saving you hundreds of dollars a year. and ask how you get xfinity mobile included with your internet. plus, get $200 back when you when you buy a new smartphone. xfinity mobile. it's simple. easy. awesome. click, call or visit a store today. good evening. within the past hour, new information about just how badly the trump organization wanted to build a trump tower in moscow. one idea reportedly floated was to give a gift to vladimir putin, a $50 million gift. a penthouse apartment for slo p

vladimir putin on top of trump tower in moskow. a deal that they were pursuing well into the 2016 campaign. the information comes from one of president trump's partners. did mr. trump know about the $50 hillian gift idea? we don't know the answer to that. but others involved in the attempt to build in moscow did. it's been quite a day for president trump. he arrives just minutes from now in argentina for the g20 summit. just before he left for the airport as crow know michael cohen, his former trusted advisor and lawyer stood up and admitted to lying about trump business dealings with russia. he admitted the dealings continued far into the campaign up to and including when candidate trump was the republican nominee. the charging document lays out conversations mr. cohen had with russians, including a close adviser to vladamir putin about the potential trump tower project in moscow.

they went on, according to the document, until mid june of 2016, "on or about june 14th," according to the charging document. why is that date important? that happens to be the date that "the washington post" broke a big story that russia had hacked the democratic national committee. the timeline is far longer than what mr. cohen told the house and senate intelligence committees last year. today he said he lied to help the president. i'm quoting, i was aware of individual one's repeated disavows of commercial and political ties between himself and russia and any contact with russian nationals had all terminated before the iowa caucus, on february 1st of 2016. which cohen now says was not true. the last conversation was on or about june 14th of that year. he went on to say, "i made these misstatements to be consistent with individual ones, political messaging and out of loyalty to individual one. so he's saying he was lying to congress because candidate trump was lying to the american people. the president responded today saying this about michael cohen.

>> he was given a fairly long jail sentence, and he's a weak person, and by being weak, unlike other people that you watch, he's a weak person, and what he's trying to do is get a reduced sentence. so he's lying about a project that everybody knew about. we were very open with it. >> so that's donald trump who only hired the best people, according to mr. trump. he would have you believe he was employing as a close confidant and an attorney for years a weak person who's also a liar. he's also claiming he's been open all along about his business dealings in moskow. keeping them honest, though, here is what he was tweeting back in july of 2016. quote, for the record i have zero investments in russia, which may be technically accurate. we don't know one way or another because no one's seen his taxes. he wasn't exactly being open

about it in july and even less so after becoming the nominee. >> what do i know about the russians? what do i know about the russians? then they said he borrows money from them. i don't borrow money from the russians. i had miss universe there a couple of years ago, other than that i have nothing to do. >> he was saying he'd had no deals with russia since. we now know his organization was trying to. here's what mr. trump said a few weeks before election day. >> i know-nothing about russia. i know about russia, but i know-nothing about the inner workings of russia. i have no loans from russia. >> i don't deal there. at best you could say he was being untruthful by omission and the same could be said by this tweet as president-elect in

january 2017. russia has never tried to use leverage over me. i have no deals with russia, no deals, no loans, nothing. did russia try to use the kind of leverage that might come from saying the president of the united states was less than forthcoming about his business dealings or attempted business dealings in moskow? today robert mueller crossed that line. he also now as the president's written answers. the question was the president being truthful in those written answers. his lawyer says he was. we of course don't know the exact answer. he points to a presidential tweet from this morning about the mueller investigation. quote, did you ever see an investigation more in search for crime, the president tweeted. at that very moment we now know the president already knew about cohen pleading guilty to lying

to congress. tweeting is easy, truthing, that's another deal entirely. there's much more to report on this. cnn's pamela brown joins us more with the putin penthouse angle. explain to us what we know about this. was this an absolute plan, something they were floating, the organization? what do we know? >> it was an idea that was considered we've learned as part of the trump tower moskow proposal. and the idea was to offer russian president vladimir putin the penthouse suite, if there was a trump tower moskow built, which we know never came to fruition. but this is according to the russian real estate developer felix seder who was working with cohen on the trump tower moskow proposal. seder described this concept to my colleague christine alesci as a marketing plow, to enhance the value and attract buyers by having the president of russia, vladimir putin in this building. now, in the court documents

today, anderson, seder appeared to be listed as individual number two, a number of times as someone who was seen as an intermediary of sorts between cohen and russia. so he was a key figure in these dealings. and of course again we should reiterate this never came to fruition. but what's significant here according to buzzfeed which first reported this news, was that cohen discussed this idea with a representative of putin's press secretary, and that the penthouse that would have potentially been offered to putin was worth $50 million. so it would have been a $50 million gift potentially to the president of russia. the president or then citizen t- donald trump was made aware of this proposed gift of a $50 million penthouse? >> it's not clear if then candidate trump was informed of the idea, so it's hard to say what the significance of this is as it pertains to him. it does give you more insight as

to what was in the works. we should note that rudy giuliani, the president's attorney, said this tonight. he said the story is a story the president never heard of this, and the concept never got anywhere beyond an unfunded letter of intent and never even a proposal or draft contract, as cohen would not provide a comment for the story, anderson. >> do we know what he meant by an unfunded letter of intent? i'm not a business person but i haven't heard that. >> i'm not either. i think the point he's trying to make is there wasn't a letter of intent sign, and it never got further than that. >> appreciate it. as we said the president is expected to land promoteitarily in argentina's capital. jim acosta is there. so the president tweeting a lot today en route to buenos aires.

>> he did tweet he's not going to be meeting with vladimir putin down at this g-20 summit in argentina and also tweeted some book reviews of some books written by conservative authors, and invited the chair of the rnc to stay on for another term. but silence at this point on the twitter we should point out about cohen or the russia investigation. >> wait a minute, sorry, so on the way to the g-20 meeting he was tweeting book recommendations? >> yes. he was tweeting various recommendations of books from conservative auth, some appearing on fox news that he's suggesting to his twitter followers that they read, sort of a surreal thing for him to be getting involved in when he just called his former personal attorney a liar before helping down here to argentina. >> yesterday the president said a pardon for paul manafort wasn't off the table.

i'm going to venture a guess that today a pardon for michael cohen isn't near the table. >> i don't think it's on the table, near the oval office. i think it's safe to say that's not coming, anderson. and we should point out lanny davis has said previously and did so over the summer that michael cohen does not want a pardon from president trump and would not accept one. >> even though technically one doesn't refuse or pardon or it doesn't work that way. what are people around the president or what are they saying about this? >> i do think when it comes to michael cohen the feelings are very clear. when you saw what the president said earlier today calling michael cohen a liar and weak, rudy giuliani putting out that scathing statement calling michael cohen a liar. this seems to be a talking point i supposed if the president feces tomorrow when he signs his trade deal tomorrow in argentina

he may go back with the that language. but, anderson, i heard one chilling message from a source close to the president earlier today who described michael cohen as a rat and said inmates hate rats. i think that is just the clearest indication i've heard from anybody connected to the president there's no love for michael cohen in trump world anymore. michael cohen is on his own when it comes to people inside trump world feels about him, anderson. >> jim acosta, thanks very much. democratic congressman jim hines is a member of the house panel. he joins us now. i want to remind our viewers that we're showing on the side of the screen the airport where we expect the president to be arriving any moment. if the president does make comments, where may have to jump in and we want to hear what the president has to say. this idea of a $50 million

penthouse to putin as part, kind of floated as part of a way to get this trump tower project happening in moskow, does that sound remotely appropriate to you? i mean, is that a bribe? how do you see that? >> well, i guess we've got to get the facts behind that. i don't know the details of the story because it's just breaking. but if a very valuable penthouse, anything of value is offered to a foreign leader in the context of you asking for that leader's help on something, yeah, i think that sure looks an awful lot like a bribe. stepping back away to the news we heard earlier today, there's been a great deal made about whether it's illegal for the president when he's the nominee, he's not yet president of the united states to have michael cohen working with a foreign government on his behalf. look, the details need to come out as to whether there was any quid pro quo, whether there was anything that looked like a bribe. it may not be technically

illegal, but my god in terms of inappropriate that one of our chief antagonists around the world would have the ability to dangle something in front of the incoming president is just profoundly disturbing. >> in terms of the cohen news were you at all aware before today that michael cohen had lied to your committee? >> we weren't aware of that, and obviously mueller has been very quiet. he has not shared with the intelligence committee on either side of the capitol where he is, wisely, i think. but no, we were not aware. and what's really intriguing about this, two things. one we're at a point now where it looks like everybody around the president has been consistently lying. it started with flynn, papadopoulos, manafort, of course. i guess it feels like a million years ago when it was just two days ago and now cohen. and the other thing intriguing about that is when cohen gave that testimony to the committee and i can't give the details of the transcripts that have yet to

be released but none of us thought this has been inconsistent with other descriptions we have heard about the president pchs dealings in russia. that raises the idea if there happen other people that the transcripts were out there, it would turn out they too were lying to congress. >> we should point out we saw the air force one touching down with president trump onboard for the g-20 summit. a very different summit than what it seemed like the president was planning for. initially a number of the canceled meeting obviously with vladimir putin, and that scale back on other meetings as well. when donald trump, jr., congressman, testified before the senate judiciary committee he was asked about what exactly the trump tower moskow deal had fizzled and he said, quote, it sort of faded away i believe at the end of 2014, and he went onto say, quote, not at the end of '16. if he's telling the truth, it would seem to indicate donald trump, jr. also didn't tell congress the truth. >> well, it looks that way.

and by the way, it sort of looks leak the president wasn't telling the truth when he told the american people that he had no deals with russia. he certainly, and understand the technicality of whether a deal is actually signed or ongoing negotiations as michael cohen was clearly engaged in. but since donald trump, jr. is one of those people, remember that's the donald trump, jr. of the famous meeting in trump tower. he is clearly a key point of contact. i would think that he's having a very rough day today because michael cohen would presumably know the answer to the question about whether don junior knew about these ongoing negotiations as you pointed out we know he did not. >> michael cohen has spent some 70 hours talking to mueller's team. lastly, there are transcripts of cohen and others testifying before the house intelligence committee. they haven't yet to be turned over to the special counsel. do you know why that is and will they eventually be given to robert mueller? >> the democrats on the

intelligence committee med a motion all the transcripts be released to the special counsel. that could happen instantly because the issue really is classification and of course the special counsel's office has the ability to review classified documents. but that motion was turned down by the republican majority. so subsequently we did vote to release them to the public. we are i think pretty close to having them ready. we had to remove the personally identifiable information and some of the transcripts had to undergo a declassification process, but they will be made public soon. and of course when the democrats have the majority in the congress we would have the power to convey them directly to special counsel. >> a lot to cover as we wait for the president to step off air force one, see if he makes any public comments, i want to read another piece of the charging documents because it speaks to what candidate trump knew about the business dealings with russia. the moskow project was discussed multiple times within the

company and did not end in january 2016. cohen discussed the status of the project with individual one, which we know is donald trump, on more than three occasions. within the company about the project. joining us as we wait to see if the president makes any comments is jeffrey toobin, ashra rangappa -- sorry about that, democratic strategist paul begalla who doesn't read the national -- let me start out with you since i fumbled that so badly. is this in your opinion a big deal? >> yeah, but i think you have to separate the ethics from the legal jeopardy potentially to the president. the ethics are just horrible. there's no defense for it. it's gross, wildly inappropriate. >> are you saying the ethic of

dangling a $50 million apartment or -- >> the whole deal, pursuing this business deal in the capital of a foreign adversary of the united states when any such real estate deal even here in new york city is going to emmesh you in any sorts of not particularly seemly side deals and whatnot. so it's completely inappropriate and not to have formnot informe the public of this -- there's no indication he directed cohen to lie. perhaps the beauty of michael cohen to donald trump is he never actually had to tell him to lie because it's his habit and his job to basically lie for him. and we'll learn more eventually, trump's answers and his questions to mueller contradict cohen's latest version of events. all these sort of investigations, both sides always have to remind themselves

just because something is unethical, doesn't mean it's illegal. just because it's legal doesn't mean it's ethical. >> today's the first day i actually thought donald trump might not finish his term in office. i think this thing is enormous. the whole week, think about what the position is of donald trump and the trump camp about all these things. his position is for six months michael cohen never discussed with him that he was negotiating for moskow trump tower. it's preposterous, just preposterous. second. he said that roger stone never discuss with him he was negotiating with wikileaks and talking about wikileaks. they spoke repeatedly and never discussed it. third, don junior never discussed with his father the plans for the trump tower meeting in june of 2016.

>> and never discussed what he learned in the e-mail, which was that russia is supporting his father's election. >> which all of these are complementary to each other. and all of the stories that trump is telling about them are preposterous. and, you know, when you combine them all, the question becomes when do republicans start to turn on trump? because that's the only thing that's going to get trump out of office. it's not going to be democrats. and it's certainly not now, but there may be a point where it's too much. >> all right, we're going to quickly take a break because we want to be back when he gets off the plane, see if he makes any comments. also, later bob woodward joins us. we'll be right back.

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one, possibly to see if he makes any remarks. there's a lot he could talk about. clearly michael cohen is off the president's christmas list tonight. the president's word, a weak person and not a very smart person. there's the president and first lady. ordinarily he says he barely knew them or they were only with me for a short time, but cohen certainly doesn't fit either of those descriptions. again, there you see the president arriving for the g-20. essentially this g-20, it's very different than what i think the white house initially or what we have traditionally seen a president do at a meeting. >> and they truncated the time -- they slimmed it down. but i think that's a mistake. although i think this guy's different. he's having a presidential panic attack.

we ha when the star investigation was going on, he found the work therapeutic, and so the best thing for clinton if he was upset about the star investigation, so we're going to have a two day conference on children's health care, he would love that and dive into it. i do worry for our country this president is too distracted, too obsessed and he's having a melt down and he can't seem to get his head off for that. he was wise to cancel the meeting with putin because i don't think he's up to it. >> it doesn't look like he's going to, but we'll see. oftentimes he'll just go towards reporters and answer questions. from a legal standpoint what stood out to you? >> it stood out to me mueller has a lot of information that he is able to corroborate exactly for this time line trump tower moskow. that means i think he has information to corroborate a number of other things, and i think this puts people in jeopardy. it also stood out to me and we

haven't discussed this today, that the acting attorney general whitaker wasn't able to stop this. and, you know, this was the big fear, and i was one of the whitaker whitaker optimists that said i think this is too big and the wheels of justice are rolling and he won't be able to stop it. and i think at least this has been shown to be true. i worry the president is going to become even more unhinged if he was banking on that being the brakes, and it's not happening. >> i want to hear, paul, your thoughts of overall today, but one of the interesting things about the documents mueller put out. he put a lot of details in this document that he didn't need to actually put in. and there's some belief that if there's a report ever made public, this is way for mueller and correct me if i'm wrong, to put in details that might end up in a report that gets seen by the public, it allows him to get information into the public sphere. >> and we're going to know.

i think through these speaking indictments and through other mechanisms. the democrats will soon control the house of representatives. they'll have subpoena power and interestingly, most americans, even defenders of donald trump want the report made public. it is our report. we are paying for it. he is our president, he's our employee. and i think covering it up would be a catastrophe. it'll be impossible. >> do you agree with what jeff said. jeff was saying today was the first day he actually thought the president might thought complete his term. the defense he has is all he has to do is hold 34 senators and he's president. i do believe they will impeach donald trump when republicans come to them and ask him to, not before. you cannot make this partisan at it take off. it will be partisan at the landing. and my strong view is that constitutionally neither party should ever undertake

impeachment unless there's some bipartisan -- >> i've heard that from pelosi and jerry nadler, the chairman of the judiciary committee. there's nothing thing i think is important and it establishes a motive, which is why was donald trump so solicitous of vladimir putin? why throughout the campaign was he always saying such nice things about him? why did they change the platform to take a more pro-russia position on putin, on ukraine? and the answer is i think there was money to be made with russia. he was negotiating with for business deal with putin's russia. so the way you make money in putin's russia is to make nice with putin. that's what was going on here, that this was about business. and i think that's a chilling thought because this guy was running for president of the united states. no one knew he was negotiating

while the campaign was going, the primary campaign. but the pieces fit together. >> we should point out our reporting does not say that michael cohen, that donald trump knew about like a $50 million apartment idea per se, that that was something a business partner, that a marketing idea, but it's not clear if donald trump knew about that. >> that's right. but he certainly knew about the project, and the money to be made was on the project not in giving vladimir putin the $50 million kauncondo. and he's been going to moskow since the '80s, donald trump has, trying to build trump tower moskow. this is an obsession of his. he went in the '80s, '90s. >> we should point out being friends with vladimir putin, during the miss universe thing he was tweeting, wow, i wonder if putin will come, he'll be my

best friend. >> why? because he wanted to make money there. and the pieces fit together that way. >> to the point and let's remember that that same summer even though by this point the deal might not have been in progress anymore, when the fbi had a security briefing with the trump campaign and the clinton campaign to say, look, russia is trying to get in and infiltrate and affect this election, let us know if there's anything going on that might be relevant. they did not say a word. >> coming up, once again echoes of watergate and his agitation we've been talking about and his insistence everyone's out to get him. how does it compare overall to nixon's moment in time? we'll talk to bob woodward. we'll be right back. ♪

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click, call or visit a store today. the president under pressure lashing out. the president saying over and over again he didn't do anything wrong as the walls and in some people's opinions seem to be closing in. i'm speaking of course not just about donald trump but richard nixon in watergate. we all know what happened there and largely to the intreppid reporting of woodward and bernstein. bob, so much to talk to you about. i just want to begin with this

reporting about the trump tower penthouse in moskow, the idea that or an idea floated within the trump organization, according to philip seder that it would be earmarked as a gift for vladimir putin. does that make sense to you again given the president's insistence he had no deal with russia? >> maybe somebody was working for the cartoonists because you can see the cartoon of a trump tower in moskow with putin at the top waving to everyone. i don't know. and spending two years on the trump white house and trump -- all kinds of things bounce around. i think jeffrey toobin is a little ahead of himself by saying now this is so significant, it's the first time that he can see the end of the trump presidency. but i think there are two important components that need to be emphasized.

first, it's not what cohen has corrected about the plan to build a trump tower in moskow and so forth. that's meaningful. but what really is significant is that cohen is now mueller's witness. and we've talked to people who know and work in this work to get the number one lawyer for the person that you're really trying to -- that you're aiming at it is worth getting ten other witnesses. not only that but cohen is angry. he's turned on trump. he's known to make tape recordings. as a witness he may not be that significant, but if he has tapes and documents, big deal. >> not only is it michael cohen, it's also the chief financial

officer who's not as well-known, but there's a deal made that may be limed, but there's a deal with him as well. >> yes. and it sends the message to everyone in the trump organization or who was there, you know, we got trump's lawyer helping us. and so that opens up potentially the flood gates. i think in all of this the other significant element is what mueller's done. it's very strategic to make the change of testimony unwise to the senate and house intelligence committees. as you know those committees have been ridiculed and belittled somewhat, and for mueller to come in and say, no, this is big deal to lie to the

senate and the house, kind of gives him some support up on the hill, which he may need very soon. >> a number of legal, you know, legal scholars today have pointed out the level of detail that mueller put in the documents that were submitted in this -- and do you believe it's a way for mueller to get information in the public domain that might otherwise be just in a report that the future of which whether it's published or who gets to see it is in question? >> yeah. that may be part of the strategy, but i think he's sending the message to trump, people close to trump and to the senate and the house. and he made the senate and the house players in a significant way today. and their investigations, though, they've been

substantial, all the emphasis, all the discussion and mystery is, well, what's mueller going to do and can he deliver? so what you see is absent in the trump operation, in the trump white house is some sort of planning and thinking how can we help by doing certain things. and mueller clearly in this case has found a way. trump, i mean we're going through a crisis of governing now. let's not sidestep it. and trump continually does things and says things that are not in his own interest. >> i'm wondering, you know, having been so, you know, in the epicenter and leading the way during the reporting on the

nixon administration, how did president nixon deal with the pressure -- you know, people are saying that president trump is doing the walls coming in, things like that. that's up for debate. how did nixon, though, handle that sort of pressure, and how did it impact his leadership? >> at the end it got pretty bad, the emotional toll was very dramatic and understandably. but again if you go back to the nixon case and watergate, you need evidence of high quality. you need tapes, you need documents, you need witnesses like john dean. if you listen to those tapes and go through what dean testified to, it wasn't just oh, yeah, we talked about something. it was dean saying and the tape

proving in one meeting president nixon authorized, ordered paying blackmail money to the watergate burglars 12 times in just a single meeting. and the power of that led to nixon's demise. does mueller have something like that or is he headed in that direction? i think jeff toobin jumped a little ahead of the facts. >> bob woodward, it's always great to have you on. thank you so much. after the cohen news broke today the president announced on twitter he's decided not to meet with vladimir putin at the g-20 summit after all. he says it's for reasons other than the cohen plea. we'll look at that ahead. karate helps... relieve some of the house-buying... stress. at least you don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. call geico. geico... helps with... homeowners insurance?

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after the news broke about michael cohen pleading guilty about lying to congress, the president announced on twitter that he wouldn't be meeting with vladamir putin at the g20 summit after all. supposedly, not the reason the meeting was canceled. quote, based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to ukraine from russia i've decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in argentina with president vladimir putin. i look forward to meaningful summit again as soon as the situation is resolved.

joining me is david gergen and "the washington post" columnist and cnn analyst max boot, author of the new book "the corrosion of conservatism, why i left the right." do you buy the explanation about the ukrainian sailors? >> the ukraine cran sailors story has been out there for a few days and he decided he was going to go. it's clearly what happened on the plane after he heard about cohen. michelle kaczynski reported on the plane he was talking to white house aides, in a terrible mood, he was spooked and completely distracted. that i think drove the decision. it's also true i think that they saw this be a pr disaster to be meeting with putin at thavery time his relationships with russia are in question. he's much better off to keep his distance. >> especially with this story of a $50 million penthouse offer. >> just 50? >> it's not just a meeting with

putin. basically, a number of the president's meetings have now been scaled back to kind of just shorter meetings now with the leader of the turkey and also south korea. >> he's obviously in a foul mood and for very good reason because just in the last few days i think the case for both collusion with russia and the case for obstruction of justice have both been strengthened. and obviously the collusion case has gotten stronger now that michael cohen has admitted to this plan to build the trump tower in moskow even in 2016. but of course, you know, just yesterday you had trump saying that he was not going to take a pardon off the table with manafort. we learned that manafort also had an arrangement with trump's lawyers to feed them information. all of this stuff would strengthen a case for obstruction of justice. so you can see why the president seems to be freaking out on twitter and in person in the last few days. >> david, i mean it certainly seems like this president does

not like these kind of summits. i'm not exactly sure why that is. i don't know if they're boring or he's not well liked or he feels disrespected. how important though are these? i think some people say it's another g-20, another photo-op, how important can it be? >> it's important for foreign policy and in the world. i think canceling these meetings just underscores how much the investigation is now interfering with the conduct of this presidency. he's absorbed by it. these meetings, just meeting with putin was going to be important but the meeting with south korea is extremely important. it's going to be a short little meeting and with turkey which was very important after khashoggi. but as they've gone into this whole thing at sixes and sevens as they have with china, they've had two different stories coming out. on the same day you had "the new york times" and "the washington

post" and financial times all reporting their approach to china differently. you know, one side saying that he's going there because he thinks he can get a deal and the other side saying, no, larry kudlow is saying we're going to >> max, do you agree with david on that? have you seen anything like this? >> no. i've never seen a president so inept at the part where he's supposed to represent the entire country. donald trump really views himself as being the president of about 40% of americans, and he's most comfortable at rallies with his acolytes cheering him on. he does not like any kind of peer to peer conversations with other world leaders unless they're being completely sycophantic to him like the king of saudi arabia has been in the past. i think he shies away from these uncomfortable confrontations, you can imagine another president reading putin the riot

act and telling him to knock it off, if he doesn't stop filing international law, he's going to face massive consequences. but you can't imagine donald trump actually doing that, because he among other reasons, shies away from confrontation in person, and he also seems to be hopelessly compromised in his dealings with russia and putin. >> any meeting with putin now, besides what broke today. it's going to remind people and bring back the fact that we have no idea who he discussed with vladimir putin one on one behind closed doors in helsinki. >> exactly, we don't know, he has the private telephone, he's talking to putin from time to time. the white house i'm sure is not telling us when he makes the phone calls he does. there's nothing wrong with that. except when there's so much suspicion. you have to wonder, what are they plotting out, is he telling vladimir, here's what i'm handling and so forth and so on.

we're not going to know. i'm not sure we're ever going to know. it cast a huge shadow. other nations notice this, and they will take advantage of us. if they see us in america as he is distracted now, that's when we begin to misbehave, we say they get in and do things to you when you're not watching carefully, and it makes a foreign policy that is completely unpredictable. >> i think -- >> david's point, what you saw a few days ago, with russia firing on ukrainian vessels, was a test of american will. and they found the will lacking. because donald trump will attack allied leaders like justin trudeau or angela merkel. he will attack american leaders like maxine waters. he will not say one bad thing about putin. if putin is reading the tea leaves. the signal that he's getting back is that donald trump is not

going to do very much about this aggression, and so he's basically getting a green light to do more of the same. >> that's exactly right. >> when he was working for bill clinton. clinton was able toll -- with all the drama going on, he actually sought out policy meetings and things, because he could immerse himself in it, and it would take his mind off all the drama swirling around him. this@president seams unable to do that. >> i agree with that, and most presidents are pretty good at compartmentalizing. they can move from one rough session to something that in american tradition. i saw nixon fire one of his big cabinet secretaries. walk out the door and light the christmas tree. here's this really angry guy cursing out his secretary, walked through the door and he's a different person. i want to check in with chris, see what he's working on for the top of the hour. >> going deep, anderson, i've been making phone calls all day, have spoken to people on all sides of this story.

problem is. no two tell the same story. the closer you get to the president, the more precious a commodity the truth becomes. bob mueller says he believes michael cohen lies about something important. and at a minimum it exposes a pattern of lying to the american people. we're going to get into that the different avenues the probe could take from here here and what the exposure is to the presidency. >> i was thinking about how rare it used to be, for reporters to use the word lie. in reference to the president. and now it's just every day. >> don't want to over use it, obviously, you are a good example of someone who uses it judiciously, you can't ignore it. when you see something that is the willful and won ton deception on a material fact, you have to call it out, the relevance of truth, the value of truth matters right now, have

you to call it out about. >> about five minutes from now, we'll see you. up next, what the president could face tomorrow. so, that goal you've been saving for, you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! while saving for the things hi. i'm diego. and for me, there is only one choice -- crunch. ♪ delicious 100% real chocolate embracing the lightness of crispy rice. crunch. the chocolate bar all americans love.

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the end of what could be a very important day for his

presidency and after a flight, in which he was said to be in a terrible mood, was spooked and completely distracted, president trump and the first lady have arrived safely in buenos aires. however much the michael cohen plea is weighing on him, didn't show tonight walking down the steps of air force one. he got straight into the limousine, didn't talk to reporters, didn't make any further news tonight. we'll see if he tweets later on tonight. might not be a bad thing that he didn't make so much news tonight. it's worth remembering how much is at stake in the next two days in argentina. we will have complete coverage throughout the day tomorrow, if you watch that -- finally a reminder, don't miss full circle, our daily interactive newscast, you get to watch all the stories we cover. watch it at 6:25 eastern on facebook. it's a fun show to do.

it's probably a bigger variety of stories than we do a lot of times now on the evening program. the news continues right now, i want to hand it over to chris for cuomo "prime time". >> i'm chris cuomo, and welcome to "prime time." special counsel robert mueller believes michael cohen's assertion was lying to you, when he said he had no business dealings with russia during his campaign it did the president lie to mueller in his answers about the same russia deal? if so, are we seeing a pattern that may persuade congress to act? i can confirm the president was asked about this russia deal. today he said something that blows the idea that he barely knew about this deal out of the water, and i'll point it out to you in a moment. tonight that's what we're doing tieing pieces together for you. after talking to people on all sides of the story. the problem is, the closer you