Details on todays proceedings, were going to bring you there. Now we have got to get to the other big story, the fallout. Rudy giuliani says he and President Trump, theyre in lock step, even as giuliani drops tons of new information about the president s legal troubles. In the process, he seems to have carved out a new legal strategy and a new communication strategy all in just 36 hours. I have a great team here to break it down. First, i want to fill you in on a conversation mr. Giuliani had with nbc news because it touches on some of the key issues bob mueller has been investigating. One of the top questions is why giuliani revealed that the president reimbursed cohen for the payment to Stormy Daniels. Say, quote, i want to get out in front of the district counsel because at some point theyll realize the information and leak it. At some point, david realized the white house had lied. He insists the president himself didnt know about the payment until a week ago, quote, i dont think the president realized he paid cohen for that specific thing until we, his legal team, made him aware of the paperwork. I dont know, paperwork. Talking about paying off a porn star you had an affair with. When trump was informed, giuliani said, the president responded, quote, oh, my goodness, i guess thats what that was for. Oh, my goodness, wow, i havent heard him say that or mercy me or golly. He also reiterated that trump paid cohen more than that amount that went to daniels, over 400 grand in total. Although mr. Giuliani didnt offer tdetails. A key question is whether the payment was designed to help the president win the election. Giuliani seemed to suggest that was in his fox news interview. Imagine if that came out, in the middle of, you know, the last debate with hillary clinton. So to make it go away cohen didnt even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job. To make it go away. Were not talking about a mob movie. Were talking about the president of the United States. But giuliani, heres the thing, you told nbc the money was actually meant to, quote, help alleviate a personal problem. He said even if there was no campaign, cohen would have made the same payment in the same amount to present personal embarrassment and heartache for his wife. And this legal strategy is only part of the story. The other is the communication strategy being shaped by giuliani and the president , press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders admitted yesterday she didnt even know about the president s reimbursement to cohen until last night. Even though that contradicted what she specifically said back in march. Yes, ive had conversations with the president about this. As i outlined earlier, that this case had already been won in arbitration, and there was no knowledge of any payments from the president and hes denied all these allegations. Were you lying to us at the time or were you in the dark . The president has denied and continued to deny the underlying claim. I gave you the best information i had and im going to continue to do my best every single day. The president doesnt go to the podium every day, sarah does. Either she lied in march or she lied yesterday. One of those two days, she was lying. When asked about catching the white house off guard, giuliani did apologize, but he says the president , he was kept in the loop, quote, youre not going to see daylight between president and me. Were going to work hard to have a consistent strategy. Jack quinn, he served as white House Counsel to president clint clinton. Elise jordan, a former aide to george w. Bush. And Midwin Charles, an attorney with the law firm Midwin Charles and associates. Were talking about potential Campaign Finance violations. But theyre kind of small potatoes. Is that enough to go through the massive raid that went down in Michael Cohens office, his apartment, his hotel . I mean, this is the president of the United States personal attorney. With the Southern District of new york, go through such an extravaganza of embarrassment just for Campaign Finance violations . No, and i dont think the raid was premised on bolstering any Campaign Finance charge against cohen or anybody else. I think the Southern District of new york is clearly investigating serious crimes, Campaign Finance violatioviolat the way, can be serious crimes, in connection, by the way, the one were talking about, i think what Rudy Giuliani did yesterday was not only create a big mess, but he put his foot into the pot that suggests the Campaign Violation in question here may have been willful and therefore a felony. But in any case, i dont think i do think the role of the raid here was giuliani probably knew that details about this payment were likely to come out as a result of the raid and contradict the president s and other peoples earlier statements, so he wanted to get out in public the fact that cohen, for example, had been reimbursed. So he wanted to put it out there that, hey, they lied about this, they misrepresented it, so the sting couldnt come from the Southern District of new york or bob mueller. I want to share what Ronnie Deutsch said on morning joe because Rudy Giuliani has been saying about town this week, im here to help the president , but he also said i want to help Michael Cohen. Danny deutsch spoke to Michael Cohen yesterday. I want to share what he said. I spoke with Michael Cohen said and his quote about giuliani was he doesnt know what hes talking about. He said look, there are two people who dont know what happened, myself and the president , and youll be hearing my side of the story. He was frustrated at what had come out yesterday. What do you make of that . Who does he think hes helping . Thats a very interesting definition of help. Your job is not to make things more difficult for that person. Your job is to alleviate the problems. Your job is to sort of get people away from looking into the particular issue. And he hasnt done that. In fact, he has made it worse. He has sort of exposed donald trump as well as this administration. Sarah has stood at that podium and denied the fact this payment was ever made. What he has done by saying this is expose the fact that she is lying and the president was lying. When he said he knew nothing about the payment. Hes hanging Sarah Sanders out to dry, saying i am in lock step with the president. Sarah is out there every day and now has been exposed as a liar without the president coming to her aide or giuliani coming to her aid. Thats everyone who works in this administration. And choose to do it on a daily basis. No one is forcing them to do those jobs. Were hearing all this from giuliani. He says he couldnt be yet nothing from john mcgahn, nothing from emmitt flood, nothing from sekulow. Is it that rudys the new face guy and those guys are doing the work . I think this was, you know, concocted by the president and Rudy Giuliani sitting together and making a decision to go out and let him make this statement. I think it was a disaster. I mean this whole idea, stephanie, that they were that this payment was made in order to deal with personal problems, family problems, because if it got melania and others would be upset. Think about this. The alleged affair took place ten years before the 2016 election. And yet six weeks before the election, they make a decision that theyve got to make this payment in order that it not be revealed. Is it conceivable that for ten years they were unconcerned about this getting out because of the effect it might have on his wife hold on, for ten years Stormy Daniels might not have gotten anyone to care. There werent Many OrganizationsStormy Daniels did try to tell her story a while ago and it didnt matter. Right. If donald trump had not run for president , do we think this payment would have been made . I sure dont. I would agree with that. If the president s actions and Michael Cohens actions were legal, why wouldnt cohen lead with that . Thats the one thing i dont get here. Keeps spinning it. Just say im absolutely innocent. Those seem to be words that perhaps they shy away from. Because they know thats one untruth. Theyre just not going to tell. The only thing we know for sure about this entire controversy is the president and his surrogates have consistently lied. They have been all over the place when addressing the scandal. Now, i still find it hard to fathom that donald trump would actually repay any money he owed to anyone. If he could get away with not paying. Especially a sum that was larger. You never hear of people talking about working at the Trump Organization because their salaries were so great. You never hear people talking about how donald trump is rushing to pay them. This is part of the reason he has trouble getting a great lawyer for his team. Hes known to run away from all his legal fees. Notorious over decades in new york city. I still find this story to be incredibly difficult to believe. Eddie, back to this idea that Rudy Giuliani says hes in lock step with the president. They may be, but Sarah Sanders humiliated herself yesterday. We know Kellyanne Conway has said before she knew nothing about the payment while she was on the campaign. What is this doing to everyone there . Well, as you said, its leaving them out to dry, hanging them out to dry. We know donald trump is loyal only to donald trump. Even though he demands loyalty from those who are around him. Look, yesterday Rudy Giuliani turned the temperature up. Among the things he said, he said, in effect, that they paid the retainer to Michael Cohen because in effect Stormy Daniels and her then lawyer were engaged in an extortion. He actually used that word, that they were extorting him. Right. So i know for a fact that Michael Avenatti is already preparing that second defamation lawsuit is coming. Yes, but trumps been knee deep in defamation suits and all that for years. Right. Is there any credibility to the idea that Rudy Giuliani putting this stuff out there and taking the sting out of what the findings of the Southern District might have . Absolutely not. To my mind, i dont think hes settled that issue at all. In fact, he turned up the heat. Its boiling right now. So part of the the thing we have to deal with are its the moral consequence and the political consequence and of course the legal consequence. Legal is the big one though. If its the political consequence, however people feel about President Trump is locked in and its not changing. If its the moral consequence, people voted for President Trump knowing he was morally reprehensible and they were okay with it. Its only the third leg that actually matters. So yes, stephanie. But the first two suggested that we are in deep, deep trouble. Exactly. My friend, we are in deep trouble. We dont need the suggestion. Jack, nbc has been reporting that the feds may have been monitoring cohens calls. How unusual is that . And how unusual would it be if this is just about Campaign Finance . Would be highly, highly unusual if it were simply about Campaign Finance. They employ whats called a pen register, which is a device that will record the numbers of calls being made going out. Those devices these days can typically also record the numbers of calls coming in. So in other words, theyre not monitoring the actual conversation, but they are keeping track of whos calling in and whos calling and to what numbers the target is calling out. Midwin, whats your take on all this . Well, my take on this, if this reporting is accurate, that that was probably what formed the basis for the fbi to get this sort of no knock ability to go into cohens offices and raid them. They probably were able to provide that information that they got from this monitoring to a judge in effect to convince the judge, look, based upon what we observed, Michael Cohen may destroy evidence, and as a result, we cannot give him sort of advance warning, you know, regular subpoena that were coming in to get the documents. Because we believe, even though hes an attorney, even though most of the documents may be protected by Attorney Client privilege, but the belief that he may destroy these documents is so high, based on what we heard, what weve observed, we need this no subpoena. We need to get these documents. How do republicans read all this . We know trumps base isnt going anywhere. But i mean the republicans that you know and love and have worked with for years. The base, Trump Supporters who arent going anywhere as a witch hunt. Republicans for gop leadership. Mitch mcconnells hes stayed away. Leadership has known for a while that its not getting better. Thats an oxymoron. You look at how Mitch Mcconnell has been handling the Senate Intel Committees investigation and the seriousness with which he has allowed them to approach it. He has stayed out. Hes kept his language muted. I think the leadership by no question, they know we ought to stop calling it leadership. This is not leadership by any stretch of the imagination. It just isnt. Let me just remind us of something. Remember at the end of the election, 2016 election, we were worried donald trump was setting it up, setting up the public to delegitimize the election of hillary clinton. In fact, setting it up so not just simply for trump tv but in order to stoke resentment youre right, we were ready for him to not being accept the outcome. Not only muddying the legal waters by getting us to Pay Attention to seven, eight different things, right, hes also delegitimizing this. Part of what hes going to say, right, if they indicted this is a witch hunt. The stormtroopers, quote unquote, are moving in. He is setting this up in a way thats going to be very, very dangerous for this country. The storm and stormy. There are all of these gop primaries from literally next week through august, september. You have these primary battles where lets hope the gop candidate doesnt want crazy candidate to win. But who comes out and votes . The hardcore supporters who think this is all a witch hunt. So they are politically under pressure to not say anything and to just keep to this fine balancing act of keeping trump at bay. All right, we have to remember, people out there in the country, many are interested in this, many are just trying to get by as we have more and more states with teachers walking out and picketing. Weve got the nra conference happening today. Lets not forget the economy, jobs number out today, and still wages are lagging. All those Companies Got their very big tax cuts. Show me where the raises are. I dont not see them. Up next, the gun debate. Its taken center stage today. The president is going to be speaking at that Nra Convention after initially calling for gun control after the parkland shooting. The question is what tone will the president take. Remember, the nra supported him in a very big way. First, yesterday, a judge ruled that a building here in new york city has the right to remove the trumps name from its facade. Seth meyers knows, well, he has an idea what they should replace it with. A New York State Supreme Court judge ruled today a trump branded building in the city has the right to remove the president s name and replace it with something less embarrassing. gasp singsong budget meeting sweet. If you compare last quarter to this quarter. Various mmm. Its no wonder everything seems a little better with the creamy taste of philly, made with fresh milk and real cream. You might or joints. Hing for your heart. With the creamy taste of philly, but do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brainhealth supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. Was a success for lastchoicehotels. Comign badda book. Badda boom. This year, were taking it up a notch. So in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, wow, maybe ill glow too if i book direct at choicehotels. Com. Who glows . Just say, badda book. Badda boom. Nobody glows. He gets it. Always the lowest price, guaranteed. Book now at choicehotels. Com mr. Elliot, whats your wiwifi . Ssword . Wifis ordinary. Basic. Do i look basic . Nope which is why i have xfinity xfi. Its super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey lets basement. And thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. So sophie, i have an xfi password, and its daditude. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Welcome back. Im Stephanie Ruhle. President trump is set to take the stage at the Nra Convention for the fourth Straight Year in a row. Then candidate trump received roughly 30 million towards his campaign. Trump temporarily backed away from th