Enough is enough. We cannot keep America Great if we cannot keep america safe. But will the momentum from saturdays march make its way to capitol hill . For the first time in decades, i am optimistic that we can get something done. Weve also got breaking news. The United States just announcing minutes ago its expelling 60 Russian Diplomats and this includes several members of the Russian Embassy and the United Nations in new york. Well have much more on this coming up. But we begin today with the much anticipated interview with Stormy Daniels. The porn star filling in the blanks on her alleged onenight stand with the president. But she failed to produce any new evidence to back up her story. Were going to dig in to what she did have to say with my panel in just a minute. Back to the Stormy Daniels interview. If you look past the salacious nature of these claims, the tabloid part of it, the critical question is whether there are any legal implications for the president , if there are, they may stem from the alleged incident in which daniels details for the First Time Ever how she was warned to keep her allegations to herself. I was in a parking lot going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. I was taking, you know, seats facing backwards in the back seat, diaper back, getting all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me leave trump alone, forget the story. Then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, a beautiful little girl, it would be a shame if something happened to her mom and then he was gone. You took it as a direct threat . Absolutely. I was rattled. I remember going into the workout class and my hand was shaking so much i was afraid i was going to drop her. Did you ever see the person again . No. If i did, i would know it right away. Did you go to the police . No. Why . Because i was scared. Daniels attorney said this morning hes still not sure who that person is, but that theyre working on trying to identify him. He is pretty clear, however, hes confident he knows who sent the thug to threaten her. Were in the process of identifying who that was. She remembers it like it was yesterday. Because like any mother in that situation, it was terrifying. It had to be someone that was related or sent by mr. Trump or mr. Cohen. Cohens attorney is denying it was cohen, say, quote, mr. Cohen had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident and does not believe any such person exists or that such an incident ever occurred. As far as the alleged affair is concerned, mr. Trumps lawyer has denied it. His wife press secretary has denied it repeatedly. But daniels described the encounter in detail last night. You were 27, he was 60. Were you physically attracted to him . No. Not at all . No. Did you want to have sex with him . No. But i didnt say no. Im not a victim. Im not a it was entirely consensual . Oh, yes, yes. Now, thats despite the fact that daniels herself denied the affair back in january in a Statement Released by mr. Trumps lawyer. Saying that it, quote, never happened. Well, last night, she said that was a decision she was forced to make. So you signed and released a statement that said im not denying this affair because i was paid in hush money, im denying it because it never happened . Thats a lie . Yes. If it was untruthful, why did you sign it . Because they made it sound like i had no choice. No one was putting a gun to your head . Not physical violence, no. You thought there would be legal repercussion . The exact sentence used was they can make your life hell in many different ways. They being . Im not exactly sure who they were. I believe it to be Michael Cohen. Weve got a great panel to break all this down. Midwin charles is an attorney for the law firm Midwin Charles and associates. Grace law is a political reporter for new york 1. Christine quinn, vice care of the new york state democratic party. Matt welch, editor at large for reason, a libertarian monthly magazine. The legal part of this, midwin, because you have the lawyer saying hes not going to introduce any new evidence right now. Thats his right as a lawyer. Hes also been going out and giving all these interviews. He was pressed pretty hard on, you know, sort of wheres the meat to use an old phrase. Is this like any other case and hes entitled to his own legal strategy . Or given that this is taking up an enormous time and attention at the white house of the country if hes got something . Should he put it out there . What i think were all witnessing is the degradation of the office of the president. Weve heard that before. Right. The fact we are discussing this is just outrageous. We have to keep saying that so it doesnt become our norm. But in terms of what hes doing, i think he is basically playing trumps game. Plum from the very beginning has been pretty savvy with the media and savvy of leaking out various different points of data at different points throughout the entire time. The fact that he is deciding to allow specific information out at different times i think is the strategy. What specific information at different times though . I think its just the strategy. I mean what does he really have . He admits, he comes on today and says i dont really have anything to say that it was Michael Cohen. No, but let me and yet hes putting that implication out there. An important point, and what you said earlier is this fair to the American People, or something of that nature. Well, im saying its taking a lot of time and attention. His client is Stormy Daniels. Donald trump is the president who has an obligation to the country, to the taxpayers. He, mr. Avenoti, has an obligation to one person, Stormy Daniels. He will put out any information he has, if he has it, at the moment that best serves her. The person who has abandon eed e American People in this, by not making clear his position what happened, just telling the truth, and that hurts the American People and distracts the government, is donald trump. A lot of people have been surprised by the fact, grace, that we have not heard from him. I mean, there was a tweet this morning. I dont know if it was about the economy, talked about fake news, maybe it was about what people are all talking about this morning and last night. But we have not seen him go after her in particular the way he has in the past. Right, and thats what makes this case so unusual. I think for people who may be on the fence and saying, you know, how much should we believe about Stormy Daniels story, they see the president staying quiet, and that could be a sign, some are interpreting that as a sign, that she may have the goods on him and he may be being quiet for a reason, perhaps because she did have emails, dvds, videos otherwise that could implicate him in some way. Its also possible, of course, that on the home front, hes trying to keep things calm with the first lady. She was in florida while he came back to washington, d. C. When that 60 minutes interview aired last night. So it is possible that this has less to do with trying to contain the Stormy Daniels story and more just trying to maintain peace on the home front. But it is certainly a stark departure for the president to not have gone after her directly to hold his fire. That tweet this morning calling, just saying theres a lot of fake news out there in general seems to be a response to the 60 minutes debate but not calling it out yes, exactly. Matt what do you think is going on here with the president . First of all, hes keeping quiet. Second of all, it is highly unusual. Why not come out, to christines point, he wants to put an end to this, he has other things like the economy he wants to talk about, maybe the stock markets going to do a little better today. Why not say, look, if youve got proof, put it out there, because it didnt happen. Whats the percentage in it for him . I mean, the reason why this story didnt actually have legs at the beginning of the kind of cycle when we first heard about Stormy Daniels is because its a classic dog bites man story. Were not surprised that the president , donald trump, has had relationships with women and paid people to silent him. None of this is actually a surprise, given what we know about his character in new york since 1990, okay. So its not like a john edwards situation. A lot of people are trying to make this comparison. John edwards, that played against type. He was this sanctimonious character. He kind of treated his wife, who was riddled with cancer, very badly in the situation. To say the least. It did not play against type. So theres no percentage in him talking about it. The only thing he would say would be to lie about it. Its not helpful really to lie, assuming that this affair happened which i do assume there are two things. We should look at the two things that are legally important here. Right. Number one, if somebody threatened her and i dont think theres anybody who if what she said is true if somebody comes to you and says youve got a pretty daughter there and by the way you know you dont want anything to happen to her, what are the legal implications of that, if they can figure out who this person is . Well, thats a crime. It is a crime to harass someone and to threaten physical bodily harm. So thats the first point of it. Absolutely. The second point is can they tie it back to someone who is involved in the president . One of the things she made clear in her interview yesterday and that michael made clear this morning is they dont know who that person is. Theres a time before he teased it as though he did possibly know. I think theyre in the process of trying to decide. But this happened about ten years ago to my understanding. 2011. 11 theyre not going to have evidence of it. I dont know whos going to have video of that parking lot where she was or anything like that. The other legal question, significant one, the one that relates in ways to john edwards which is the Campaign Finance violations. This is how new York Magazine described the situation he finds himself in. Quote, cohen claims he made the money out of his own pocket, which would make cohen the perpetrator. But avenatti has documents showing that the payments were sent to cohen at his trump tower location and communicated through his official Trump Organization email. That strongly indicates and perhaps even proves cohen was making the payment on trumps behalf. I think this is where he is in legal trouble and the parallel to john edwards is a fair one and one that we should all be looking at. Because even if Michael Cohen made that payment independently that doesnt absolve donald trump or the campaign of having accepted in a Legal Campaign contribution. And the timing there is so key. Where there were charges against him. Those payments happened about a yearplus before the election. And in this case with donald trump, these payments weeks. This payment happened days even before the election. This isnt that, well, who is peripheral to donald trump. Somebody whos a campaign contributor. So that does make a difference. For sure it does. It also opens up the question of how if hes doing this, weeks before the election, how many other people has he been doing this over time . Is there a pattern of behavior thats similar . We also have him on record threatening people, making all kinds of statements on behalf of donald trump. If you publish this, im going to come after you. Hes used expliktives. I dont understand how he still has a license to practice law. If he does. Because he is violating all kinds of professional rules of responsibilities and ethics in the manner in which he has conducted himself on behalf of a client. And stormys point last night in the interview when she was interviewing the chilling threat she says was made to her in the parking lot in las vegas, you know, that is out of the trump playbook, right . Even threats that have not just been from Michael Cohen but from other people who have done business with the president who say that when they tried to get money back on behalf of clients, they received threatening phone calls. The police were brought in. So this is something that does ring true when it comes to how trump when youre looking at that, that particular legal part of it, or youre looking at the story in general, is it sort of part of the playbook . Oh, sure. Is it part of the m. O. . I think there was one other thing well, there were several other things. When you look at Karen Mcdougal, someone else who says she had a longtime affair, she says, with the president , there are a lot of parts of their stories that are similar and i just want to play one part of that. Hes like, wow, you, you are special you remind me of my daughter, you know, hes like youre smart, beautiful and a woman to be reckoned with and i like you, i like you. You didnt see the looks on the faces of my panel but they no, you all went you all cringed. It makes your skin crawl. But beyond that skin crawling part of it, it is very similar to the story that Karen Mcdougal told. And thats one of the big problems the president has here. Everything were seeing follows his history. Whether it was in real estate or with women. And other statements hes made about his daughter that are horrifying. There is no wiggle room for him to say this doesnt seem, sound or look like me. It absolutely does. And he owes the American People a direct answer to this. Its the only allegation against him that he hasnt steadfastly denied. And remember, he put all the blame on al franken and said he should be out of the senate because he didnt deny it. By not denying it, he was admitting that it happened. If thats what we have to take our own words and apply that to him, hes admitting this happened by not denying it. We could talk about this throughout the hour. We have this breaking news i want to get to. We mentioned it at the top of the show. The u. S. Just announcing its going to expel 60 Russian Diplomats. I want to go live to the white house. Nbcs jeff bennett is there. What details can you bring to us . The expelling of the 60 diplomats includes 48 diplomats here in russia, here in d. C. Who are assigned to the Russian Embassy, and another 12 who were assigned to the u. N. In new york. A Senior Administration official tells us these believed russian agents have seven days to leave the u. S. They tell us, chris, the u. S. Believes these diplomats are using their diplomatic status as a cover. Were also told the u. S. Is going to close the russian consulate in seattle. This is all described as being a show of solidarity following the poisoning of a russian agent on british soil. Remember a few weeks ago Sarah Sanders said the u. S. Stands on the side of the uk. This is an effort to match those statements with some action, chris. Jeff bennett, thank you. Matt, let me get your reaction to that. Theres been so much back and forth with this president who seems to often be doing things like calling president putin and saying congratulations on stealing an election yet again. And then you have action that has been taken whether its in the form of sanctions or youre expelling people. What do you make of it . This is a much more dramatic move than i would have expected for sure. Not just with trump. I mean, this compares to what barack obama did after the election in december of 2016. Which then generated a lot of the stories that came afterward because then the Trump Transition Team had back Channel Communications to the russians and all this. This is a pretty dramatic move. It suggests some people in the white house are very serious about this. Not even talking about something that happened on u. S. Soil. This is a british case. Its a very strong statement of support. Critics of the president will say yes, maybe its a strong statement, its also a distraction. The president wants to change the subject. Well, i mean, its hard not to argue that, right, because youve also seen that pattern with the president. You have to agree it is dramatic, what has happened here. You cant say that its not. Its just so confounding though. That we really didnt hear the president speak out about the poisoning at all. And he spoke to putin and gave him a big high five over the telephone at the time relevant to that and has said nothing and then this happened. I have to say cynically i think this relates to the Mueller Investigation. And that hes going to put out tough russian policies to try to make the point that he doesnt like the russians and therefore couldnt have colluded with them, although all the evidence indicates that he did. You think thats whats going on here, matt . I hesitate to Start Connecting dots im not personally aware of. At some point, you make a policy because youre making a policy. And trying to, you know, crimin criminalanalogize trying to invent on the fly, theres not a lot of percentage in that. The closing down of the consulate in seattle is very peculiar. I think well find out more interesting facts about that coming forward. All right, you guys are staying with us. Up next, two lawyers expected to join President Trumps legal team now say they cant do it. Is the president running out of people to defend him in the Mueller Investigation . And later, whats next after hundreds of thousands of people march for their lives . Since this movement began, people have asked me, do you think any change is going to come from this . Look around. We are the change. Rs ad campain was a success for choicehotels. Com badda book. Badda boom. This year, were taking it up a notch. 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