Hillarys lawyer. I wonder if they made him help the choice. T the president steered clear of this topic during his event at the white house today designed to highlight economic numbers. As trump wrapped up Kristen Welker asked him about Michael Cohen. Is Michael Cohen telling the truth . Is Michael Cohen telling the truth . Is Michael Cohen telling the truth . As we say its been ten times now the president has ignored reporters questions since the Cohen Audio First aired tuesday evening. Theres only been three White House Press briefings in the entire month of july. On the cohen front politico reports the president advisors have been taken aback by cohens no holds barred approach and his willingness to publicly reveal potentially devastating details of his private conversations
with the president. Asked to describe the mood among trumps close confidants, one person close to the president replied simply not good. Trump is enranged over the cohen revelations. Emily jane fox who is standing by sdwroto join us, her latest out just late today details the current mood in the cohen camp. Now the bond between trump and cohen appears to be irrevocably torn asunder. Maybe cohen will be the one to pull this whole thing apart. Hes the next john dean. Fox also reports one of the people she spoke to referred to cohen as having quote, a treasuretrove of information that he says he could unleash in
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. What he can offer to donald trump but some have argued hes sending a smoke signal looking for pardon. People who are close to cohen and familiar with his thinking have flat out denied that time and time again. They have said the way that you would get a pardon is not by angering the president and st sticking a thumb in his eye. If he were to get a prepardon he would be subpoenaed and would not be able to plead the fifth. Thats according to all of my reporting he has taken offer the table. On the other side you have President Trumps camp and there was a school of thought on friday when the reportings were first relaeased and rudy giuliai was the only person on the record describing the subject matter. He was able to control the narrative for a few days until la lanny davis put it out this
and russians that i believe his own family had been told had some connection to the russian government. Theres no question this would injure his narrative if people believe it. I think the problem is as emily points out theres a need for some additional corroboration. The figures krebltds are not familiar high and made a number of statements not to be accurate. The real question is not whether Michael Cohen has stories that could damage the president but whether he could lead other federal investigators to provable facts to oir sourther of information that could allow them to assemble a damaging case against the president. If its stories hes telling Michael Cohen, i dont think its going to be that damage. Now the jill winebanks. If theres a short version of this answer, if its answerable, if your view how has cohens
what does that make the client who hired the lawyer to lie for him . They both have credibility issues. If he can identify the other witnesses, it means theres a really credible case. If im viewing this as a trial lawyer, jurors really can make logical conclusions. The evidence at this point is getting very compelling that there was a clear willingness to accept help from the russians to win the election, to collude with them as the public is calling it or enter into a conspiracy with them, which is what the crime is. Its gone to the stage where really getting somewhere now and could have a very significant case. Emily, the counselor is right. Last night watching Rudy Giuliani on cnn, it was straight up Character Assassination. Calling a person who was up until recently, the personal trusted lawyer of the man who became president , a pathological
liar. If you believe the theory that the leaks have come from the trump camp, that would hold this is the worst, most damagie inin stuff to tell the feds. Your report is cohen is sitting on top of a treasuretrove. Is that a promise or a threat or did they not characterize that . I think its both. I think theres a combination of things thats happening now. Cohen had been preparing since early july for the onslaught that were now seeing. He ahead world from people in the president s orbit that this kind of Character Assassination was coming. He wanted to be ready to combat it. As hes said, he has a family to protect. He has a duty that he feels he wants to serve to his country and he wants to smack back, if hes smacked. He feels right now hes the most under siege from someone who he
was incredibly loyal to for more than a decade and he doesnt want to take it anymore. Like we saw last week, if Rudy Giuliani is going to come out and categorize a tape like this, perhaps leak it or control the narrative then hes going to release the tape in two days and try and correct the record. He said to people who are close to him, if they want to keep playing this game, ill play it and ill play it to win. That is what i think if Rudy Giuliani and the trump surrogates around him continue to, this Character Assassination we saw last night then well continue to see the kind of behavior we have seen from cohen in the last week. I have to you a question because youre still young and you have your whole question before you. Maggie talked about the culture of corrosive lying, surrounding the story on both sides. Does it get to you . Youre writing down some of the these quotes that become the news of the day. I think as all reporters are doing right now, youre just trying to get to the truth and that is the hardest thing to do right now because theres so many people who are not honest brokers in this whole set of characters. All we can do is try to get to the truth of the matter and trust who you think should be trusted. Its wearing but it is worst the wear and tear that it takes. All right josh. Next week begins the manafort trial unless were looking at another delay. What stood out to you, if anything, if anyone on the witness list . Well, its going to be a cavalcade of people. Youre going to see people that specialize in high end
landscaping and half Million Dollars that manafort spent on that. Its really going to be sort of a lifestyles of rich and famous episode with one after another of these individuals coming in and testifying not just that manafort spent Hundreds Of Thousands of dollars on their product but the method of payment was highly unusual. We had these exhibits come out publicly yesterday where people have written in in long hand these funds were transferred from some strangely named account in cypress to cover these bills. Whether they be for Home Improvement or a mercedesbenz for 30,000. Not the way people pay for these even if they are lucky to have the money to do so. These are Public Servants who are going to be putting themselves and their argument
forward at trial. Wefr one of the lawye every one of the lawyers in this case could improve their salary in the private sector especially with the pearl of any association to the Mueller Investigation on their resume. They will lay it all on the line. This is a ver very closely watched trial. First of the mueller effort. It is. Every one of them is deck indicate e dedicated to finding the truth. Its going to be a very exciting week. If i could go back to something that was said, i want to address why possibly trump would have leaked this. Its because one of the first things that a trial lawyer learns is that if you have bad news or bad facts, its better to get them out yourself first. Dont wait to have to take it on
cross examiexamination crossexamination. Its much for effective in front of a jury for you to put it out and in way this is happened, they did have a couple of days of their narrative sort of explaining way this very bad, for example, the tape. Then you hear the tape and you go, whoa. Its not like what Rudy Giuliani said. Thats completely off, but after two days of hearing it, his base will believe that what he said is true. They will pay no attention to what they actually heard on the tape. That is a reason why he might have gone ahead with it. The other thing is the value of cohen is not diminished by these leaks because he still has to be a witness in a trial. Its not enough even to have the tape. Someone had to explain the tape and someone has to say did the president say use cash or dont use cash. Hes the one that could do that because hes the other party to
this conversation. I dont think it hurts his value as a witness and he still will be valuable and if he wants to make a deal with mueller, i think mueller would find him very interesting. Our thanks to the members of our lead offer pan panel late o friday night. Coming up, more talk of another u. S. Russia summit. This white house says the president is open to a visit to moscow. Lord knows hes been there before. Later with midterms fast approaching, the Administration Says foreign interference in our election will not be tolerated. Well try to arrive at a definition of that when we come back on a friday night. We got married after college. And had twin boys. But then one night, a truck didnt stop. But thanks to our forester, neither did our story. And thats why well always drive a subaru. Thats confident. But its not kayak confident. Kayak searches Hundreds Of Travel and Airline Sites to find the best flight for me. So im more than confident. Hows your family . Kayak. Search one and done. You turned a family recipeher, into a Brewing Empire Before prohibition took it all away. I promised our family id find your lost recipe. By tracing our history on ancestry, i found the one person who still had it. Now, im brewing our legacy back to life. Im david thieme, and this is my ancestry story. Now with 100 million family trees, find your story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com. Made it clear his administration will not tolerate foreign sbr s interference from malicious actors. The headline says Trump Administration has no central strategy for Election Security and no ones in charge. Thats pretty direct. Even members of Trumps National security cabinet have acknowledged the need for a central unifying effort, one experts say is missing. The government has failed to take steps necessary to give the russians second thoughts about intervening in u. S. Politics. Author of the plot to destroy democracy. How putin and his spies are
undermining america and dismantling the west. These guys are a lot of fun. Trust me. Are we getting played before putin ever dealt with our invitation to come to washington, which was smartly delayed after mcconnell and the speaker of the house visited the president. The president s now been invited to moscow, of all the places on the planet. As ive talked about on this show, president putin owns President Trump. Hes pushed him both directions and set him up in these scenarios. Im not sure that President Trump minds. You could see this coming. I mean this play was going to be there and every time these overtures are made and pulled back, it puts russia in a very
strong position where they can make these challenges. They can push these things. When you say russia do you have those emails . I think it was two years ago. When you make that statement it puts you in a weak hand if you become the elected official. You have someone across the ocean who has been influencing the election and who is manipulating the system whether its information in Foreign Policy around the worlds in ways that are to the detriment of the United States. It makes President Trump looks like he has weak scenario. They probably wanted to delay it for the midterms. The reaction was not good here in the United States, republican or democrat to that helsinki summit. Now president putin puts it out there. Do you go to moscow right before the midterm elections. It probably Isnt Good Strategy for the president. It was two years ago today in response to a question from k i
katie tur who just anchored. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Malcolm, we were all around back then and in the media, i think its fair to say, it was kind of passed off. It was laughed off. How do you think history will end up judging that moment in the Trump Campaign in. Well, happy russia if youre listening day. I think it will resonate throughout history just like that. To be honest, just 24, almost 36 hours before on this network, we made the first warning that this was a russian attack on the United States and on the electorate. I know by that morning we were taking it pretty seriously on air. I dont think people understand the capacity of these foreign actors in this case, russia in creating not just a Social Media Storm where the media just took off after it but also creating the meta narrative around the entire election that Hillary Clintons email ws were bad an they just played on our own freedom of speech. Weaponized it and used it against us. Thats why we have a situation of the president of the United States may be be holden to a foreign power. Hows it going to go down with your colleagues and members of your lifes work that National Security advisor in the white house is now kind of trolling the public schoMueller Investigation by using the
phrase witch hunt . Theres never been a National Security advisor who is so blatantly and openly political in this way. John bolton just came out and used witch hunt right out there as if this was a legitimate way of doing governance in his position. Its dimly looked down upon, believe me. Theres a lot of people in the community and im sure throughout the political world who were astonished at this. Russia has to be delighted because now this means the narrative of the entirety of the Trump Administration from top to bottom, in every aspect of government from National Security all the way over to the guy who is cleaning over at the gsa, everything is now a witch hunt. That plays to our opponents. Clint, i have to read you a headline from New York Times. Russian hackers appear to shift
focus to u. S. Power grid. That gets your attention. His lead sentence is state sponsored Russian Hackers appear far more interested, thats what got my attention, far more interested in year in demonstrating they can disrupt the American Electric grid than the mid term elections and he goes onto say u. S. Intelligence officials and Technology Company executives. What do you make of that . They are trying to build options of whether its warfare or negotiation. A lot of times youll hear people say they didnt turn out the power. Theyre not doing an act of war. This is leverage you can have. What do we have to do . We have to check all of our electric systems to make sure there isnt a foreign adversary in those systems and we to safeguard against that. Thats a Negotiation Tool they can use in terms of dealing with us. Whats important to recognize is that hacking is going to continue but the targets will probably shift. In the 2018 midterms, sure, i imagine that the russians will do some sort of audio sustainment. They will repeat the familiartifamilianarratives that are prorussian. What they can gain is building additional capability. Going after things the power grid, water, other utilitiesi, looking into other sources of information or hitting our financial system. Those are things that are different capabilities. Have seen them use this sort of attac attacks. Ukraine is always the test bed. Thanks to two really smart
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