryan, indicated that these charges in no way rose to the serious level of high crimes and misdemeanors. I think the view amongst all of us on the hill, democrats, and hopefully reasonably minded republicans, is that these articles of impeachment are not worth the paper that theyre written on. And it exposes the great hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Theyve claimed for years that they are party of the rule of law. Yet they have regularly supported a president who has gone after the fbi, gone after the special prosecutor, gone after career Law Enforcement officials, and now theyve put Forth Articles Of Impeachment against the republicanappointed Deputy Attorney general for nothing short of his alleged failure to turn over documents. Are you kidding me . When we have a president of the United StatesWhose Campaign possibly engaged in a criminal conspiracy with russian spies to
sell out our democracy and undermine the elections in 2016 and artificially place someone at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Yet the socalled coverup caucus has nothing to say about that . But they want to impeach Rod Rosenstein on documents. Its just its a joke. You mentioned that the House Speaker addressed this. Listen to what paul ryan had to say about conservatives in his caucus. Do i support impeachment of Rod Rosenstein . No, i do not. Since ive been involved, ive been getting a lot of compliance from doj on the Document Requests. We do not have full compliance, and we have to get full compliance. But weve been making tremendous progress to that point. Congressman jeffries, lets going back lets go back to the hearing where the Deputy Attorney general testified. This came up, he defended himself, defended his Department Vid video sis vociferously. How outofstep was it with paul ryan and the rest of the Republican Party . Hes trying to distract from the ongoing serious Criminal Investigation into the Trump Campaign and try and create this fantasy and fiction and fallacy that this legitimate investigation is a witch hunt. What perplexes me about that whole argument is that every Single Person involved in the alleged witch hunt is a republican. James comey, who started the Criminal Investigation back in 2016, is a republican. Rod rosenstein, whos overseeing the current investigation, republican. Christopher wray, current fbi director, appointed by donald trump, republican. And of course, bob mueller is a longstanding republican who was incredibly well respected coming into the appointment and has served his country. This is all just a charade, a kangaroo court. It is a threering circus that is designed to distract. We as democrats are going to keep our eye on the prize. Were going to call it what it
is but then focus on governing for the people to make life better for everyday americans, not for the wealthy and the well off, special interests, mega corporations, big donors. Before he left for new jersey for the weekend, President Trump spoke on the south lawn of the white house. He talked about the economy. He talked about trade. He talked about the recent gdp read. And it became clear that thats going to be what hes going to be campaigning on as we head to november. Youre going to be out in the streets in brooklyn, elsewhere, in new york campaigning for democrats. I want to ask about this issue in particular youre going to keep your eye on the prize and all that entails when you look at the democrats plan. Whats your sense to the degree which voters care about this issue, about the russia investigation, you talk about letting it play its course, run its course, and is that something you hear from constituents that they want that to happen . How much is this front of mine from those youre talking about in Prospect Heights or elsewhere in New York State . One of the reasons democrats have indicated in our conversations with the American People that were going to be focused on pocketbook issues is
because we know when were out talking to our constituents that they care about things like the Health Care Costs that are skyrocketing out of control and that the republicans are making worse, not better, as a result of the attacks on the Affordable Care act. Were going to work to drive down Health Care Costs, strengthen the Affordable Care act, and dramatically reduce the cost of Prescription Drugs which we hear from our constituents all across the country. We have a crumbling infrastructure, and what were going to do is rebuild america. And that will create 16 million goodpaying jobs. We have a trilliondollar plan. The republicans have a fake plan. It will increase pay for those involved. And repairing crumbling roads, bridges, Mass Transportation system and ports. Were also hearing from our constituents that they want us to do something about cleaning up corruption in washington so that Government Works for them, not for the privileged few. And so thats what were going to be focused on as part of our for the people agenda, not for the privileged, for the people. Congresswoman, great to see you. Thank you. Hakeem jeffries from new york. Editorinchief of law fair, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution joining us, and former cia analyst. Ben, let me start with and the debate thats been raging on in law fair, debate, ink has been spilled over the issue of impeachment and Rod Rosenstein. Want to get your perspective on what weve seen from more conservative members of the caucus. Your sense of the potential longevity of this argument after we had this august recess. Well, i mean, they are clearly very committed to putting a lot of pressure on Rod Rosenstein. And impeachment is one, you know, threat that they can wield in order to do that. Another one is contempt. Of course another one is just the endless blizzard of subpoenas and Document Requests that then fuel all of the other
threats. Its absurd, quite ridiculous. Its very dangerous because the you know, there simply has never been a time before when congress has demanded this kind of information in this volume about pending investigations. That said, theyre not going to impeach Rod Rosenstein. So the specific threat is a bit silly. Nada, i want to get your perspective, as well. Weve heard from the president and his advisers, attacks on the fbi, on the Justice Department. Is this advancing that . Is this taking that to a new level when you have Members Of Congress here raising the specter of impeachment . Absolutely. I think that it is. When you listen to what ben had just said, this does take it to a whole new level. When you look at how devin nunez had treated the information, intelligence, when he wrote his infamous memo, he politicized everything to fit his narrative. I think its a valid argument that we would be concerned that this group of lawmakers would be doing the same thing. And its extremely dangerous when lawmakers take intelligence and then use it and spin it to support their own case because what it does, it distorts the facts. It can also expose sources and methods. Thats also a very real concern. Ben, there was a piece in the New York Times by michael schmidt, focusing on Robert Muellers investigation, what he might be looking into, looking at the tweets of the president.