Hi there, im stephanie ruhle. Weve got a lot to cover here in d. C. , starting with ready to flip. Trumps personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen drops his own legal team. Is this guy getting ready to cooperate with mueller . Were very comfortable if he cooperates. Theres nothing he can cooperate about with regard to President Trump. And border in crisis. An inside look at where migrant kids are living after being ripped from their families, a former walmart almost at capacity. One of the first things an employee said to me is can you try to smile at these kids because its weird to see people from the outside. They feel like animals locked up in cages being looked at. Can you please smile at these kids. Thats what he was told. We begin with a potentially major legal shakeup in the works for president s trump longtime personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen. I have a great team here to break all of this down. First, lets get you caught up on the fast developments involving the socalled fictioner. A guy who was going to be a lifer, royal to trump. Nbc news has confirmed cohen is expected to part ways with his current attorneys and hire new counsel as federal investigators dig deep into his business dealings. The u. S. Attorney in manhattan is focusing on that 130,000 payment to adult film actress stormy daniels. When, you know when, just before the 2016 election. But team trump, they claim that they do not appear to be fazed by any of it. The president s other attorney, Rudy Giuliani, he had a bit of a reaction last night. Hes not cooperating. Nor do we care. Because the president did nothing wrong. Were very comfortable if he cooperates that theres nothing he can cooperate about. Michael cohen i think would tell you hes got nothing incriminating with the president and, really, they should stop going after him. Torturing the guy. The reality is theyre trying to frighten him. Sounds like its working. Youll remember in april, the fbi raided cohens law office and hotel room. At a recent court hearing, prosecutors say theyre still sorting through the material they collected from that raid. Cohen has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. Points out, quote, the legal fight could intensify should cohen cooperate with authorities, particularly if he plans to turn over information or documents that trumps lawyers deem privileged. Has told people close to him that a fight against the president could be crippling. So lets get more from nbc news Intelligence National security reporter ken dilanian. What does this even mean . Could dropping his attorneys signal what . Its buying more time for Michael Cohen . Why exactly would he be doing this . It doesnt necessarily signal, stephanie, hes cooperating. The reason its getting so much attention, it is true that many defendants when they decide to cooperate do change lawyers because they often are looking for lawyers with a history of cutting deals. Potentially lawyers with a relationship with the prosecutors. They would want lawyers who maybe worked in that office who have a Good Relationship to cut a deal with those folks. But look, i spoke to a friend of Michael Cohens yesterday who said its very premature to suggest hes decided to cooperate. That friend did, though, say he was considering it, and he said, look, nobody is going to do 20 years for somebody else. If he decides hes facing serious legal jeopardy, he is going to flip. This could be essentially a way for cohen to put pressure on donald trump. Because the Trump Campaign has been paying large sums of money to cohens lawyers and its been reported that part of this dispute with cohens existing lawyers is the dispute over legal fees. Cohen is facing enormous bills related to the analysis of this 3. 7 million documents that were seized from his home and office. And this could be cohen saying look, pay my fees or i may flip. Well just have to see, stephanie. Wow. Joining me now, stay with us, ken, Los Angeles TimesWhite House Reporter my friend eli stokele. Former assistance u. S. Attorney kim wale. And one of my faves, ned price. Kim what does it signal, splitting up with his attorneys . I dont think it signals anything in particular other than we have a shift here. Why would you do that . We saw it with rick gates. We saw it with flynn. There could be just a decision to shift strategies. I mean, this lawyer that they have, this law firm, went through 3. 7 million documents. Thats very expensive. They made a largely frivolous Attorney Client privilege claim. We have a thirdparty immediater who went through all these documents. So far, as far as i can tell, its under 200 documents actually identified as privileged. The rest of those are going over to prosecutors. And now hes got a new legal team and he has to do it over again . There could be potentially a new legal team to negotiate some kind of deal. But we dont know if theres been anything put on the table. It could just be a decision to listen, part ways, i want a different strategy. We heard from giuliani where theyre saying were not concerned at all. Do you buy that . I dont buy that. When people flip, usually theres a bigger fish above you. There are any number of subjects and targets about who you could see. You tell prosecutors within your wider orbit. The interesting thing about cohen is he had three clients, only three clients. Sean hannity claims not to be a client. Exactly. I think those documents will tell a different story. Well find out. Sean hannity, elliott and donald trump. I dont think these prosecutors are too interested in the dealings of sean hannity. I think what theyre really going for here is donald trump. That was really bad news for Rudy Giuliani. Its even worse news of course for donald trump. What are you hearing from inside the white house . Because maybe all this noise is a way for Michael Cohen to say, mr. President , help me, im suffering. Theres always been ambivalence with Michael Cohen about his loyalty to the president. A lot of people close to Michael Cohen are saying look he doesnt return your loyalty, youre going to go to prison for this guy . And hes saying, look, im out on a limb, help me or ill cooperate. The raid on cohens office was a really scary moment for him and it still unnerves its one the president claims was illegal, unfair. Michael cohen said they were respectful it all worked out. You heard giuliani amplifying that same public message. The u. S. Attorney saying the new york office that got a warrant to do this from a judge is very hard to do, to seize papers like that. That the Legal Process here is torturing Michael Cohen. Its a fascinating position for Rudy Giuliani to be in at this moment. And thats what he and the president and their defenders will say publicly. But deep down, they know that theres a lot of serious vulnerability in all of that paperwork now in the possession of this u. S. Attorneys office. Kim, Emily Jane Fox from vanity fair has extensively covered Michael Cohen. She spoke about what cohens Current Situation is like. Where his head is at. His general feeling right now besides his feeling of betrayal from the trump camp is that his life has been Collateral Damage in order to get to the president , so his business has been destroyed, his family has been destroyed. He is a pawn in this game. And so he is just waiting for a next phase. So his wife, his kids, they feel like hes a pawn. I guess no problem with having years of paying off porn stars. That wasnt embarrassing. But this, this it sounds like its possibly ruining their life. If youre talking about years in years in prison. To get these warrant, there has to be a lot of whats called probable cause. A lot of information that is going to go before a judge to justify this. And we have his Business Partner whos cooperating with respect to state charges. We have potential problems with respect to, you know, Campaign Finance violations. We have tax fraud, bank fraud. Theres a lot pending here. Some serious considerations about do i flip. Do i talk about my close relationship . He has to the trump team . Hes got the keys to the kingdom here. Assuming just lots of information, right . The two other factors is trump has now started his pardoning spree so theres a question looming. If he does flip, we will probably see an allout additional attack on the integrity of the justice department. And the mueller investigation, which is a bigger problem in my mind with respect to democratic process and the ining at the gret of integrity of the justice system. Theres lots of questions with respect to a pardon. Could he pardon, could trump pardon him for all possible what about state law . State law, he cant pardon him for. Its not even clear you can pardon him for anything. Whether arguably it would have to be, heres the charge, i pardon him from that charge. So the pardon isnt a panacea for mr. Trump. If he does flip and he has information, its really its really of concern i think for this president. Okay, then ned, before a plea agreement could happen, cohen and his attorneys would meet with the prosecutors. They call that the queen for a day session. What would that look like . Well, it could be a proper session. The interesting thing about Michael Cohen is there are circles of criminal activity or potential criminal activity i should say. So of course prosecutors are going to focus on the new york case. But we can assume, we have to assume, theyre also going to focus on things like trump tower moscow. Theyre going to focus on this plan for ukraine that he presented in early 2017. Michael cohen, as kim just said, holdings the keys to the kingdom of Donald Trumps personal life but theres a lot to suggest he has a lot more. He has a lot more that can incriminate this presidency. It seems like thats what donald trump is really worried about. To that point, eli, big picture, Michael Cohen has been happy to be labeled President Trumps fixer. As his fixer, how much of a risk does this pose for the president , someone whos been by his side . People in the white house have said whenever theres a sticky issue, bring Michael Cohen in. Hes done it for a long time. Proud to do it. Potentially, this is the biggest threat of everything hes facing in the legal realm. The point about Michael Cohen being proud to do it. I talked about the ambivalence he feels about whether or not to flip and what to do. It really is in his dna. Hes defined by his work for donald trump. This is who he is. So his muscle memory is whacking the people, physically speaking obviously, that are in trumps way. Youve heard him on the call with reporters. Ive been one of those reporters hes talked to. Trying to gut you like a fish. Something like that. When you step back and think about him being in this position to be one of those people who hurts donald trump, that is just sort of against everything that hes done from the last tenplus years of his career. Even if hes frustrated. Even if he feels trump hasnt been loyal to him. Hes still doing it publicly. Well see what happens when he has to make this choice. Theres another person who comes to mind who the approval of donald trump means everything and its donald trump jr. He was on fox news this morning. He was asked whether his father should sit down for an interview with bob mueller. Heres what he said. I dont trust these people as far as i could throw them. I wouldnt sit down with them. You could sit there and ask questions for 50 hours, ask the same thing a thousand times and its like, oh, the commas different here, weve got you. Its weird, the commas different here. It was donald trump who repeat lid changed his story about the trump tower. Meaning none of it having to do with a comma, an exclamation point or even a semicosemicolin. Whats your thought . These are federal prosecutors. Top leadership of which donald trump, the president himself, appointed. Look this is part of the trump strategy. To malign our public serviee se. You only malign Public Servants if you have criminal activity under your belt. We knew this was coming. Releasing this eternal report detailing allegations of misconduct by the fbi and justice department. Officials leading to the 2016 president ial election. What are you anticipating here . Well, i think this is oversight of the justice department. I think thats all well and good. I dont anticipate this having anything to do with the legitimacy of the mueller investigation. There might be some comments about how mr. Comey handled his public statements leading inin the election. I think rosensteins initial memo justifying the decision to fire comey was probably i would think consistent with some of those conclusions. They dont have the subpoena power. They dont have access to the same full amount of an investigation that a criminal investigation would. So its a snapshot. As ned mentioned, the attack on the justice department, the attack on criminal investigation process, that is a bigger threat. More broadly to the integrity of our democratic system. Thats something i think we all need to keep an eye on. All right, thank you all. Were going to leave it there. Were going to take a quick break. We got a lot more to cover. You are watching msnbc live. Look where we are, in our nations capital. Find the remote yet . Nah. Honey look, your old portable cd player. My high school rethainer. Oh dont. Its early 90s sitcom star dave coulier. Cut. It. Out [laughing] what year is it . As long as stuff gets lost in the couch, you can count on geico saving folks money. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. To give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you dont. Ill take that. [cheers] 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. New ensure max protein. In two great flavors. Weve got some breaking news at this moment. The pentagon preparing former guidance on suspending military options with south korea. For more, lets go right to nbcs hans nichols at the pentagon. What does this mean . The key word is suspending, not kabs lation. This is the pentagon getting in line with President Trump who announced that these military drills would stop. The key thing to look for in this announcement is how far does it go . Does it just have to do with military exercises on the korean pa numbers la or is it across the entire asianpacific region . Because so much of what the pentagon does is training. Yes, its a planning organization. Its a war fighting organization. As we see it in the middle east. Fundamentally, it is a training organization. And thats why President Trumps comments from singapore took so many aback here because what they do here is train. If you dont train, you dont have a ready force. That is the core of what they like to do here. How do you think allies like south korea are going to react to this . We heard from victor cha the morning after saying south korea was completely surprised by the president s statement. South korea has in the past suggested this and its not entirely out of line you would do what you call a freeze for freeze, which is to say the u. S. And south korea freezes their military operations in response from something from the north koreans. The august exercises that are scheduled is something called ochi freedoms guardian. Thats basically a tabletop exercise. A fancy way of saying comb putser simulation. The bigger ones are the ones that happen in the spring. Thats when they do amphibious assaults, all kinds of training. Calling that off, thats at thing well look for, whether or not this is an indefinite suspension, calling that off is bigger. If you have a few cycles without training, what officials here will say theres no point in actually having an alliance. To maintain it isthe alliance, have to have interoperainterope. These exercises cost 1 billion. So on a daily basis, theyre spending 2 billion. Its amazing that the president is saying its all about finances here. The math doesnt add up. Secretary of state mike pompeo, hes meeting with chinese president xi jinping. Tell us about that because xi jinping must be thrilled about this. It was the chinese that floated this idea of last summer. Right. It was the idea if you have the u. S. Military and south korea stop doing these military exercises, you might have the space for negotiations. In a way because of the olympics, thats what happened. The pentagon, when they suspended those exercises in april and march, they didnt use the word suspend. They said delay. They said theyre simply doing it to deconflict because they didnt want to have too many forces on the ground doing this when you have the plix going on. That crew its yaed the space for these talks to really take off. In some ways, it was the chinese suggestion of a freeze for freeze which ultimately became part of the bargaining position. And President Trump, as he said, he said this up front, hes going to go ahead and call off what he calls war games, which they insist here are military exercises. They insist here. When you say they, you mean the pentagon . I mean pentagon officials, military officials do not like the term war games. That is across the board. Because they say these are defensive in nature. War games means youre planning for some sort of, as they say here, kinetic action. At the same time, lets not get too caught up in euphemisms. A bunch of battalions moving, its meant to be a signal. And its the same thing when they bomb ranges in south korea. Theyre leading the north koreans know this could be use. The term of art they use here though is military planning and military exercises, not war games, stef. General mattis has his work cut out for him. Hans, thank you so much. Coming up, were getting our first look behind the closed doors of americas largest detention facility for Migrant Children. Separated from their parents when th