The days biggest political and news stories, with interviews and reporting from around the nation. Leadership criticisms for this president that we know about, lets be clear and fair. Anger, ego, incompetence, thats not enough. The higher bar here is corrupt intent in a persons mind. So mueller is saying, like any careful prosecutor, he must question trump before he can conclude his work. And tonight trumps lawyers are leaking their new ongoing negotiations with mueller to show that as of tonight, theyre not accepting this full interview yet. So theyre using two tactics. Leaking information with their new letter to mueller about a kind of a narrower counteroffer, and also talking to each other, these lawyers, in a radio callin show, an appearance that can only be described as another bizarre chapter in one of the most bizarre live action legal defenses of a president in our history. We give you the unusual scene this morning. Rudy giuliani joining trump lawyer jay sekulow on sekulows radio show where they also took questions from listeners. Is there a deadline that
youre trying to hit in responding to the Special Counsel . Look, we dont have an internal deadline. Mayor, i know youve said and ive said we want to see this come to closure soon here. Mayor . Yeah, we do. Yeah, its about time that it ends. We do not want to run into the november elections. So back up from that. This should be over with by september 1st. Trumps lawyers, using their public profiles on a radio show to leak their negotiations in realtime and create more media content. That is whats happening right now. Now here was their discussion of the big enchilada, the trump interview. If theres going to be an interview, lets have it. Hes got all the information he needs. The interview will provide nothing in addition to what he already has. So he can write his report. We have been willing to say heres the answer he will give and well be stuck with it. And of course the question will be, look, we have an ongoing dialogue with the office of Special Counsel in a
professional manner. It went on like that. We try to be as fair as possible here, but what im about to say does sound negative about mr. Giuliani. The fact is hes a former federal prosecutor. When he claims a prosecutor does not need to interview key subjects of a probe under oath, he knows hes not telling the truth. He knows thats absurd, and he knows there must be some other reason they want to shield their client, donald trump, from going in and telling the truth about what he did or didnt do. Now, this isnt exactly a spoiler, but Bob Mueller Doesnt Do Radio callin shows so he wont be leaking in realtime his response to what looks like an escalation in these negotiations. But we do know if Mueller Terms as a legal matter that this interview is necessary and the white house wont provide it at the scope that he believes is legally required, mueller has the option of taking this president to court, a fight that all expect would go all the way
up to the Supreme Court where trump is currently trying to install a handpicked judge known for his skepticism of the power of prosecutors like bob mueller. So lets get to it. Im joined by l. E. Honig, joyce vance and mike lupica. Ill begin with you. Youve tried many cases and been around many cases. Have you ever seen live leaks of Interview Negotiations on a callin show. No, ive never seen anything like it. I think whats happening is theres a chess game getting under way. Rudy giuliani is making these demands on conditions for an interview that are really just outrageous. He wants Written Questions. Ive done hundreds of witness interviews. Ive never once submitted a Written Question. It defeats the whole purpose. You need to size the person up. You dont just want their lawyer to turn out some lawyerly
response. Certain areas are out of bounds. Well, in a lot of cases theres whats called interrogatories which are the kind of low stakes Written Question thing that nobody considers as serious as a real interview. Exactly, theyre formalities. Its no substitute for sitting across from someone and sizing them up. And i believe, mike lupica, if you could work on a lyric about interrogatories, you have one minute. You get a minute. No, you work on it. Im coming to you in a minute. I want to give you a headsup. Im ready. I dont think mueller is going to agree. Mueller has been at this longer than me. If mueller doesnt agree, the thing that giuliani knows full well is mueller has the leverage here. If mueller doesnt like the terms, hell hit him with a subpoena and then were in courts. Heres where i think the play is in doing this silly radio staged show today, if it goes to the courts, its going to drag on up to and through the midterms, and i think that the purpose of todays show was to allow
giuliani to say, see, we wanted to do this but mueller took us to court and hes politicizing this right before the midterms. I want to be clear. Youre suggesting that jay sekulow live has a purpose. I dont know that weve been able to confirm that yet, mike lupica. I dont know that that radio show has a purpose or not, all respect given. I want to play a little bit more from, again, the bizarre interactions on this show with callers and then your response, mike, take a look. The taxpayers have been paying for this socalled special investigation that is clearly biased against our president. I have never heard of a case run by an fbi agent who displayed hatred for the person that he was looking at. Mueller didnt find out about it, it had to be presented to him. And then he stayed with the fbi for another year. Its ridiculous. Mike, beyond the evident catharsis of screened callers
held back. This is sort of the person at the bar except its at muellers office. Hold me back, hold me back, i really want to fight. Sometimes people asking to be held back dont want to fight. And the fight with words sitting down under oath with bob mueller is not a problem if you dont necessarily have anything to hide and you can carefully accurately answer questions. As for where it all leads, joyce, we did a little digging and want to show, all jokes aside about the callin show, we are headed towards a potential real interbranch conflict. The last time this escalated, It Didnt Go All The Way to the court because bill clinton did back down under subpoena. Take a look. The president has been subpoenaed by the independent counsel. His lawyers back in washington were preparing to negotiate with independent counsel Kenneth Starr for his testimony. Hes said to be insisting on the right to question the president in person. The president will testify about his relationship with a former intern under oath and on tape for the grand jury. Joyce. So interesting to remember and i think important to remember that every version that we have of what mueller wants in this regard comes from Rudy Giuliani or other members of the president s team. Robert mueller isnt telling us whether or not he wants to interview the president nor has he revealed his hand as to whether he might use a subpoena if the president doesnt agree to one. And i think its really important for us to remember that, because federal prosecutors very often dont get to interview targets or even subjects in cases. But back to the point that you make, ari, its very telling when an individual doesnt want to be interviewed voluntarily, particularly when theyre maintaining their innocence and saying that theyre merely a witness in the case, no obstruction, no collusion. Well, if not, why not go ahead and submit to the interview. Its only a perjury trap if you intend to lie, after all. Yeah, i agree. Look, theres a very easy way to avoid a perjury trap, which is
dont commit perjury. I dont think mueller will walk away, i really dont. Theres already been reporting that he intends to do this interview. He needs to do this interview for the reasons you said. Trump has stated his intent every which way. Hes taken both sides, five sides of every issue, so he needs to be pinned down and put on record in a way he cant squirm away from. The only real way to do that is by an interview or in the grand jury. Right. I want to revisit some of the questions here, joyce, that did leak, as you say from the white house side but were fact checked by the New York Times and Special Counsel didnt object to these as being on the money. When did you become aware of that trump tower meeting. The discussions about any of these meetings with putin. The knowledge or outreach including manafort, whos on trial right now, to russia about this assistance to the campaign and then of Course Communications between roger stone, associates, Julian Assange, wikileaks. Fascinating that last bullet because were covering whether assange will speak out in any capacity. Theres a lot of legal reasons to be dubious about charging
websites, publishers or platf m platforms in the United States. Thats not typically done. But what does that line of questioning tell you and also roger stone be risky for the president . Mueller is clearly looking at both Obstruction Of Justice but also still at what weve come to call collusion, this idea of conspiracy to defraud the United States. And it looks from this list of questions like the president is either to believed to be either a very central witness or perhaps a subject or a target. Of course we all know that mueller wont really indict the president , but he could write a very damaging report that would go up to the hill discussing the president s participation in all of these efforts visavis russia. If this reporting is in fact correct and these are the topics that mueller wants to question the president about, hes seeking to answer these fundamental questions of what did the president know, when did he know it and what did he do . And that makes it look like the
president is a target more than anything else. Right. And thats what we keep going back to is what is his exposure. If the lawyers want to take the position that is a potential target who needs Fifth Amendment or other types of protection, they could take that. Instead they are clearly Baiting Mueller along, saying this is taking too long, while they wont make the move that will decide whether its going to go to court or not. Mike, did you have any lyrics before we go . Well, i was just thinking that trump is probably in a Kendrick Lamar situation. All we ask is trust, all we got is us. But then you see those two lawyers On The Radio Show and you think if thats the quality of the defense, he might be screwed. Elie . Im going a little older with dont ask why, ive got my own reasons. Tribe called quest. That by the first tribe bars on the beast. I was think we all talk more about tapes, vintage 50 cent. I do what i want, the d. A. Can play this tape in court. My special thanks to elie honig. Joyce and mike stay with me. As we mention, the tapes, Omarosa Recording Trump inside the white house. The reporter who broke the story. Also the republican member of congress who endorsed trump first. Indicted tonight. Well bring you his side of the story. And now the news that the russia probe could turn to Julian Assange. I have an exclusive with one of these people in the United States whos interviewed assange and stays in touch with him. Im ari melber and youre watching the beat on msnbc. When i touch you like this
learn more at theexplorercard. Com are you ready to take your 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. If you live like a reality show and you govern like a reality show, you have to be prepared for your Reality Show Staff to go full reality show on you. The daily beast now reporting the infamous former apprentice star omarosa secretly recorded conversations with President Trump at the white house. Conversations played for people while pushing her new tellall book called unhinged. This echos a promise she did make the day after being ousted. As the only africanamerican woman in this white house, as a senior staff and Assistant To The President , i have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected by community and my people. And when i can tell my story, it is a profound story that i know
the world will want to hear. Everybody wants to hear the story, and she has been slowly teasing it out. She went on Celebrity Big Brother and described a kind of a haunted feeling in the white house. Like i was haunted by tweets every single day. Like what is he going to tweet next. It was bad. Should we be worried . Dont say that. Should we be worried . Another question is should we be whispering . Anyway, this Isnt The First Time we have heard about secret audio tapes. Michael cohen, famously taped the president. Weve already heard some of those already leak. You never know where that company you never know where hes going to be. If he gets hit by a truck. Correct. Im all over that. Ive spoken to alan about that when it comes to the financing. What financing . Well have to pay pay with cash . No. No, no, no, no, no. This is a big scoop and the person who wrote the scoop, daily beast Locklan Markee is with us. What do you see as the significance of this story . We spoke to three sources, one of whom has heard this recording and two have had the contents described to them. Its nothing quite so incriminating as the Michael Cohen recordings, but i think it does point to a major Breach Of Trust by someone who is very close to the president , very close to the first family, and really tells everyone that she meets about how much the president trusts her. And, you know, the president did like her and she was very close to that sort of inner circle of aides and family members. So for her to be secretly recording conversations with the president points to a major breakdown in trust. Now that shes marketing a book suggests that shes sort of had her eye towards those post white
house plans for quite some time. Yeah. Another clear implication is that if youre recording the president , youre talking to the president. That would appear to contradict the cover story they gave, which has been a familiar to many departing aides who the white house has tried to play down their actual role. Take a look. Omarosa was fired three times on The Apprentice and this is the fourth time we let her go. She had limited contact with the president while here. She has no contact now. That word limited contact, as you know most people who work in an administration have literally zero conversations with the president. These tapes would suggest that she had more contact than the white house let on. Well, i do think she had less contact than she felt she was entitled to, given her long history with the president , and in fact thats what really led to her downfall at the white house was this scene where she, as it was described to us, stormed the white house residence in an attempt to confront the president about
aides that she felt were undermining her and shutting her out. There was a concerted effort by Chief Of Staff john kelly to really limit access to the president in the oval office. So i think she probably had a lot more access early on in the white house, saw that diminish. That really upset her and it ended with her being escorted off the white house grounds for trying to literally confront and call out the president for that. Mike, you saw the important recording that we garnered from Celebrity Big Brother in the introduction to the segment and i want to play for you some earlier omarosa because its not like any of this couldnt have been predicted when it goes to Donald Trumps judgment about who he wants to let in run the government, be paid by our tax dollars and have access to all sorts of private interactions. This is a person who has prided herself and mr. Trump on settling scores. Take a look. Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump. Its everyone whos ever doubted donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe. To state the obvious, which is part of my job these days, mike, being entrusted with the Nuclear Codes and leading the United States is an act of public service, is not supposed to be chiefly thought of as a chance for personal revenge. He sure can pick em, cant he . Where does he find these people . Hes obsessed with building a wall. He needs to build one around the oval office because, ari, how far are we from people getting patted down before they go in and sit down and cross the desk from him . Yeah, and so do you think there is something here, mike, thats larger than omarosa and all of the attendant drama in her Book Promotion and the rest . Yeah. I think he i think they dont trust him. We constantly hear how the most
important thing to this president is loyalty. Okay . But you tell me where we can find it these days. Cohen, omarosa, and i dont think these are the last times were going to hear about people taping this guy. I think eventually theres going to be a conga line of people coming forward to say, no, no, listen to mine fi