David Gura hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. conflicting information from weekend to weekend about what the president may or may not do, david. >> geoff, thank you very much. appreciate it as always. geoff bennett joining us from the white house. i want to turn to my panel. joyce, let me start with you. bearing in mind, you're not an expert on election law, but i want to stick with one point that geoff just raised there about the dangers, the legal dangers of taking a meeting with representatives of a foreign country to offer dirt here on an opposing candidate in a u.s. election. help us understand the legal consequences of that. >> there's a very specific statute that prohibits this kind of conduct. it makes it illegal to accept or to solicit a donation or a contribution related to a u.s. election from either a foreign citizen or a foreign government. so on its face, that prohibition would seem to apply pretty clearly. if, for instance, while running a presidential campaign, you took a meeting with russians who wanted to give you some information that you could use to get your candidate elected. obviously, there's lots of legal detail work that has to be done to make sure that each element of that statute would be satisfied. but on its face, this is a very damaging admission for the president to have made. >> i think it's important to keep drawing this contrast between what we learned today and what we learned initially from the "new york times" as a result of their reporting. we learned approximabout this m andrew. i'm going read the first statement, we know drafted by the president initially. those around the president said it was drafted by representatives of donald trump jr. and jared kushner. just reading it here, we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children that was active and popular with american families years ago, and was since ended by the russian government. but it was not a campaign issue at the time, and there was no followup. again, that was given to the "new york times," published back on july the 8th of 2017. help me understand here, andrew, how much this story has evolved. how much this narrative has changed. as geoff mentioned just a moment ago, donald trump jr. was on capitol hill. he testified before the house intelligence committee for six, seven hours about this meeting. how much has this story changed? >> it's evolved greatly. and i want to take you back to september of 2017. almost a year ago. when donald trump jr. testified in front of the senate judiciary committee. the day after he testified, senator chris coons, who is a senior democrat on that committee, his office sent out the u.s. code statute for giving false statements to congress. he sent it out just basically as a reminder that, hey, you know, a hardy reminder, saying if you lie to congress, that's a crime. and he was in the context of donald trump jr.'s interview with the committee. so there has been a healthy dose of skepticism among those on capitol hill who have been greatly involved in this investigation, and questioning the people involved in that meeting for a long time now. and you know, it's been almost a year since donald trump jr. testified in front of the senate judiciary committee. other congressional committees want to speak with donald trump jr. again about this. and it's sort of rearing its ugly head, the more we go on and the more we learn about this. and there's been a lot of skepticism about who to trust about the version of events surrounding this meeting. >> joyce, i want to get your perspective here on how imperilled donald trump jr. is. in looking at the recent history here, how this tweet came about. there was a long piece in the "washington post" today that centered on, in part, president trump's concern, according to aides, about his eldest son, about donald trump jr. he comes out with this tweet, says he's not concerned about his son. but isn't what we've seen here todayta today tantamount to the dad throwing the kid into the pool of water. he has greatly imperilled his son by doing this. >> trump, manafort, kushner, all in peril over the meeting. the president says, not a crime, it's okay to meet with the russians. but just in case it's not okay, i didn't know about it. and that really looks like he's divorcing himself from the three people that we know participated in that meeting, saying, even if they committed a crime, i didn't do anything. and i have to tell you, david, that's very contrary from what prosecutors are used to seeing. obvio often if you have a father and son involved in committing a crime together, the father will offer to plead guilty in exchange for lenience sy for th son. i can't remember a time when i saw a dad completely throw his kid under the bus like this. >> i want to know how much is this a focus of the investigation that is ongoing. that is, is robert mueller focusing on this meeting that took place in trump tower? just want to get your perspective. we've talked about the long view here. how much time has elapsed since 2016. i was talking with congressman eric swalwell just a few minutes ago about his effort to get at the truth of what happened there. there's only one version of that. given how far we've come, how close do you think we are to knowing what happened in that meeting, and who is going to be the individual, how are we going to determine when the president knew about this meeting? >> evwell, i think it's going t be up to the special counsel to determine that. we've seen republicans -- at least on the house intelligence committee, which congressman swalwell sits on. they have closed their investigation while he and the other democrats on the committee want to continue to interview witnesses the more we learn about these contradictory and conflicting statements from people involved, particularly in the trump tower meeting. i will note that the president in his tweet is correct in a sense that people do often take meetings in a presidential campaign regarding opposition research about their opposing candidates. what is not normal about this meeting was that it was about, a., information that was stolen. that is, you know, the dirt on hillary clinton that the russians allegedly hacked, and that was disseminated via wikileaks. and number two, it was a meeting in which half the participants were citizens of a foreign government, and in a couple of their cases, directly connected to the kremlin. and there's a lot of debate on capitol hill about this right now, particularly between the leaders of the republican and the democratic congressional committees -- congressional campaign committees, that is, about to what extent wican thei candidates use information that they know is stolen, maybe stolen by a foreign government, as part of their campaigns, even if it is in the public domain. that's something that will continue to be debated on capitol hill as we get closer to the midterm elections. >> joyce, last question to you. we're dealing with somebody who can't seem to get his story straight. at least that's one thing that we're dealing with here. i want to play a little tape from last night, the president heading out to ohio for this rally, ahead of the special election on tuesday. let's take a listen to what the president had to say. >> we have got to stop it. we've got to stop meddling. we've got to stop everybody from attacking us. but there are a lot. russia's there, china's there. hey. we're doing well with north korea, but they're probably there. we've got to stop everybody. >> joyce, your perspective on donald trump, the client. use that example there. as i said a few minutes ago, you have the national security advisers to the president coming out and saying, we're focused on russia. they're the ones who intervened in the last election back in 2016. they are trying to intervene in the mid terms, as well. and in elections subsequent to that. you hear president trump there saying what he said before. could be russia, could be other countries. how hard is it as an attorney to deal with somebody who is at this basic level an unreliable narrator? >> it is really difficult. and i actually feel really sorry for the lawyers trying to get control of their client here. you can envision them this morning as they saw this series of tweets coming out, wanting to physically put their hands over the president's hands and take the phone away from him so he had to stop tweeting. these are very damaging. and although trump is trying to realign his position in the court of public opinion and with his base and is perhaps being successful in that regard, this series of tweets and shifting excuses and stories will also be carefully tracked by prosecutors, and it may well come into play as evidence in a prosecution, because one thing that juries understand is that someone who lies about the reason for a meeting and changes their story over time is someone who has good reason to hide what was going on at that meeting. >> former u.s. attorney, joyce vance. stick with us. i'm going to bring you back later this hour. my thanks to the daily beast. i appreciate your time here on this sunday. after the break, we're going to turn to another tweet the president may regret. that being his attack on lebron james, which is sparking anger from all sides of the aisle in los angeles and cleveland. and is getting pushback from donald trump's own family. g news bundle and save big, but now it's time to find my dream abode. -right away, i could tell his priorities were a little unorthodox. -keep going. stop. a little bit down. stop. back up again. is this adequate sunlight for a komodo dragon? 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(vo) progress is in the pursuit. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during summer of audi sales event. did he say mike, i want to start with you. get your reaction to the president's tweet and the backlash that's followed. but it strikes me, when you look at it in contrast to the event last night, he didn't talk about it in ohio. it's another example of the president, with real bombast, saying something on twitter, saying something in a statement, but then not doubling down when he goes to a place where it would actually very acutely matter to people. >> yeah. and also not be popular. so i think perhaps we give president trump some credit for knowing how to rile up the passions, especially of his base. it's a tautology. his base is the people who love him. so, yes, the people who love him are going to love him. but we compare it to maybe the nfl anthem speech, which worked for him. no matter what you think of the issue, he would say, and i think there's a case to be made, that it worked for him. this was not like that tweet for a couple of reasons. i think this just was a spasm of anger. it was ill-considered in the moment. and the very fact that his wife, with unbidden -- unbidden, has pressed back and said i disagree with that, perhaps shows there's no political hay to be made out of this moment when he was mad, where he was insulted, where lebron james called him divisive and he seemed extremely determined to prove lebron james right. >> using the spasm metaphor here, there have been a series of spasms that might make one wonder if there is a condition more than anything else. the president singling out an individual. when you look at how he's done it and what he's said about another athlete and another person of color, there is a trend that's emerging here, pretty clearly. >> well, there's absolutely a trend. and i think that you're right. the individual, the athlete, the black athlete that he is dog whistling right now, that needs to be considered. you're talking about a very successful black man who has started a school to serve underserved youth in akron, and frankly, taking over the role that the government should be taking in this situation. and then calling him unintelligent. that is a very coded word. and i think the language that is used in this situation is very deliberate. >> calling don lemon, the interviewer, the dumbest man on television, as well, mike. and i just want to get a sense from you here about how he could have gotten from that interview what he did. she's bringing up the point he was on there to talk about this school he started, this public/private partnership for underprivileged children in his hometown of akron. he talked about sports as a unifier, from a very personal perspective. this is something that made him see race differently. how do you see this getting perverted the way that it did? >> i think it's through donald trump's lens, which is a very thin-skinned. and egotistical lens. all he heard were the parts that applied to him. i do have to say, because i've heard this idea, and it's not a bad idea, that it is racially -- specifically racially insensitive and a racial pattern of donald trump's. let's throw if there the fact that he has tagged members of congress, maxine waters -- >> low i.q. individual. >> but i went back. he very frequently criticizes the intelligence of all sorts of people. he's done it about chris matthews. he's done it about robert de niro. he called bill moyers a dummy. it seems to me the more likely explanation is that while he may be racist and in my opinion he is, that he has this free-floating vitriol that attacks people who attack him, and attaches itself to people who he doesn't like. maybe he doesn't like black people more than he likes white people. maybe that's what's going on. but i actually can't -- i actually don't see a definite pattern where he singles out african-americans for being unintelligent more than he does for many other people. just want to throw that out there. >> recently, though, in the context of congressman waters in particular, it seems like something -- >> that's true. some of those examples i mentioned, jon stewart another one. those go back before he was running for president. calling people dummies online. >> i want to ask about the response to this and there have been a host of athletes who have responded to what the president tweeted. as we mentioned, the first lady has responded as well. what do you make of that? what does it say to you about the sports community more broadly taking mike's parallel here, looking at the national anthem controversy. what's different you see here about the response to this? >> well, it's actually kind of hilarious, because donald trump said, i like mike" in his tweet to kind of fan the flames a little bit about the lebron james versus michael jordan debate. and then michael jordan came out and said that he stands with lebron, essentially. on the melania front, i think we're giving her a little bit too much credit, if you ask me, for going against the grain in the white house. and she also said, you know, i would be very willing to visit the school that lebron james is starting. on lebron james' front, i don't know if he would be willing to have melania over, especially after some of the things she's said on the other side, being for the birther movement and everything like that. the support from the athlete community i think is very telling. because, yes, while trump has questioned the intelligence of people of all walks of life, i think in this very specific case, he is speaking to his base who maybe has a little bit of resentment against athletes that they see as playing a game for millions of dollars, where now you have lebron james taking the millions of dollars that he's making and putting it to good use. >> mike, it's a peculiar thing. i don't associate this president with athleticism or athletics. the code she just referenced there, i like mike, it's this bizarre version of i like mike -- he has a strange relationship with sports. yes, he encountered a lot of golfers through the trump administration. what's your take on that, his engagement with athletes and sports more generally? >> i think he likes celebrity. and so as athletes have gained in celebrity, he's into that. i also think -- i know he has been a boxing promoter and he liked the fact that when he was promoting boxers, leon spinx, he's attracted to the strong man during his rallies. bobby knight would show up. and he owned a usfl team and destroyed that league. he tried to own the buffalo bills. if only that had happened maybe, you know, he would be causing roger goodell headaches instead of lebron james and everyone else. >> more headaches. mike pesca, thank you very much. certainly this conversation is going to continue. up next, decision imminent. we could be just days away from finding out if president trump will sit down for an interview with robert mueller's team. maybe a few more days away, in light of the tweet this morning. a look at what the terms of that interview could be. observe this total, unabashed freak, mark. not the kind of freak who wears a suit of armor to a renaissance fair. nay, noth mark! mark is a jimmy john's kickin' ranch freak. look at him, pureeing hot cherry peppers into fresh buttermilk with the fervor of a kid at the gates of an amusement park. yes, mark's a glorious kickin' ranch freak. and we totally love him for it. let the dippins beginins. freaky fresh. freaky fast. jimmy john's. freak yeah. you know how painful heartburn can be. for fast-acting, long-lasting relief, try doctor recommended gaviscon. it quickly neutralizes stomach acid and helps keep acid down for hours. relieve heartburn with fast- acting, long-lasting gaviscon. stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level. bravo, tall meeting man. start winning today. book now at lq.com we can'twhy?y here!. flat toilet paper! i'll never get clean! way ahead of you. charmin ultra strong. it cleans better. it's four times stronger and you can use less. enjoy the go with charmin. your mornings were made for better things than psoriatic arthritis. as you and your rheumatologist consider treatments, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once-daily pill for psoriatic arthritis. taken with methotrexate or similar medicines, it can reduce joint pain, swelling, and significantly improve physical function. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma, and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts, and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common, and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. xeljanz xr can reduce the symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. don't let another morning go by without talking to your rheumatologist about xeljanz xr. today, life-changing technology from abbott is helping hunt them down at their source. because the faster we can identify new viruses, the faster we can get to stopping them. the most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. life. to the fullest. welcome back. i'm david gura. president trump today offering his most definitive acknowledgment yet, admitting his son met with russians at trump tower for the purpose of getting dirt on venthen candida hillary clinton. the question now, will the president sit down for an interview with robert mueller and his team. his attorney today said that would be unlikely. joining me, chris magarian. the los angeles times. i'm going to highlight the most important part of this tweet. this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all of the time in politics. and it went nowhere. i did not know about it, the president wrote this morning. the conversation, as i understand it, chris, about this interview has centered on whether the president would be willing to talk about obstruction, on the one hand and also the collusion side, as well. how did the conversation change, as you see it? how is it likely to have changed as the president sits down with jay sekulow and rudy guiliani in light of what he tweeted this morning? >> so i think what you have is a variety of steps to figure out if you're going to have this interview or not. one is what form will the interview take. will robert mueller submit any questions in writing at all or demand to do all of it in person and orally. how long they have for the interview. when bill clinton was interviewed during the starr investigation, they limited it to four hours. so you have those kinds of staging questions. and then a question of what will the president answer questions about? and it seems like -- especially with the tweet today, it's going to be hard to avoid any kind of question involving the collusion issue when the president is basically saying they knew what they were doing when they went into that trump tower meeting. >> you have focused a lot on the subpoena, specter of a subpoena here, as all of this continues. and you've talked to a number of legal experts, i know, who have weighed in on this, told you with some surprise. it's curious to them that robert mueller hasn't pursued a subpoena yet. help me understand their thinking, why it seems so unorthodox to them, at least, that robert mueller hasn't done this, as this conversation about an interview continues. >> well, if robert mueller wanted to talk to the president, if he decides that that is a critical part of his investigation, it's important to use legal tools to get to that result. and a subpoena would take a while. you're going to almost definitely have a court battle. you could see a battle go all the way up to the supreme court. and there's been some reporting that if he's going to issue a report on obstruction, he wants to do that on the sooner side. and you can't, you know, expect to finish on any particular schedule. and the president has been digging his heels on the interview for quite a while now. he said last year he wanted to sit down with bob mueller, and he hasn't. and the question is, you know, is mueller going to take that next step available to him to force that issue? >> what is your sense of the power these two attorneys have over the president? you look at this tweet, how it came about, what it said. you look at what rudy guiliani has said over the course of the week about this interview, how much his story has changed. how we've been here before. we've had this conversation about a decision happening here in the next couple of days. what's your sense of the level of influence they have over their client? their ability to compel or convince the president to do something when it comes to this investigation? >> i would say it's dubious. i'll tell you a story recently from this week. the president tweeted that he wanted attorney general jeff sessions to shut down the russia investigation. when i talked to rudy guiliani after that, he said he called the president afterwards, just to make sure there wasn't an order for jeff sessions to do that. you know, this is the president's lawyer trying to get on the same page as his client in real-time. and, you know, those kinds of things are, you know, not how you would think that would operate. so in a situation, you know, like this, working out an interview, trying to figure out what the facts of the case are, you have multiple situations where people do not seem to be on the same page. >> i want to rip up the script here. what you've said is totally amazing in light of what happened after that tweet went out, addressing attorney general jeff sessions directly. you said that rudy guiliani called the president to make sure that was not an order. when you listen to what rudy guiliani said, after that tweet came out, the official narrative from the president's lawyers and from the white house, as well. it was, we should treat the president's tweets as opinion. what you're suggesting there is there is something inherently contradictory at play here. where that explanation was cooked up or ginned up in that conversation you're describing between rudy guiliani and the president. >> first off, the idea the president having an opinion, he has a first amendment right and can express his opinion. but presidents don't just have opinions off the top of their head. they have incredible power. and, you know, those opinions hold incredible weight. and, you know, guiliani's exact words to me, i called him and wanted to make sure we're on the same page. and, you know, he said it was just an opinion. but, you know, that kind of thing suggests, you know, that there was another page the president could have been on, apart from where his lawyer thought they were. >> another minute on this. it's so fascinating to me. there is a level of fluidity here when it comes to how the president's counsel is describing what's happening here, listening to your tale of what happened there, reading the "new york times" earlier this week, again reporting on that tweet. adding to the corpus of work that those reporters have produced here in bob mueller's interest in the president's tweets. after their piece came out, there were phone calls, there were e-mails that went out, further phone calls with rudy guiliani and jay sekulow. there is an acute interest in how this story is being presented to the public. and i just would love for you to speak to that a little bit, if you could here. the way that these lawyers are conscious of the fact that a huge part of this is how it plays for the public. how it plays out in the court of public opinion. >> that's absolutely true. and i think that really intersects very squarely with the question of does the president sit for an interview. the president promised to testify under oath last year. he has not done so. indications whe indications are he may not do so. the way to avoid political backlash from doing that is to decrease confidence in the fairness of the investigation. they want the voters, the public to not trust what bob mueller is doing. and that basically means that providing legal advice to the president in this situation goes hand-in-hand with managing public opinion about the investigation. so their goal is to drag down public faith in what's happening, to make people doubt whatever the investigators come up with, and, you know, that all has to be presented to the public in a certain way to make people believe that. >> chris magarian, thank you very much, i appreciate that. joining us this sunday. the political world is focused on ohio, ahead of its special election two days from now. but there is another race we are watching, also taking place on tuesday. our own picasso of political progress nasty occasions, beth fouhy will join us to talk about both races when we come back. hi! how was your day? 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what are you watching for as you this i about how this might extrapolate to the mid terms? >> so pretty much everybody agrees democrats are probably going to pick up seats in november. the question is whether it's going to be a modest gain or whether it's going to be a blue wave. we've heard people talk about whether that's going to happen. very unclear, and it's hard to read the tea leaves precisely. we do know from special elections so far this year and also those elections in virginia and new jersey in 2017 that democratic voters are very, very motivated to go out. so the question is, in a district like this, ohio's 12th district, which is very republican, as you said, it's been represented by a republican in congress since 1983. it certainly went heavily for trump in 2016, and it went for republican presidential candidates two times before that, as well. it is typically not a district that would be predictive of november. but the fact that it is competitive at this point, the fact that president trump had felt he had to go out there and sort of plant the flag for troy balderson, shows it's very much in play. >> let me ask you about the democrat here, danny o'connor, fond of calling himself a danny-crat. we have talked about the progressive movement from the democratic party from the left or this push to move that direction. >> right. >> what does he represent? that part of the democratic party stands to reason that the reason these polls are so close, he's able to draw republicans to the center. he's closer to that. >> right. he probably resembles more of conor lamb type of democrat, the democrat who won in the special election in pennsylvania. >> which must worry the president. >> exactly, correct. what danny o'connor is, he's definitely galvanized a whole lot of democrats in that district. the problem that he faces is it's still a republican district. and the voters that he needs are those college-educated, suburban, relatively affluent voters in the outside of columbus. those are primarily republican voters, but the type of voter who have soured on president trump since 2016. the rest of the district is very rural. it's those kind of economically challenged, white working-class folks that typically will stick with president trump and come out for the candidate that he supports in this special. so the question is, those sort of educated, affluent folks who might typically like republicans, maybe soured on trump. will they vote for danny o'connor? will they be motivated for a democratic candidate. that's why danny owe c'connor ho be careful in this race, not leaning too far to the left, but calling himself a danny-crat, saying he's going to focus on this race. >> they're putting a lot of money into this race. >> right. >> what does that tell you? their degree of investment in this, and also when you look at the republican party, governor john kasich endorsing provitroy balderson, on nbc this morning, hemming and hawing about that, in light of what the president said last night. how much ease is there with the republican party as a whole backing a candidate like troy balderson? >> on paper, he looks like a strong candidate. a member of the state senate. he fits the district very well, kind of a centrist. the fact, though, that the president has gotten involved, and as you know, kasich is pretty big critic of the president right now. he wants to keep some space from trump. so endorsing the same candidate means he has to kind of walk a fine line by saying, yes, i want the republican to continue holding the seat i had. but i don't really want to get too close to president trump here. >> back to progressivism, back to the progressive wing of the republican party. there is the ohio rivalry. a gubernatorial primary on tuesday. how much is that progressive politics playing here? >> big. what we've seen here is very, very interesting on the democratic side of the primary. it's a term-limited governor, rick snyder, stepping down. the democrats in that race have until very recently -- gretchen w witmer, very much expected to be the democratic nominee for governor. in the last couple of weeks, however, the progressives have been at play and really gotten behind abdul saad, a doctor, running hard left. bernie sanders, alexandria or cast o-cortez. and we're seeing the moment shift. gretchen witmer, very cautious, kind of centrist democrat. and her opponent is really firing up progressives. and as you recall, hillary clinton, who was a little bit modeled on the same sort of ph as gretchen witmer, lost the prima primary to bernie sanders, surprising everyone. so the momentum is on the left and we'll see what happens on tuesday, whether it's enough to catch up. >> beth, great to see you as always. beth fouhy, joining me in new york. next, star witness. a preview of rick gates' testimony at paul manafort's trial from coming week. what it could mean for the mueller investigation going forward, after the break. when my hot water heater failed it rocked our world. we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they took care of everything a to z. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that's a privilege. from around the world. nobody else even comes close. now starting at $7.99. gillette. the best a man can get. welcome back. i'm david gura. paul manafort and his ostrich jacket may be on trial this week. but it is rick gates, manafort's right-hand man, who is getting a lot of attention. rick gates served in a senior role for the trump campaign, and may or may not be called to testify against paul manafort during the trial. another twist, earlier this week, the president's attorney, rudy guiliani, suggested rick gates may have been in a meeting in which the infamous trump tower meeting with the russians was discussed before that meeting took place. gates has already pled guilty and is cooperating with special counsel bob mueller's team. i want to bring in eric tucker, covering the manafort trial for the associated press. and joyce vance, former u.s. attorney. eric, let me start with you. there is this open question whether or not rick gates is going to testify. the week in court ended on friday. how do you feel? what's the likelihood here that rick gates is going to be called to the stand? how much back and forth on this was there? >> so, david, the last we heard from the government is that they doi do intend to call rick gates at some point this coming week. we don't know the day, don't know the time. but safe to assume he will there. >> joyce vance, how important is it that rick gates testify in this trial? >> in terms of testimony that the government needs to convict manafort, really they don't need to have gates at this point. the documents and the testimony from accountants has clearly indicated that manafort was heavily involved in the information that went into filings and signed off on the filings themselves. so not essential from an evidentiary point of view. but the jury may need to hear from gates for a sense of completeness, and so that's the decision that the government will have to make. whether they need to put on gates, so that the jury doesn't walk away with a sense that there might be something missing. >> eric, what's your sense of how much this decision hangs on how rick gates has been presented to this jury? when you look at the defense's opening statement, a lot of it is centered on the reliability of rick gates. they presumed he would be the keystone witness here for the prosecution. how successful were they able to paint him in bad relief? >> well, so i think actually there were some government witnesses who did suggest that gates was present for pretty critical moments of the crimes that paul manafort is on trial for. so, for instance, there was an accountant who testified on friday. she said that she had effectively concealed $900,000 in foreign income as a sham loan, and she said that she altered that document after a conference call, not with manafort, but with gates. so that's pretty significant. so if you're a juror, you're probably trying to disassemble, who exactly did what and where, and where do manafort's crimes fit in, and where do gates' crimes fit in? >> joyce, i want your read on the argument the defense has been making. you can't trust rick gates, because he took a plea. he's working in concert with the prosecution, as eric just mentioned, one of the accountants testifying last week also got some immunity before she testified on the stand. you're a former u.s. attorney. how did you think about that going into a trial like this one? >> this comes up in virtually every trial, where the government is using cooperating witnesses. people who could have been charged as part of a conspiracy or with other crimes but who instead cooperate, provide the government with evidence and then go on to testify against their former partners in crime. so the government handles this in a couple of different ways. but one of the most important ones is to corroborate the testimony from these now cooperating witnesses with either documentary evidence or with testimony from other witnesses that tends to back them up. and juries have a great ability to sense the truth here. one of the issues that juries are charged with is determining when a witness is credible. and prosecutors will try to give the jurors sufficient corroboration for the testimony so they can make that decision here, determining that gates is telling the truth, because there is a lot of evidence that backs up what he will testify to the jury about. >> eric, about what transpired this week, you had a prosecution that would have shown the jurors the whole wardrobe if they could. i think they would have brought the jury to east hampton and shown them the pergola themselves, if they could do that. they weren't able to do that. there were restrictions placed by the judge. how effective were they, showing that paul manafort was living a lavish life for a long time? >> i think they spent the entire first day calling a series of vendors to the stand, who described in really intimate, intricate detail the lavish lifestyle that paul manafort enjoyed that frankly nobody in the courtroom could really fully appreciate, because it was truly above and beyond what, you know, all but, you know, 1% of the population might be able to relate to. and so i do think that was effectively communicated, that this is somebody who spent nearly $1 million in high-end suits. and not only was he shopping at a manhattan clothing store, he was in the top, top, top tier of customers of this super high-end clothing store. so i do think that the jury got the point. and part of why the judge was trying to hasten the prosecution along, i think he was saying, you did make your point, they get it, he was very rich move on. >> not using a credit card, but using that line, straight to cyprus. joyce, he said that the judge in this case, judge ts ellis, iii, is playing the role of both referee and wild card. i want your sense of how the judge has been performing here. we were talking about the back and forth that's been going on between the attorneys and the judge. i guess more broadly, joyce, i'm curious here about the degree to which a judge like ts ellis can shape the way a case like this unfolds. >> typically, judges just call the balls and strikes, making decisions on the law and what evidence the juries can hear. judge ellis has perhaps been a little bit more assertive in this process. trying to make some decisions to speed the trial along. but it looks to me like what he's really doing is trying to protect the record on appeal. and where there are potentially close calls that could be made or whether the government is going to put in additional quantities of evidence about manafort's lifestyle. the judge is cutting that off, knowing that when a court of appeals looks at this record down the road, they'll have less to object to. so i see this as the judge trying to protect what he sees as a likely conviction at the end of this trial. >> eric, last question to you. as i said, you've been covering it day in and day out, ahead of this trial a lot of people were saying, look, this is a document case. these tend to be boring. help us understand the circus, so much as there is one surrounding this trial. how much excitement is there in the room? what's it like when you're inside that courtroom? >> to my mind, one of the most fascinating dynamics of this trial is as far as this jury is concerned, it's as if the trump campaign and president trump and vladimir putin don't even exist. we haven't heard their names at all, and we're not going to. and the judge was very strict beforehand in terms of limiting any testimony to that fact. so you do have protesters who have been outside holding up signs. but really for the most part, once you get into the four corners of this courtroom, all of that is sort of shoved to the side. and it does become a document-heavy case. i think the broader implications of what's at stake are not lost on anyone. certainly not the journalist, not the citizens attending. and then when you have the president himself tweeting about paul manafort in the middle of the trial, it really lays that all bare. >> thanks to you. joyce vance, thanks for your perspective, as well. up next, more on the new tweet from donald trump in which he comes clean on why his son really met with the russians in that now infamous meeting in trump tower back in 2016. is donald trump jr. now in more severe legal jeopardy? 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