thank you, erica. welcome to "inside politics." thanks for sharing this important day with us. the president and the presidency in crisis. his own justice department now alleging the president of the united states directed felony campaign finance violations in hopes of keeping a porn actress and a playmate silent. his response is telling. he attacks his longtime lawyer for cooperate with the feds and praises his campaign chairman for fighting the feds. both face prison time. impeachment is a word in play here in washington today, though many leading democrats say, wait. let the special counsel finish his work. what do republicans say? well, not exactly a profile in courage. >> all i know is mr. cohen has been on all sides of these issues, and his credibility, i think, will be a major issue. >> i don't see any deeper

meaning in this other than you have to pay your taxes, and you can't lie on a loan application. >> time is going to tell who is to be trusted around here and who isn't. including everybody. >> we begin there with the president in crisis and the stunning fact, yes, fact, that the foundation of that crisis. the president of the united states is an unindicted co-conspirator in a felony campaign finance case. if that isn't enough, the special counsel won convictions on eight counts in his first major trial. that are the former campaign chairman paul manafort. the president's reaction today is beyond telling. he's attacking his longtime lawyer and fixer michael cohen who decided to cooperate with the feds and is praising paul manafort who the president says is refusing to break under pressure. both michael cohen and paul manafort face prison time. what now for the president is

the big question here in washington. there are democrats who say there's now more than enough to impeach though even some leading liberals say wait. wait, wait, wait. let's see if the special counsel's methodical march produces more. >> let him make a full and fair report to all of the american people. and when we've got that, then we can make a decision on what the appropriate next step is. >> republicans, the president's party, are in a private panic and what you might best call public denial. many for now following the president's defender in chief. >> it has nothing to do with russia collusion. nothing. paul manafort earlier today found guilty of eight of 18 charges all related to bank and tax fraud. no russia collusion. michael cohen plead guilty. eight counts of bank fraud, tax fraud, minor campaign violations. no russia collusion.

>> historical footnote. monica lewinsky had nothing to do with whitewater but everything to do with a president who lied and tried to hide the truth. but i digress. republicans fear losing power if they lose the support trump voters. don't expect even fact-finding hearings on what michael cohen laid out in court. it is this. that he paid off two women who said they had affairs with the president at a key moment in the 2016 campaign. at the explicit direction of the candidate and that he was reimbursed with trump organization corporate funds after president trump took office. a lot to discuss today. with me to share their reporting and insight, kaitlan collins, michael share with "the new york times," sunlen kim of the "washington post" and the daily beast jackie kucinich. the president reacting today. i'm going to say it. i have children so i've been through it. one tweet saying campaign finance violations. no big deal. another tweet saying i didn't do it. either he didn't do it or it's

no big deal. and michael cohen is a liar. >> i think that's exactly what we kind of expected to see from the president. i was actually traveling with the president yesterday as all this news was breaking on manafort, with him on air force one. when we got off the tarmac, we were screaming questions at him. and he did engage on the manafort verdict. and he made it clear during the 60 seconds or so we had with him that this has nothing do with me. this doesn't involve me. the witch hunt continues. this has nothing to do with russia collusion. we can see since mueller's team was able to secure eight guilty pleas in this first round that it isn't a witch hunt. that they are serious here. and while the president has it correct this doesn't techly -- this case doesn't technically have to do with the russia issue, it just shows you how expansive and serious this investigation is. >> it also really tells you which one is bothering the president the most. the fact he went out of his way to speak with reporters.

something he rarely does when he's getting off air force one. he never does this. he was happy to talk about paul manafort. distance himself from him. denounce the russia investigation but didn't say a word about michael cohen and didn't go into what happened with him. that is telling of how much this irritates the president. >> also another way to look at it. but what he views as the threat closest to him and the disloyalty, how the president views it of michael cohen. michael cohen has flipped. paul manafort faces a big decision. a second trial coming up. a sentencing in his first trial, they'll appeal and all that. but he has to make a decision now. does he continue to fight the fed? the president is trying to send paul manafort a message. >> that is true. but up until this point, paul manafort has not only -- he's been quiet. michael cohen has been out there. he's been doing media tours. his lawyer is out there saying we don't even want your pardon. not only is he not going to seek one, he doesn't want president trump's pardon. he wants to go and talk about the truth as he sees it. so that in and of itself, the

contrast between these two former staffers of the president and how he is viewing it, i think, is stark. >> sean hannity might not or might not publicly be willing to understand process at the moment. matt drudge, normally a defender of the president, does. look at the drudge report here. trump hell hour. manafort guilty. cohen guilty, impeachment fears hit d.c. so you see that. this is not just another day talking about the president's tweets or things giuliani says on television that aren't backed up by facts. this is a very different day in washington. >> this is real. i had a conversation with somebody in the white house this morning. i think it is right to group all of this stuff together. the amazing sort of hour that we had last night. i will say the people in the white house still believe this is not just the president but the people around him, that the manafort, the threat legally from manafort is somewhat more distance because most of the things that he's accused of were not directly involved in the

president and directly involved in the campaign. they were blown away by cohen. and the -- bottom line is when the president has heard for months said this doesn't involve me. doesn't have anything to do with me. when cohen stood up in that court and directly implicated the president saying that he was the one that directed an illegal scheme and if you go back through that transcript, the judge said mr. cohen, did you know at all times that you were doing this that what you were doing was wrong and illegal? he said, yes. >> here it is right here. on or about the summer of 2016 in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office, i, the ceo of a media company at the request of the candidate, worked together to keep an individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and campaign from publicly disclosing this information. that's the karen mcdougal piece of this. also the stormy daniels piece. not just michael cohen. the justice department accepting what he said and putting it into documents that essentially say

the president, we're not charging the president because we can't charge the president but he is as guilty as michael cohen. that's what the documents say. >> it's unlikely prosecutors would have taken michael cohen into that courtroom. if they didn't believe they had evidence to back up what he was saying. the contrast of manafort and cohen is harder for the white house to distance themselves than it is from manafort. manafort was with the campaign for five months. they tried to distance themselves. these were crimes he committed before he knew the president. michael cohen does not enjoy that benefit. the white house will not be able to do that. this person has an office on the same floor as trump in trump tower in new york. all over the place during the campaign. at the white house having lunch with the first lady last year. they cannot distance themselves from campaign finance violations. >> still a lot of unknowns about where the special counsel investigation goes. i want to bring in former adviser to four presidents, david gergen. context is hard in the trump presidency because we live in this world of constant tweets. constant lies from leaders,

including the president of the united states. give me your perspective on why, and this is how i feel. today is so different from yesterday. >> i am very reminded of a day back in the watergate investigations when john dean went to richard nixon and said there is a cancer on your presidency. and what yesterday did, what these last 24 hours have shown is that there is a cancer now in the trump presidency. i think it's different from watergate in the sense that it's still manageable. you can still get through it. the president can. but this -- if this metastasizes, with other misdeeds coming to light, i think he's in very, very deep trouble whether it comes at the ballot box or through impeachment process. more likely at the ballot box. i think he's got to do some things that he does not want to do because the pressure is on. in order to reassure the public, which is critical, his polls

started dropping and republicans start fleeing, then things come, as you know, will change very quickly. i think he has to do a couple of things. he has to go before mueller now and testify. the american people are due the truth on this. we have as rudy giuliani keeps pointing out, competing truths. competing narratives about what happened. we haven't heard the president's side of this story under oath. we've heard the president lie about a felony that he has committed apparently and with regard to cohen. so given that set of lies, it's imperative that we hear from him. i think the second thing he ought to do, i'm sure he'd hate to do it, is to take the power of pardon off the table. if he sent a clear message on that, it would be very reassuring. as it is now, there's no basis on which to believe anything else the president has said, absent of full investigation for

mueller. >> i want to read a line from a man who is a friend of ours, dan balls from "the washington post" writes this. this was a day when truth overran tweets, when facts overran bold assertions. eventually disappears into the ether. tuesday's convictions could send two people to prison for years. do you think the president gets that? you offered some advice. i bet he's not going to accept it. the president understands how today is different? >> not fully. not fully. although he may be privately panicked about things he's hearing about whether the investigation is going, whether -- how it may involve members of his family or something like that. probably going through agony if that's the case. but nonetheless, i don't think in public he has adjusted. his rhetoric is the same today through his tweets. and last night as it was before all this happened. it's as if it -- the significance of what's happened

hasn't sunk in on him or he's in denial. >> what about his party? should they not have fact-finding hearings to see if michael cohen is a liar, the presidents have committees in both the house and senate. they can lay all this out before the election to the american people. shouldn't they? >> do you really trust what they're going to do in the hour, if they had the hearings? are they just going to be an effort to smear mueller? and the republicans must understand that watergate led to a blowout in the midterm elections in '74, and then to the election of jimmy carter, a democrat, in '76. and both of those outcomes hinged upon the misdeeds in watergate. they could easily get punished, i'm not sure as badly but in a significant way. if the republicans stay silent

and the president keeps going on with this mularkey, it's a witch hunt, this party gets hurt. this party will not have a future with millennials unless it deals uprightly with this story. >> excellent insights, david. appreciate you taking the time to join us. up next here -- capitol hill wrings its hands over how best to respond. manafort, cohen, at the center of it, trump. unlimited ways share with others. unlimited ways to live for the moment. all for as low as 30 bucks a line. unlimited for you. for them. for all. get unlimited for as low at 30 bucks per line for four lines at t-mobile.

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welcome back. republicans today putting political survival ahead any of interest in finding the truth. or their own party's credibility. it's important to note that trump justice department asserts in court papers that the president as the republican nominee directed an illegal campaign finance scheme. that's a big deal, right? >> naturally, it makes you very concerned, but, you know, the president shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of people that he's trusted. >> what about michael cohen?

>> he's -- >> he's plead guilty and that's the way the constitution works. so what else -- so what is there about him to worry about? >> mr. cohen's credibility is going to be challenged. i don't think the full story has been written yet. >> the top gop leadership, silent so far. mitch mcconnell declined to respond to questions. house speaker paul ryan said he needs more information. among democrats, across the board outrage but mixed opinion over how to channel that outrage. some saying everything should be on the table, including impeachment, even indictment. others, let's be a little more cautious. >> protect robert mueller. let him finish his vfigation. and when we've got that, then we can make a decision on what the appropriate next step is. >> i don't think we should be talking about impeachment. >> we should be withholding this decision on the supreme court nominee until the air is cleared. >> we should talk about all the

remedies. every single remedy including indictment of the president should be on the table. the president can be indicted. >> let's get straight to cnn's phil mattingly who has been racing around capitol hill. interesting day out there. what's the most surprising thing, if anything, that you're hearing? >> the most surprising thing is nothing is really surprising right now. based on trolling the hallways for the last 19 months, the reaction here is similar to what we've seen. dramatic, seemingly cataclysmic moment for the administration occurs. then the next day or a couple hours later you talk to republican senators. some have concerns. some didn't see it or don't have the information on it. and others outright defend the president. that's exactly what has happened this morning. i don't think you'll see any shift. the red line has always been the firing or efforts to get rid of the special counsel robert mueller. anything short of that you'll not see many people bite. you heard from senator

blumenthal. what i've picked up is nobody wants to go anywhere near the impeachment question. they're aware of the political problems with that on their side. they want to talk about mueller finishing his investigation. on the republican side, this is very much aligned with the rhythm we've seen on capitol hill from senate republicans and house republicans over the course of the last 19 or 20 months. >> the grand ostrich party i would call it. chuck schumer says delay brett kavanaugh's hearings for the supreme court nomination because of this. connect those dots for me. >> when they have gone through the record ofbrett kavanaugh and what he did with the starr independent counsel, what he's done in judicial ranks that his view on executive power doesn't align with a president that's currently either been implicated or perhaps under investigation. here's the reality here. that's their push right now. you already had a senator on the judiciary committee cancel her one on one meet with kavanaugh. cory booker saying they need to

postpone the meetings and hold hearings on the cohen issue. this train is moving. it's not going to stop. democrats don't have power to actually stop anything on their own and they don't have the power to block the nomination on the senate floor without help from republicans. as it stands, that's their position. trying to hit grassroots and get the base riled up. at this moment it doesn't look like anything of that sort is going to go their way. >> at this moment. we'll see if tomorrow is like today. phil mattingly, appreciate it. it is a fascinating moment for everybody. but you do get the sense from republicans, this is bigger than the past trump crises where they just try to walk away or pretend they don't know what they're talking about or duck the questions or hope tomorrow it's a new question. their calculation seems to be there's an election in 11 weeks. we need trump voters. if we don't have trump's voters, we lose our power. therefore, we're going to wash our hands of this and try to stay away from it. is that fair? >> while the news may seem to be

bigger, the republican reaction really isn't. i was on the hill with phil earlier and i spoke with senator chuck grassley of the judiciary committee and asked him all the news from yesterday. what does that mean for the prospects of the mueller protection bill we've seen languish in the senate. he's like, look. it's up to mcconnell. i don't see the calculus changing before the midterms. you talked about trump voters at the rally last night. it's as if this news hadn't happened. there was a chant "lock her up" but it was in reference to hillary clinton. >> the president's campaign chairman is found guilty and trump's followers say "lock her up." >> the only, i geruess, thing tt could happen is you had warner and burr come out after the cohen plea deal was announced and say they wanted cohen to come back in because it was clear he wasn't telling them the truth. so will that happen? we'll have to see. cohen seemed open to coming to the hill and testifying in public. i don't see that happening.

that is the one bright spot in a whole flurry of ostriches. >> it is foolish to expect or ask for consistency but i covered the clinton white house when he was impeached. nothing to do with whitewater which is where ken starr began. i don't remember republicans jumping up to bill clinton's defense saying, how dare you, ken starr. that has nothing to do with whitewater. now when they say it, and we don't know where robert mueller is going to end. we're in the early chapters. when sean hannitys and the united states senate say this has nothing to do with russia, why are we doing this? >> you have for the next number of weeks before the election an interesting pr battle. we'll see which side wins. on the whoonone hand, the repubs are betting they can make the pr case that they can undermine the credibility of all of these people. you saw them trying to undermine, well, cohen is going to have trouble. he doesn't have any credibility. the same way they've been

consistently trying with the help of the president to undermine the credibility of mueller and the angry democrats and all of that. the democrats on the other side are -- having been given a gift of being able to describe a culture of corruption, right? and that's what their message is going to be. and the question is, which of those -- >> not just with the administration. two republican congressmen. one yesterday, one a couple of weeks ago. >> and everything else. scott pruitt and czink and everybody else. which one is going to be more powerful. and the republicans right now are betting they're going to be able to destroy the credibility so by the time voters get there, they shrunk. >> the defense of there's no russian collusion isn't rock-solid messaging in the wake of what happened yesterday. i do think some of the president's allies over the last 16 hours or so are worried what they're hearing from republicans because they may not be coming out and condemning what happened, condemning michael cohen but saying these are really serious allegations, that they are very concerned or not

saying anything at all like mitch mcconnell. they are worried this could come out they're not immediately defending the president or defending anything he's surrounded himself with. that could eventually turn on them. as soon as the voters turn on the president, the republicans on capitol hill will turn on the president, too. >> all they care about is -- >> the republicans on capitol hill keep getting surprised by the news. surprised by what's happening in court and don't trust what they're hearing from the white house. we'll continue the discussion about the politics. up next, the special counsel with new validation and some say fresh leverage over paul manafort. hey allergy muddlers. are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec®. it's starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®.

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welcome back. now what isn't just the big political question today. as stunning as yesterday's courtroom developments are, they are just building blocks. we know the special counsel has much more to come and the new york case involving michael cohen raises separate questions about potential future legal jeopardy for the president. the quick special counsel scorecard. just over a year, mueller has achieved one conviction, five guilty pleas and charged 35 people and companies with 191 criminal counts. a second trial for paul manafort on a second set of charges is a few weeks away. the national security blog law fair raises this question, whether the verdict will cause manafort to cooperate in order to avoid another trial and to obtain some sentencing leniency is a substantial open question.

in that question is a larger one. if manafort and cohen do cooperate, does either of them hold the keys to any kingdoms? joining us to discuss the legal consequences here, cnn justice correspondent evan perez, shimon prokupecz and shan wu. what next is a big question in all of these cases. in the middle of all of that, the president tweets today, criticizing michael cohen, who decided to cooperate and tell his story and praising paul manafort for not breaking. what do you read into that? >> i think you're right. i think that's the "hang in there, paul manafort" sweet. that is a tweet that is signalling to paul manafort that there's a pardon waiting for him. we know that there have been those discussions between the trump team and paul manafort's team in the early parts of this proceeding. and so what the president is reminding paul manafort that if you hang in there and don't do what michael cohen has done, things are going to be okay.

and i think that is the clearest signaling we've seen from the president of what is to come. i think you're right the idea that the danger of paul manafort turning is something very much in the president's mind and that's what you're seeing. >> it's the language, forgive me. it's the language of an organized crime family. don't break. >> the other day he used the word rat in a tweet. where have we heard such things before. it's mob talk. mobsters talk. you know, gotti used to say things about people who would turn on him and called him rights. essentially he's calling michael cohen a rat. what he did in court yesterday, i think the president views as devastating because he did. he basically implicated him in this entire thing. so, yeah, i mean, stunning words from the president that just continues and continues. and you have to wonder, what are the investigators that are sitting around robert mueller thinking every day when they see

these tweets. >> we don't know what else they have. but there are now court documents filed in a courthouse by the southern district of new york. the president's own justice department, not bob mueller. he handed this case over. the president of the united states committed two campaign finance felonies. what does that mean for him? what legal jeopardy is the president in now and what legal jeopardy would he be in whether it's in two years or six years, he's a former president? >> it's clear that but for the fact that he's the president right now, he would be charged and indicted like anybody else. i think it is unlikely that they'll try to indict him while he's in office right now. and it's probably more going to become a political question of impeachment. whether the statute of limitations would continue after he left, not really clear on that, although i think the urgency of that would probably be gone. the real question is whether he gets impeached. >> one thing we have to remind people of is the president has a very good legal defense if he wants it which is, and we're going to hear this from his

lawyers, that i was simply -- i authorized this payment in order to avoid embarrassment from my wife, from my family, right? if that's his defense, which is a john edwards defense, that's a perfectly fine legal defense. it's not so great for impeachment purposes, but it is a perfectly fine legal defense. and i think we're going to see them make use of that in the next couple of days. >> this document, this is the court case against cohen. also says this was paid with trump organization funds as reimbursements. and the government says that's an illegal corporate contribution. do we have any indication of whether they plan to take up their case against the trump organization or michael cohen put the president on the record. we're done. >> we have no indication, but you have to wonder and this is where the department of justice and fbi needs to come forward and tell us what other information they have, what other evidence they gather that it shows the president was part of this, cooperating with this. at some point, like everything else, this part needs to come out because i think they owe it to the american people at this point to put this forward.

tell us what other information you have. to have michael cohen stand up in court and to make such accusations, right? extremely serious. but then they also make those accusations in the filings and also in court. prosecutors made those accusations. if they don't bring charges against anyone else, we need to know what else they know in this investigation. >> what is the mood in mueller's office? the president tweeting you lost ten. there were 18 counts. eight convictions. the president trying to tweet, you lost ten. if you're manafort you're convicted of eight. but if you are the special counsel, this was trial number one. how are you feeling today? >> i think they feel like they did what they needed to do. they have some questions to answer, for example. do they retry those other hung counts? they probably have to evaluate how well gates did and if they'll use him, whether it's in a retrial, whether it's in the second manafort trial or in other cases because there could be an inference in some of those

hung counts were related to how he came across to the jury. >> i think mueller is definitely prop propelled. he wound tn on the tax fraud, b fraud. there was a great deal of worry at the beginning of the day yesterday that this may not turn out so well for the special counsel. i think today, i think this is very much after months of the president's rhetoric, undermining mueller, i think today he's propelled. now we have a jury that is part of the witch hunt. >> appreciate you coming in. next, a source says the democratic national committee called the fbi after, according to this source, yet again, someone tried to hack, break into a dnc database. routine and see how activia yogurt with its billions of live and active probiotics may help support your digestive health so you can take on your day. start the activia probiotic challenge today.

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breaking news today on multiple fronts here on the issue of election security. the senate rules committee postponed a vote addressing election security. a republican aide said it was called off after concerns at the state level that certain republicans were reluctant to pass it. the democratic national committee said someone just tried to hack into its voter database. the dnc alerted the fbi after noticing the attempted breach just yesterday. our senior investigative correspondent drew griffin is on top of this story. tell us what happened. >> all unraveling in the last few days. sophisticated plot. easy to understand. take a look at this site. this is the dnc's vote builder site. this is the legitimate site. the dnc was alerted on monday by

a security company out in san francisco that someone had built an exact, identical site to this in an effort to capture democrats trying to sign on to the real log site in an toefref to capture their sign-ins and logins and get inside the voter database. no indication that happened but the dnc notified the fbi and the dnc, according to sources, telling our digital editor today that the dnc is notifying all its state democratic leaders at a meeting in chicago that this hacking attempt took place. very similar to what microsoft announced yesterday in which microsoft said russian actors were behind it. we don't know who is behind this but yet again an example of hackers one way or another using their skills and techniques to try to crack in to the u.s. political system. >> another story that continues. come back to us when you get more information about this. up next for us here, a

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itthat's why i lovel the daily fiber wfiber choice,ood alone. with the fiber found in many fruits and vegetables. fiber choice. the number one ge recommended chewable prebiotic fiber. topping our political radar. the markets marking a milestone today. the bull market has been going on for 3,453 days making it the longest period of uninterrupted gains in american history. since march 2009, the dow has soared, the s&p. chinese officials here in washington today to talk trade. more tariffs on chinese goods go into effect tomorrow. the guest list for president trump's chief economic adviser's birthday party included white nationalist peter brimlow. larry kudlow says he's known him forever but never would have invited him had he known about his white nationalist ties. topping our political radar,

back to our political radar, duncan hunter of california and his wife indicted for using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, including payments to their kidds' school golf course. they bought a shirt and tried to report it as golf balls for wounded warriors. they were desperate financially overdrawing their personal bank account more than 1100 times. the congressman's father who held that seat until his retirement says his son's indictment is political. he blames, listen to the echo here, rod rosenstein. >> i think he just likes duncan probably as much as he dislikes mr. trump. and i think they look at duncan as part of the trump team. they're hoping the cloud of the indictment itself takes his republican seat and puts it in the democrat column. no matter if he's found innocent after the election is over. this was football season. this is a late hit. >> i got stuck in traffic today.

is it rod rosenstein's fault? i'm sorry. i guess, why not. if it works for the president, it might work for you. so any time something bad happens to a republican, it's because of the deep state, not because they went to italy and used campaign funds. not because they lied about golf balls for wounded c eed warrior instead spent it on themselves. >> it's the most disturbing thing i've read in a long time. i read this indictment from top to bottom. it's truly, you could not write this if you were scripting a movie. more greedy and corrupt politician. the things he and his wife did that they spent their campaign funds. constituents' hard-earned money on tequila shots, video games, family vacations. this person, a veteran and his wife, conspired to use funds to buy clothing at a golf pro shop and then write it off as golf balls they bought for wounded warriors. the fact a veteran would do that makes it all the more disturbing. >> innocent until proven guilty,

but it's not rod rosenstein's fault. up next -- president trump's campaign promise to hire the best people? being tested in recent days, isn't it? ♪ (electronic dance music)♪ ♪ ♪

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people. >> i'm going to get the best people. the cabinet, we're going to have all the best people. it's not going to be a politically correct choice either. my people are nice folks. they're great. they're great. my people are great. my people are great. >> yeah, so how is that going? that 2016 promise from the president. let's just take a look. best people in the realm of law and order. rick gates, former deputy campaign chairman. guilty, two counts. still cooperating with the special counsel. george papadopoulos, the president would call him the coffee boy. guilty. lying to investigators. awaiting sentencing. some talk he may try to get out of his plea deal. he's been convicted. michael flynn, the national security adviser to the president of the united states. great people? lying to investigators. still a cooperating witness for the special counsel. the last 24 hours, paul manafort, convicted in court. best people. the former trump campaign chairman. ran the convention and campaign.

guilty on eight counts. faces another trial. and of course at the president's side for more than a decade, an office in trump tower. michael cohen pleasing guilty yesterday to eight counts, including that he worked with the president of the united states on illegal campaign finance scheme. the president, when it comes to cohen and manafort, wishing it goes away. >> i feel badly -- i must tell you paul manafort is a good man. he was with ronald reagan. he was with a lot of different people over the years. and i feel very sad about that. it doesn't involve me, but i still feel, it's a very sad thing that happened. >> an organization gets its culture from its leader. that's just the world of law and order. there are others. look at "the new york post" and new york daily news. usually the new york tabloids are split on their opinion about the president. all the president's henchmen.

don's cons. this is not funny. you can laugh at some of the headlines but when you take promise of, i'm a businessman and i'm going to bring the best people. that was just the law and order department. we can go on. >> the president likes people who compliment him. he thought he already surrounded himself by the best people when he was at the trump organization. having to do with proximity more than maybe actual qualifications. and i think particularly in the early part of his administration, and during the campaign because the campaign was sort of a collection of misfit toys, particularly at the beginning. if they were with him, they were, obviously, the best people. it wasn't necessarily having anything to do with their resume. >> you would like to think that everybody sort of comes with an internal moral code, right, that guides them. but the truth is, you know, covering the white house under obama for eight years, even if you didn't -- if you were somebody that was in the president's administration and you didn't have your own moral code, you did know that if you did something like this, if you

skirted the rules that obama was going to be furious about it and there were going to be consequences for you. and there were consequences for people, even low-level people that folks don't know about who crossed a line and the president said that's it. we're not tolerating that. and this president doesn't have that line. and people around him don't have the expectation that if they cross a moral or ethical line they'll get in trouble with the boss. >> in addition to the law and order issues, the gentleman we just showed you. tom price had to leave the cabinet. scott prupruitt. finally left the cabinet. omarosa who the president is now mad at. he broughter in ev er iher in e everybody else said don't bringer in. rob porter. >> that's been one of the biggest problems. they can't separate this because they all fully realize these are people the president chose to surround himself with. that's one thing they have a lot of trouble defending themselves against is these are problems of

the president's own making. he brought all of these people in. mike flynn, paul manafort, omarosa. michael cohen. these are all people the president surrounded himself with and if he'd never done that, he would not have had these problems. if they had never gotten involved in the president, they wouldn't have these problems but the white house has a very tough time defending themselves against the idea that it was the president's own choice to bring in michael cohen. >> who was the president's own choice. and the american people get this. a monmouth university poll. the president does or does not hire the best people? does, 30%, does not, 58%. almost 6 in 10 americans say the president of the united states, essentially, has bad judgment. doesn't hire the best people. that's pretty damning. >> it's a pattern because it comes from the top and you'll be seeing that for some time, obviously. we values to remember when he surrounds himself with the staff matters because, also, it sets policy as well. so there are real world implications for the kinds of people that he surrounds himself with. >> real world implications, to

say the least. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." back here this time tomorrow. won't be me. but please come right back. nia-malika henderson here tomorrow. "wolf" starts right now. have a great day. ♪ hello. i'm wolf blitzer. 1:00 p.m. in washington. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. the stunning turn of events putting the trump presidency at a crossroads as michael cohen implicates the president in hush money schemes. questions grow over whether a sitting president can be indicted. plus, the president responds praising convicted felon paul manafort for, quote, not breaking like michael cohen. did president trump just open the door to a pardon? and the deafeni ining silence f capitol hill. so many republicans refusing to comment as talks of