What may be, what history may see, as the moment when Stormy Daniels pushed the special prosecutor closer to getting fired than anyone before her has done. It is this has been a remarkable saga all along. Obviously the news sort of blew up in the face of this today. I felt like the thing that this really brought home for me is that the president has really not put together an actual legal team on the russia scandal. He actually does have some real lawyers on the Stormy Daniels scandal. He has moichael cohen but he ha additional lawyers working with him on the scandals where these women have been supposedly paid off. Thats where he lawyered up. Maybe the president saw this before we did in terms of the legal jeopardy hes in here. And moving todays case to the south everyone district of new york is fascinating because as you know they do not have a confirmed u. S. Attorney working there. The u. S. Attorney whos in place there, temporarily, his appointment is a 120day appointment that runs out on may 5th. So the president doesnt have a prosecutor there to fire and replace because the next the people who replace this one are the judges who run the district. They get to decide, because the president hasnt chosen anyone. The Mueller Investigation has taken some interesting turns. One of them was to spread a little bit of the work around. We had the filing from mueller last week that said when we charged manafort we had the National Security division of the Justice Department sign off on those charges and the tax division sign off of those charges. And the lead prosecutors taking manafort to court are empowered to per sue this prosecution even if the special counsel goes away. Now we have this in the south everyone district of new york. You are getting the sense they are putting roots wide so if anyone tries to chop down the tree they wont get all of it. Thats the way it looks. Thanks, lawrence. Thanks, rachel. Donald trump had a conversation with himself in public in which some of the words said to reporters appeared to be part of the conversation but they werent. When the president asked himself aloud today why dont i just fire mueller . It seemed he had repeated a question from a reporter. But when you listen, you hear two questions he ignored. The louder is one of two questions he ignored. Lets listen to the two questions that the president was asked at the same time. Did you have an affair with Stormy Daniels . Why dont i just fire mueller . Just fire the guy . Did you have an affair with Stormy Daniels . That came through loud and clear. The president heard it, but that wasnt part of the conversation that the president was already having with himself. Why dont i just fire mueller was right there in the conversation that the president was already having with himself. And that is a conversation that the president is probably having with himself every day and all day today. After the president was among the first to discover, hours before the news media knew it, that the fbi raided the new york city office, new York City Hotel room and new york city home of Michael Cohen today. And here is what the president said about Michael Cohen late thursday afternoon on air force one. Did you know about the 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels . No. Then why did Michael Cohen make it, since there was no you have to ask Michael Cohen. Michaels my attorney and you have to ask michael. Youll have to ask Michael Cohen. Well, it sounds like the fbi and the Justice Department got that message loud and clear. Steven ryan, a lawyer representing Michael Cohen today issued a written statement saying, quote, today the u. S. Attorneys office for the Southern District of new york executed a series of search warrants and seized the Privileged Communications between my client, Michael Cohen and his clients. I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the new york action is in part a referral by the office of special counsel rachel maddow. The decision by the u. S. Attorneys office in new york to conduct their investigation using search warrants is completely inappropriate and unnecessary. It resulted in the seizure of protected Attorney Client communications between an attorney and his clients. These are also wrong because mr. Cohen has cooperated with all governmental entities, including providing documents to the congress and sitting for depositions under oath. Nbc has confirmed something reported by the New York Times today. In their raids today, fbi agents were seeking records related to the 130,000 payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels that Michael Cohen claims he made and the president says he knows nothing about. Joining us is Michael Avenatti, Jill Winebanks and ari melber. Michael, i know you had some of this conversation by phone with ari earlier tonight but i want to get your reaction to the simple chronological fact here. We heard donald trump say on thursday, late thursday, you have to ask Michael Cohen. And here it is, basically the first order of Business Today for the fbi in new york city is asking Michael Cohen in the harshest possible way. Well, lawrence, on thursday, the president made those statements on air force one and you had me on thursday night and we spoke at length about this. And i told you my thoughts at the time relating to the fact that i thought the noose was tightening around Michael Cohen and i also foreshadowed what might happen if, in fact, that noose tightened significantly. And im going to stand by those comments. This was a very, very Serious Development today. The fbi raid occurred about 36 Business Hours after the president made those comments on air force one. It sounds like theyve seized documents and emails and communications, and Michael Cohen and the president , better hope that theyve been 100 honest and above board related to the agreement, what the president knew about the agreement and this 130,000 payment. Because if they have not been 100 above board, i will tell you this, crimes associated with that conduct, if they occurred, are far easier to prove that russian collusion. Period. Far easier from a legal perspective. Its not that complicated at the end of the day. This is a very Serious Development for Michael Cohen. It is putting him in the cross hairs. It is going to put him under a tremendous amount of pressure. And i dont think he has the mettle to hold up, as i told ari and others, and ive been saying this for a while, i dont think hes built that way. If i was the president of the United States or others, i would not have many sleepful nights from here on out if i knew that my fate rided on his ability to with stand the heat. Michael, i want to talk to you about how this affects your case. A Big Development last week was the president saying i had no idea, thats going to be his position, i had no idea that this agreement was being arranged with Stormy Daniels. So that was a big step in this case. Big development for you, which you consider positive for your case, how can there be an agreement if donald trump doesnt know hes a party to an agreement. Lets put that aside for a moment and go to what happened today. Now you have Michael Cohen in a criminal and fbi investigation. It seems absolutely mandatory that if your civil litigation is going to go forward and Michael Cohen, for example, is going to be deposed to try to determine the validity of the confidentiality agreement that he will have to take the fifth amendment for virtually every question after his name and address. So i want to know in your civil case if Michael Cohen takes the fifth amendment in that case, does that pretty much close the case . I cant quite see what the testimony would be on the Michael Cohen side of the case that could lead to a finding in favor of Michael Cohen if there is, in the end, virtually no testimony . Well, lawrence, i agree. Weve heard for weeks from david schwartz, Michael Cohens spokesperson and others, all this chest thumping about how they were going to sue my client for 20 million and take her for everything shes worth. If Michael Cohen takes the fifth amendment, thats never going to happen. And i agree with you, and i mentioned this earlier on aris show. I think the likelihood of him being able to testify and not take the fifth amendment is very, very slim. However, regardless of whether he takes the fifth amendment, whether the president takes the fifth amendment, if we get his deposition is a completely different story. Michael, can he now get is he likely to get continuances in this civil case because there is a criminal case that has entered into the same arena . Thats an interesting question. They may go in and seek a stay of the proceedings. It wouldnt supplies rprise me. Theyve done everything in their power to slow this case down, delay it, have it decided in a private arbitration since we filed this. I want to go back to something. When we filed this case about four or five weeks ago, a lot of people mocked us, my client, said she wasnt in it for the right reasons, it was a money grab, et cetera. Thats been blown out of the water. She hasnt accepted a dime, shes shown incredible courage in the last five weeks. Im wondering if some of those people are laughing now. The fbi just raided the president s personal attorney over what we brought forward. I dont think the president is laughing tonight, Michael Cohen is laughing tonight. And for the people who thought it was, theyre not laughing tonight either. Would he be a subject of the investigation if Stormy Daniels had not come forward . I dont think so. I dont think the raid would have happened, the scrutiny would have happened, i dont think any of this would have happened. I want to go to the issue that jumps out immediately in this situation because Michael Cohen has a law degree and i say that i phrase this somewhat differently for most people because it is questionable to me whether we can really call Michael CohenDonald Trumps lawyer, he has never filed an appearance in any of the endless streams of litigation that donald trump has been involved in. So hes never appeared in court for him. Hes never been engaged, hired by donald trump for a particular matter. He was sitting in trump tower in an office in the Trump Organization doing a variety of things for which you dont need a law degree. He himself says that donald trump never specifically engaged him in this Stormy Daniels matter. So can there be an attorneyclient privilege between Michael Cohen and donald trump over anything involving Stormy Daniels when both of them have said, publically, that donald trump did not engage Michael Cohen as an attorney in that case . I think the evidence may be to the contrary, because in negotiating the nda, the hush agreement, with Stormy Daniels, he certainly was acting as an attorney. He also formed, as an attorney, an organization to pay the money. And i think that he did hold himself out as the president s lawyer. The president always has referred to him as his attorney. So there is some confusion in them now saying, i never hired him for a specific matter. Im sure that mr. Davidson, who was Stormy Danielss original lawyer, thought he was dealing with an attorney in this matter and im sure that Stormy Daniels thought that he was the legal representative and in terms of the attorneyclient privilege, however, you cant have a privile privilege if you havent talked to your client about it, if youre engaged in criminal conduct. The privilege does not apply in those cases. So i think theres arguments in both directions. I think it would be hard to say he didnt act as the attorney simply because he didnt appear in court for donald trump. Ari, i watched every minute of your coverage. You were basically in live coverage because this story was breaking on you as you were getting through the hour and you got Michael Avenatti to join you by phone. One of the comments that struck me was paul butler in your hour when he said to you what happened today was like a subpoena on steroids. Yes, theres so much going on. Its easy to forget the context of what just happened. Fbi agents busted down the door of donald trump, the sitting president s, longtime lawyer and sitting executive, theres an old occasion, kicking the door, you dont want to be on the other side of the door, its happened twice in the entire probe. When it happened to Paul Manafort, 96 days later he was indicted. Every other individual, from sean spicer, sam nunberg who had subpoenas, they get requested, give us documents, emails or a grand jury subpoena. No one else, except manafort whos indicted and now today Michael Cohen had his door kicked in. Its a huge deal period. You add to the extra bar when youre dealing with a lawyer instead of a civilian. Your interpretation of what the president said today when he got down to that conversation, which was really a conversation with him, about should i fire Robert Mueller . The phrasing is wrong because donald trump as so often is working not off knowledge of the situation but off his own ignorance. It might be willful ignorance, strategic ignorance. But the question is not whether he can fire Robert Mueller, he cannot. And the question is not whether Rod Rosenstein can fire mueller out of the blue. The act treats the rules as law and state that a special counsel can only be removed for cause in writing by the acting attorney general. So what trump was doing was imagining a fan fiction where he is king but hes not. Whether theres increasing pressure, which struck me about his comments during a war cabinet meeting, was he kept returning to Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein. So he knows where the leverage is, and he may pressure them to remove or unlawfully remove Robert Mueller, he cant do it alone. Jill, i always flash back to your experience on watergate on days like this and the special prosecutor went after the president s attorney general. You people, your team, went after john dean, the white house counsel. But i dont think you ever went after any of Richard Nixons private lawyers. We never went after any of his lawyers. They all acted in i would say with great integrity. Although thats not true for one of the lawyers for the committee to reelect the president. First of all, liddy was also counsel to them but so was ken pa parkinson who ended up a defendant in the case. I want to add two things one is mueller is not the one who executed the warrant. Its against the u. S. Attorney, a republican, approved by a federal judge and higher ups in the department of justice. It was not mueller. And second there was no breakin at Michael Cohens office. This was the execution of a lawful search warrant. So when the president says they broke into my Lawyers Office again he called him his lawyer which undercuts any argument that he isnt a lawyer they didnt. They used a search warrant and did it in a valid way, with approval of a judge. Just to be clear, its certainly lawfully, but it is a physical act. As jill and all the lawyers on the panel know its far more aggressive move than a physical request. Theres a physical intervention because theres a time limit on the evidence, a belief of destruction of evidence or some other reason approved by a judge. So its a biggy. Go ahead, michael. Theres two points that i wanted to make. In light of this search warrant today and the action by the fbi, there is no question that from this point forward Michael Cohen cannot represent donald trump. That is a nonwaivable conflict of interest at this point. So to the extent he was Donald Trumps lawyer, as of this morning moments before the fbi raided his office, that ceased to be the case the moment after they raided the door. Thats a conflict of interest. Its nonwaivable. So the days of Michael Cohen being mr. Trumps lawyer, at least for the foreseeable future are over. Thats number one. I think it