The 11th moThe 11th Hour gets on a monday night. Good evening from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 557 of the Trump Administration, 99 days now until the mid term elections. And this might go down as the day we witnessed a change resulting in the new defense strategy. On the part of the trump team. Its about something Rudolph Giuliani has started to say, and tonight, mark at the New York Times has put it this way. In the days after the 2016 president ial election, Donald Trumps advisers had an unequivocal message about contacts between russians and members of the campaign team. There were none. In the ensuing months as numerous such communications were revealed the message changed. There was no collusion with russias effort to disrupt the election. On monday President Trumps
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Which was four of the six. That meeting never ever took place. It didnt happen. Its a figment of his imagination or hes lying. Giulianis last comment there referring to cohen, quote, lying, is part of his evolution on the president s former personal attorney. Just a few months ago, giuliani called cohen an honest, honorable lawyer. By last week, however, he had switched to calling cohen a pathological liar, a man whos been lying for years. Finally, the president went directly at Robert Mueller over the weekend, as you may have seen. There is no collusion. The Robert Mueller rigged witch hunt is an illegal scam and is Robert Mueller ever going to are release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty and contentious business relationship. I turned him down to head the fbi one day before his appointment as Special Counsel and comey is his close friend. Well, lets, at this point, bring in our leadoff panel for a
monday night show. Jonathan, White House Reporter for the associated press. Ellie is here, former assistant u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york and former Assistant Attorney General in the great state of new jersey and anita, white house correspondent. Are we, in fact, watching, as has been theorized, an evolving policy . No collusion, no collusion, no colug, collusion, if there was, it sure wasnt a crime. Rudy giuliani is the president s lawyer but hes the attack dog that is filling the air waves, sometimes confusingly. But this does seem like a deliberate step, that we have seen as you just traced there, since 2016, these meetings, there was no collusion, no collusion, the president s mentioned that a few times and yet suddenly today we have giuliani trotting out a new line suggesting that, well, even if there were collusion, thats not a problem. Because it didnt get anywhere. Nothing happened. Its not illegal. Now, i think that ill defer to my legal colleagues on the set to tell us. Aisle aboim about to. In terms of whether thats actually true but i think what were seeing from giuliani here is two things that happened today and then of course he gives us this mysterious other trump tower meeting that people in the white house are scratching their heads about and people ive talked to today dont really know what hes talking about. These are close trump advisers both inside and outside the west wing who wonder what exactly giuliani was doing, was he trying to get ahead of the story, there was a report coming, he was trying to get ahead of it. But this feels like an unforced error. It was very reminiscent to me of his first interview with sean hannity, when suddenly he launched into new revelations about the Stormy Daniels payments, which took hannity by surprise and sent the white house into a tail spin trying to figure out what he meant. Giuliani had to walk that back. Were seeing it again here. As much as the president likes him out there, he likes him
muddying the waters, its his answer to Michael Cohen or no lanny davis speaking for Michael Cohen. Certainly michael avenatti. He wants somebody out there to muddy the waters. Weve seen muellers Approval Rating drop. Giuliani has been effective there. But this one around people close to the president just wonder what he was doing and its raised concerns again whether giuliani is too often out ahead of his skis and is causing more trouble than hes helping. Counselor, as the former fed here at the table, how do the feds view the day that Rudy Giuliani had and all that he said on television . So, brian, i think as a prosecutor, im seeing this and what im seeing is a little bit of panic from the president and from Rudy Giuliani and ive seen it before. When a defendant and a defense team starts to feel the facts and the evidence closing in on them and theyre feeling like theres nowhere else to go, you see this change in tone that jonathan referenced. And whats been happening over the last two weeks . Were learning more and more every day about what Michael Cohen knows. We heard the tape from michael
cohen. We know the Southern District has now subpoenaed the longterm accountan accountant. You can see the Panic Setting in and theres a couple the big tell here is when they lashed out at the mueller team and this is right out of defense lawyering 101. Its personal. Its personal and its nothing new. Its in the sbdesperate defense lawyers playbook. Everyone whos been a prosecutor has had it done to them. Its a sure sign that youre on to something and its a sure sign theyre running out of options so when you see the president Lash Out At Mueller and the team, know thats coming. I believe thats coming from a point of weakness and a point of panic and as jonathan pointed out, when people panic, they start selfdefeating and some of the things that Rudy Giuliani said today and walked back are really problematic for the president. Anita, lets go to you because youre the closest to this. The view up here in new york as youve heard is that it was a day of confusion, at minimum. Is anyone of the view that its helpful . Well, maybe the president. I dont know. If the president didnt think that Rudy Giuliani was the right guy to be out there, he probably wouldnt be out there. But you know, what you all said before is exactly right. I have people that are close to the white house, republicans who are scratching their head and saying this is not helpful and the white house saying theyre not sure Whats Going On. Remember, this is exactly what happened last time, the white house said on the Stormy Daniels issue that Rudy Giuliani had two different versions about that they didnt know what was going on with that either. So, if this is a strategy, its one that very few people know about. Theyre not giving a head up to anyone. But remember, Rudy Giuliani, ill just go back to what i first said, is out there. Hes brash. Hes aggressive. Hes doing all these interviews because the president wants him to. Elie, once and for all, for all the nonlawyers watching, who have heard Rudy Giuliani and
others today say more than once, collusion is not a crime, what is it . Hes right. Collusion is not a crime. Its something, i think, the president made up. You just showed the graphic. The president s the only one whos ever said the word collusion. Robert mueller and his team have never used that word, collusion. Of Course Conspiracy is a crime and of course receiving aid from foreign nationals in an election is a crime, and Obstruction Of Justice is a crime. But its word play and its so flimsy and its so transparent that i think, again, its another sign of desperation, and you know, as jonathan said, theyre trying to sort of they have nowhere to go. And so theyre trying to play semantics and its another sign that theyre panicking. So jonathan, the president today allowed that hed be perfectly willing to sit down with rouhani of iran with no preconditions. Now the mueller interview is something different. Where do those chances stand . I think we saw singapore, weve seen helsinki, this ones probably, you know, book your flight now. The president is drawn to the spectacle of these summits and as an aside on that, lets remember the criticism the republicans levied against barack obama when he was president and made a similar idea that he would sit down with leaders like this without preconditions. The mueller in terms of a mueller interview, the reporting sort of has remained the same on this, where President Trump wants to do it. No one else thinks thats a good id idea. Giuliani himself told me over the weekend theyre advising against it. The reasons for that have shifted over the weeks and months but they have settled on they think mueller is biased. Giuliani told me they would be liars and he doesnt want to walk the president into what he thinks would be a trap. Other people around the president , privately, feel like the president just simply couldnt do that. That he is someone who, you know, though he has lots of practice giving depositions, that he would perjure himself three time in the first 30 seconds. They feel like this is a nowin situation. They think that an interview for
trump would only go badly for him but the president himself, he has such faith in himself, believes hes his best salesman, his best spokes man, he thinks he can get in there and acquit himself. Anita, elie correctly points out it got personal this weekend and now tomorrow begins manafort. Tomorrow night, as luck would have it, the president s holding a rally in florida. What is that likely to be like after just reading his twitter feed this past weekend . Right, i mean, what have all of them been like . Even his official speeches have turned into political speeches. Even his official speeches have turned into places where he pushes back on this investigation, talks about the 2016 election, and everything else. So, we can definitely expect that to be tomorrow in florida. Obviously its a rally for a particular candidate but he tends to take these and just kind of talks about really whatever he wants. So you can bet hes going to push back on manafort. Hes going to push back on mueller. Hes going to push back on all this. You know, as he always does. He has actually another rally on thursday, so were going to be seeing him two to three times a week coming up these next few months so hell have a lot of opportunities to talk. Elie, just to confirm proper lawyer behavior, Rudy Giuliani starts talking about this premeeting and as jonathan points out tonight, this daily beast story leads us to believe that Maggie Haberman of the New York Times was calling around about a premeeting. Youre not supposed to introduce a negative story into your clients life unless its been your practice to go out and grab the bad stuff and try to take ownership of it, so when it does come us, it doesnt seem so bad. I think thats what theyre doing. You know, its sort of a Central Tenet of Trial Practice that you want to get the bad stuff out there first, right . We always say pull the sting. Be the first one to let the jury know bad news and i think giulianis trying to do that. I think hes doing it in a ham handed and confusing way, but again, the evidence is starting to pile up. Theyre now, i think, the new thing is now theyre probably seeing they should be seeing the witness statements for the manafort witnesses. Those statements have been turned over to manaforts attorneys now. No reason manaforts attorneys arent sharing those with giuliani and trumps team, and so theyve been reading, we all them the 302s, which is the fbi reports of what the witnesses are going to say, rick gates being one of them. So an educated guess might be that giuliani knows somethings coming, and hes trying to get out ahead of it. We welcome you to the broadcast. Thank you very much for joining us as we thank our two returning veterans, jonathan and anita, thanks, gang. Appreciate it. Coming up for us on a monday night, we are, as we mentioned, mere hours away from the start of this first trial of the mueller overall investigation. Well get you up to speed on all things manafort, about the case, how it could impact the president. And later, what President Trump said today that sounded a
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