Trumpmueller facetoface interview. It relates basically to the Russia Collusion thing, which we think there is no evidence and the president didnt do anything wrong, so we dont have much of a problem with it. But the obstruction thing, its more a question of we dont see the legal basis for the president obstructing by merely taking an action in Firing Somebody that he had every right to fire and about ten good reasons to fire. When are you going to nail this down . I think a couple maybe this week, maybe next week. Last time you told us it was july 4th, mr. Mayor. Well, a lot happened since july 4th. Giuliani also revealing some new details about what may be on the Audio Recordings from the fbiseized tapes there from Michael Cohens apartment. Msnbcs jeff bennett is there for us. Jeff, what can you tell us . Reporter another sunday brings another round of Tv Interviews featuring the president s outside attorney,Rudy Giuliani. Rudy giuliani is now saying a tape made between President Trump and his former attorney, Michael Cohen, has been tampered with. There is no evidence to back that up. We hear the voices of the president and cohen discussing payment of karen mcdougal. She is the former playmate alleging she had an affair with the president before he became president , something the white house denies. Take a look at what else giuliani had to say about these cohen tapes. We know of Something Like 183 unique conversations on tape. One of those with the president of the United States, the threeminute one involving the mcdoougal payment. There are 12 others out of the 183 in which the president is
discussed nature length by cohen, mostly with reporters. All clearly corroborating what the president has said in detail on many of those tweets, in other words, that he didnt know about the payments to either one when they happened, that he only found out later cohen made them not for the campaign he didnt like the campaign. He said very derogatory things about the campaign. He said, i only made it because i personally love the president and melania, and thats why i made the payment. Reporter so this latest effort to discredit Michael Cohen comes, as we reported, cohen is set to tell the Special Counsel that President Trump knew in advance about that june 2016 trump tower meeting with the russian lawyer and the russian advocates with the promise of the exchange of dirt on Hillary Clintons campaign, something that, so far as we know, did not materialize. President trump is still at his private golf resort in bedminster. He spent much of yesterday uncharacteristically quiet on twitter, but this morning he was up and at em fairly early on
all good news for the president are something We Shouldnt Take at face value. We should wait and see if the audiotapes actually emerge. Lets hear giuliani discussing his present State Of Mind after the cohen allegations. First of all, the president feels disappointed. I think the anger is over. Weve assured him in a very strange way this is a very Good Development for us because we do have all these tapes, and these tapes completely demonstrate the president did nothing wrong. Cohen is on record over and over again stating his position. It would be hard to contradict that now. And hes done so many despicable things, his credibility is not an issue. The Defense Agreement is effectively over because hes made it clear hes not going to give us information. What do you make of the series of headlines this is
having on the president . From the day the fbi raided Michael Cohens apartment, the hotel he was staying in, his offices, the president is clearly shaken. Hes been very, very angry about the whole development. There is thinking among friends in the white house of the president of the potential cohen could have on him because he worked so closely with the president for so many years, was involved in some of his affairs that this line of questioning coming from new york is potentially more harmful to him than anything bob mueller is doing when it comes to obstruction of justice or collusion charges. You can tell just by reading the president s twitter feed that he is rattled by Michael Cohen. You heard giuliani saying there that the president at this point is not necessarily upset about it, but the president is not somebody who lets things go lightly, he hold grudges against people, and the fact Michael Cohen has gone against him, these are two men ready to rip
each other down to gain advantage. Three months since that april 9 raid, in fact. Betsy, you read about this. What are your sources telling you . On the evening last week when the Michael Cohen audiotape was being rolled out and received walltowall coverage across all three cable news networks, the president actually hurled expletives at the television because he was deeply frustrated to see this report come out, to see these news stories emerge. So what we can tell you without a doubt is this is something that is really disturbing and rattling to President Trump and its something hes very concerned about. What i can also tell you is that the president s outside allies hounded by Rudy Giuliani are engaged and prepared to ramp up their attacks on Michael Cohen. For them Michael Cohens liability is a huge liability. We dont expect to see the attacks on Michael Cohenscredibility coming from Current White House officials. Theyll try to keep their hands clean with things coming out of there. You heard giuliani say Michael Cohen actually had done many bad things. Of course those bad things likely would be presumably at the behest of giulianis current client, the president. That hasnt kept giuliani from dredging up Michael Cohens past to benefit other witnesses. We certainly see giuliani, hes gotten quite the media blitz this week going after cohen, really casting doubt on his credibility and going back and forth on lanny davis. Is there a palpable strategy, one you can figure out, jill . Yeah, the strategy here very clearly seems to be that they are trying to throw as Much Negative material at the wall as possible, seeing what sticks so that they can muddy up whatever conclusion is reached here. I thought the back and forth
this week over the meeting at trump tower was absolutely fascinating where you had there was a theory it was actually trumps team that had originally made that accusation, put that out there, the idea that Michael Cohen knew about this. The idea that the president knew about this, the idea that don jr. Had told him and that all of these people, if thats true, had gone out there. They lied to congress about it. They publicly made statements that were inaccurate. The fact that the president s legal team was sort of willing to put that out there is just pretty extraordinary, all in the service of trying to undercut Michael Cohen, of trying to hurt his case here. What are you hearing, betsy, in terms of don jr. , the likelihood of being brought back to capitol hill and having to testify again . I dont think i havent received any information to that effect. Its unlikely that republicans on capitol hill will want to sort of put him through the
wringer again. From testifying before, they have his comments. If he testified and goes against the claims Michael Cohen intends to make, that could cause discussion. But as long as republicans control congress, i think its unlikely they would try and bring don jr. Back for a second round of interviews. I just dont see that happening. Allen weisselberg, his role as Finance Chief and what kind of information he might be able to offer short of the president s tax returns, or might it build up to having to release to some Degree Information from those tax returns. Thats an interesting question. Weisselberg is someone the public might not have known about before this week, but hes been a longtime ceo of the trump organization. Hes the only Family Member appointed of the trustee of the trump trust right now who holds all of his business holdings, and he is someone who was deeply
involved in all aspects of trumps Business Activity and other activity. We heard his name mentioned on that secret recording that cohen had made fof him and the president as they were discussing the mcdougal payment. Who knows if he took part in that which is why hes been subpoenaed. I dont know if the fbi already has trumps tax returns, but trumps tax returns are something all of us have been interested in and trying to get ahold of for years. Thank you, ladies, both so much. Overtures between President Trump and vladimir putin. Why the back and forth is raising more questions about the president s judgment. beep can i get a connection . Can i get can i get a connection . Can i get a connection . Ive been Making Blades here at gillette for 20 years. Theres a lot of innovation that goes into making americas 1 shave. Precision machinery and highquality materials from around the world. Nobody else even comes close. Now starting at 7. 99. Gillette. The best a man can get. Meeting on friday. The meeting ended with no overall strategy to prevent hacking or meddling, despite reports that three 2018 campaigns have already been attacked, senator Clair Mccaskill saying hers was unfairly targeted. John is a thirdyear veteran in russian affairs. Hes also an msnbc global analyst. John, welcome to you. Can we talk about the meeting, 30 minutes . That was it. Was that time to discuss strategy in this big Picture Problem . No, it wouldnt be, alex. I spent, in my career, a fair amount of time in that Situation Room in such meetings, and typically 30 minutes is just enough time to make the introductions and get started. Normally a meeting like that is going to last about an hour, hour and a half or so, and given that its the very first one, its really hard to believe they
got very far into the subject. This president s reputation, hes notoriously hard to brief and get details in a comprehensive way. He has sheets of details put on one sheet, they call it. This, do you get a sense you would be even interested in listening to points on this topic . Everyone says hes heard it, but in truth, a couple things on this whole issue. First, the white house has eliminated its Cyber Security coordinator. The way i look at this, no one is really in charge across the entire government, which is important for a couple of reasons. For one thing, many parts of government have a piece of this problem. The technical side would be the National Security agency to monitor russian behavior, also attempts to influence the election. Homeland security has a piece of it that is supporting the state and local election offices. And then on top of that, you know, its a complicated
country. We have 3,000 counties across the United States who administer these elections. So unless there is someone with their arms around this entire problem pulling things together, thats the first problem. Second problem is, my experience in the Executive Branch is that unless the president forcefully speaks out and gives direction and drives something, it doesnt really happen with the conviction and vigor thats required, and that hasnt happened here. Is it fair to make an analogy to the era before 9 11 where there were all these unique Intelligence Agencies working on their own accord, and so mistakes happened in terms of maybe not the right information going from one place to the next post 9 11, after a huge, huge debacle that desperately hurt this country, things pulled together. Homeland security gets created and everyone starts working in more concert together. Is that a fair analogy . I think theres some fairness to it. There is some differences as well. Whats fair about it, i think, is that in both cases, there was a lot of warning of a coming attack before 9 11. Not the specific attack on the trade tower, but the idea that we would be attacked, and yet there wasnt a lot of response in congress or, for that matter at that moment in the administration as there is now a lot of warning about whats coming in the 2018 elections and maybe 2020 as well. So theres something to that. The difference, i think, is that in this case weve already experienced the problem. In other words, the kind of clarifying event that 9 11 turned out to be has already occurred. We have all of this data on what the russians did in 2016, so theres really no excuse for the lack of a concerted vigorous approach, whereas before 9 11, one could say, well, the country
hadnt seen graphically what could happen. After 9 11, everyone kind of got it together. Similar in some ways but maybe different in one or two important ones. Importantly, youve pointed that out. So we have the president who has really complained about the socalled deep state. He is now, as you know, threatening to revoke Security Clearances of those who criticize russian interference. Do those he threatens no longer have Security Clearance . If youre fired, i know that no longer exists. I think the whole idea of removing Security Clearances in the circumstances the president has discussed is a ridiculous idea. Essentially hes threatening people who have exercised their First Amendment rights to speak
their mind, and so the reason for removing them is not there. Typically when clearances are removed, its as you suggested you have a hearing, there is an appeals process, it can go to federal court. None of that has happened. This is just the president sort of waving his hand and i might want to do this. I dont think it changes the way Intelligence Officers deliver their message, though it does send a chill through that process if youre saying to people who possess classified information, if you Say Something i dont like or i find personally offensive, your clearance could be in jeopardy. Because frankly, in my old business, a lot of what you do is pass on unpleasant news. So you do need that a sthaurns youre okay to do that. Thats the essence of the job, essentially what the job is. You have said the president is not prepared for his interview with bob mueller and the Special Counsel. Find out what mike pompeo found out about that meeting. I was president in the briefing of what transpired during that meeting. I was also there when they gave us a sense of what happened in the meeting after. I also chatted with Sergei Lavrov twice about what took place. I think i have a pretty good understanding of what took place in that meeting. Did you speak to the translat translator who was at that meeting . No, i havent. Do you get the sense he got most of his information from russia . Is this concerning to you at all . That was an unusual hearing, and i think a lot of the senators came away doubting that
the secretary had, from the president , a very clear readout on what occurred in that twohour meeting. First off, a twohour meeting is a long meeting you talked earlier about length of meetings. Thats a twohour meeting. Its a long meeting for a president and a foreign and then you bring in your officials. In this case, we dont know because mike pompeo didnt say specifically what he had learned about the content of that meeting. As far as i can tell from what ive seen publicly otherwise, what we know comes mainly from the russian side. The russians have already issued statements that they are prepared to follow up on agreements on syria and on military cooperation. They said theyre willing to meet with our offices here of what we call our general staff. They mean the joint chiefs and so forth. So there is something there they are shielding which we havent heard from our side. Maybe the president said we covered the following subjects, but so far the pentagon is saying they have any guidance. John mclaughlin. Its interesting times, to say the least. Thank you very much for weighing in. Michael cohen might have some explaining to do on capitol hill, and will all that eventually backfire . Ooh, heaven is a place on earth uhp. I didnt believe it. Again. Ooh, baby, do you know what thats worth . I want to believe it. [ claps hands ] ooh im not hearing the confidence. Okay, hold the name your price tool. Power of options based on your budget and well make heaven a place on earth yeah oh, my angels ooh, heaven is a place on earth [ sobs quietly ] ooh, heaven is a place on earth whoooo. Tripadvisor makes finding your perfect hotel. Relaxing. Just enter your destination and dates. Tripadvisor searches over 200 Booking Sites to find the hotel you want for the lowest price. Dates. Deals. Done tripadvisor. Michael cohen has already appeared before Congress Talking about a lot of things. And this idea he told trump about the russia meeting befo