representations to a bank that's a crime. >> again, of course, timing here is really key, because from the "new york times" reporting that michael cohen secretly recorded the conversation with president trump two months before the election, and "the wall street journal" reveals the payment before the election and at that time hope hicks for the campaign said we have no knowledge of any of this. a lot more breaking news coming with this. we're going to have much more on this breaking news and inside politics with john king right now. welcome back to inside politics, i'm john king, a very big breaking news friday. just moments ago, the "new york times" posting a blockbuster report, michael cohen, the president's long time personal attorney and fixer, secretly taped then candidate donald

trump in september 2016, in talking about paying hush money to a playboy model who claims she had an affair with trump. the fbi seized this tape in a raid on michael cohen's office earlier this year. this is a remarkable story, give us the biggest egest elements the biggest questions now for the president. >> reporter: the biggest question right now for the president is why the campaign said that they had no knowledge of this when they were asked about it late in the fall of 2016. the biggest thing we learned from this is that there is a brief recording of michael cohen talking to donald trump, michael cohen was at that time donald trump's personal lawyer, donald trump was not the president yyet and they are discussing some details on payments by ami, to karen mcdoogle, a woman who alleged she had an affair, with

not candidate yet donald trump. this conversation had something to do with making an additional payment from mr. cohen to karen mcdoogle. his lawyer rudy giuliani said he had on the recording apparently instructed that it be done by check, so that it was done properly, instead of cash, and that payment was apparently not made. and we have all sorts of questions about why the campaign would say they knew nothing about this when clearly donald trump neweknew very well about before the "new york times" made it public. >> but to your point there, i'm reading the rudy giuliani quote, in your article, he says in the big scheme of things, it's powerful exculpatory evidence, rudy giuliani is the president's lawyer, but he also helps to

spin things. how can he say it's exculpatory and not incredibly damming. >> he's saying that he found out about the ami bill several months later. if it was a check, a check could be subpoenaed, it was not cash, so therefore he's afraid of this being learned of. it's walking a bit of a fine line there, as you correctly know. we will see what else the president has to say about this as time goes on. >> maggie, appreciate your time at this busy time. with me here in studio also with the "new york times," lisa larry with the associated press, and cnn's katelynn collins. for our audience members who might be confused, because this is separate from the stormy daniels payment. this is in 2006, shortly after

melania gave birth to barron trump. she sold her story to "the national enquirer" and they never published it. and the whole idea behind that is that "the national enquirer" is a friend of trump. michael cohen secretly taped trump sediscussing payment to t playboy model. we have learned in this universe, sometimes up is down and east is west. what do you make of this? >> i think if we had reason to believe skeptical about donald trump's denials in the past, the white house's denials in the past about these various stories, that the white house may have tried to kill, these affairs that a number of women have said they had a with donald trump several years ago, i think we have reason to be 100 times more skeptical. no matter what donald trump says now going forward, no matter

what the white house spokes people say going forward, now we have a recording that was made in which michael cohen and donald trump discussed explicitly to a woman who claims to have had an affair with donald trump. i think it's worth emphasizing, though, it does say that payment was ultimately never made, that's attributed to rudy giuliani, donald trump's lawyer. so the payment that was made which this shouldn't be confused with, was the payment from ami to karen mcdoogle of $150,000. i'm unclear on when the timing of this was made or if this discussion happened and then they decided not to make a statement to karen mcdoogle and then the payment from ami happened. >> a washington damage control attorney says he'll have no comment on this story. but you make a key point, on both of these payments, the

stormy daniel payments, and this payment, the first payment to karen mcdoogle had been paid, and the conversation was between the president and michael cohen before he was elected president. isfixer, the man who makes problems going away, apparently felt the need to make a recording of this conversation about potential hush money payment. >> for months they have denied stormy daniels, saying they didn't know anything about it. in the past they have denied that the president had an affair with this playboy model and now we're seeing this come out and rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer is on the record here saying that it is a good thing that the president was trying to

pay the playboy model through a check rather than sending cash so that it could be properly documented. that defense is, i don't even know the word for it. but we have that there. and also the thing to keep in mind, is that we have reported in the past, that michael cohen had a habit of recording conversations so he would have a record or them. also the question is how many other tapes are there, and that is even people who work in the white house have raised the question, if there are women like stormy daniels and karen mcdoogle, how many other women were there >> so there are going to be all sorts of questions about campaign finance laws violated, was all this reported properly on everything's taxes, if the money came from the trump administration, is it reported right in the business records. so the reporting about michael

cohen's legal jeopardy and the spillover to the president. >> and the fact that he had a secret tape seems like a huge piece of this whole thing. what else is he recording? whattest eslse are they going find? the investigators are going to find these things. >> we know the materials were seized in a highly unusual raid, prosecutors in the southern district of new york, robert mueller had a clue about this case, and rod rosenstein the deputy attorney general said this is not your department, took the information that he had over to the southern district of new york, gave it to federal prosecutors, they gave a judge's warrant for a no knock warrant. this is because you have a high probability that a person is going to destroy evidence, cheat and lie to you. the department was under -- they have been under a special

master, a special prosecutor who has decided what is privileged and what is not. and going back through this, and in the process of this, this was turned over, rudy giuliani found out about this, and as they found it, they turned it over to the president's attorneys. >> the question is how many other recordings are there and how many other emails, transcripts, what have you, that not only shed additional light on this case, but might shed additional light on the stormy daniels case and other possible women that might be an issue for this president. what is striking is that we're not talking at all about the fact that the president of the united states is discussing with his personal lawyer about payments being made to a playboy model. that is baked in the cake right now. that is obviously not where the white house is focusing. where they do have to be focused on is what happens in the months

before this payment was discussed and paid, what were the conversations around that, was there some sort of quit pro quo, might there have been a campaign finance question and are there other cases that michael cohen might have evidence. >> was this a conversation where the then candidate republican nominee donald trump discusses this with michael cohen, he says to rudy giuliani, we don't have the recording. rudy giuliani is say whatever he wanted right now because the recording is not on in the public domain. but the recording says if you're going to do it, make the payment by check not by cash. so does that make this less -- which then killed the story. i just want to say, m.j. made a great point in the beginning, that this calls into question, everything that has been said on these issues about when he knew about it, did these relationships happen, not only from the president of the united

states, but all those who speak for the president, when michael cohen first fell into legal jeopardy, here's the president talking about fox news. >> how much of your legal work was handled by michael cohen. >> as a percentage of my overall legal work, a tiny, tiny fraction, but michael would represent me on some things, he represents me on this crazy stormy daniels deal. he represented me and, you know, from what i see, he did absolutely nothing wrong. there were no cam pain funds going into -- >> why is he pleading the fifth? >> because he's got other things, he's got other businesses and from my understanding he's got other businesses and his lawyers probably told him to do that, but i'm not involved, and i've been told i'm not involved. >> i've been told. >> can i just point out just one very ironic thing right now, we

have been talking so much over the last couple of weeks about the question of whether michael cohen is going to flip against the president. it turns out that the reality is he doesn't need to flip, the damage is probably already done, because the fbi have taken so many things that belong to michael cohen including the recordings, the fact that michael cohen had this weird habit of secretly recording phone conversations, including apparently with his former boss means they have their hands on so many things they may not even ultimately need to deal with you, if you're going to give us x, y and z information, we can lessing your charge. but he has not been charged yet. but that may not come to fruition because of what investigators already have. >> is it voyeuristic on michael cohen's -- you're not sure if this comes out and if this becomes a problem, that the guy on the other end of the phone, the republican nominee at the

time and now the president of the united states is going to come anywhere close to the truth when he's forced to talk about it. >> the prosecutors are looking to see whether president trump tried to tamp down these stories and whether that violated campaign flgs laws, this quote from rudy giuliani -- he's saying how to make the payment, he's not saying don't make it, don't pay this, he's saying how to make the payment. we don't know why the payment wasn't made, but from what rudy giuliani is saying, is that the president gave the go ahead for this payment to be made. that is essentially what the prosecutors have -- if he's giving the go ahead to michael cohen to make this statement to silence her ahead of the election, that's where it's going to be the point of interest for these prosecutors. >> we're going to take a quick break, but our legal team is working on this, michael cohen, the president's long-time attorney and fixer, no longer works for the president, but the "new york times" working on a

secret reporting of him having a conversation with the then nominee, now president of the yoourtsds about making a cash payment to a playboy model who says she had an affair with businessman trump. we'll be right back.

#. welcome back. a secret tape recording between then nominee donald trump and now president trump and his long-time attorney. former presidential fixer michael cohen secretly recorded donald trump the candidate two months before the election. the two men discussing possibly a payment to a former playboy model. our legal analyst joins us on the phone. paul, give me your sense, your legal perspective, as you read the details of this story. >> my take on it is this

couldn't be donald trump's john dean moment. and i say that, because this is kind of reminiscent of nixon, when he was dealing with his own counsel e cooperated with the prosecutors, and nixon strategy at that time was to accuse dean of lying. and then suddenly another said alexander butter fiefield in a surprise testimony before congress revealed the existence of nixon tapes, indicating that everything that was testified to could be corroborated on the tapes. this is the president of the united states, who apparently is secretly taping the president and when the president of course was running for office. so depending m ining upon what these tapes, this could really be exceptionally damaging and make a great threat to the

donald trump presidency. of course, we know that cohen has always had this reputation as donald trump's fixer, and he makes no bones about the fact that he had authority to go and pay off women and who knows what other things that donald trump didn't want other people to handle. and if all of this is on tape, being authorized by the president, i think it's goc to cause extraordinary damage to the presidency. and to donald trump. >> this is asking you to be somewhat speculative, paul, but you know how this process works, they receive all these recordings from michael quo wen's office. a special master decides what is privileged between an attorney and his client. the special master then has made a ruling on this, a limited number of this as she has said is privileged material. in your view a recording between candidate trump and michael cohen about a hush money payment about a whom who alleged she had

an affair with him. would that be privileged? would it just be in the hands of michael cohen's legal team, and michael cohen's legal team shared it. or is this -- is there some exception that would make this also material that would be handed over to the prosecutors. >> we need more details, john, but it sounds on the surface like you could make a claim that this was attorney-client privilege ed material. however, there is an exception to the attorney client privilege, if you are discussing something of a criminal nature, it's called the crime fraud exception. in this discussion, it is perceived as a planned illegal payment, then there's no privilege. now one possibility of course would be if the payoff is being planned in order to protect donald trump's reputation in the

election and part of the plan of course is not to report it to the federal election commission because obviously that would be revealing the secret that the payoff is designed to hide. that could be a crime. and if you make the argument that this could have been a discussion in pursuance of that crime, then it would never be revealed. but as you said, we don't have all the details and we will have to see what was said in the conversation to make a firm determination on that. >> the full file, if you will, that preceded conversations that followed, any other documentation preceded. i want to ask you one more from your legal perspective, rudy giuliani, the former new york city mayor, he's president trump's attorney now. most of what he said was more of a -- a far fleet from the facts. he says this, he says the

reporting was less than 2 minutes and in his view the president did nothing wrong, he says that no payment was made and he says, quote, nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance. he says mr. trump directed mr. cohen that if he were to make a payment to cohen, write a check rather than sending cash, so it would be properly documented. rudy giuliani says that shows the president's being responsible here, and this is exculpatory. you buy that? >> i see rudy giuliani reasoning here. he wouldn't call it hush money, but negotiating a confidenti confidentiality agreement with someone who has a claim with you is not illegal. unless the purpose of the payment is really political in

nature and is not reported subsequent. and then you could have a crime. as i say, we need more to look at this. if i were now counsel to the president, is whether jewel yampb any, by publicly discussing this conversation as the agent of the president now, has waved the attorney-client privilege. and may in fact by that published statement make it very, very easy now for prosecutors to say, this is an admissible item of evidence and because the attorney-client privilege had been waived. >> let's quickly go around the table and we know how when the white house enter into damage control mode, we now have giuliani who's your legal front person, what is the president going to do about this? >> paul makes a point about whether or not what giuliani has now said opens the door to use of this tape. but i think the big issue here as my colleagues mentioned is a

credibility issue and to the degree and they were trying to paint this as a situation of michael cohen might have done what michael cohen did, but he wasn't directed to by the president and really they tried to distance president trump from them as much as they could, this sort of gives a lie to many other areas of speculation. i think if past is any guide, the presidenting is going to be very angry about it, he's going to be frustrated about it. i think we'll see some tweets, he's got a down weekend at bedminster, foreign policy wise, this is the last thing he needs and i think we're going to be hearing a lot of lashing out from him. >> we are in mid-july, which means we are creeping ever closer to those midterms, and while both republicans and democrats would say, these kinds of headlines, the trump factors baked on the race, what these

headlines do is provide a constant shot of adrenaline into those democrats. who read into these things, not only am i getting out there to vote for the republican congressman, i'm volunteering, i'm giving money. so these are great headlines for democrats, and the fact that there's a tape, means that likely there's more tapes and all of this keeps ticking down to election day. >> remember what a crazy day in april when the president was in the cabinet room for this meeting with his military leaders. unprompted in the first 60 seconds, the president went off about the fbi raiding michael cohen's office, hotel and home, saying it was a disgrace, a whole new level of unfairness. it was a stunning moment, and aides said they had never seen the president that angry in the entire time that they had been working with him in the white house. only the paul manafort and the michael cohen stuff and the president was the most furious

when they rated michael cohen's office and hotel and house. and now we can see why the president was so angry. >> and remember that these recordings now potentially mean that donald trump and the aides around him no longer can sort of get off on semantics, right? they can't explain away these things did or didn't happen and create explanations when there are literally recordings of these conversations taking place, because remember that's exactly what happened with the stormy daniels payment, donald trump was asked very directly, did you know about the payments, and he said no, but the later explanations that came in rudy giuliani, that came from the white house, he didn't know at the time, he eventually found out. if there were reportings and that makes that kind of argument and the semantics argument even more critical.

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why does he want a second summit with vladimir putin even before he tells us the american people, or most members of his own team what happened at the first? on a day your national security team is out in public saying russia's attacks on the united states continue. why blind side your director of national intelligence? >> vladimir putin is coming to the white house in the fall. >> say that again? >> vladimir putin coming -- >> i heard you. >> yeah, yeah. >> okay. that's going to be special. >> laughter there. but sources in the intelligence community tell cbs nn new one knew the putin announcement was

coming. incomprehensible is another word that fits. the american side is still trying to sort out the president's helsinki mess. no one but the president and putin can tell us what the president might have promised burlington h during his meeting. and everyone on team trump says that putin directed cyber attacks on the united states continue. yet the president who just gave putin a global stage in helsinki now see -- weak is the global verdict on the president's performance in helsinki. of the but he sees it very, very differently. >> getting along with president putin, getting along with russia is a positive, not a negative. with that being said, if that doesn't work out. i'll be the worst enemy he's ever had. the worst he's ever had, and i think he knows that. and i'll be his worst nightmare.

i actually don't think that way. i actually think we'll have a good relationship. >> i mean usually you would -- putin is a thug. okay? if you're making progress in syria, if you're making progress somewhere else, you say look, this is what we have to do, is there any evidence that there's something happening behind the scenes that we haven't been told about yet, that warrants giving vladimir putin after helsinki, the rose garden, the white house-- >> absolutely not. looking at this sort of surprise announcement yesterday that he was going to actually invite putin to the white house and has actually directed john boll tochon the, his national security advisor to actually arrange that visit. what the president has done in the wake of this news conference in helsinki is to really double

down on what he says is the rationale for the meeting in the first place. i don't think anybody in the foreign policy establishment would -- working together on syria and all the things they talked about for about five minutes in that news conference before he pivoted to russia meddling and interference and how he didn't actually buy that it had occurred. that would be a good thing and i think to the degree that he can argue that this is a policy that i want to pursue, i think it was successful in helsinki and i would think it would be professional to follow up on that. otherwise all people have is two hours and 10 minutes where he is alone in a room with putin, nobody knows what he agreed to, the white house has refused to brief any one of us who covered that meeting on what actually happened there, so all he can really do is sort of act publicly like this was a sort of a big mark of progress and he needs to follow up and keep it going. that's the only argument he has at this point.

>> also the republicans, the polling that's coming up out. some republicans think the summit went fairly well, they approve of what he did, and it's another example of how president trump is shifting what the presidency really is. that means a lot of republican senators and congressmen in a pretty difficult spot, the ground is shifting under them. trump is moving the party, and they think we see all these comments, more than we have seen for any of these other kind of controversies, from the republican congressmen and senators saying this is the wrong approach. >> that's a great question, but it's also -- there's what you're doing, which is why has putin giving you any evidence he deserves this? did he say something in the private meeting? maybe he told the president something in the private meeting that russia is going to change it's behavior, don't bet a penny on it and it's going to change things around the world.

but then the president national security advisor is out in public saying this. >> these actions are per sis tent, they are pervasive, they're meant to undermine democracy on a daily basis. >> they are the ones that are trying to wreak havoc over their election process. >> is russia still targeting the united states? >> i think they would be foolish to think they are not. >> i think the russian also try and undermine american democracy in 2018, 2019, and for a very long time. >> let's give him a key to ft. knox? >> the president's own administration officials have been very staunch in maintaining that it was russia who attacked the elections, that they are likely to do it again, the president is very inconsistent at best in his -- standing next to the world leader on that world stage, but the president himself has been framing this since he got back as the media's

negative coverage of the summit is the problem. saying essentially that the media either wants it fob a relationship with putin or a war. but those aren't necessarily the options, you don't have to be at war with them for confronting our election it. the president is framing it as the media doesn't want this, but simply the standard is pretty low for the president. but the president did not take that opportunity when he was explicitly given that opportunity by a reporter and you heard dan coats say yesterday when putin comes back this fall, that he does not think that he and the president should meet one-on-one again. >> the "new york times" reporting that the president's former personal attorney michael cohen, when still the president's personal attorney and personal fixer, two months before the election in 2016, secretly recorded then candidate

donald trump, when they were discussing making a possible payment to karen mcdoogle. rudy giuliani the president's personal attorney says trump, he was then candidate trump had no idea he was being recorded during the discussion, he says it took place at the president's office at trump tower in september of 2016, so two months before the presidential election, when informed about the tape, the president said i can't believe michael would do this to me. michael cohen has other recordings in his records that were seized by the fbi according to giuliani and a course with knowledge of cohen's tapes. let me stop there. rudy giuliani saying there are other recordings and he also says in this that the fbi has a recording and his personal attorney discussing this payment. is this kept as somehow privileged? rudy giuliani at least telling

gloria borger and dana bash that the dpib has it. and i think there are more, and you made the point earlier that i cannot believe michael would do this with me. >> as katelynn noted earlier, the angriest we have seen him, the most sort of out of control inside the white house is when michael cohen's office was raided and he, i think, he presented it at the time that this man was loyal to me and i'm outraged on his behalf, but i think we can all see in speaking to people around donald trump understood that part of the reason he was so angry was because he recognized what the implications could be for him. and now these prosecutors, the fbi had in their possession possibly all this damaging information. clearly it seems like there are other recordings a and it obviously raised the question in the president's mind, even if he doesn't flip, as i said earlier, what does michael cohen have

that could further damage him and put him in legal jeopardy. >> it's a credibility crisis for the about, are there issues about the timing of the payments or the possible payments that they talked about right there. the republican nominee saying i can't believe michael would do this toe m. i want to go through this reporting more. there are tapes, other tapes of cohen and other, quote, powerful individuals that the fbi seized beyond the president that could be embarrassing for people on the tape and for cohen, according to the source of the tape, the people are of significant. but we do know that cohen was also the attorney for the republican fund-raiser that had a similar deal because of cohe cohen's experience of helping the president, then businessman trump, had a role in paying a

payment to a similar playboy model. >> i thought the key line from gloria and dana's reporting is giuliani and another source confirming that there are other recordings involving president trump. that we did not know with certainty, though i think you could have assumed given cohen's close relationship with trump. i think you're right, as we have reported over the past several months, we have pointed out that michael cohen was also involved in these kinds of dealings, he talked about being his fixer, he went out to fix these kinds of problems for trump, he wanted to make these sort of unflattering stories go away. and i think you're right, you're noting now is that there are reportings of him speaking to other powerful figures, who knows who they could be, they could be big republican fund raidsers, it could be about other clients he had, other

stories that he was trying to conceal on donald trump's behave. >> you have his personal lawyer recording him, secretly recording him, so you have toy, probably other people were doing that. too. everybody may be recording everybody. that's the universe in which he's operating in, and it's a very, very territofertile yuan . >> giuliani has known about this for a few days and has reviewed the transcripts so that would lead us to believe that the president has known about this for several days. so that really says a lot more about what the president's mindset has been while he was on this whirlwind trip to europe last week, meeting with all these world leaders, things that were catastrophes in and of themselves because of the presidential comments during

interviews. but now we know he knew about this when he went into that trip. >> it puts before you number one, the personal credibility issues, if you go back again, the president's elevations, denials, changes on stormy daniels, it was from a stunning, didn't know nothing about it, to reimbursed michael cohen for the payments of that. now we have here a secret recording of then candidate -- the karen mcdoogle and stormy mcdaniels. he's the president and any money that moves potentially is potentially is a campaign finance risk. robert mueller is continuing hiss investigations on other issues, you made the point about where we are in the election year. that there's a lot of we don't knows even as we read a sentence

to your point, when informed about the tape, the president said i can't believe michael would do this to me, michael cohen has other recordings in his records that were seized by the fbi. according to the fbi's lawyer, rudy giuliani. >> and it's such a telling line into trump's psyche that he's genuinely pri lly surprised tha has come up and sort of blaming it on michael cohen as if he had done something, obviously these are actions that michael cohen took some time ago, but he didn't say, here's evidence, i'm going to present these to investigators, they just came up as part of the raid, and he clearly doesn't know and i think reporters know, based on everything that we know about donald trump and his past, he's not a nice boss, so when you have a person who's been working with you for so many years and is in such close contact and handling so many different parts of your life, they are going to be in a position to know these things, and that is that point right now for michael cohen,

these things are no longer under michael cohen's control, these things are out there and they're already in the hands of vefrtsz, there's nothing that michael koern can do. >> and there was that great reporting that -- it wasn't as chummy as people have painted it. it shows how the president has treated michael cohen over the years, coming to his son's bat mitzvah and saying that michael cohen call and begged him to show up and finally he did. really ecmbarrassing things the way the president treated michael cohen. michael cohen thought he was going to come into the white house and be the white house counsel. and then he got no job, but he said i'll serve the president better from outside the white house. michael cohen has certainly not had the power in that relationship. and it's very interesting now that that could be a foil for the president. >> and this is a pattern that

you see of donald trump over a period of years that he really demands and expects loyalty from everybody around him, quite above and beyond what most bosses would expect people to tolerate but doesn't actually give it back when it's their time to need little toy from them. there comes a time in these relationships when the person is no longer in control of the information they have about them, and that is true of every person in the west wing because of the mueller situation, he's in the situation that people around him who know things that he potentially does not want made public are being asked to testify under oath and tell prosecutors what they know. and, you know, he is now not in a position of control, even though he has the control in the relationship at the beginning, this is where he finds himself. and the michael cohen ample is probably the most vivid example of that right now. >> there are others to your

point, the michael cohen investigation right now, separate from the special counsel investigation, but the same dynamic it manies in the special counsel investigation. they go to these meetings with prosecutors who have all their emails, the special counsel has put together timelines of meetings that the people who were at the meetings and organized the meetings have even more information than that. it's the truth, hard to deny it them. up next for us here, the president's invitation to the russian president to come to washington, not sitting well on capitol hill. what about him? let's do it. ♪ come on. this summer, add a new member to the family.

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welcome back, just moments ago, the secretary of state mike pompeo asked about fresh information from vladimir putin fresh from the helsinki summit to come to the white house this fall, let's listen. >> mr. secretary, on a question about russia, why is it a good idea for the president to invite vladimir putin to the white house. what does the white house have to gain from this visit? >> i'm happy that the two leaders from two important countries are continuing to meet. if it happens in washington, that's all the good. those conversations are incredibly important. we have our senior leaders meeting all across the world with people we have deep disagreements with. it is incredibly value to the

people of the united states that president putin and president trump continue to engage in dialogue to resolve the difficulties our countries have faced between each other. i think this makes enormous sense and i'm hopeful this me meeting will take place this fall. >> is he really that hopeful? a long time russia hawk, he has learned how to stay in the president's favor. to keep the disagreements in private and to agree with him in public. >> if you look at what's going on in capitol hill right now, even among the republicans, the answer to that would be no. i'm intrigued by the word, if that meeting happens, that would be a very good thing. one possibility here is that all we all know that president trump likeses to move the news cycle

along when it's not complementary to him. if he really cannot sustain the good relations with russia by the fall, he can say i'm canceling the meeting. >> i think you also have the question of whether there will be developments in the mueller investigation that makes such a meeting even possible. then you have the republican blow back. one of the things we do know that the mike pompeo that the president did not have a good performance in helsinki. pompeo would not say publicly, dan coatings did. he said if the president had

asked him, he would not recommend a one-on-one meeting. we're now told the vice president of the -- a former indiana senator in the cabinet. there's been some talk in town because the president publicly jnd mined coats standing there next to coats in helsinki. that is one of our question at the moment, isn't it? >> we have been told that dan coats is not going to resign, he plans to stay in the position as long as he can. but then the president did an interview on wednesday where lespoke vele spole -- he spoke very highly of president. you heard dan coats, he said if the president had asked me, i would not have recommended they

meet one-on-one. mike pompeo carries a lot more weight with the president than dan coats does. whether the president is going to be furious can dan coats -- not only dursz that first meeting but to do so again, but to invite him to washington around the times of the midterms, that mike pompeo will attack, is certainly up for debate. this is something where that could be determined by the coverage if it does infuriate the president. he can easily let it slide. >> i thought that was a pretty admirable effort from pompeo to try to put a positive spin on all this, but obviously as we just saw in the last block, really remarkable scenes back to back, the reactions from the very kinds of people who go into government and they are supposed to never be provocative, they are not supposed to have anything other than a poker face but now they're open lly and

publicly saying say can't contain their frustration and confusion at the way the president is behaving. in the security council meetings on syria, it's all yours, secretary pompeo, you answer that question, she had nothing to say there. >> these are all long time politicians who have been in politics for a long time. now they have to learn how to play politics and do foreign policy by donald trump's rules, and that's a really hard thing to do. i know we say this over and over and over again. but the idea that an american president would just toss out a casual invitation to a russian president is totally unprecedented. like everything is unprecedented now, but normally those kinds of conversations are carefully rolled out. it's not something you just kind

of throw out there and the rest of your administration scrambles to catch up. >> at any moment it's unusual. when your own president says he continues to attack the united states of america, you invite him to the showcase of that democracy, odd to be polite. we'll continue to follow the breaking news on the president. more on the breaking news, michael michael -- wolf picks up right now. hello, i'm wolf blitzer thank you for joining us. we start with a bombshell involving president trump and discussions about potential hush money for a former playboy play mate. outs one