some time. sara sidner, appreciate it. thank you. thanks to all of you for joining us today. "inside politics" with nia-malika henderson starts right now. thanks, erica. welcome to "inside politics." i'm nia-malika henderson. john king is off. the president clear and concise in a new interview today. michael cohen's only crime was flipping. and new taunts, too, for his attorney general who rewarded the president's loyalty with inacti inaction. but paul manafort, now a convicted felon, deserves great respect for not cracking. and the president's national security adviser confronted with an uncomfortable question abroad. do you think your boss could be

compromised? >> were there ever concerns that your own president is a security risk? >> of course not. that's a silly question. and i just spoke to him literally a few minutes ago. honestly, have a little faith in the american people who elected him president. >> a clarifying day today. the president, who seems to prize personal loyalty above all else, now suggests it should be a crime to cross him. the president in an interview that aired this morning on "fox & friends" insists that the crimes michael cohen admitted to in court aren't really crimes. >> he pled to two counts that aren't a crime, which nobody understands. what he did -- and they weren't taken out of campaign finance. that's a big thing. that's a much bigger thing. did they come out of the campaign? they didn't come out of the campaign. they came from me. >> instead, the real crime that cohen committed is telling new york prosecutors the truth as

accepted by a federal court and implicating the president. >> people make up stories. this whole thing about flipping, they call it. i know all about flipping. for 30, 40 years i've been watching flippers. everything is wonderful. then they get ten years and jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is. or as high as you can go. it almost ought to be outlawed. >> for the president, who made his bones in 1980s new york, there are few sins worse than becoming a cooperator, another person guilty of disloyalty in the president's view, his own attorney general. >> he took the job and then he said, i'm going to recuse myself. i said, what kind of a man is this? and by the way, he was on the campaign. you know, the only reason i gave him the job, because i felt loyalty. he was an original supporter. he was on the campaign. he knows there was no collusion.

>> cnn's abbie phillip is live at the white house. the president just had an event where he met at the white house with republican lawmakers. did he clarify anything today? >> reporter: well, nia, the president just let reporters into the room for that meeting. it was originally scheduled to have been closed, but he said nothing. he didn't respond to questions about any of these issues floating around him. he didn't expand on any of his comments or explain, you know, his view of the situation. but what he has been doing over the last day or so, specifically in a lengthy interview with fox news that aired last night and today, is really take the lead in the administration's response to all of these problems. there's no question the white house staffers were caught by surprise by a confluence of bad news stories. paul manafort's verdict and also michael cohen's guilty plea, but president trump has been the one left to test out various strategies for dealing with these problems, specifically

also for dealing with michael cohen. president has gone from talking about michael cohen as someone who was barely involved in his business and in the campaign to saying michael cohen didn't commit a crime and then saying that michael cohen is also not to be trusted. so there is a lot that the president is trying to test out, but it's clear not a whole lot of this is really sticking. yesterday sara sanders came to the podium, didn't answer many questions. clearly this is a white house struggling to settle on something that will work, that can get this off of their plate and turn them to something else, some other subject that will be a better story line for this white house and for this president. >> thanks, abby, for that update. here with me to share the reporting and insights, katherine lucy with the associated press, michael warren with the weekly standard, rachael bade with politico, and perry bacon with 538.

a lot to discuss today. abby mentioned there basically the strategy of this white house. katherine, do you sense there's a strategy that they've settled on, or is it as abby said, they're just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks? >> i think what abby says is right. what we've been hearing from people inside and outside this white house is it's not really clear how they're trying to frame a counternarrative, a response, a way forward. folks who go on cable news to talk about this presidency, to defend this presidency, haven't heard much in how they should be sort of explaining this, what they should be talking about. it's an issue. so right now the main person who's talking is the president. as you saw just now, he's saying a variety of different things. and it's not really clear how they're going to move this forward. >> i think it is clear, though, that to the extent they do have a strategy, it's sort of the old playbook, right. it's deny any wrongdoing. we heard that from sarah huckabee sanders yesterday,

saying over and over that the president did nothing wrong. and the president, of course, sort of allying himself to those who are loyal with him and disparaging those who are disloyal. that seems to be -- again, as abby said, he seems to be taking the lead on this strategy. the same as usual. the difference here is, is this a different moment here? are things now different that require from the white house a new strategy or different approach to dealing with this problem? >> and on that "fox & friends" interview, he went on at length about cohen. it's this strategy that we've seen before with him, essentially distancing himself from cohen. here he is. >> well, he was a lawyer for me for -- one of many. you know, they always say the lawyer. then they like to add the fixer. i don't know if he was a fixer. i don't know where that term came from. but he's been a lawyer for me, didn't do big deals, did small deals. not somebody that was with me that much. you know, they make it sound

like i didn't live without him. i understood michael cohen very well. turned out he wasn't a very good lawyer, frankly, but he was somebody that was probably with me for about ten years. and i would see him sometimes. >> i would see him sometimes. not very often. >> it's like i talked about manafort. manafort was involved in the campaign. he was the chairman who helped the president win the campaign, of course. the one strategy i do see is steve bannon brought it up, so did trump this morning. this idea of the democrats are obsessed with impeachment. i think that is one strategy you're going to see. if you listen to nancy pelosi, she expressedly keeps saying we're not going to do impeachment. she's the democrat. that said, you are seeing this idea in terms of rallying the base. i think you're going to hear that more and more. >> and this idea, rachael, that whatever cohen did wasn't really a crime. you heard that from donald trump in this interview.

>> right. i'm not a lawyer, so i'm not going to try to speak to the legal analysis of that, but yeah, obviously that's part of the talking point right now. i do think there are questions right now about cohen going out there saying the president told me to do this. well, lawyers are saying he's going to have to prove -- prosecutors are going to have to prove intent, and did the president know this was a crime. it probably won't be that hard to do that, given he used to tweet a bunch about john edwards and his mistress situation and when he paid money to keep that quiet. then he get in trouble with the law. the president back then, you know, used to tweet about that. so clearly he knew that was not allowed. but yeah, of course that's going to be a way to deflect right now. i think privately, out front, they are obviously pushing back on this, calling it a witch hunt, but there was a great nugget in the post story this morning where the president apparently called in his top advisers and said, tell me honestly how bad is this. that just shows the tweet in the

middle of the night last night that he's worried. he's staying up and concerned. >> yeah, that tweet at 1:00 a.m., which was no collusion, rigged witch hunt again, part of what he's been saying for many months now. >> we've heard that he's upset about betrayal. you see that also with these questions of loyalty. loyalty is so important to him. the idea that someone would flip, as he's putting it, and you heard his complaints about flipping this morning on fox. this goes very deep. >> in this way, he very much sounds like a mob boss. this idea that snitches get stitches, a kind of petty gang member philosophy. >> it's alarming to hear the president, the chief executive of the country, the way he's talking about flipping done by prosecutors everywhere. he's attacking that. he's attacking the attorney general. you also hear this language other places. duncan hunter now under indictment is saying, hey, they just make it up. the doj is full of liberals.

this is now affecting other people, the way trump is talking about it as if the prosecutors around the country are led by jeff sessions, a very conservative person, who's the head of the justice department. >> speaking of jeff sessions, lindsey graham commented about jeff sessions and whether or not there will be a new attorney general at some point. here's what he had to say. >> i think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the department of justice. clearly attorney general sessions doesn't have the confidence of the president and the president has it right to have an attorney general he feels comfortable with. jeff sessions has done a fine job. he's an honorable man. replacing him before the election to me would be a nonstarter. the idea of having a new attorney general in the first term of president trump's administration, i think, is very likely. >> this is interesting and new from lindsey graham, the idea

this is inevitable not before the midterms but certainly could happen after. >> there has been a question ever since the president started attacking jeff sessions over a year ago that he would fire sessions. the question has always been, well, would the senate, controlled by republicans but very narrowly, would they even confirm a new -- this was seen as a political retribution act by the president. what's sort of tying all this together, and i think you can include the president, is nobody's really sure whether there are staff at the white house, supporters in the media and in the republican party. you certainly talk to republican party on ativperatives about thi have, nobody is quite sure what's coming down the pike next. everybody is kind of -- i think that is what has changed from tuesday, this sense that -- >> anything could happen. >> right, and we have to be careful to not overplay our hand before we know what everybody else has. most importantly what mueller

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president trump today avoiding all questions about a pardon for paul manafort and all other questions too. listen to the president moments ago at the white house. >> i want to thank everyone in the room very much. good job. thank you very much. [ reporters shouting questions ] >> let's go! make your way out! we're finished. keep moving. let's go, let's go. >> his former campaign chairman was found guilty of eight tax

and bank fraud counts earlier this week. he faces up to 80 years in prison. manafort will stand for a second trial next month in d.c. the white house has also avoided a direct answer but continues to distance the president from the situation. >> is the president now planning on or intent on pardoning paul manafort? >> the manafort case doesn't have anything to do with the president. >> does it come up? >> i'm not aware of any conversations regarding that at all. >> is mr. manafort a simple candidate for a presidential pardon? >> once again, that's not something that has been up for discussion. >> however, the president's attorney rudy giuliani doesn't seem to have gotten the memo, telling "the new york times" two separate things apparently in the same interview. quote, mr. giuliani said the two had discussed the political fallout should mr. trump grant a pardon to mr. manafort. the article later says mr.

giuliani said a pardon was not under consideration. is this just trying to muddy the waters? >> you look at the fox interview today, the president didn't rule it out. he didn't really answer the question. he did speak, you know, quite favorably about paul manafort. the white house is trying to put some distance between this. they're obviously not trying to signal anything. but we also know that the president likes pardon power. there's only so many things he can do unilaterally. it is a muscle or a tool he's flexed. >> we've seen it. he commuted sentences for nine people, some of those most famous ones joe arpaio, scooter libby. he's also kind of using the language of pardoning when he talks about manafort. he essentially frames him as being railroaded by the justice system in the same way he framed pardons for these folks. >> and looking at it from his

perspective, there really doesn't seem to be a case against it. if there were evidence that, for instance, republicans in his own party would really put up a fight about this and say this dle clearly shows obstruction of justice, which is what a lot of democrats are arguing, then maybe there would be a risk. he seems to use these pardons as almost political tools, to shore up support on his side of his base. i think a manafort pardon would do that. i don't really think he would suffer from a lot of political consequences. if he's going to be impeached by a democratic congress, it's not going to matter if he pardons manafort or not. but pardoning manafort would seem to give him some short-term political benefit. >> and there are a few republicans who are talking about this as a political risk. here are a few on the hill talking about it. >> mr. manafort, though he was a friend of the president, he should be held accountable for his illegal activities. i hope the president doesn't pardon him. i don't think he's considering that, but it would be a terrible

mistake if he did, just to pardon someone because they were a friend of the president. >> i don't think a pardon under these circumstances would go over well. >> we understand the president has the constitutional authority to do so, but we think politically it would be a very serious mistake. >> the things they've warned him, please, do not do this, like firing mueller, he actually often does not do. >> you feel like these are stern warnings? >> stern for the republicans in congress of today. i think they are trying to say please. the other thing is a pardon would have mattered more if it happened in january of this year. a lot of the witnesses -- i'm not sure the pardon would hurt

mueller's investigation the way it would have in january. >> i'm willing to bet a lot of those republicans saying, oh, no, don't do a pardon right now. if he were to do a pardon, they would change their tune to explain it away. but they're worried about one thing, the midterm elections. republicans have turned a blind eye to a whole bunch of things that the president has done that they find unsavory and totally unethical. but they just want to be re-elected. they want to keep control of congress. they have a bunch of swing districts where there are people who are independent minded that don't necessarily identified as republicans or democrats. they don't like the president. if they see him pardoning someone to potentially get himself out of hot water, you know, they're going to vote for democrats. >> one of the things we heard recently was from a paul manafort juror, who had interesting things to say about the deliberation. here she was talking about it last night on fox news. >> tlfhere was one holdout. we all tried to convince her to look at the paper trail. we laid it out in front of her again and again. she still said that she had a

reasonable doubt. that's the way the jury worked. we didn't want it to be hung. so we tried for an extended period of time to convince her, but in the end, she held out and that's why we have ten counts that did not get a verdict. >> manafort likely to face a much tougher jury, even though that one was pretty tough in d.c. when he goes on trial next month. >> yeah, certainly the manafort story is not over. legal troubles are not over. it's also interesting as a first. it's the first test and the first outing for the mueller team. a lot of people feel like it was a real vand kaindication for th get this kind of verdict. >> i think it was also just nice separately that juror was an out

and out trump supporter. she says she still supports him and is going to vote for him in 2020 but felt compelled because of the evidence. it's nice to see people put those partisan instincts aside, at least regular people, if not those in washington. >> a fun quote from bill crystal on what we saw yesterday and the pardon speculation that's running wild. he said, you think yesterday was lit? you haven't seen anything yet. wait until the day next year when president pence pardons donald trump. >> i told bill what lit means. >> now no one can use the word lit. next, how are lawmakers dealing with the president's legal worries and impeachment talk? just ask someone who's seen it all before. >> what has it been like to be here in the senate as a republican? >> it's a lot like the clinton years. like every day there's something new. i'm just trying to keep my head down. yet? does it look like i'm done? shouldn't you be at work? [ mockingly ] "shouldn't you be at work?"

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republicans on the other hand, are encouraging incumbents in the tightest races to call out convictions and corruptions and distance themselves from the president despite his ability to fire up the base. we have congressional correspondent phil mattingly, who's on capitol hill. it's very much gut check time for both parties on the hill. >> no question about it. 12 days until labor day, which has always kind of been the official launch of the midterm blitz. maybe that's less relevant this day and age. it is the time when people start spending money. people start deciding what the message is going to be. there's an interesting split screen right now. you also need to split it not just between republicans and democrats but also house and senate. move the senate aside for a second. republicans in the house, many of which come from districts either won by hillary clinton in 2016 or maybe are plus three, plus four, plus five districts.

they have a different calculation now than a lot of their base colleagues have. because of that, they've been told now for a couple months, if you need to split with the president, go ahead and do it. it's basically how do you save your seat. if your constituents aren't thrilled with the president, that might mean having to do that. on the impeachment issue, we saw it loud and clear yesterday. in the senate, not a single democrat i talked to really wanted to touch the issue. in the house, nancy pelosi sending a letter to her colleagues making sure there are other issues to focus on. impeachment right now, the view on the democratic side is that is a politically dangerous idea. talk about oversight, talk about other things like health care. impeachment off the table right now. >> phil, we just got some news from the judiciary committee. senator grassley. what are you hearing? >> reporter: what we are told right now is at least on the staff level, the judiciary committee has reached out to michael cohen and his lawyer lanny davis to get an early read on what michael cohen pled to a couple days ago. basically, the decision being whether or not the judiciary

committee is going to look into that. here's why that's really interesting. when you talk to republicans on capitol hill, and we've seen this over the course of the last 24 hours, they're already ready to move on from this issue. if a republican-led committee dug into what happened, obviously the clear implication of the president here, that would make this issue very, very relevant in the weeks and months ahead. i do also think that it's yo noteworthy coming from chuck grassley. it will be interesting to see where this goes from here. initial steps is what we're told at this moment. if this escalates, it will be something to keep an eye on. >> we're all counting. phil, thanks for that report. rachael, i'm going to start with you. you have some great reporting on this whole impeachment talk or lack thereof and pelosi's role in it as well.

quoting from your story in politico, you say a house democrat put it bluntly, the voters don't want to talk about impeach the right now. you don't want to poke the bear in a way that he's able to come back strong per. >> interesting. at the exact moment there was news breaking that cohen was going to do this big plea deal, pelosi was on a call with the democrats who are back home in their districts saying do not talk about impeachment. frame it as corruption. the republicans are not holding the president accountable. there's just this concern that it's going to backfire and they're going to not be able to take back the house this fall. it seems like republicans right now are talking about this more than democrats are. it's like the white house is daring them to make this the issue. they think it will help them. democrats, it sounds like they agree with them right now, so they're trying to avoid it. >> and here's trump on impeachment. >> you know, i guess it says

something like high crimes. i don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job. i'll tell you what, if i ever got impeached, i think the market would crash. i think everybody would be very poor. because without this thinking, you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse. >> i think the economy was pretty good when president clinton was impeached. >> we looked at 811 candidates who ran for house, senate, governor, on their websites. did they mention impeachment? one of 811. >> who is that one? >> he was from new jersey. he lost. the democrats have never been talking about impeachment. pelosi in 2006 said we're not going to impeach. then she didn't impeach. it's like at this point, we're just watching a republican talking point that's not emerging to much more. >> although, kevin deleone did

send out a fundraising e-mail yesterday, i believe, where the subject line was impeach, impeach, impeach. again, he's not exactly in striking distance of diane feinstein, but i think he does represent a kind of what's going on in the liberal grassroots within the democratic party, the sort of urge to get something. that's what the establishment is really trying to placate. you could read the push by chuck schumer to delay the kavanaugh hearings because of these revelations. almost a misdirection or a redirection, rather, of that sort of frustration and anger. >> and certainly republicans certainly see impeachment as a way to rally their base against a year of democratic enthusiasm. you're seeing that from a variety of places. steve bannon, the former trump adviser, has a group. they're talking a lot about

impeachment, framing this as a referendum on the president. >> if you don't for republicans, this president could go down. one of the things we've seen as well from republican leadership, rachael, this idea that if you're in a district that isn't so friendly to trump, you might want to criticize this president. this was tom cole of oklahoma. he said, so my advice to any candidate would be keep your powder dry and don't rush to attack or defend anybody because you just don't know enough to have a reaction that you can still defend three months from now. again, on that theme of nobody knows where this is going. >> leadership's message to the rank and file has always been, you do you, know your district. if you need to distance yourself from trump, do it. be careful. don't make it personal. pivot to policy. just to go back to democrats. this issue of impeachment is really going to tear them apart if they take the house. that's because i was talking to a few democrats who weren't just saying, we don't want to talk about this now because of midterms, maybe we don't want to talk about this at all

because -- >> maybe it emboldens him for 2020. >> exactly. if we impeach the president, perhaps a democrat can't beat him. they're really going to be fighting tooth and nail because there are some that feel like they have a moral imperative to do this. al green i spoke to yesterday. he said, we have to do this. >> this is where the democratic base is. >> the dog could catch the car. >> we'll have to leave it there. there's a big gop dinner with president trump tomorrow in ohio, but guess who won't be attending. that's next.

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topping our political radar

today, president trump in ohio tomorrow for a big republican dinner, but the guest list is missing one important name. you guessed it. it's the state's republican governor john kasich. kasich confirming to cnn this morning that he doesn't plan to show up. kasich, of course, ran against trump in the 2016 republican primary and has been a pretty frequent critic of the president since he took office. the trump administration this morning pushing back on a "new york times" report that says it wants to use federal money to finance gun purchases for teachers. an administration official tells cnn the idea didn't start with secretary betsy devos or the department of education, but the department did research the plan's viability. in a statement to cnn, spokeswoman liz hill says the department issue opinions on hypothetical scenarios. an update to a story from yesterday. cnn reported that the democratic national committee called the fbi, a source said, over worries about a sophisticated cyber

attack. today the democratic party of michigan says it's responsible in what officials called a misstep. michigan democrats said one of its partners set off trip wires and prompted the scare when running cybersecurity tests. two months after the president said the north korea nuclear threat is over, secretary of state mike pompeo is headed back to pyongyang for more negotiations. pompeo announced this morning he'll travel there next week with a new special envoy. up next, some breaking news on the michael cohen case. details next. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from an allergy pill? flonase relieves sneezing, itchy, watery eyes and a runny nose, plus nasal congestion, which most pills don't. it's more complete allergy relief. flonase. their medicare options...e people go to learn about before they're on medicare. come on in. you're turning 65 soon? yep. and you're retiring at 67? that's the plan!

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breaking news coming across now from "the wall street journal." federal prosecutors granted impunity to david pecker, the ceo of the national enquirer and long-time friend of the president in the southern district of new york probe of

michael cohen. pecker, according to the journal, met with prosecutors to describe cohen's involvement in hush money deals he brokered ahead of the 2016 election. a real pivotal figure here in what happened. he basically was in charge of this whole catch and release scheme where there would be stories about allegations involving trump and women. they would purchae the stories and essentially bury them. where does this take us? what do you make of this latest news? >> you have another witness who we assume or think may well possibly corroborate what michael cohen told prosecutors. it's problematic. i keep going back, though, to this idea that i think what it really reveals is almost a political crime. that's maybe more important. you have a lot of people at this time at the end of the 2016 election cycle, the "access hollywood" video comes out. a lot of republicans are bailing. had these stories come out, that changes a whole lot of things.

a lot of republicans sort of ended up staying on team trump because these stories did not come out, i think. >> and katherine, another theme here, this was a friend of the president, now cooperating with authorities. >> this is potentially very significant. this is another person who can shed light on these arrangements, these catch and release deals, the hush money deals that michael cohen has been talking about. i was talking to a person in trump land this week who was saying when this news broke about the cohen deal, they were surprised. people weren't expecting this. it really sort of reinforced for them that none of this is ending any time soon. people thought maybe things would be winding down. really, it's not ending and no one knows where it's going. >> they have no control over it, and it's not just mueller now. it's also this new york southern district, which is doing a lot of breaking news here. that's a problem too.

>> the tentacles are everywhere. >> and i imagine that maybe we'll hear from trump on this. we've seen how he's reacted to when his other friends and people in his orbit have flipped. >> yeah, and david pecker has been very close with the president for a long time. even just this morning he's talking about how people who flip should be charged. so that's going to certainly drive a wedge in that relationship. the president is losing friends, losing allies one at a time as they come forward and talk to investigators. it's just bolstering robert mueller's case, and it's going to bolster the democrats in congress if they take over and try to impeach the president. >> katherine, what do you imagine? we saw sort of the president la late, up at night, 1:00 a.m., no collusion, this is a witch hunt. how does he spin this one? >> we'll have to see, obviously, what he says. usually he doesn't take too long to turn to twitter. with cohen, we've seen

frustration privately. we know he's upset. as we've been talking about, the idea of someone turning on him or disloyalty is very upsetting. we could see him address that. he may also return to this argument that he's arguing this didn't have anything to do with me. ultimately, he keeps coming back to the idea that the russia investigation thus far has not -- he's arguing the investigation has not shown anything. of course, that investigation continues. we don't know what mueller has. >> we don't know what david pecker said too. >> interesting. sara in the briefing room yesterday kept saying no charges have been filed against the president. that's a very narrow explanation. we don't know if doj feels charging can be filed. that doesn't tell you anything. >> the other thing here is do we expect any sense of -- do people in congress, is this sort of we

heard from them already. what's your sense there? >> this goes to the fact that a lot of these republicans are having to hold their fire, sort of hold back because they don't know what's going to come. you've got david pecker, michael cohen, donald trump. are these three the only people who knew about this? there was a lot of people who sort of put their political careers on the line for the trump presidency who are outs of the loop on what exactly happened. i think that's gotten to really concerns. >> and under the theme, there's a trump tweet for everything. here he is in july of 2013 saying "time" magazine should definitely pick david pecker to run things over there. he'd make it exciting and win awards. >> it would be exciting. >> it would be exciting indeed. it might be a lot like "the national enquirer." we'll have to wait seen ae whth

reaction here. file this under the theme of nobody knows. trump certainly doesn't know. you can tell from the white house there's a lot of nervousness. as much as you might hear rudy giuliani, for instance, say, oh, no, everything is fine. >> there's anxiety. people are almost a little bit numb to sort of story after story after story and are trying to soldier through this. but there's certainly anxiety. >> and so just a reminder what cohen actually said in court as to count number seven or on or about the summer of 2016, in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office, that of course is trump, i am the ceo of a media company at the request of the candidate, work together to keep an individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and to the campaign from publicly disclosing this information. after a number of discussions, we eventually accomplished the goal by the media company entering into a krrcontract wit the individual under which she received compensation of

$150,000. of course speaking of karen mcdougal. >> we're all focused on the question of, does this lead to impeachment or criminal charges against the president, but there's a likelihood there could be political consequences to all of this as well. are republicans really going to want to deal with this for another two, four, or potentially six years? that's a question that i think a lot of republicans are going to be asking as well. >> i think it's very significant that chuck grassley wants to speak to michael cohen's lawyer. a lot of the republicans on the hill have been silent when it comes to this issue. yes, they're talking about russia. they're countering on russia and collusion and the allegations of collusion. they don't want to talk about hush payments to women. of course, we saw a statement yesterday by trey gowdy, who's the oversight chairman in the house, saying this is not congress' role. this is federal prosecutors' role. basically, we're not going to touch this. the fact that chuck grassley, who's long been this oversight bull who's gone after both parties, he wants to talk to michael cohen's lawyer. it's significant. >> we're going to replay the

taped conversation where cohen is talking to trump about david pecker. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend david so that i'm going to do that right away. i've spoken to allen about how to set the whole thing up. with funding. all the stuff. you never know that company. so i'm all over that. i spoke to allen about it. when it comes time for the financing, which will be -- >> listen, what financing? >> well, i'll have to pay. >> i'll pay the cash. >> no, no, no. >> what's always interesting about this tape is the calmness with which they're discussing

this. trump essentially saying what if something happens to david pecker? we want to make sure we have all the rights or whatever has been transferred. we want to have rights. >> it's interesting. in the last week, you'd have to say the system is working on some level. trump may not believe in the rule of law in some ways, but u.s. attorneys and so on are prosecuting his friends. his friends are saying, i don't really want to go to jail, so i'm going to be honest. it's a testament to how the system is working. >> it's hard to claim it's all the deep state when so much is happening here. thanks, all of you. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." see you back here tomorrow. wolf starts after a quick break. it's the sears labor day event! ...where you can shop with confidence and convenience plus get these 4 benefits from kenmore at sears. up to fifty percent off appliances with your sears card. like this washer and dryer for $539.99 each. and this refrigerator for $899.99. hurry in to sears today.

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booking a flight doesn't have to be expensive. just go to priceline. it's the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40%. just tap and go... for the best savings on flights, go to priceline. hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. as pressure mounts, president trump giving an extraordinary interview in which he says flipping, meaning cooperating with law enforcement, ought to be illegal and argues against his own impeachment saying, quote, everybody would be poor. also, after dozens of very public insults against his own attorney general, the president with his most direct attack yet. why president trump says he should have never hired jeff sessions. and candid revelations from one of the jurors who