good morning, it is 8:00 a.m. at adobe headquarters in san jose, 11:00 a.m. on wall street "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ good friday morning. welcome to "squawk alley." i am carl quintanilla with sara

eisen at post 9 of the new york stock exchange jon fortt is in san jose at adobe, a big story. the storm is the lead. >> hurricane florence making landfall this morning moving inward as the carolinas brace for storm surge. let's bring in kaitlin mcgrath for an update. >> it is a category one storm, sustained winds down to 80 miles per hour you can see on radar imagery, we lost the well defined eye. it is clouded with rain. throughout the morning, we have not seen much movement over the past few hours since landfall, florence is crawling at 3 miles per hour but still bringing heavy convective bands, hurricane force winds to much of north carolina and approaching south carolina through the day today it will likely encounter more warm water the next few hours. it should maintain the category one strength as we head through the day today.

then we'll see gradual weakening as it gets into south carolina, tomorrow downgrading to a tropical storm, which is good news for wind speed, with you but we're talking tropical downpours through the weekend. into portions of tennessee by the weekend. we are approaching a critical time in florence, approaching high tide coinciding with storm surge. that's at 11:40. closer to noon for wilmington, closer to 12:30 in charleston and savannah 1:20 this afternoon. you're adding on top of high tide 7 to 11 feet for portions of north carolina, further north and south. that storm surge is not as dramatic, but still you're talking about a wall of water. for today, it is all about storm surge. that storm tide that's quickly approaching. you see another round of it late

tonight at 11:00 flash flooding from heavy rain that will continue to fall not just today but through the weekend. hurricane force winds will dissipate through the day tomorrow we're still talking tropical storm force winds. we're not in the clear from winds. the main concern is flooding that will continue into next week as well that's the latest on florence. back to you. >> kaitlin, that tide information is important for the next few hours let's get to contessa brewer in myrtle beach, south carolina this morning good morning, contessa >> reporter: hey there, carl we're just starting to feel the outer rain bands come through, the rain is light but steady wind gusts pick up and die back down so far they hit 50 miles per hour look out as my photographer broads out you can see the sea looks calm and then you'll get a gust of wind you can watch the wind whipping across the water and palm trees blowing in the breeze.

the big question for this area of the grandstrand is how much damage will hurricane florence do when it comes to myrtle beach as a category one hurricane as it is expected these dunes are super important for protecting the hotels and other tourist attractions in the area, and they've been renourished. they'll watch to see how much beach erosion happens. we're under a hurricane warning. and the center of the storm is not anticipated in myrtle beach until 8:00 tonight, so nine hours of this just until we get to the center of the storm with the storm moving at 3 miles per hour, that means this is as national weather service calls it a marathon, not a sprint. and it also means we're going to be looking for damage that happens incrementally throughout the weekend because again, it is not just storm surge it is certainly not wind that's the huge concern, it's the flooding as we anticipate as much as 24 inches of rain

throughout this area i want to put up one map to show you. the rivers going inland are as vulnerable to flooding as the coastal areas, the shoreline here that's because the rainfall is the big story here going into tuesday, expecting crest to be as high as 24 feet sara, carl >> contessa, you covered a number of these storms does it feel like the local authorities have the resources and shelters they need to get prepared >> reporter: they say yes. there are dozens of shelters open through the state of south carolina, and they say they have plenty of capacity at this point because the storm has not fully hit yet, if people can find a way to get to shelters, they have room to accommodate people the question is whether downgrading the category, cat one, people through the hurricanes before, whether they shrug it off, decide to stay home we are hearing 80% of the

population decided to heed mandatory evacuation orders. >> contessa, thank you from myrtle beach, south carolina this morning. we'll check in with you later. for more on how insurers are responding, we are joined by patrick ghee based on the forecast, how you're monitoring the storm so far, how bad and how costly do you expect it to be? >> well, it is difficult to know yet, the storm is under way. we'll know more in the weeks to come >> how exposed are you in terms of homeowners insurance in north and south carolina >> well, we have customers with homeowners, automobile, and business insurance throughout the carolinas. >> why don't homeowners offer flood insurance, it always goes

through the federal government, with this rate, they're so expensive, so powerful, and so many people across the u.s. need flood insurance. why isn't that an offer? >> you're right. flood insurance is available through the national flood insurance program. it is widely available and we encourage everyone to pursue whether or not it makes sense for them it is a difficult risk to predict which is why it is not typically offered as part of homeowners insurance >> there's a line from south side analysts today trying to model out the earnings impact on some insurers. one of them writes, i am quoting, we are adjusting our estimates down to account for lessened severity of winds but greater chance of inland flooding that could effect personal auto lines. can we be that granular at this point? >> i'm not sure what basis they used to adjust their earnings down at this point in time because the storm is still under way, and there isn't access into

the areas yet, don't have an idea of the claim volume they may use other models, techniques, it is a storm in process. we'll have to see how things evolve in the coming couple of weeks. >> how long does it take you to clean up and pay out the claims? for instance we remember hurricane harvey, it left people in dire financial straights. has that been dealt with >> absolutely. hurricane harvey for us is largely behind us. we typically close out all our claims within a month. we make payment often times within hours to customers we plan for this 365 days a year, already have staff on the ground in the carolinas. more are poised outside, including mobile claim centers this is part of what we do every day to help service our customers in their time of need. >> patrick, in general, and obviously we're focused on today's event more than anything, but in general for those that have waterfront

property in this country, especially along the east coast, texas coast, florida coast, is flood insurance a thing of the past now >> no. flood insurance is critical we think for people that have properties right on the water, particularly that might be susceptible to storm surge or other forms of flooding. it is really essential, in fact. >> are storms getting cost lelir in this country? >> if you look at the information, last year $144 billion of damage from catastrophe. the largest on record since we have been keeping track. >> thank you for joining us. patrick gee from travelers insurance. switching gears. amazon ceo and billionaire jeff bezos giving a rare interview, speak at the economic club in washington, d.c. he gave thoughts on being the richest man in the world, on politics, president trump. he weighed into the on-going debate between tech and washington over regulation,

saying he believes big institutions should be scrutinized. listen >> it was fine being the second wealthiest person in the world that actually worked fine. i own 16% of amazon. amazon is worth roughly a trillion dollars that means what we have built over 20 years, we built $840 billion of wealth for other people my view on this is very simple all big institutions of any kind are going to be and should be examined, scrutinized, inspected. governments should be inspected, government institutions, big educational institutions, big nonprofits, big companies. they're going to get scrutiny. it's not personal. it's kind of what we as a society want to have happen. i don't feel the need to defend amazon, but i will say this. it is a mistake for any elected official in my opinion, i don't

think this is a very out there opinion, to attack media and journalists. i believe that it is an essential component of our democracy. there has never been, i was going to say never been an elected official that liked their headlines, there's probably no public figure that's ever liked their headlines >> bezos commenting on news everyone is waiting for, location of amazon's second headquarters saying hq 2 will be announced by the end of the year. let's bring in john harwood in washington jeff's visit to washington causing quite a stir. >> well, everybody is expecting that washington either in northern virginia or d.c. or maryland is going to get that headquarters and by coming here, doing this event with david rubenstein he fueled that speculation.

he started laughing when rubenstein tried to pin him down on that. jeff bezos because he owns "the washington post," that gives him another anchor in the area, makes him a target in particular from president trump who routinely goes after him. >> john, how seriously are criticisms like bernie sanders, vis-a-vis amazon taken in d.c. now at least >> well, i think there are criticisms as jeff bezos was saying of every major business institution. you get criticism of wall street, criticism of walmart, criticism of amazon, in part, because of the on-going stratification they're delivering low cost products to american consumers,

but when you have somebody like jeff bezos worth more than $100 billion, that's a symbol of the flk inequality that defines our modern economy one of the reasons in this election year republicans have strong overall economic conditions, but that's not necessarily being felt by the majority of voters, and that's one of the reasons why republicans have trouble going into the midterm elections >> who is going to be the biggest target, amazon, facebook, or google going into the midterms >> well, i think for different reasons amazon, excuse me, facebook and google because of privacy issues, because of what happened with the russians in 2016 they're going to be big targets for the left and some on the right as well. we've got conservatives complaining their content is downgraded on the platforms. on the other hand, the biggest

critic in the country is president trump who has got more than 50 million twitter followers, and regularly goes after jeff bezos by linking him to the difficult coverage he gets from "the washington post." that coverage is not going to change, so president trump will keep the heat on jeff bezos. one of the things about the president, it is not too hard to predict where he is going, and he is signaling it pretty clearly. >> certainly his respond to dimon came a day later than expected. >> exactly right >> john, thanks. fascinating look you don't get to her from bezos too often. it was an interesting appearance at the economic club. when we come back, adobe getting a lift on better than expected earnings, up almost 3%. j jon fortt has an exclusive not long from now. we will continue to watch north carolina, south carolina, and increasingly inland as the storm has made ldfanall about four hours ago. "squawk alley" is back in a moment

feel that? that's the beat of global markets, the rhythm of the world. but to us, it's the pace of tomorrow. with ingenuity, technologies, and markets expertise we create the possible. and when you do that, you don't chase the pace of tomorrow. you set it. nasdaq. rewrite tomorrow.

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healthy operating margins around 40%. rare that companies can do that. what gives you the companies that can continue. >> jon, most companies would be thrilled to have one business that's a large opportunity we think about what we are doing on the creativity side everybody has a story to tell and creative cloud is the platform that enables anybody to tell that story. documents are certainly moving from analog to digital and then when you think about businesses that want to transform, everybody is thinking about digital and digital engagement as the basis for doing that we are the leader in three large categories of innovating the large addressable opportunities and innovation at adobe gives us a lot of confidence. >> a lot of companies are talking artificial intelligence. you have it built into creative products explain to us how that

translates into financial performance. is it lower churn, allowing people to do things faster, is it something else? what is it that ai gives you that end up translating to top and bottom lines. >> two examples. on the creativity side, everybody feels the blank page if ai can start to infer what people want to do in times of using photo shop or one of our creative products, when you can speak to the computer and it understands and infers what you want to do and makes our products and tools more accessible, that's a huge win. then you can attract tremendous amount of customers. and at the other end of the spectrum, when you have millions of customers hitting your website, the ai that we have on the digital experience cloud being able to infer intelligence from the trillions of transactions and ensure you get the right offer meant for you in real time, that's something that

humans cannot do two really good examples at different ends of the spectrum how ai enables our customers to do more with our technology. >> your experience cloud is pushing you further into the area of crm, customer relationship management. that sales force is bread and butter suddenly you talk about adobe and sales force going head to head more and more you also partnered with microsoft in the enterprise on this area. how does that partnership help you push your solution to market versus what people may get from sales force. >> we believe that what's happening is that every enterprise wants to in real time engage with customers. i think when you think about what crm used to be, crm was more about a record that was in a relational database. that is not as important as what you do with that customer information and how you make action out of it

i think that's where the adobe and microsoft partnership is so valuable because together with what they have done with azure and the ability for people to process data at the pace they want, and what adobe has done, we enable you to attract customers to your platform, engage it. we think we are creating a brand new category in industry which is all about digital engagement and customer experience management far more critical than what a record might store >> is there a philosophical difference between how you approach this and you see competitors and sales force approaching it, are you drawing a contrast >> we continue to think that content, data, and how they come together is really where this magic happens. you walk into a retail store, you're accessing an application on a mobile device, and it is about what's the right content being delivered based on

intelligence it is a dramatically different approach, and companies like adobe and microsoft and sap that actually see the vision for what's happening in the world. >> couple of quarters ago i asked about acquisition pace, i was looking at your record, looked like it was time for a sizable acquisition. you announced an acquisition not long after that. now people wonder what you're going to do with marketa i know you won't specifically answer on that name, but are you on the hunt for sizable acquisitions in the billions, you have the market cap for it >> we continue to think when we look at what would make sense foray do for adobe, are companies having great technology, are they the right people, how does it transform what we do as a business we're very pleased with the portfolio we have when you think of what we are doing across three clouds, who are the leaders in this particular

category i think trying to focus on the existing acquisition, you talked about magento. >> i was also looking at the calendar, little more than ten years ago you took over as ceo of adobe not long after that, lehman failed, financial crisis time, all sorts of stocks go down. what do you remember about being a new ceo during that period and how did it shape the way you set your agenda after that foray doeb ee, the growth. people can look at the stock chart and see it >> i have been at the company 20 years, jon. >> we go back 18. >> i remember. first time we did launches of creative suite, precurser to the

creative cloud funny thing, when i took over in 2007, in 2008 we had record revenues i am like how hard can this be, even i can do it then the recession hit i think it brought out two things first, at that point we didn't have much record -- we weren't innovating at the pace we needed to we look at the financial crisis as a missed opportunity if you didn't transform the company and as you know, we both acquired omniture, and said we're going to transform creativity i think while the lessons we learned along that way were about building a company for the long run, i think i have just fond memories of even that time because adversity teaches you how to really focus on what's important for your customers and your employees. >> part of the story in silicon

valley, apple launched ipad during the dot com bust as well. always great to see you. >> my pleasure. >> what a story, jon, not just today but the past several years. jon fortt with adobe. let's go to sue herera >> thank you very much as expected, paul manafort according to his lawyer will indeed plead guilty to two criminal counts, conspiracy against the u.s. and conspiracy to obstruct justice. as part of the plea deal, however, something we did not know, the ten deadlocked counts from the previous trial which took place in virginia, they will be dismissed as part of the agreement. so we don't know now, and this is the key component, whether or not paul manafort, the former campaign manager for the president is going to cooperate with robert mueller in his probe. that's the unanswered question

we're waiting to see if we get more comments from his attorney. it would be nice to know whether or not that's going to take place. we do now know the ten deadlocked counts from the previous virginia trial will be dismissed and he will plead guilty to two criminal counts. back to you guys. >> waiting for word on the question about whether he will cooperate with mueller thank you for the update when we come back, more on where jon's conversation left off. the financial crisis, lessons learned. quk leacafr a break. dow up a little over 50 points

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fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. carolina beach, north carolina winds are picking up as hurricane florence does make landfall in north carolina as a category one storm we have it covered for you plenty of updates all day on cnbc european markets are about to close

let's get to courtney reagan for the close. >> hi there. good morning european markets are set to close the week higher. they announced plans to separately list asset management unit losses in the financial sector are keeping a lid on gains for major indexes. denmark's largest falling today, amid growing probe into account flows. "the wall street journal" reporting u.s. law enforcement agencies are probing the bank over allegations of russian money laundering at the estonia branch meanwhile, in the uk, brexit in the headlines after bank of england mark carney sent a warning to theresa may and her cabinet that no deal exit from european union could cripple the country's economy and see

housing prices fall by a third the pound moving lower against the dollar. another major interest rate decision russian central bank hiking rates first time since 2014 in a bid to boost the rub le russian currency down more than 18% since start of 2013. you know that already, i know. back to you. >> but at least central banks are getting involvedto support currency bold move from russia overnight. >> thanks, court. let's get to sue herera for an update on manafort and overall news update. >> yes, carl as we told you previously, he will plead guilty to two criminal counts. the piece of the puzzle we did not know was whether or not there was a cooperation agreement with the justice department by mr. manafort we now know, nbc news has confirmed there is a cooperation agreement as a result of his

agreeing to plead guilty to two criminal charges we also now know the ten deadlocked charges in the virginia previous trial will be dropped, but keep in mind, he is still found guilty on 8 counts in that previous trial the key everyone wanted to know is whether mr. manafort was going to cooperate with the justice department and now we know that he will. back to you. >> sue herera, thank you very much. when we come back, we'll continue to watch developments on hurricane florence from north carolina as the storm surge expects to pick up and we approach high tide in basically the next half hour. a closer look at the economic impact of the storm, already felt as businesses shut their doors in preparation, up next dohaing tow ngon a 54 point gain "squawk alley" back in a moment. so no matter what you trade, or where you trade, you'll only pay $4.95.

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to lead healthier lives and that's invaluable. ♪ if you're just joining us, paul manafort, the president's former campaign manager, pleading guilty to two counts, conspiracy against the united states, conspiracy to obstruct justice by witness tampering, that follows 8 counts of conviction earlier in the summer now nbc news is confirming prosecutors say that manafort's deal does include a 17 page agreement to cooperate with prosecutors. we are digesting this story for the markets and for the

president and the mueller investigation going down e what else could we find out as this continues >> what we know is prosecutors are in court with paul manafort in washington, d.c they're calling this a cooperation agreement in their language in the courtroom. what we haven't seen is the text of that cooperation agreement. we don't know exactly what manafort is agreeing to here generally what happens is you get a plea agreement which lays out terms of the cooperation what we saw with rick gates, for example, paul manafort's former partner, number two was a plea agreement that laid out what gates was agreeing to cooperate on and terms of what would happen in the deal if he violated that cooperation agreement. what we haven't seen yet in the manafort case is release of the text of the agreement that would tell us exactly what his cooperation depends on this would seem to be a bad sign for the president of the united states, given that we know what mueller is interested in is not

really these on-going situations involving paul manafort's previous career as lobbyist and previous financial dealings, what manafort is all about is looking at the idea of collusion between the trump campaign and the russians paul manafort of course was the campaign manager, campaign chairman for the trump campaign for a period of time in 2016 so if he is cooperating, the question that raises is what information does he have about potential collusion that robert mueller, special counsel, wants from him is that what he's got a deal on. we don't know the answer to that question yet that's the focus of everyone's attention the next few minutes >> that's a big question and open one john, mr. manafort is now the fifth associate of president trump to be pleading guilty and cooperating with mueller what does that mean? >> well, yes, the fifth and also i think the most important as

eamon indicated, that paul manafort was chairman of the campaign paul manafort had a decade's worth of ties with putin allies before from his work in the ukraine and with russian oligarchs that are also relevant to mueller's inquiry, so this pulls into play all of the issues surrounding potential money laundering because paul manafort was charged with money laundering could that involve trump businesses and also the collusion aspect at the core of the issue. robert mueller now has cooperation from paul manafort who was running the campaign, who was in that june trump tower meeting with russians offering dirt on hillary clinton, and was the chairman of the campaign for some time thereafter, but also michael flynn from a national security perspective, then became national security adviser lied, pled guilty to lying about contacts with the russian

ambassador, about sanctions. so you could see the entire picture coming together. as eamon properly indicated, mueller was not particularly interested in what paul manafort himself did before becoming the campaign chairman. so now the approach, the strategic approach of the prosecutor appears to be classically what you do in a case like this, that is to say you roll people up, get them to cooperate using whatever leverage you have. now that paul manafort has done that, that's going to come as a shock to the president the president, remember, has tweeted praise for manafort for hanging tough, being strong, resisting pressure now, the question is what exactly does he know, what will he say the prosecutors will insist on full cooperation before executing their side of this plea deal. but this is extremely worry some news for president trump, for the white house, and by

extension for the republican party seven weeks before midterm elections. >> i would think it quiets down some of those expecting manafort to be pardoned by president trump because he was so defiant against cooperating with mueller. eamon, we'll wait to hear from the administration. >> there's a statement from the press secretary, really quick. this has nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign. it is totally unrelated. that's from the press secretary. >> i guess we'll see if that's true. >> we will, and what we'll see in the next few minutes i believe is the text of the cooperation agreement that could give more indication of what they're looking at this would appear to be an ominous sign for the president the president's defenders have been out on television for months saying paul manafort's charges here revolve around the lobbying campaign, around his personal finances, not paying taxes, offshore accounts of his

own, previous financial dealings before he became the campaign chairman but of course the danger to the president was always that those charges were being used by the special counsel's office to put pressure on paul manafort to flip, presumably to flip on somebody up the food chain from him, and there are not that many people up the food chain from the campaign chairman other than the candidate himself. this was always about whether or not manafort would flip ultimately on the campaign stuff, not on his previous career stuff the question is as john points out, what does he know, what allegations would manafort be making and then of course the defense will suggest in cases like this that the only reason he is saying any of the things he is saying is because he got a deal. defenders of the president want to point out that manafort is in a tricky position and might be inclined to say anything to get out of that position, and therefore you can't trust him. that's the debate we're going to

see going forward. >> one point on the issue about the pardon, specs about a presidential pardon, one relevant factor in this case as in the michael cohen situation is the prospect of state charges which are beyond the reach of the president's pardon powers. if paul manafort concluded that he was in trouble with state authorities as well as robert mueller, then a cooperation deal might be a way to take care of both of those when the president through pardoning to only take care of part of it >> there's a point thank you very much. stocks are rallying as well as the dollar. let's update the storm hurricane florence hitting north carolina the eye of the storm landing near wrightsville beach. jackie deangeles joins us with more looks like conditions are worsening. >> reporter: hey, sara, conditions are definitely worsening. the calm of the eye passed about

two and a half hours ago we're getting the back end of outer bands. the wind and rain are fears, just as predicted. this was the bull's-eye for the storm. carolina beach is being hit hard at this point. we're also monitoring what's happening north of here, 90 miles in new bern, where rescue efforts were made to get about 150 people stranded there out of that area. they're experiencing severe flooding, upwards of ten feet. there's some video we can show you of first responders on the scene, trying to help the elderly that need assistance first to get them out of harm's way. this was the concern and why precautions were taken with evacuation orders so early on in the process, because this storm is as serious as they were expecting, even though it was downgraded from category four to category one, i can tell you from standing here, the wind is very, very strong. when the storm surges come and

you saw that video ten feet high, it becomes very, very dangerous. the third piece of the story we are monitoring is power. there have been outages across north and south carolina the numbers i have, the latest, 500,000, a half million customers without power in north carolina now only. that number increases as time goes on, as the storm gets more severe duke energy is forecasting 3 million could be left without power and it could last for days if not potentially weeks as we are monitoring this, we have a calm moment of the eye that was remarkable to experience and now the outer band winds and rain just pelting down on the area it really is something, guys >> jackie, we're going to watch that as you're getting high tide here, adding to the storm surge, i'm sure, as we watch the action on the water behind you. jackie deangeles in hurricane

florence. when we come back, more on paul manafort as the former trump campaign chairman enters that guilty plea osuts coers on what is called by precora opation agreement in a moment.

i am scott walker. we are calling it the tepper take away. what the investor told me about stocks and what it means to investors. and a second sit down with david tepper on the tenth anniversary of the financial crisis.

today, hear his reflections on that period, whether he thinks it could all happen again. and jon najarian in a few minutes. >> see you then. thank you. we are outside the courthouse learning about new developments what can you tell us . >> reporter: sara, that hearing is still going on. manafort showing up in the courtroom in a business suit, a dark suit, white shirt, purple tie, hair neatly domed some speculation whether he might show up in a jump suit since he has been in custody for some time now. the judge did grant him that one benefit as he entered the courtroom. during the hearing part of the point of it is for the judge to determine that manafort is of sound mind and able to understand the charges against

him. she said the point is for him to make sure that he is making a knowing and voluntary choice in this plea deal and in this cooperation with the government as they look into the russia investigation. manafort has been very calm during the proceedings he kept a straight face, even as prosecutors lead the lengthy charges against him. those are again still going on we will see how they go forward and whether or not we learn anything more about what exactly the cooperation between paul manafort and the mueller investigation will look like, guys >> we talked a lot this morning about what the president said about manafort a few weeks ago, but we should remind viewers as recently as late july, manafort's own attorney had said there was no chance that he would cooperate with the special counsel to avoid a trial >> reporter: well, you know, this trial in d.c. was expected

to look different from the one in virginia. the judge in this case is someone who was appointed by president obama. she has ruled in contentious cases in the past that would seem to indicate that she might not be in his favo time and also the crowd, the jury pool in washington, d.c., is perhaps more liberal than you would find in a purple state like virginia. so it's possible that the defense was looking at the implications of what a trial going forward in d.c. might look like on very similar charges to the one that he was found guilty on in virginia and decided to cut their losses and make a deal with the government. >> do we expect anyone to step out of the courthouse and come to the cameras >> reporter: at this point, no those proceedings are still going on i'm told to expect they could last about an hour from when they first started we're looking at maybe another 20 minutes or so before the hearing will actually wrap up. we'll see if anyone says anything of course we'll be trying to

catch them as well >> thank you we know you'll be watching any exits or arrivals there today. in the meantime let's bring in former federal prosecutor doug burns to talk more about the developments this morning. doug, thanks for your time today. >> my pleasure >> what is the earliest we could possibly get to understand the scope of this agreement, this cooperation agreement? >> yeah, well, we need to get it in our hand and study it and look at it one of the prosecutors mentioned in open court something about when mr. manafort completes his cooperation. and as all the media is reporting, and they're right, that's a very significant development. but, again, we're going to need to look at the agreement, go through it i also wanted to say i agree with what you were saying about the judge and the jury pool ran the new location i think that it was a situation of minimizing damage very common, by the way, when somebody goes through a trial. it's hard to know what a trial is until you go through it, as dumb as that may sound

the point is it's not a pleasant experience manafort having gone through what he went through in my view sought to cut his losses i'm not willing to jump into the cooperation area wholeheartedly until i really see what the agreement looks like >> understood. eamonn javers is at the white house today. i think he has some additional commentary >> reporter: we've gotten a statement from jurudy giuliani saying a plea having nothing to do with president trump or the trump campaign giuliani going on to say the reason the president did nothing wrong, that statement is attributable to rudy giuliani, counsel to the president an important development there from the white house and the president's attorney the white house putting out a statement from the press secretary saying something similar, in effect, the cooperation here ultimately is paul manafort's but insisting the president did nothing wrong. so rudy giuliani saying the president did nothing wrong and this has nothing to do with president trump or the trump

campaign one possibility we should point out it is theoretically possible what manafort is cooperating on does not relate to the trump campaign in 2016 it could be that he's cooperating on further alleged criminal activity relating to his lobbying activities or his financial activities or his offshore banking deals that involve other persons but not related to the presidential campaign that is going to be the hope presumably of people close to the president. they hope this doesn't lead into the campaign what manafort is agreeing to cooperate on is related to his own personal business situation that predates the president. when we do get the plea agreeme agreement, we should get some sense on what he's agreed to do and hasn't agreed to do. maybe from there we can tease out what he's cooperating on for now no information that is one of the possibilities here >> thank you for the update. doug burns is still with us. can you piece this all together for us, doug, the five

associates that are pled guilty and are working with mueller and figure out a thread or what exactly mueller is looking into based on what eamonn just said whether it's about president trump or about the campaign or other financial issues >> well, look, that's an excellent question the point is obviously, you know, political rhetoric and the relates don't line up, obviously. you don't need me to be the one to tell you that and the point is you have the political rhetoric flying all over the place this has nothing to do, et cetera there's also a little bit of an inaccurate narrative over the course of this case which, you know, he can only cooperate with respect to one matter, which is the president. that's not a reality people can cooperate on anything and working off the point that was just reported on, very, very good point, he may be cooperating on his own culpability and sometimes when i was a federal prosecutor for nine years we would say, you know, he's cooperating with respect to the financial and forfeiture issues.

that's why they didn't want to jump in. make no mistake about it, delving into the politics, they can throw the political rhetoric phrases around all day long but they have to be concerned, my goodness maybe there is something he can cooperate on we just don't know yet >> how do you judge -- i mean, me people are trying to piece together any commentary from mueller and the team the guilty pleas from manafort, from flynn, from gates, from papadopoulos, the charges, the indictments of russians and companies earlier in the year. does that connote progress if you are on the mueller team? >> it's hard to really say again, you have the one side screaming bloody murder, how it has nothing to do with the campaign the other side calmly pointing out, wait a minute, there are some indications a lot of the manafort conduct involved his activities in ukraine and lots of money

flowing all over the place as you pointed out, you're right, when you piece together all of these different pleas that have taken place in the eastern district of virginia, it shows some results for mueller what i'm saying in a roundabout way it's a mixed bag each side has their version of it and then you have the middle ground to piece it together, yes, they've obtained a number of convictions, but it's misleading to just turn around and say look at all the convictions they have you see that there really was collusion that's the leap of faith they haven't demonstrated that yet. their investigation is not over. >> let's bring in former federal prosecutor glenn kirschner glenn, you're take on the news we've learned paul manafort is indeed pleading guilty, will cooperate with robert mueller. what do you make of that >> i think this is blockbuster news, not good for the

administration, not good for the president or his associates. the way i see it, the only one trying to mislead anyone is mr. giuliani and, frankly, with all due respect, sarah huckabee sanders when they say these charges have nothing do with the president. that is technically accurate but that's only because mr. mueller hasn't reached the stage of his investigation where he has decided to disclose what he's learned about the president whether in what ultimately turns out to be a report to congress or an indictment of the president and his associates i think it's misleading to say to the american people that somehow this exonerates the president or this bodes well for the president. nothing could be further from the truth. his campaign chairman has just pled guilty to virtually each and everything bob mueller said he did because even though we saw that the charges today drop

his seven counts down to two counts, they include everything that he was alleged to have done in all seven counts plus the crimes that he committed in virginia or has already been convicted of in part in the virginia trial this couldn't really be more dramatically bad for the president or his associates or his administration and all of this chatter they continue to put out to the contrary does nothing to change that >> doug, i'd love to get your response to that as we understand it now, manafort in this appearance was asked whether or not the lengthy list of evidence presented against him was correct, and he said i did it is. what do you make of glenn's point that the locust of the activity here predates the campaign there's no question about that, is there >> no. this criminal conduct is not related to the time frame. as a practicing lawyer, i don't

jum in to one side or the other necessarily. i understand glenn's point he says it bodes poorly for the administration i would modify that with the word may bode poorly, because the cooperation could be honestly just with respect to the forfeiture or just with respect to his own conduct in the case but, again, i don't want anybody to take that as political commentary from me we simply do not know whether, "a," he's cooperating only with respect to the financial forfeiture part of the agreement, "b," he's cooperating with respect to his own conduct, "c," with respect to other people having nothing to do with the president or, "d," it's the president. those are the options. unless you have a crystal ball, you don't know that. >> glenn, do you want to respond to that? why are you so sure the president should be so worried if the white house is saying this has nothing to do with him or the campaign? >> yeah, and here is my take on that and i can't say that we can look into a crystal ball because

we don't know the terms of the cooperation yet. i find it extremely hard to believe that bob mueller -- i learned to be a federal prosecutor, which i was for 30 years from bob mueller in large part i think it extraordinarily unlikely that, for example, he would limit mr. manafort's cooperation to that aspect of the investigation. that, i don't think, makes any sense from a prosecutorial point of view. i think this is a full-blown overarching agreement that will require paul manafort to say everything he knows about trump and the campaign's conduct >> glenn, doug, thank you so much for the guidance on a remarkable story today, although it hasn't moved the markets much >> dow has been up 52 points the entire time. dollar not moving either >> let's get over to scott wapner and "the half."