Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Selfinflicted wound. We dont know the entire back story but our understanding is this was not a strategic legal tweet. This was not a Communications Shop messaging tweet. This was the president waking up and doing what we reported him doing in our story which was privately sort of brooding and then publicly feuding and roaring. And he sent this tweet out to refute a bit of our story but in doing so actually pushed his own narrative much further into a place that is not particularly helpful for him or his namesake son. That may be an understatement. Phil rucker, lets talk about dj t. J. To your knowledge and to the best of your reporting, has anything about don june,s case changed materially that has motivated the president s
behavior, his change in mood . You know, the truth is, brian, we just dont know. But the president has become increasingly concerned as he sees mueller inching closer and closer. Theres been a series of indictments all yearlong. Theres a feeling inside trumps legal team and more broadly in his political orbit there could be another shoe to drop this month perhaps. And he sees Paul Manafort, his former Campaign Chairman on trial, and all of this is feeding the fear. And this fear he has is his son, don junior could be in trouble for this Trump Tower Meeting. He spent a lot of time talking about the Trump Tower Meeting and youve seen cohen and his attorney lanny davis making acswraea accusations publicly that maybe he knew about it beforehand. And its all just feeding this anxiety that the president fears and this real fear something could happen to his son not
because he thinks don junior did something wrong but he could have naively inadvertently wandered into serious trouble. Things that happen In Plain Sight dont often have the gravity all the time. And twitter as a medium is entirely lacking in gravity. Its instantly available and ubiquitous. It seems less serious han the weight of lets say legal papers. But do you think from the weight we saw In Plain Sight On Sunday from the president had the weight of a legal matter . It does. It really will have an ulimate weight here. I think twitter may be this president s undoing. Maybe the worse hits his presidency has taken have been his own goals often on twitter or statements to the media. This one has been a doozy by any standard. Its difficult to understand
what would have motivated him. Perhaps he felt provoked by ashley and philips reporting and went off without really thinking through the implications. But this entire idea that donald trump, jr. Could have inadvertinantly wandered into a crime is something we havent focused on and this tweet brings to light. And thats not true. You get criminal liability committing acts with a certain state of mind, not just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So maybe trumps goal here was to run a Public RelationsCampaign Like he so often does on twitter. Let me ask you the u. S. Code, whichia no doubt have committed a ti to memory. It should be unlawful to make a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value. Well come back to those words. Or to make an express or implied
promise to make a contribution or donation in connection with a federal, state or local election. Joyce, my question to you has this notion been liquidated has it been litigated probably a lot of people wish it had been liquidated. That advice from russians could be construed as a thing of value . Its an interesting question, and under this statute where theres been relatively little litigation,t not a lot of appellate case law, certainly people will have different opinions. But a thing of value is really something that people would typically pay value for, people would typically pay a lot of money of Opposition Research. One of the things about this statute is its not just illegal to actually receive this sort of help from a foreign government, its also illegal to solicit that help from a foreign
government. So just based on what we know which is surely only the tip of the iceberg compared to what mueller has, it looks like the participants in this meeting have a lot of trouble in their hands. Phil rucker, are we really going to get an answer this week as to whether the president is going to sit down with Robert Mueller or did rudy giuliani, and forgive the casualness of this, just need a distraction last week to point us in the future . Thats the big question this week. The president s circle, theyve been indicating that a decision would be coming very soon. They inserted the final stages of negotiate eggs back and forth with the special counsels team. Thats been going on for months now to try to figure out the parameters and scope of a potential interview with the president. Who knows if that decision is going to happen. This is president that always says im going to do x, y, and z
in two weeks and four weeks pass and you never hear about it again. I think we all just need to stay tuned. But what we know theres disagreement on the team. The president wants to do the interview because he thinks he can convince mueller hes done nothing wrong. He thinks hes his own best advocate, his own best salesman and so theyre going to have to reconcile that and come to some sort of agreement with the special counsel. The night is young in twitter terms. Ashley parker, theres a devastating line in a piece written tonight by Emily Jane Fox of vanity fair on just what hope hicks was doing on Air Force One this weekend. Some widely speculated that amidst a week in which trump was openly talking about the Trump Tower Meeting having hicks onboard was at best inappropriate and at worst a chance for them to get their
stories straight. Your reaction and any reporting you can add. So i think at the very, very, very least the optics are absolutely horrible. You remember bill clintons Tarmac Meeting during the campaign. You just cant do this. My sense based on some reporting is that this is sort of the free wheeling way things work in trumps orbit. If you look at these rallies over the past week in each one hes sort of taken people who he feels comfortable with during the campaign into the white house including cory lewandowski, hope hicks. And so i think on some level for donald trump theres a sense this is friendsly. Hey, youre in bedminster, why dont you hop on Air Force One and floi floy out to ohio with . But it ignores the fact who hope hicks is, who the president is
and the situation theyre embroiled in. Terrific answer. Bottom line is it was an interesting visual on the tarmac in morris town airport on saturday. Our thanks to Ashley Parker, to philip rucker, to joyce vance. Coming up for us more on why that meeting with russians in trump tower two years ago now is considered so so critical to the ongoing investigation. And later with 92 days to go until the midterms a preview of what well be talking about this time tomorrow night and what those primary results from ohio may show us. Were just getting under way on a monday night beneath the lamp. Are you ready to take your wifi to the next level . Then you need xfinity xfi. A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. So i think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting. Its called Opposition Research or Even Research into your opponent. In the case of don he listened. I guess they talked about as i see it they talked about adoption and those sort of things. But Nothing Happened from the meeting. Zero happened from the meeting. While both the president and his son montaned that Trump Tower Meeting yielded no information about Hillary Clinton, the fact it took place, the fact there was a cover story put out about it, those have become big problems. We are lucky to have with us two people who both have won Pulitzer Prizes this year for their reporting on that meeting and all the after effects. With us now matt apuzzo of the New York Times and our friend Ashley Parker has agreed to stick around. Matt, welcome back to the broadcast. What was it like in realtime as you learned of the existence of this meeting . And importantly what are the dangling questions out there still unaddressed . Well, you know, ashley got into this in the previous segment. We wept to them, my colleagues from the times went to the white house on what we know, the existence of this meeting last year. And we said, hey, what was this about . We know don junior, jared kushner, Paul Manafort basically three of the most important people on the Trump Campaign at the height of the campaign are meeting with a kremlin connected lawyer. And we knew that much and we said what was that about. And they pushed this off and said we need tasome time, people are traveling, let us get back to you. And they came back and said you know that was nothing, it was just about adoption. And it was such a head scratcher. I mean it was so obviously it was so obviously bizarre it
raised more questions than it answered. And then over the course of three days the story kept changing. And here we are now a year later and were still trying to figure out where exactly the president is on this and where weve ended up is the president saying, well, we tried to collusion with the russians, but it Didnt Work Out. It Didnt Work Out and we didnt actually pull off the collusion, and that is Head Scratchingly where weve ended up after a year of reporting. And ashley you broke the dictation part of the story which was striking for all of us to read in realtime because were still getting to know the president and his style, but heres this president taking his time and effort to dictate a meeting and the purpose of the meeting at trump tower. Can you believe that we still have so many questions that this still generates this much News Coverage almost a full two yeeshz later . I can and i cant. I can because we sort of understood the way we came to that story and we understood that first statement was drafted or we understand dictated by the president as he flew back from a trip to europe. And our understanding it was sort of this scrambled frenzy on Air Force One to come up with a statement, with the president really taking the lead in dictating it. So that sort of statement, problematic statement that arose from such chaos, im not surprised some of that Frenetic Energy is still continuing onto this day. Matt, remind us, one aide resigned because of his exposure to this effort, correct . Remind me, im trying to keep all of my trump flash cards mark curollo, who was spokesman for the legal team. Yeah, its interesting. He said he resigned because he had concerns about this. The trump team says he was fired, he was never, you know, a valued member of the team like
so much that goes on in this administration. It sort of depends on who you talk to where the truth lies. But i think the Point Ashley Made is good one. And the story she and her colleagues wrote about the misleading statement, that story really has legs because that issue of president trumps involvement in the misleading statement is among the topics bob mueller want to talk to the president about. And that is kind of at the heart of this question is bob mueller going subpoena the president. Is he going to take no for an answer, or is he going to take, well, well talk about this but not that for an answer . Of the foundation of the mueller case, the founding documents, the founding questions, do you think Trump Tower Meeting is easily top five . Yeah, i think you can look at the Questions Mueller Has said he wants answered from the president and this question of what did you know about this
meeting, what did you do in regards to it is front and center. And i think of course it is because it goes to this issue of people from the kremlin show up in the middle of an influence operation that tipped the outcome of the president ial election and they say we are here to help you on behalf of the russian governments efforts to help Donald Trumps campaign. We would like to hurt Hillary Clinton and they say, sure, absolutely lets meet. So of course its front and center. Of course its 1 of the most important issues facing the mueller investigation. Put it that way it sounds lmts li almost like a serious meeting. Ashley parker, whats the fear level and anxiety level among the people who are your regulars who work for the president in the west wing . Its high. And whats striking is its not just high among them but its high with the president himself. And so hes someone who at this moment he does believe hes done nothing wrong. As phil said earlier he believes he can get in the room with mueller and convince him of that. But even the president is worried about who is getting wrapped up in this and especially about his son, don junior. And that is all tied to this one meeting. Its tied to what happened at this meeting. Its tried to who knew what about this meeting before it happened. Its tied to whoever else don june, may or may not have told, and the president understands thats a risk. Because in that tweet on sunday he also knew enough to try to distance himself where he said i didnt know about this meeting in advance. Just because a president says something that doesnt mean its true, but it does show even he realizes any knowledge of this meeting before it happened would be problematic for him. Were 24 minutes into our broadcast week. Weve already had three Pulitzer Prize winners. Our thanks to two of them. Thanks for coming on as always. Coming up the star witness in the trial of Paul Manaforttakes the stand and immediately confesses to criminal behavior. The revelations under oath from rick gates and what he admitted to that caught everyone in that courtroom by surprise when we come back. If yor crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough, it may be time for a change. Ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both Symptom Relief and remission. Infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. Entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. Pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal Brain Infection caused by a virus may be possible. This condition has not been reported with entyvio. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flulike symptoms or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio. If your uc or crohns treatment isnt working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. Entyvio. Relief and remission within reach. Manaforts Former Business Pattern told the jury he committed a number of crimes including bank fraud and tax fraud. Gates said that he and manafort had 15 Offshore Bank accounts, as people do, that they did not disclose to the federal government. He then testified that manafort directed him to not report the accounts. At one point the prosecutor simply asked gates if he committed any crimes with manafort. Gates responded by saying, quote, yes. Gates also admitted today he stole from his boss. He copped to Embezzling Hundreds Of Thousands of dollars from Paul Manafort by creating false expense reports. Manafort its important to point out has pleaded not guilty. With us with more is josh gerstein. He is senior White House Reporter for politico. And Danny Sovalos is back with
us. Josh, you get to go first because you were there. Im curious about things like eye contact, Body Language and what was the reaction in there when gates said, sure, i robbed from the boss . That does indicate there was enough money floating around it wasnt missed immediately. I dont think there was a lot of shock on embezzlement because folks will remember said in the very beginning, manaforts defense team that there would be some indication had embezzled money from manaforts firm. Gates came in, he took the stand, took the oath and in that process somehow managed never to look Paul Manafort, his former boss, in the eye directly. Didnt seem to want to look at the defense table. Looked at the prosecutors, looked at the jurors and the judge but just didnt want to crane his neck around to look directly squarely at manafort. I think as the afternoon wore on there were one or two occasions
when he look in manaforts direction or even a couple points where he said something nice about manafort. But overall he carried the admission to various crimes not just the ones in this