It took place. Did you know at the time about that meet something. No, i didnt know anything about it. It must have been a very important meeting, because i never even heard that. No one told you a word, nothing . I know we talked about this on the plane a bit. No, nobody told me. Sounded like a very unimportant meeting. Deep cuts there from haberman and schmidt. Thats not what Michael Cohen claims, alleging that he and several others were present when thencandidate donald trump gave his nod of approval for the meeting to move forward. That contradicts repeated denials from donald trump jr. And others in Donald Trumps orbit. Did you tell your father anything about this . No. It was such a nothing, there was nothing to tell. I wouldnt have even remembered it until you start scouring through the stuff. The president said he became aware of it very recently, right before this came out, and thats when he was notified. Joining me now is jeff
bennett, msnbcs white house correspondent, natasha bertrand, and kevin is with us, as well. Help us sort through the confusion, Kevin Delaney is with us, as well, four in total. Let us sort through the confusion, not only whos on with me, but this story, as well. Part of a trio of tweets from President Trump, in which hes trying to answer the question before its even asked here about what he knew when, what he was told. Give us the latest, if you would, jeff. Hey there, david. Well, President Trump insists he did not have advanced knowledge of this Infamous Trump tower meeting in june 2016, and the reason why this is so important from the president s side is because as these investigations continue, the biggest problem it appears, the biggest present problem, is political. You have Michael Cohen, the president s longtime friend, attorney, socalled fixer, now saying, in effect, the president is a liar when he says there was
drafted on behalf of his son, which has come under heavy scrutiny by bob mueller, because he wants to know why were there so many coverups and changing stories if this was a nothing burger, if this was an innocuous meeting where nothing came out of it, just a meeting to potentially find out Opposition Research on Hillary Clinton, as they said that any candidate would have taken, then why all of the changing stories . And that, of course, is one of the biggest questions here. But i think that this is going to be a very important point in muellers investigation if cohen does decide to tell him that trump knew in advance, and not only knew, but approved the meeting, but you have to put it in context. The Trump Campaign had already been told by june that the russians have dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails, so if youre assuming george papp dop los that was the case, then it makes you wonder did the president accept this meeting and give it
the go ahead because he was looking for those emails and was Everything Else after that kind of a result of this conspiracy that the Trump Campaign and trump himself was involved in . So this is a very big deal if Michael Cohen does come forward. Ken delaney, lets hone in on those two months then in the summer of 2016. Were looking at may, june, july, as well. So many pivotal things happened that summer. Youve been following the investigations, bob muellers doings, how much is this the focus now, this period of time, this meeting at trump tower . David, im a bit of an iconoclast on this. Im not convinced this meeting in and of itself is a meaningful episode of collusion, as people like to use the term, because ive interviewed some of the participants and talked to people before the grand jury on this and have come to believe Robert Mueller sees this in a different way. Hes more interested in this for the question of why the president was trying to cover it up apparently, why he issued that misleading statement, and
now, if in fact he knew about it, it puts that question into sharper focus and really puts the pressure on in terms of the Obstruction Of Justice case. If he, in fact, knew about it, hes been lying all this time while he knew that Robert Mueller was investigating the circumstances of this meeting, where donald trump would have been putting out a false story to the public and i think that adds up to a piece of the obstruction case, david. Kevin, i want you to comment on that. Strikes me weve been dealing with a lot of potentially unreliable narrators here. Of course, we can talk about the tapes in a second, but i want you to respond to what ken said about how pivotal you think the moment was. I agree with ken. Consistently the subjects of the meeting and the folks who have been in the meeting and the issue of collusion are almost two entirely different points. I think that the notion that Michael Cohen, who at one time was a close personal confidante of thencandidate donald trump and now, obviously, that kevin, the worst ever, but there is this amazing photograph politico obtained. Bob mueller there on the left, hidden, right there to the right of the board, donald trump jr. , then the statement here, nbc news got the statement for the spokesperson for the special counsel. That is him, bob mueller, waiting to board a flight. If thats accurate thats donald trump jr. , they had no interaction there. Whats this photo say to you about bob muellers role or presence in washington today . He has sort of a sphinxlike feel. This is a rather astonishing photograph, natasha. Yeah, its absolutely incredible. Bob mueller kind of reading the newspaper, oblivious to whats going on around him, or maybe not, but donald trump jr. Doesnt seem fazed by it either. Just an evidence of how small d. C. Is, as well. Yes, at that terrible gate, as kevin said. My thanks to all of you. Kent, youre going to stay with me here. After nearly two years of
calling it a witch hunt and hoax, friday a meeting was held on election meddling. Afterward the white house said this, the president has made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors. You wrote a piece here highlighting the fact its been 19 months in a meeting like this, give us your sense of what caused it to happen and what might have happened during the meeting, what sort of unified perspective on Election Interference might have come out of that meeting. I think what caused it to happen, david, was the fallout from helsinki, where donald trump stood next to Vladimir Putin and appeared to call into question the whole notion russia interviewed in the election, and for all accounts this meeting lasted between a half hour and hour and no significant Policy Announcements or orders came out of it. It was more of a look back at review of what various agencies
interfering in our politics on social media. Look, the white house just simply has not made russia pay a price for this behavior and until that happens, they are going to continue to do it. What do they say about the fact there is no National Security adviser for National Security at the nsc . A lot hasnt been done here. How do they explain that . They dont explain it, david. They are not a talkative bunch, this white house, on substantiative policy issues. Theyve eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator, also fired tom bossert, the deputy National Security adviser for Homeland Security and are not replacing him in that capacity, so its not clear who is minding the store at the white house level. After 9 11 we reorganized the government, the United States did, to make sure that kind of Terror Attack could not happen again. We created the department of Homeland Security, laws were passed, funding was appropriated. Nothing like that has happened in the wake of this 2016 Russian Election interference, which
some people, including john mccain, have called an act of war. Not everyone agrees with that, but it was certainly a significant attack on our democracy that some would argue requires a significant response and we just havent seen it. Ken, lastly here, you were at the summit in colorado about a week ago with other National Security journalists, sort of a whos who of National Security personnel, as well, and from what i understand reading your piece, companies were there, as well, talking about this issue. What are they saying about the threats they are facing, about the threats the u. S. Faces broadly here when it comes to cyberattacks from overseas . Yeah, well private Cybersecurity Firms are watching on a daily basis nation state actors, you know, doing malicious things to our critical infrastructure, whether its iran, north korea, russia, china, you know, im not suggesting this is anything out of the ordinary. This has been going on for years, but they reiterated at this conference, as did u. S. Intelligence officials, that the United States is under daily cyberattack. Some of it is cyber espionage,
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was a Comfort Level that we hear on this tape, and most importantly, we hear references to cash, finance, check, and creating a company. All of those concepts to an fbi agent, to someone like mueller or the Southern District of new york, all smack of possible crime. Money laundering. Why are you creating a company . Why would you need to create a company . Have you done this before . The word cash, do you mean youre trying to avoid suspicious you are concerned about triggering suspicious Activity Reports of large sums of money transacting. When you say check, are you trying to avoid the Cash Transaction that would trigger a suspicious activity report . So those few seconds of audio actually have tremendous inherent meaning. Katie, i want to get your perspective on this, as well, just about what the future use of this tape might be. How do you translate something thats been played, heard, processed in the court of Public Opinion into a courtroom
potentially . Hows Something Like this cross that threshold into the court . From a legal perspective, we know trump and his team waived any type of claim of privilege, so that deals with any possible obstacle that mueller or anybody at the Southern District of new york might have in terms of the use of this information. As we know, attorneyclient privilege information, its the client that holds the privilege, the client that waves the privilege, so in that regard, it can fully be used to be able to be evidence against trump for possible Campaign Finance violations, and it could be used by cohen as proof that he has other potentially damning evidence in terms of more tapes. We know at least 100 recordings were made during the time this was seized and maybe theres other evidence, documentary evidence, thats already been seized in the possession of the government that cohen can loop together or link together to provide some value to not only the mueller investigation, but also to the Southern District of new york. Frank, i think youll agree,
its been a crazy week, saturday is a good day to take stock of that. There was this report about Michael Cohens willingness to testify, that donald trump knew about the meeting that took place in trump tower. I want to get your reaction to the reaction, what we saw from President Trump after that was reported first by cnn and other outlets, including nbc news. He tweeted this, i did not know of the meeting with my son, don jr. Sounds like someone is trying to make up stories to get himself out of an unrelated jam. Gee, i wonder if they helped him make the choice. I read that, i note lanny davis isnt mentioned by name, Michael Cohen isnt mentioned by name, as well. Your reaction to the reaction from the president . So, this fact that the president cant help himself but protest and tweet any time he believes hes being offended and infringed upon or challenge is
eventually going to be his downfall, because theres tapes out there and hes not certain about exactly what hes saying on the tapes. I keyed in this week on one particular phrase where the president said why was the tape cut off . I presumably was saying positive things after that. Presumably saying positive things. We dont know that. And, look, hes trying to have us believe he knew nothing about a meeting that was occurring in his own building while he was present in his own building, conducted by his chairman of his campaign who dismissed himself from a meeting in his office to attend the meeting. The meeting arranged by his son, attended by his Business Associate from russia. Were to believe that he knew nothing about it. Its strange. And every time he tries to challenge and push back on it, he puts himself into a box. Kate, what do you make of the president saying this, were familiar with his counsel, with Rudy Giuliani going on tv and doing the sort of twists and contortions along the lines of
what we saw from the president. What do you make of him taking up that mantle this week . Giuliani is always going to be the surrogate, legally and otherwise, in the court of Public Opinion. I doubt giuliani would ever represent the president in a court of law, but what giuliani is trying to do is discorrect Michael Cohen by saying, hey, even trump says no way this was an appropriate thing for trump to have been, you know, taped. And by the way, he says theres no way i knew about this meeting going on, but remember, david, there was such a hasty scramble to be able to cover up the main reason why trump jr. Met with the russians in june of 2016, and so i agree with frank, are you kidding me . Youre going to say that that kind of important meeting where even roger stone had previously been approached on dirt on Hillary Clinton, trump didnt know about the fact this meeting was going on, and we all know thats not true, so why is that important . Some of the best cases can be built on circumstantial evidence. You dont always have a smoking
gun and you can build it on the fact that if cohen knew and other people were present and cohen can say trump knew about the meeting, then that combined with other evidence can build a huge case in terms of Obstruction Of Justice or even conspiracy. Frank, before i let you go, i understand you have a story about david pecker, whos also at the center of this in some capacity. He, of course, was at the national enquirer. Youve interacted with him before. Well, under the heading of you cant make this stuff up, in the crazy week that weve had, i was reminding people that they were asking about ami, who is this company,