hawaiian islands are little specks. they don't often get hit. but this one, there was a fear that there was going to be a direct hit. but now they really think that within the next 12 hours or so the storm moving north is going to weaken and is going to get pushed out to the west. so we're not going to get a landfall of that center of the hurricane. but we are going to get wind. we are going to get rain. and here in honolulu, they're standing by, waiting to see just how bad it gets before the storm moves out to sea and away from the islands. john? >> hopefully it moves off before it hits. nick watt, thank you very much. don't forget, full circle, daily interactive newscast on facebook, see it weeknights. the news continues. i'll hand it over to chris cuomo. "cuomo prime time" starts now. i am chris cuomo, welcome to "prime time." we have new information and a key player in the trump legal

saga. after a week of legal pounding for the president, arguably the biggest news broke today. the man at the center of the trump organization's finances was granted immunity to work with the government. but what beans did he spill? we're joined by a man who predicted a week like this might come. the ethics watchdog who took on his own bosses at the white house. so after his former lawyer and fixer michael cohen said under oath that trump ordered him to commit crimes, it begs a serious question. how much legal jeopardy could the president be in personally? cuomo's court in session tonight. plus, why is trump's inner circle talking more about the potential for impeachment than democrats? we're going to get the inside scoop. you know, you can't start the weekend until you make sense of all that happened today. it's going to take us two hours to do it. so, what do you say. let's get after it. ♪ tonight, serious new

implications for the president, another close ally of trump and his family granted immunity. talking to federal prosecutors. his name, allen weisselberg. he is the trump organization's chief financial officer. he is assisting the government's investigation into hush money payments made to two women who alleged affairs with trump. what else could he be talking with them about? we don't know. we do know he's worked for trump and his family for decades. he literally started with trump's father as an accountant. walter schaub is the former director of the office of government ethics. welcome to "prime time." you have been saying there was exposure for the president, that there was more to learn, that we'd have to see how close they got to where the money was. you believe there was a reason the president was shy on disclosure. did you imagine anything like this? >> well, you know, i've been out of the business of predicting the future since this administration started.

we're seeing one unprecedented event after another. but there's only so much you can do to deviate from the way people do things in washington before the chickens come home to roost. and that's because the ways people do things have evolved as a result of a lot of hard lessons. and one of the first things i told the president's attorney a couple of weeks after white house counsel don mcgahn, a few weeks after the election was decided was that you don't have to follow the traditions and norms of washington. but those evolved as a result of a lot of hard lessons people learned and a lot of pain that people went through. when you play games and deviate from that, you're taking a big risk. >> what did you see this week that gave you an aha, that's why he didn't want to sign the disclosure statement, that's why they gave me a tough time about the ethics disclosures forms? >> yeah, well, you know, the strangest moment of my entire career is when i'm sitting

across the table from an attorney for the president who tells me that she'd like to have the president be the first person ever to not sign that his financial disclosure report is true. and then with this criminal information we're learning that the payments definitely started in february of 2017. until then we'd had rudy giuliani making a lot of inconsistent statements and hinting that they started then. but now we know they started then. and the president himself came out this week and says that he repaid them. so he had to have known about them. well, a few months later he filed a financial disclosure report in which he omitted his debt to michael cohen to reimburse him for the stormy daniels payment. that omission is significant. a lot of us out in the good government community have complained about it since we first learned of it and have made a lot of noise about it. and the office of government ethics, the acting director at the time in may this year wound

up referring the president to the department of justice for this omission. he did this year finally admit in that form that he made this reimbursement to michael cohen and that it was, in fact, a liability that he owed. >> technicality? or is there criminal exposure? >> there are two criminal statutes violated if it was willful and knowing. the first is the ethics and government act, not the first one that comes to people's mind, but it includes criminal penalties for knowingly and willfully filing a false financial disclosure report, and then the other is 18-usc-1001. which everybody talks about. >> false statements on a federal form. weisselberg, the man at the center of it, one of the puzzling things is here, immunity for what? is it just cohen? if it's just cohen, what is the minimum exposure and what is the more protracted sense of what

they could do now that he took an immunity deal? he didn't have to take it. >> you have to ask yourself that because a person doesn't need immunity if they don't have criminal liability. right there is a very disturbing statement about a person who's very close to the president. i think the minimum that we know is that the prosecutors are now talking to two, maybe three individuals, if you throw in david pecker, who may be able to corroborate the president's knowledge of michael cohen's activities. and we don't know for sure what they've said to the prosecution. so we're speculating at this point. but -- >> why would they give them an immunity deal if they didn't have anything to offer that furthered their understanding of the situation? >> well, that's it, prosecutors don't give immunity unless they're trading it for very valuable information and they perhaps don't have enough evidence against the individual they're granting immunity to to necessarily convict them. and so it gives them access to people at the core of trump's

life who know absolutely everything, and it's the old follow the money, this is the money. these are the guys who know it, and particularly weisselberg. so at a minimum that's very serious. at a maximum, it's possible that weisselberg also traded information about the president. we can't know. and we shouldn't speculate that that's necessarily what's happening. >> right. >> but at the far other end of the extreme, if i was president trump i'd be having trouble sleeping. as he appears to be with these late night tweets he's doing. >> it is reported that david pecker, the second man who popped up on the radar this week from trump world, has reportedly corroborated what michael cohen said, that the president knew what they were doing on his behalf. weisselberg, he's the third check in the box, the next question becomes, who wants to talk to him? is it relevant he got an immunity deal from the southern district?

not from mueller's prosecutors. does that mean mueller can't have access to him? the new york district attorney can't have access? how doesic it work? >> these prosecutors will work in tandem. this potentially opens up these as witnesses to these other possible investigations. now, again, we should caveat that with we don't know that that's the case. and we'll have to wait and see. it's very hard to predict the future in these times. >> and we do have to remember that an immunity deal does not immunize you against perjury. so, everybody who makes a deal like that, essentially, if they lie, they did. that deal dies. walter, you said to me a long time ago, you keep talking about collusion, remember, the narrative that it must have to do with russia is greatly minimizing what the potential for illegality is out there if you're looking just at donald trump's finances.

well, sure enough, it has nothing to do with russia but that doesn't mean it's not wrong. thank you for your perspective. we'll check back in with you when we know more. >> thanks. all right. the problem with the partisan divide is extremes, a lot happened this week. unfortunately, depending on your stripe, it means everything, or nothing. so here's what we do. we crunched the facts and laid out what we can now show that we know. all right, so we have a friday night magic wall for you next. ron! soh really? going on at schwab. thank you clients? well jd power did just rank them highest in investor satisfaction with full service brokerage firms...again. and online equity trades are only $4.95... i mean you can't have low cost and be full service. it's impossible. it's like having your cake and eating it too. ask your broker if they offer award-winning full service and low costs. how am i going to explain this? if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab. schwab, a modern approach to wealth management.

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cost support options. i'm hoping these nature sounds will help me relax a bit.. at least we don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. just call geico. geico helps with homeowners insurance? good to know. feeling better? i love you, pookie bear. [parrot 1] i love you, pookie bear. [parrot 2] i love you, pookie bear! [parrots] i love you, pookie bear!!! get to know geico and see how easy homeowners and renters insurance can be. i always say we only know what we can show. remember that. so what might the president have done wrong? now, what do i mean when i say wrong? i'm not talking about affairs, all right. trump and his wife, they're the judges on that. i've said many times personal matters like that are not my concern, nor my job to scrutinize. my focus is lying about criminal conduct and related potential illegality on the part of the president.

the president is lying to you, and that's wrong. especially when it's about criminal conduct, hence the donnybrook last night with kellyanne about this, the white house will do anything to avoid this reality. why? hubris? no. because it leads places they don't want to go but we must. so where does it take us? we know the president lied and is lying when he says he only knew about these payments after they were made. how do we know? well, first, cohen says it. one of his -- and now what do you want to say? he made the plea to the court. the president says, can't believe him. okay. david pecker, one of his oldest friends, okay, who would know as one of the parties to these dealings as the head of the "national enquirer" exactly what the president knew. all right, you want to dismiss him too. now we hear that another player, who would definitely know what donald trump was a part of, with

both of these hush agreements, and maybe a whole raft of other situations we don't even know about yet has also been given immunity. his name is allen weisselberg, the cfo of the trump organization. a little side note, giving immunity to these two but not cohen shows how intent prosecutors are. if they're willing to jam him up for things that he did only for trump, remember none of it -- you know, a lot of -- you've got to look at the plea agreement, but a lot of it is what he did for trump. what does that say how interested they are in what trump knows? even if you don't believe anything from anybody else, there's the tape of trump and cohen proving that he knew during the process, not only after. remember. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend david, you know, so that i'm going to do that right away. i've actually come up -- i've spoken to allen weisselberg

about how to set the whole thing up with funding. >> he only knew about it after he says, this is obviously before, at best during. he lied. does it matter? yes. why? here. 18-usc-2001. what is that? that's lying to the government, false statements to the government. what does that mean? the money that he fronted on the stormy daniels payment, that could be considered a loan, if trump knew about the payment, it appears he did, he knowingly omitted a liability that needed to be recorded in the personal financial disclosure, the 278 form. so what? it's a potential felony. bad fact for trump here. he keeps saying he repaid cohen's unreported loan. you've heard him say that several times. what's he doing there? he's admitting to what he should have disclosed. one more reason, tweeting can be a problem. now, this also goes for

mcdougal. why? it appears from the cohen court proceedings that ami, the parent company of the "national enquirer" was not repaid for purchasing her story to help trump. so those payments by david pecker, the man given immunity, which means he's talking to the prosecutors, could be construed also as a loan or an illegal corporate contribution, neither of which was disclosed. what else? conspiracy. if trump knew about, and even instructed or directed, as cohen says, the payments that were made to stormy daniels or the arrangement with the "enquirer" through david pecker to pay karen mcdougal, remember the tape, then trump solicited or conspired to commit a campaign finance violation. he could be personally exposed. so, that is what could be shown. the next question is what could be done about it. trump is an apparent unindicted co-conspirator with cohen by the southern district of new york.

why do we know that? that's what they were talking about by saying the candidate that he was working for. but they can't charge a sitting president, according to the department of justice guidance. that's why he wasn't named. what about mueller? he could take the matter back from the southern district, but taking this up would be a lewinsky-like turn away from the main substance of the russia probe, and mueller can't file charges either, right? so, does the a.g., the deputy a.g., rosenstein, he's in charge, does he want that kind of political pressure? let's assume no. what does that leave? congress. democrats are slow to talk impeachment. why? they seem to think it's not popular enough. but if they get control of the house, with any of this, would it meet the definition of high crime or misdemeanor? that standard isn't legal, it's really political.

it's about votes. think about the irony. democrats would be confronting an impeachment proposition they once attacked, lying about affairs and covering them up. so, let's take a break. why did the man at the center of trump's money get immunity? is it just about cohen? there are other possibilities. cuomo's court is in session next. your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish.

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for a limited time, when you get fast, reliable internet, you can add voice for just $24.95 more per month. call or go online today. call or go on line today. the president can try to distance himself from michael cohen all he wants, but the evidence shows otherwise. there's probably no way for him to stay clear from allen weisselberg. he knows what nobody else does about what could be trump's money trail. let's get after it. we've got cuomo's court for you on a friday night. laura coates and jim schultz, thanks for being here. laura coates, start with this. allen weisselberg knows every deal, every dealership, knows every sale, anything and everything that's been done. he knows every membership,

anything you can think of. well, how about this, laura coates, i start with the opposite proposition, doesn't matter what he knows, they only asked him, as far as we know, about a very limited fact pattern involving cohen and any payments for these women, and you can't get trump for anything with any respect to that anyway, he's a sitting president, weisselberg, sure, he knows everything, but it won't be relevant here. >> that's not quite true. it's relevant in the context of what the sdny is actually trying to prosecute. it's not mueller in the comprehensive probe about collusion, which michael cohen was never formally a member of. it's about what they're trying to prove there. when you talk about immunity, are we talking about informal immunity, formal immunity, is it transactional where he can never be prosecuted for any crime coming out of that testimony, or that they can't use what he tells them?

knowing that is important here, it gives you a full context in why they would be interested in a very small part. anyone listening to the tape you played before the break, the comments between michael cohen and donald trump, why did he say the full name of allen weisselberg? he was probably anticipating he would need to have those receipts shown to any prosecution. >> coates is smart, and so i flee. jim schultz, let me ask you this, weisselberg didn't have to take the immunity deal. he took it because he was worried about some kind of exposure, a protection mechanism for him. so let's assume at a bare minimum he knows and had some role in these payments that they were looking at cohen about. he has to know what trump's role was if he, as a third leg on the stool, after pecker and cohen, all say that the president knew everything about it at every step and directed what cohen did, what does that mean? >> well, i don't think it means

much. laura's point is well taken. it would be important to know what type of immunity was sought and given. that's very, very important. we also don't know, look, if someone's going to talk to law enforcement, they're going to want immunity when they do it and they're trying to get as much as they can in exchange for speaking to law enforcement. a good lawyer is going to negotiate that for them. >> most people that talk to law enforcement don't get immunity deals. >> absolutely. >> at a minimum he's -- if at a minimum he was worried about being exposed for criminal liability or responsibility for what he knew about these transactions, again, you think it means nothing? you're not worried about a 1001 violation, you're not worried about a conspiracy situation, or not disclosing loans and payments on his financial disclosure forms as president? you're to the worried about any of that? >> let's start with the 1001 issue.

that can be construed a number of different ways, one of which it was just a vendor payment, it wasn't a loan, a vendor payment paid to his lawyer. and under the rules, right, you have a lawyer, lawyers get paid all the time. and lawyers get paid, and they charge for fees, they charge for expenses, they charge for a number of different things. that could be construed as a vendor payment, and could be interpreted by his lawyers, we don't know how his lawyers interpreted that provision and gave him advice relative to it. >> one at a time. don't flood the zone, one at a time, what do you think, laura coates. >> that's a big stretch. we're not talking about a reimbursement for a meal. we're talking about the idea of whether or not you tried to circumvent campaign finance law. even if it were a loan, there would be no purpose of having campaign finance laws if all you had to do was wait until after

you won the election, won the actual office to then say now i'll pay you back, never a threshold limit ever at play, and also never a disclosure report ever at play here. they anticipate this sort of thing by having the campaign finance laws and later on ethical disclosure laws put in place for that very reason. for me, the idea of being a vendor payment is likely not why they were going after him. it was because there was a circumvention that was deliberate. according to him, it was in cahoots with donald trump. >> pleaded guilty, two counts. >> the 1001, yeah, for that issue, we're talking about the personal financial disclosures. that's what i was talking about. as it relates to campaign finance issues, alan dershowitz said earlier today, these are payments made ultimately by donald trump, he made arrangements, he was going to pay them. he made them personally. there's no campaign finance laws broken there. these are relative to personal conduct. the edwards decision in the

edwards case, in that case you had a big donor paying for things associated with john edwards' personal life with his paramour. he was not convicted of any of that. >> he was prosecuted and went to trial and he was acquitted. >> he was -- >> it means it wasn't nothing. >> he was prosecuted. when you look at -- and they relied heavily upon f.e.c. decisions. if you look at the issue, right, so let's say a politician is having dinner with a girlfriend, and he's married. okay, and he pays for that dinner on his campaign credit card. because he doesn't want the world to know that he has a girlfriend. is that something that's appropriate? >> we'll take that as your last point. laura coates, what's your response? >> boo-hoo, i'm sorry it's inconvenient you must disclose. you have disclosure requirements. alan dershowitz happens to be wrong if his conclusion is that if it's a personal expenditure or paid back by the person who

benefits from the campaign, that it's not a violation. think about it logically. if the law is set so that you have to show where the money is coming, you have to abide by the threshold requirements, you cannot simply wait it out and hope to evade prosecution, or your reporting requirements. that would be like saying let me just go ahead and hide all of my income for 2017 until after the calendar year runs out for the irs, that way i don't have that obligation and no one is any wiser about it. you would balk at that particular prospect. the same logic can be applied to campaign finance violations here. >> by the way, that only applies to the stormy daniels analysis. when you get to karen mcdougal, you have an entirely different situation. that was never paid back. we'll discuss that next time. jim schultz, laura coates, thank you to both of you for making your cases on a friday night. >> thanks, gentlemen. we are used to democrats talking about impeachment, but this week, there's more chirping about the potential ouster from trump's side of the ball than we've heard. why? trump adviser michael caputo sounded the alarm, what's the

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if you think about it, there are, like, four men who could hold president trump's fate somewhat in the balance with their words as their evidence. three of them are talking to robert mueller's team. the newest name might hold the most important answers. his name, allen weisselberg. let's dig in with michael caputo, former aide to the trump campaign. you had said i think that with michael cohen's plea deal you were seeing the making of the case of impeachment by democrats. how do you feel after pecker and now weisselberg having immunity deals? >> i don't really feel that much different. i didn't feel much different when i heard that cheryl mills and heather samuelson were offered immunity in the fbi investigation, or cursory investigation, at least, of the hillary clinton e-mail scandal. >> that was you -- >> nobody expected cheryl -- >> that was a use immunity agreement for their laptops, so that anything we find on the

laptops, this is an immunity deal we believe is different, which is you have exposure on what we're investigating. we'll give you a deal if you help us otherwise. distinction with a difference. >> well, i understand that. but we didn't know that then when we heard about cheryl and heather, and we don't know what the immunity is for now when we hear about allen. i'll wait and find out. your previous guests talked about how there are myriad different types of immunity. i'm not in the mood to panic. but i do think that michael cohen's implication of the president in this campaign finance violation, if you believe it, if you think that the -- that they can make this stick, i believe it brings the democrats closer to their fantasy of impeaching donald trump. i really believe that's the first order of business if they take over the house. that's why i'm sounding the alarm that republicans have got to get out to the polls because a vote for a democrat on november 6th is a vote for impeachment. >> do you think the president is lying about what he knew about

these payments and when? >> you know, chris, i don't know. but here's what i do know. you know what i really would like the president to do? i'd like him to sit down and tell the american people about this. i know -- i mean, i believe that the president was using private funds to resolve a private issue. i think he was very embarrassed about this, with, you know, his wife and his family. and i think the american people already understand that. i believe that the president, you know, sat down and talked to the american people about this. he could, in fact, do himself a lot of good. i think he should really consider that. >> i hear you on the moral level and the ethical responsibility to the people who elected him to stop lying to their face about this. however, if he says, look, you know, yeah, all right, i knew, of course, i wanted to get rid of these things. i wanted to do them. he opens himself up. there were disclosures he might have needed to make. there is possible criminal exposure, whether you can charge him or not, to what it means to conspire to make payments like this.

there could be hallways he doesn't want to walk down. >> true. but, you know, michael cohen could plead guilty to anything. i'm sure he would, just to cut his time in prison back a little bit. but, you know, pleading guilty to this, you know, allegation of a crime, i mean, i think it's -- it's one thing to plead guilty. it's another to try and prove it. we saw, under senator edwards' case, that the department of justice not only failed, they were embarrassed by it. i mean, politico back in 2012 said that the entire department was completely embarrassed by this. if they want to trot that out again this time trying to stretch it to cover the president of the united states, i think they might want to think twice about it. >> well, look, again, the doj guidance says they can't indict a sitting president. i don't see many factual similarities. there's somewhat of a similar dynamic with edwards, it was

not the kind of hush situation this was. at the end of the day it may be moot. that's why it could be political. why i'm talking to you about it. one other thing. the president as part of his attack against this process said this week, this flipping, you know, it really should almost be illegal. i was shocked to hear a president say that. what do you think of that? >> well, i think flipping is a pretty broad term. my -- you know, when i read that tweet i was a little bit surprised. you know, sometimes, i'm not real comfortable with what the president tweets about. when it comes down to it -- >> he said it, by the way. >> understood, understood. people like michael cohen, the fact of the matter is, michael cohen would plead guilty to anything. the crimes he committed financially had absolutely nothing to do with the president of the united states. it's a taxi medallion case. it's somebody he thought was loyal, somebody he thought he could trust who committed crimes outside of the office, now trying to implicate him in a

crime we think doesn't exist. >> pecker and weisselberg taking immunity deals, and if you took this tool from law enforcement what chance would you have of making all the types of cases that matter against drug kingpins and mobsters and white collar crooks, if you can't work your way up by finding out what small fish did to squeeze to get bigger fish, how do you make those cases? >> understood. i think the president is quite frustrated about this. i would be too, in his case. but in the end of it all, chris, the idea of having someone turn state's evidence on someone they've been working with, or a family member or whatever, that's a linchpin of our department of justice. the problem we have here, i believe, is that the president doesn't trust the department of justice, especially main justice. where so many people working so hard -- >> he doesn't trust it where it involves his own interests and he's willing to submarine the whole branch in order to make that point. that's the proposition.

that's what he's decided to do. i will malign all of them to help myself in this matter. it's a bold move for a president. >> i think the president talks -- i think the president talks more about main justice, not the rank and file when he talks about his frustrations with the fbi, i don't think he's talking about the rank and file fbi. the problem we have in washington is that too many political people have been weaponizing the levers of power at the department of justice. these chickens are coming home to roost now. >> a lot of them were put there by him. we'll see how it goes. michael caputo, thank you for making the case. >> all right, chris, have a good evening. weisselberg is a big development here because of how close he is to trump and his money. however, i'm going to bring someone onto the show who says no, the immunity deal, fishing expedition. is it? that is the making of a great debate, next.

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karen finney and rick santorum. rick, you say it's a fishing expedition. how do you know that? >> well, look, i think it goes back to the main point, which i don't think what the president did, even if he did what you believe he did, which is to pay off someone to be quiet about an affair, it's not a criminal offense. i mean, i just don't -- >> you don't believe that -- you don't believe he did that? >> whether he did it or not, doesn't matter. >> do you believe he did that? >> if he did, it's still not a criminal offense. >> do you believe he did that? >> it's still not a criminal offense. >> is he lying about it to the american people? >> it's pretty clear money was paid to michael cohen, either before or afterwards. whether he knew about it or not, doesn't matter. >> it does. >> no, it doesn't. you can't -- that is not a crime to keep a personal matter with personal money quiet. that just isn't a crime.

>> and that's not necessarily the fact -- >> you can't get convicted for something like that. >> here's the proof, karen, you had somebody plead guilty to that, two immunity deals, you don't have to take an immunity deal to speak to prosecutors, go in and speak if you have no problem. the center of his organization, and one of his longtime and closest friends, both took immunity deals about this transaction. what does that tell you? >> well, it's highly unlikely that figures who loom so large would take an immunity deal just to go after mr. cohen. and i think that is what terrifies mr. trump and folks like mr. santorum who are defending him. >> i agree. >> here's part of what makes this illegal, it was not personal money. it was money that -- i mean, what happened was michael cohen paid off stormy daniels. he was then paid back, as "the wall street journal" and others

have reported, he was paid back by trump, but he was paid back through the trump corporation. and, in fact, he was paid back with interest. i think they said something like $360,000, about two times over what was actually paid to stormy daniels. >> plus a bonus. >> that is illegal. here's the other thing. remember that weisselberg, as you pointed out, i mean, he has worked for the family for decades. so when donald trump says he won't release his taxes and he doesn't want to show us what's really in there, weisselberg is the guy who used to do his taxes. weisselberg also sat on the board of the trump foundation, which is a sham, which is also -- >> we don't know that. >> currently -- well, i think it's a sham -- >> we don't know it's a sham. let's see what the investigation yields. >> here's why i call it a sham. remember that just before the iowa caucus there was a debate that trump decided he wouldn't participate in. he did a big fundraiser, raised $2.6 million and said it was

going to veterans, and it didn't. >> i was there. >> it went to his foundation, or the campaign, rather, sorry, and corey lewandowski directed how the money was spent. that, to me, is a sham. it was supposed to go to the veterans. the other thing about the foundation, he was taking people's donations, people who believe the money is going to charitable causes, and buying portraits of himself and paying off, you know, sort of friends here and there. >> we have to see what the investigation yields. and we have to see whether or not it's illegal. then you get to the ultimate question. now, let's bandy about this idea. by the way, if you want to know what happened with the episode that finney and santorum are talking about with the trump foundation during that debate that he didn't want to go to, go to david farenthold's reporting, he traced the money. you can do your own homework on

that. is this something that they can charge him with? probably not. he's a sitting president. is it something mueller would want to take up? probably not. it does not seem in any way attached to his probe. could congress take it up? yes, and it would be a political question. do you impeach a president for what we've seen so far, rick santorum? >> no, you don't. i mean, this is a -- again, you look at the edwards case. you just look at this idea that a president -- that someone who has his own money can pay someone if -- look, if -- there are plenty of other reasons for donald trump to have paid off these women other than the political reason. so it's just not a case, either politically or otherwise, the fishing expedition that was referred to is, you're right, you have someone called in who has the keys to the kingdom of trump world, knows everything that goes on. and that's where my concern is. where is bob mueller going? how far will he go out and see what he can find?

>> mueller didn't give the immunity deal. >> okay, the southern district. how far can they go, when it comes to politics, we know prosecutors love the we know that prosecutors love the idea of nailing somebody, whether it's their boss or somebody else. in fact, in this case, given the fact that the president has beat up on doj so much, it's almost incumbent on them to be tough on the president. so, i don't think the president does help himself when he beats up on the doj. >> all right, finney, santorum, that's as much as i'm going to give you on a friday night. i don't want to ruin both your nights like that. it's going to sour your meal. >> meal? >> it's only 10:00. go out, live a little. >> not where i live. president trump, have you heard his tone this week? he sounds like a mafia don. his associates are rats and flipping should be illegal. d.o.j. goes after people. they didn't get the real crime. what's going to be our closing argument on why that should be your biggest concern. what will you discover with a lens made by essilor?

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all right. there's a lot of speculation about how bad this week was for the president. and i get that that is an enticing question. but there's something that concerns me more, much more, in fact. and that is how the president handled things this week. he fully transitioned into mob boss mode. you could literally find his echo in a gotti or his gangster of choice, capone, or even a corleone. his bashing of the justice department is run by crooks and out to get people without cause. his perverse notion that getting a mobster for tax evasion is a copout when they're suspected of even worse crimes. think about that. our president poo-poos capone's

convictions because they never got him for murder. then comes the real wtf moment for me. >> i know all about flipping. for 30, 40 years, i've been watching flippers. everything's wonderful and then they get ten years in jail and flip on whoever the next high test one is, or as high as you can go. >> mm-hmm. >> it almost ought to be outlawed. >> did he really just say that? yes. and it wasn't the first time. he didn't misspeak. it wasn't just a hot moment. he has referred to cooperators as rats, just like gangsters do. i have literally only heard the notion he just introduced, that flipping shouldn't be allowed, to people complaining to me over the years as to why they shouldn't be in jail as gangsters. now, remember who this man was before he was president and what he promised you when he wanted the nomination. >> i will work with and appoint the best and brightest

prosecutors and law enforcement officials to get the job properly done. in this race for the white house, i am the law and order candidate. >> he won and took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. not no puncture, pummel, and desecrate the constitution. why do i use such pejoratives? because the government's ability to use pressure to get people involved in criminal activity, to give up bigger aspects and players is fundamental to just about every major investigation. how would you get drug kingpins, mobsters, white-collar crooks if you don't have the ability to develop a case by working your way up the chain, in part with cooperators. now, can you complain about how they do it and whether it's genuine and whether people are doing it too often, of course? but for trump to question the existence of the tool shows ignorance of the reality and

ignoring of his oath and position and a flashing red light of insecurity as someone who seems to fear that other people could be a problem for them. now, support for that last part of the argument. timing. he said this nonsense about getting rid of flippers wednesday to his fox friends. thursday, pecker flipped, given immunity to tell the truth about what trump knew and what he did with cohen to perhaps violate campaign laws. and today, his longest adviser, his cfo, weisselberg, given immunity and who knows what he knows. certainly, this is the closest investigators have gotten to trump. coincidence in this timing? you know what, may be. maybe -- to be fair, maybe cohen flipping, pleading guilty, saying what he said about trump

directing his actions, that could have been enough for trump to decide to attack one of the foundations of criminal prosecution, despite being the man charged with protecting the same process. regardless, him musing about outlawing cooperation, right when three close confidants and maybe co-conspirators decide to tell the truth to the government. and remember, none of their deals protect them from perjury, so they lie, the deal dies. so all of this makes me worry about what our president might do to protect that which matters to him most, apparently, himself. the best advice remains the same. mr. president, surrender the me to the we. if you have nothing to hide, let the process play out. show your respect for the institution. not only will that show confidence in your own cause, but it will remind that we need support, not savaging from the men and women we elect to be the stewards of our constitutions.

after all, does an innocent man attack every aspect of an investigation? does an innocent man constantly suggest that the outcome is certain to be bogus? that's why the way trump handled the legal landslide this week concerns me more than any of the other speculation. all right, that is our closing argument. thank you for being with us, for the first hour. but let's keep going, because we've got a bonus second hour of "cuomo prime time" tonight. and our big story is another legal body blow for the president. his money man talking to federal prosecutors with immunity. and reportedly, he knows where all the financial bodies are buried. what does that mean? what could he say? should the president be worried? cuomo's court is back in session. then, president trump calls off the secretary of state's trip to north korea one day after it was announced. why?