that's it for me. now "deadline white house." >> aloha, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york city. i am john heilman in for nicolle wallace. my personal favorite holiday of the year, 4-20. happy 4-20, en. the president is in triage mode as the simmering legal battles eru erupt into an all-out war. the mueller front, the stormy front, the cohen front, and the comey front. all coming at the end of a week packed with developments on each of these fronts. president arguably worse off on all of them. remains unclear which of these fronts pose the grave est danger to donald trump's presidency.

is it special counsel robert mueller's front the man putting in so much pressure on president trump that he's brought in rudy giuliani for his legal team. or is it michael cohen now the subject of a wide ranging criminal probe that could lead to indictments, prompting trump allies he would flip on the president. or the front involving adult star stormy daniels. his client will not rest until she can tell the full story about her affair with the president and his effort to silence her. that is driving the most headlines this hour is one of the trump's own making. james comey's famous memos to self, memos to file after they threaten to subpoena. a picture of the president obsessed with the russia investigation, desperate to end it and fixated on his relationship with vladimir putin. the memos are completely

consistent with james comey' public comments with his interactions with trump and expose new details about the details in the steele dossier as well as michael flynn. with us to dive into all of this, from "the new york times" the person who first broke the news that there were actually comey memos, michael schmidt. natasha bertrand who covers the russia investigation for the atlantic. former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade and at this table ari melber, host of the beat. hi, ari. >> hi. >> and bill crystal, founder and editor of the weekly standard. guys, it's an incredible week full of weekly news. let's start with the comey stuff. michael schmidt, i want to ask you to start things off. the president tweeting today seeming to believe the comey memos somehow exonerate him. true or false? >> not sure i guess it depends that beauty is in the eye of the person reading the memo. these memos in many ways, i think, are troubling for trump.

they show a repeated pattern, this obsession, as you pointed out, with the russia investigation. we knew a lot of the things, the big ticket items that were there there, but we learned things like the president gave comey a chronology of his time in russia in 2013, the period of time when the dossier says the russians have this tape of trump with these prostitutes. he's saying he went through a chronology at least twice with him about it. that is an entirely new thing that we didn't know anything about. we didn't know about the president's comments to comey, he said putin talked to him about prostitutes there. it's those kind of details, those new revealing things i can't imagine are helpful for the president. >> natasha, let me just su, there is something about these memos, you read them last night when they first came out. the first thing you were struck by is there is not a whole lot of news in them. there is some, we'll talk about some of it, but by and large they are consistent with things comey said publicly in his testimony or in his book.

yet there is something about the quality of them, the detail in them that kind of almost literary quality to them that makes the whole account that he's given, the broad account of his relationship with donald trump feel human and feel real. >> that's exactly the wordy was going to use. it makes the whole thing feel much more real, much more credible versus reading it in a report. these are obviously contemporaneous notes that he took at the time and they provide insight into the president's state of mind when he was talking to jim comey about all of these different things. now, of course, republicans have come out and said that these memos actually vindicate the president because they show that comey never at any point expressed that he felt like he had been obstructed or threatened in any way by the president. of course, what they fail to mention is and supporters of the president in particular, what they fail to mention is that what is important about the memos is that it really shows the intent of the president before he fired jim comey.

of course, that is the ultimate act of alleged obstruction that is being investigated reportedly by the special counsel. so, what these memos do is they provide this window into the president's state of mind before he then took that action against james comey which of course was -- it was followed, that action was followed by his asking for loyalty from james comey and of course asking him to consider dropping the investigation into michael flynn. >> i want to read from "the new york times" reporting about the memos and we're going to talk about some of the specific things in the memos. i want to read this first and go to you, ari, what you think about this. the kwoetd, mr. comey's decision to brief mr. trump on the dossier was based in part on the fact that american intelligence agencies had corroborated parts of the steele dossier according to the memos. comey wrote this in february of 2017. he said, i explained that the analysts from all three agencies agree that, the dossier, was relevant and that portions of the material were corroborated

by other intelligence. ari, we have heard donald trump say, and every republican under the sun say now the past 15 months, this is an uncorroborated dossier, it's all garbage, it's all trash. yet at that moment when donald trump met with jim comey, jim comey came in and said, there's stuff in here that's serious and our intelligence agencies have looked at some of it and said it's real, it's fact. >> right. the dossier has aged well in the sense that parts of it have been publicly verified. what comes through in the memos is something that i think we have learned about james comey. good memory, bad judgment. and that's really on display throughout. and there are things in there that if you insert in a different president, one less objectionable who has done less to destroy their own credibility as donald trump clearly has, there are things in there that don't make sense. i think on hindsight the intelligence agency's decision to begin with a new rookie president who didn't have intelligence, government experience and do this dramatic

briefling, if you've ever been out to dinner, john and you go to the bathroom and come back and you can tell everyone has been talking about you, you know how that feels. >> that happens literally every dinner i go to. i know the feeling. >> in all hindsight we know who is the benefit. on hindsight having everyone sit with the president in trump tower, we're all going to leave now, one of us, james comey is going to hit you with this thing. i think a lot of presidents would have -- would have reaction to that. in other words, it's not only on comey. the intelligence agencies made a decision to make comey mr. pee tape in the eyes of the president. when they talk it comes back up he talks about the pee tape. it is extraordinary to discuss this on air, it's been on memos the it d.o.j. has given to congress. >> it's open -- >> it is what it is. >> it's open season on golden showers. >> it's matters of state at this juncture. i think that's what's so fascinating. comey comes through as honest.

the president looks bad, but there are clearly judgment call questions that are also raised. >> you've worked at the highest levels of the government including for the former vice-president of the united states. what else were the intelligence agencies supposed to do given the circumstances of the election, given the existence of the dossier, given donald trump was about to come in and they knew, as comey says, that cnn and other news outlets had the dossier and were right on the brink of publishing it, looking for an excuse to publish it. how could they have handled it better? >> you don't want the president to turn on his tv and find out about it five hours later. they knew russia interfered in the election. they were briefing someone on his behalf russia had interfered and that's awkward itself. i don't quarrel that comey made, in my view, errors of judgment and all that. i come back, if you get out of the trees to the forest level again -- look, if the president decided i don't think all in all

james comey is the guy i want to have a fbi director. he intervened in the election bizarrely ten days before election day with the hillary clinton e-mails. call in the attorney general, orderly process, ask for a replacement two weeks in, ask james comey to resign, nice letter. it would have been legitimate. what's not legitimate is calling up and having comey come over for a one on one dinner at the white house one week in. that by itself for me is so stunning. what can possibly be the purpose of that except to find out what is really -- what they know and where he's going and how influenceable and persuadable and pressurable hess. and that is part of a beginning of an attempt to control, limit, curb, obstruct the investigation. >> two key points. one that's bad with the intelligence agencies. you said what else could they have done. there are many things they could have done less explosive given the unverified charge it was. call white house counsel, we have no reason we think this is

true, it could be on cnn. you don't want this drat i can thing. number two, the other thing that comes through on the memos, given yesterday we learned there is the possible prosecution of a witness in the mueller probe, andy mccabe, donald trump was laser focused on comey and mccabe from the start, testing their personal loyalty from the start. it makes it look like more elements of the case of obstruction. >> you want to talk about andy mccabe, i want to talk about hooker. let's move on to the aspect of this that got a lot of attention. another quote from one of the memos, which is -- one of the most stunning things about these the number of times president trump comes back to this topic in the course of his various interactions with james comey. it becomes kind of a fix for him. the president said quoting comey from a memo dated february 8, the president said the hookers thing is nonsense, but putin told him we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world. he did not say when putin had

told him this. and i don't recall. last night, jim comey was on this network with rachel maddow and she, rachel, had a chance to talk to comey just as these memos were coming public. i want to play that tape so you can hear what jim comey had to say about this. >> the said, the hookers thing is nonsense, but that putin had told him, we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world. he did not say when putin had told them this -- told him this and i don't recall, redacted. some of this is redacted. the president was conveying this to you at the white house. >> in the oval office. >> and he told you that he had a personal conversation with president putin about hookers? >> yes. >> did you believe him or did you think he was speaking hyperbolically? >> he didn't seem to be speaking hyperbolically. >> okay, michael schmidt, i want to come back to you. the president of the united states seems to be have claimed to jim comey, if we believe jim

comey's account, that he had a conversation at some point -- we know he had recently spoken to putin because he had a congratulatory phone call from him. we don't know when donald trump had phone calls when he was a private citizen. he seemed to be claiming to jim comey in one of his conversations with vladimir putin that there was this discussion that took place. we now have television evidence that, that shows vladimir putin talking in a news conference about the fact that russia has the best hookers in the world. tell me how you interpret that, this episode, and whether or not you think this is a -- possibly a case donald trump had taken something he had seen on television and made it his own experience. >> well, as we see often with the president's tweets and comments that he makes in the press, he's very influenced by what he hears. often you can lineup fox and friends with the twitter feed in the morning. so, i'm not sure how much weight to really put into it. a good example of how the president can bounce back and forth in certain ways like that

is in the loyalty dinner on january 27th when he's there with comey one on one. during the dinner he tells comey that priebus does not know, the white house chief of staff reince priebus at the time, does not know that they're having dinner. and trump tells him to tell priebus about it. and then as they're leaving the green room in the white house, where they've had dinner, they're walking out. trump says, oh, yeah, yeah, priebus knows we're having dinner together. now, did trump misremember or was trump lying or was he trolling comey? there's a lot of things like that that the president does where he bounces around from fact to fiction and it's hartd to tell where his head really is. >> barbara, i want to ask you, bring you into this, into this topic. you think about -- this is not really strictly a legal matter although it touches on legal matters. when you have the president -- the salacious claims in the dossier. you have a president who is speaking freely about related

matters, speaking about prostitutes even though he's denying there were ever hookers, even though he's denying the notion of golden showers and taking part in those activities. fact he speaks about them freely and comes back to them over and over again comey, and now that we know certain things that are now part of the public record, things related to, for example, the stormy daniels case. what kind of a picture does one take away from all of that about whether or not we should have some reason to think that maybe some of most salacious claims of the dossier kind of have the whiff of truth? >> yeah, you know, i don't know about engaging in these acts themselves. people can judge for themselves whether they think it's immoral or those kinds of things. but i think the danger of engaging in these kinds of acts is that it leaves the president susceptible to blackmail. and that is something that should be very concerning if any of these things are true. whether it's the government of russia or someone like stormy daniels. anyone who has that kind of power over the president, who knows all of the nation's

secrets, gets a daily intelligence briefing, it can be incredibly dangerous to the national security to have someone like that compromised. when you get a background check, many of the questions that you are asked are asked of others about you is whether you could be susceptible to blackmail in any way because you could be compromised by a foreign adversary. the president is the one person who doesn't have to get a background check because they have been elected by the people and so all of these concerns make one wonder whether president trump has been compromised in some way. >> i see bill crystal chomping on the bit to weigh in on hookers. >> please. no, of course, i can't. by that terrible slander on me. who knows. he does troll trump, and he says things to test people and throws things out. i am struck, he seemingly apparently keeps raising the issue of the hookers and he's concerned melania, mrs. trump might have a 1% chance of leaving. he says that a couple times at

least according to comey. it just feels like i don't know, whether she does or doesn't believe it, why is he telling comey about it all the time? sorts of irrelevant. it's a way of i would say testing whether comey, whether the intelligence agency or the fbi has this information whether it's credible. think of it as a human matter. examine if you kn and if you know it's totally 1900% false, you don't have to worry they have information it did happen. the whole dossier thing, i assume parts of it are true and parts of it are false. i have to say the more we learn more parts of it seem to lineup with reality and fewer parts seem to be clearly wrong. someone sort of obsessing about whether -- if i were obsessed whether you knew something about me, of course it's false. you don't think -- could you prove it's false in he's trying to see whether comey and the intelligence agencies have really looked into this and i think he's a little worried about it. >> it has struck me as strange the entire time the notion that

you would be asking someone to prove something. proving a negative is lard in general. but you're saying there is no possibility i could ever have done that. please go out and prove that that is true. it seems a little -- that is a very difficult thing to ask even as accomplished an investigator as jim comey. no, ari? >> i don't think people are giving enough benefit of the doubt to how strange the entire situation is, which is to say if you remove the individual involved, who i already stipulated does not have the greatest credibility, donald trump, and you imagine a scenario where a head of state of any country is facing potentially false comprima to drive a wedge between him and the public, him and his family, you have to reconsider the fact something you obsess over. as i mention on 2020 hindsight, i'm not saying they couldn't do it better knowing what they knew then. knowing what we know now, making it such a big deal in trump tower and having all these new people come in, that's another depiction that's new. you said what's new in the memo. we got more contemporaneous

depiction of how this meeting went down and it did not go well for the goals of the intelligence agency. >> trying to see what comey -- let's just say it didn't happen and trump really wants to obsess. you know what, mr. director, mr. comey, let's get the people who were with me am moscow. i'll bring them into the white house monday. we went to do it in the white house. we'll do it off grounds. you can talk to each of them. go hour through hour in my time in russia. that's what you do under a normal matter if you wanted to prove something three years ago. he's testing comey to see what he knows. he doesn't seem to be offering to help disprove this which he could. >> i dispute that as well. he raises another odd idea to prove the negative. maybe you could run this down and investigate it. comey said we don't want to go down that road. there is a lot that is weird. i don't want to use the legal term. you think i'm pouring cold water on the story. >> pour away. i like it when you're defending

donald trump. it's a good look for you. >> i don't care how it looks, baby, i don't care how it looks. just from an investigative legal per spencer christiantive, there is a lot that is salacious and not probative. what is probative that takes more time, asking, why did the president of the united states need a loyalty oath from the fbi director and his deputy mccabe, why was he fixated on mccabe. why did he show such a mass tri of comey one, comey two, comey three in the hillary investigation. i'll pass you back the ball because you're our moderator today. why is donald trump so fixated on how the fbi works and whether it can be used to indict hillary clinton and whether the number two at the fbi is a threat to him personally. i don't think that has much to do with the unverified part of the dossier. i wonder what else he knows that relates to michael cohen proceedings in new york -- >> that's where i'm going. >> that relates to the things done by manafort and gates. why is donald trump, before there is even a mueller probe, so fixated on that. that comes through in the comey memo in a that is shocking. >> i agree with you.

it is powerful and does point to the long history of donald trump, the kinds of businesses he did in new york, the kinds of businesses he did around the world. some of the things we are about to right on the precipice of getting into in terms of the michael cohen case and the relationship largely unexplored by a lot of people that donald trump has had with law enforcement over decades, largely as i say unexplored. i'm sorry to natasha bertrand. ari kept talking. next time you come back we won't invite ari. you'll get to talk more. >> we'll give you extra time on the beat. my bad. >> michael schmidt, thank you for coming in. ari melber, you are a pleasure. nothing but a delight to be with you. do not miss him on the beat. it's coming up at 6:00. he has a special guest today, jeff spikoli, a.k.a. sean pen. it's going to be incredible. michael cohen's lawyer is in court today hoping to delay the case that was brought by stormy

daniels, but based on what we heard in the hearing, cohen could be facing much more serious trouble. also trump's legal team gets a boost in the form of everything trump loves, a famous name, a tv fixture, but will rudy giuliani's fourth quarter sub-in be a little too late in the face-off against robert mueller? >> you know, you're really beautiful. a woman that looks like that has to have her own special scent. >> oh, thank you. maybe you could tell me what you think of this scent. >> i like that.

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the worst kept secret in the world, the second worst kept. the worst kept is my love for 4-20. the second worst secret is donald trump having trouble hiring a legal team. the dry spell is over. rudy giuliani is back. the man once known as -- he's got a pretty impressive legal resume, although most of the glittering entries from that resume date back to the 1980s. giuliani is a former associate attorney general and former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york which just so happens to be the same district currently overseeing the michael cohen investigation. he will try to negotiate an end to the mueller probe. quote, for the good of the country, end quote. if that sounds a little pie in the sky, wait until you hear giuliani's time line for this. told the new york post, quote, i don't know yet what's outstanding, but i don't think it's going to take more than a week or two to get a resolution.

they're almost there. not sure where there is, uh parentally they're almost there. something that is sure to come up in this endeavor going forward is whether or not the president is going to sit down for an interview with bob mueller mano a mano or even speak to mueller. on that front another trump attorney ty cobb told "the daily beast" an interview with mueller is on the table. the cohen searches while they have taken time away from the discussion with regard to the interview, they continue. end quote. joining us now is betsy woodruff who wrote that piece for the daily beast. joining the table the reverend al sharpton, great friend and president of the action network and host of politics nation here on msnbc. bill crystal and barbara mcquade are still with us. betsy, you were the first one to report on the news of giuliani joining the legal team. just tell us how did we get to

rudy giuliani is part of team trump? >> we had to go through a whole bunch of other attorneys before giuliani was the one they finally settled on. one thing i can tell you a source familiar with the matter told me the reason it took so long for the president to finally re-fill out his legal team after john dowd stepped down several weeks ago was because of all the foreign policy crises that have been sort of rolling over the last several weeks. ways told that syria and north korea took up a lot of the president's essential free time. because he was spending so much time in meetings related to those matters he had less time available to do interviews with attorneys. that said, of course, he did do interviews with a none of attorneys, many of whom had to turn him down. and part of the reason that so many attorneys have not been able to work with the president on this speaks to the nature of the russia investigation. lots of attorneys can't work with the president because they're what's called conflicted out. they have another client who already is enmieshed in the probe. this probe is so big it's brought in so many white collar

attorneys and firms just by process of elimination, giuliani was practically the last attorney standing. >> so, did rudy have to be begged or was rudy banging down the door? >> you know, i can't speak to that. i don't have that level of detail. my guess is that giuliani is sort of embracing this new role. we know that he likes being part of, being part of whatever the media narrative is. that said, one thing about giuliani we have to remember this isn't the first time he's been enmeshed in the president's legal troubles. back in 2017 when the first travel ban came down giuliani went on fox news and bragged the whole thing was his idea, that he came up with the travel ban as a way of legally doing a muslim ban. that comment was used in just about every court case against the travel ban and it played a big role in the ban having such a rough roll out and having so many legal problems. j giuliani likes to insert himself. remains to be seen if he's a constructive player this time around than he was during the travel ban ruckus. >> barbara, you know a lot

about, about how cases proceed and the complexities involved, case management, trial strategy, defense, the discovery, all the things that are involved, document production, et cetera, et cetera. rudy giuliani seems to me to have no real connection to most of that. whatever the reasons are the president wants giuliani on his legal team are connected to other skills. maybe diplomatic skills and certainly television skills. given what you know about his history, as both a lawyer and a public figure, when you hear him say, i'm going to bring this thing in a for a landing in a couple weeks, you think what? >> i think that's very farfetched. in fact, if anything, i think maybe he is setting expect auctions for the public so when he is unable to bring it in for a landing in two weeks he can blame robert mueller and his team for being unreasonable. in light of the complexities of a case like this i can't imagine it would be over with the most skilled lawyer in just a couple weeks. i think he's playing more of a p.r. role than a legal role. he's hired two other lawyers to

be part of the team. my guess is those lawyers are going to be doing the legal work and that giuliani will be doing much more of the p.r. work. >> can i add to that? giuliani is part of a political team, not a legal team. for me this says a lot about what trump thinks he's involved in. he's not thinking about this as a defendant who is innocent trying to get all the facts out make sure he has competent defense. he is in ray political war with robert mueller and he is going to fight that war on the legal front and the p.r. front and political front. he thinks giuliani might be effect. on the political front. of course there are a million legal tactics as part of this political war. for trump it's about discrediting mueller, discrediting the fbi, causing enough doubt that at the end of the day he can survive this. >> rev, you're a great new yorker and as a great new yorker you have had a lot of encounters over the years i'm sure with rudy giuliani. what do you think of this move from trump's point of view? does it make sense in some way? >> i agree that this is part of a political strategy. you must remember that donald

trump is a street fighter. he's not going to walk away and not try every angle and all angles to continue to put his best face on this. and to defend himself. and i think rudy giuliani has enough gravitas with his base that he can go out and keep pushing the ball the way that donald trump would want it. and have the respect of some of the feds because he was a former justice department official. you can't discount him with those in that circle. having said that, though, i think that i agree with bill that they are putting this out there to -- and barbara, i agree with, putting this out there so he can then in two weeks say, yeah, we could have wrapped this up, but they're being inflexible, they're being unreasonable. you would not hire two other lawyers if you thought this was going to be over in two or three weeks. >> right, right. >> i mean, why would you hire a

team if you've got one guy that thinks he can really solve this? >> i want to go around the horn on a topic in all of this legal -- this legal warfare, this battle, embattlement donald trump has been engaged in the last week has sort of gotten lost. a week ago all we were talking about was because of the cohen raids that donald trump was really right on the brink of firing rod rosenstein and trying to bring the mueller probe to an end. that receded. we got recorded in the middle of the week rose not stein had gone to trump and said you're not a target. that somehow eased trump's mind. that's why he seemed to calm about it at the press conference at mar-a-lago on wednesday. now we have new reporting that says, no, no, no, trump is still on the brink of firing rosenstein. i want to go quickly around the horn here and start with betsy. ask me this question on the basis of your reporting and everything you know, is rosenstein in serious jeopardy at this moment? donald trump goes back and forth on everything. is he in jeopardy or relatively

safe? >> i think rosenstein is always on slightly thin ice because the president just doesn't like him very much personally. he doesn't see him as part of the team player. i don't think rosenstein is on thinner ice than he was at the middle or the beginning of this week. i think he's probably going to be okay for the time being. >> barbara, what do you think about that? >> i think i agree he's always on thin ice. rod rosenstein is someone who plays by the rules of being loyal to the mission and not loyal to the man. for that reason trump would fire him in a heartbeat if he thought he could. i think he understands fierlg rosenstein could lead to a saturday night massacre which could spell the end of his presidency. as long as there is that risk for president trump, rod rosenstein is safe. >> barbara mcquade, thank you. great seeing you. thank you for doing the show. betsy, it's great to see you, too. thank you for coming on. you guys, you're going to stick around. up next we have attorneys for michael cohen and for stormy

daniels. they're back in court today out in los angeles where cohen's own attorney indicated he expects his client will be indicted soon. does that put him any closer to turning on president trump? oh. hey mom. now that we have your attention... capri sun has four updated drinks. now with only the good stuff. do you know how to use those? nope. get those kids some capri sun!

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do you think mr. cohen is going to be indicted soon? >> absolutely i do. i don't know the scope of that indictment and i think that was the point that i was raising in court. my own personal belief as someone with 18 years of experience who has some knowledge of what's going on, yes, i believe the indictment will be issued within the next 90 days. but if it's not issued in the next 90 days, that doesn't mean it's not going to be issued. what i do know is the attorneys from the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york are some of the best, most aggressive in the country and they're not going to unseal an indictment until they have their ducks in a row. >> that was stormy daniels's attorney michael avenue fatattig

a bold call on the legal peril that awaits michael cohen. his own attorney acknowledged he may be indicted in the next 90 days. the judge indicated there is a substantial likelihood that cohen will be indicted. cohen is hoping to delay the civil lawsuit filed by stormy daniels to invalidate her nda. while no decision was made on that motion for a delay today, cohen was ordered to file a statement with the court acknowledging that this case could jeopardize any chance he has of taking the 5th if he is indicted by prosecutors in new york. joining us now is rinat a mar i can't tell -- mariati. i triesd to dismiss and send away at the last block, she's still here thank god. you guys, i want to know ranati, answer this question. we focused a lot about michael cohen. we're going to talk about michael cohen a lot and the criminal investigation in the southern district. but the stormy daniels case just does not go away. this civil suit and the motion that was heard today or argued

out today in l.a. and the lack of decision, what does all that mean for the stormy daniels case and what does it mean more importantly for michael cohen and donald trump? >> so, michael cohen is trying to stay -- in other words, freeze the stormy daniels case. and the reason why is that if he was asked to testify in the stormy daniels case, he might implicate himself in the criminal case. so, he would have to take the 5th and in a civil case, in a regular lawsuit, taking the 5th can be used against you. so, he could be in this really tough position where he either has to take the 5th and lose the civil case or waive his constitutional right and be in greater legal jeopardy in the criminal case. so, he's asking the judge to do that, but he was trying to have his cake and eat it, too, by not actually putting in an affidavit saying that he was going to take the 5th. he wanted -- his attorney suggested that he would, but he didn't want to come out and say it because he didn't want all of us talking about it on television, i imagine. and the judge didn't like that. he's given him a little bit more time to come out and say what is

obvious which is he's going to have to take the 5th. that's what's going on in the stormy daniels suit right now. >> so, do you think, staying with you for a second, do you think this judge when all is said and done is going to allow the civil suit to proceed in prayer legal with the criminal investigation or do you think the judge is likely to grant a stay some period of time and keep renewing that stay until the criminal matter is resolved? >> well, it seemed like the judge recognized there is some very severe criminal jeopardy for cohen. in fact i think he cited the fact mr. avenatti conceded as much. so, i think he's going to stay it -- stay the case. he may decide some legal issues related to the defamation claim and nothing else. >> guys, there is an incredible story in "the new york times" that talks about michael cohen. i want to get to michael cohen. the stormy daniels thing is kind of the way in which the trigger -- seemed to have triggered the michael cohen story. now we are in the middle of the

michael cohen story. what used to be the controversial position what is happening around michael cohen in the southern district might be as much of a threat as the bob mueller investigation. the convention is firmly cemented the notion it is more threatening to the president what's happening with michael cohen than the mueller investigation. all in the space of about a week. this "the new york times" story talks about michael cohen. the headline is michael cohen said he would take a bullet for mr. trump, maybe not any more. for years mr. trump treated mr. cohen poorly with gratuitous insults, dismissive statements and at least twice threats of being fired. according to interviews with half a dozen people familiar with their relationship. rev, i want to ask you because being the new yorker you are, you probably know michael cohen. maybe he's not an intimate of yours but you probably know him. the conventional wisdom -- in addition to the conventional wisdom that poses great jeopardy to donald trump is built on another conventional wisdom which is michael cohen is guilty of a lot of things and he is almost certainly going to flip

on donald trump and this story that points to, hey, maybe i wouldn't take a bullet for donald trump. maybe donald trump is kind of a bad boss. this is part of the nehr 2i678 that -- narrative that gets us to the moment michael cohen turns on donald trump. >> i think it is very, very possible that michael cohen is looking at this from a different perspective. how many times do you know people to say i'll take a bullet until somebody points a gun at them? and now you're really looking at a real bullet. i think what michael cohen now has to assess is the character of the person he's been working with. if the times writes about he was poorly treated, that's only the icing on the cake. the cake is that he knows he can go to jail now for real. this is not saying something that will ingratiate himself to the boss. you've got to sit there, look at your family and say, am i really going to go down for this guy when i know this guy doesn't care about anyone anywhere.

and i think that cohen is having the biggest reality check of his life. >> cohen is also sending a message to his former boss, hey, don't count on me. pardon, that would be a different story. i just think -- i totally agree. the gravity of the cohen thing has not underestimated from the beginning. the sdny isn't separate -- they're both part of the justice department. they share evidence, tactics of strategy. it's all one big investigation. when you get a magistrate's warrant to do a no-knock search, raid on the president's personal lawyer given the sensitivity of that, something really had reason to believe there was criminal activity there. if there is criminal activity cohen is engaged in, you have to think it might have to do something with his main employer. he was executive vice-president of the trump organization for the last ten years. so, i think, i very much have thought comey -- cohen is much more important than comey. cohen is more important than

stormy daniels. it was a huge moment that signified the entire mueller department. sdny is being brought to bear on this case. firing rosenstein is high -- i totally agree with al. giuliani is setting up a narrative here where he is going to be the guy who with some credible -- >> giuliani will be the one that can come in and say, i tried to negotiate rosenstein is the problem. he can give trump the cover to fire rosenstein. here's a guy that worked in the justice department. i can hear trump now saying, this guy knows the department and he knows rosenstein was doing something that was inappropriate or something that was wrong. he knows it better than i do. i've got to listen to rudy giuliani's advice. >> i think this "the new york times" story, bill, i think you're onto something. any of us who have covered donald trump and his orbit, they trash the press constantly but talk to them privately.

a classic example like donald trump. this story is a plant, i'm sure. not demeaning "the new york times" in reporting it. this is michael cohen starting to lay the groundwork for why the ultimate loyalist might try to have to turn on his boss. so, betsy, i want to ask you this question. it seems to me there was a story in "the new york times" a week ago that first hinted at the notion that not only was there an emerging view that the cohen case was more of a threat to trump than the mueller probe, but that trump and his people believe that to be true. so, i'm curious as to at the end a one week later given the developments of this week whether your sense is that is more true now than ever that people in the white house, around donald trump, are still worried about bob mueller, of course, but really looking at the michael cohen situation and going, we have a problem here. >> i think it is. and what happened today in court is really the key indicator. it crystallizes the extent to

which it is true. michael cohen is probably going to have to go into a federal court and say he thinks he's about to be charged with a grave crime and he can't deal with the civil litigation because it might force him to incriminate himself. imagine being in a position where you knew you were going to have to personally say that to a federal judge. that's a scary thing. that's a bad place. it's very much donning on michael cohen. it has to be that he is between a rock and a hard place and things are going to be really rough for him. that said at the same time, cohen clearly has allies in extremely high places not just the white house, but my colleague spencer and i reported a month or tua go that cohen actually got what appeared to be a strategic leak from the house intelligence community, intelligence committee. there was testimony given behind closed doors in the house intelligence committee that wasn't available publicly that michael cohen's attorney somehow got his hands on. so, the idea that this guy is doomed is certainly far from the truth. he's going to have lots of supporters throughout government who could potentially help him, but look, he's in a really bad

place and he knows it. >> i want to end this segment by asking you a question. we started with the picture of michael avenatti who has become a ubiquitous figure because of the stormy daniels case and in some ways has done, i've said several times in various forms, he's doing to donald trump what donald trump did to the republican party and to hillary clinton. casting out the rule book, understanding the new media environment, on social moo i can't. playing the tabloid game, playing the cable news game. he's a totally nontraditional lawyer, but in some ways it has made him more of a thorn in trump's side it seems to me than anybody else in the legal sphere. i want you to just talk about the kind of unusual and kind of extraordinary thing that's happening, this l.a. lawyer not part of the political world, riding in with a porn star client and undoing the president's head in a way, more than anybody else seems to have. >> you know, i'll tell you, it's something i have watched with great interest. i have even met mr. avenatti.

we have gone back and forth on twitter a number of times. and i'll say he is not behaving like a typical lawyer. frankly, his client is not behaving like a typical person who has filed a lawsuit. usually when you file a lawsuit you're trying to get money out of the other person. so, you're making a set of demands. you want some money and that's it. so you can understand what the person is doing under those terms. at this point it's not really the case that stormy daniels needs any more opportunity to tell her story. she doesn't really seem like she's scared to ter her story. she's telling her story to all sorts of people all over the place all the time. what is this about at this point? here you have a litigation, a litigation they have a good shot at winning and they don't seem to want anything. avenatti said he's not willing to settle unless the truth comes out. and really he's putting trump in a difficult spot if they do want something, they've got a lot of leverage because they're embarrassing trump, they're a thorn in the side.

they have the president of the united states to respond to them via tweet. >> in a way that may have opened him up to a defamation suit. i will say i spent a huge amount of time with michael avenatti and stormy daniels this week for this coming sunday's episode of the circus. if you are interested in the story you will be interested and in michael avenatti and stormy daniels, you will be interested in sunday night watching the circus on showtime. he says over and over again, i am dangerous and you will believe him when you hear why. when we come back as recently as this morning president trump was public with his support for his former national security advisor michael flynn. we are learning about a time he wasn't particularly pleased with michael flynn. would it surprise you to know it had to do with russia?

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. the president started his day tweeting out against injustice, or at least trump's definition of injustice. he tweeted the following. quote, so general michael flynn's life can be totally

destroyed while shady jims comey and leak and leigh and make lots of money from a third rate book that should never have been written. is that really the way life in america is supposed to work? i don't think so. that's not the way you spell shady. there is no e in shady. the newly released knee comey membe -- i want to read to you this comey thing real quick and we will talk about this from the comey memo. we do not know -- we only learned in the ap the name -- when putt putin was redacted from the coming memo. but "associated press" reported and now it's confirmed. the mellow says trump went on to explain he has serious reservations about mike flynn's judgment and illustrated it with a story that day that during a toast with prime minister may that redacted -- we now know

that to be vladimir putin had called. flynn said the return call for scheduled for saturday which prompted president trump to say that six days was not an appropriate time to return a call from redacted putin in. amazing. flynn has judgment problems. it's amazing that the thing he had judgment problems wasn't over all of the things that were actually wrong with michael threaten but the fact that he failed to convey a message from putin fast enough for donald trump. >> it has been a top priority for trump during the campaign and as president. we have seen it time and time again. even when our policy is forced by putin's own actions to be somewhat tougher on putin. he hates the probe -- he wants to get along with president

putin and i hates the probe. >> reynaldo, do you find it extraordinary as i do that donald trump is tweeting today in defense of michael flynn who is i believe an admitted felon, right? he copped a plea. this is a man who is an admitted criminal. yet donald trump is using the power of the presidency and his twitter feed to still to this day defend him. i fine that astonishing. you? >> i do, too. regarding michael flynn, what i find astonishing, here's a man who is still going and endorsing republican candidates. he is doing speaking engagements. sis son on is twitter blasting the prosecution, blasting the democrats, blasting mueller, blasting the fbi. when i was a prosecutor, my witnesses -- my people cooperating on my side were sticking with the of the gomt they are towing the line. they were not speaking publicly. they were not out there doing a victory lap. >> right.

>> it's hard for me to understand. i think flynn got a very good deal. no one reading those memos yesterday would not have gotten the sense that there is more there on flynn. it seems to me like flynn got an awfully great deal just pleading to one count of lying to the fbi. he should be. >> thatting his lucky stars. >> robert, 15 second to tell me about when you think news that mike flynn might be trying to mount a comeback tour. can michael flynn come back? >> well, i think that the fact that he is planning that and the president is tweeting means that he has some very serious information that the president does not want divulged. and as he is watching michael cohen sending signals, she's very concerned that flynn knows he's in his corner. >> we'll be right back. 0 feet a. 0 feet a. but how do you really know that the beans journeyed to the port of mombasa and across the pacific?

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when everything's connected, it's simple. easy. awesome. you. >> my thanks to renato, bill, reverend al. don't miss his show on sunday at 8:00 a.m. that does it is for this hour. nicole will be back then. "mtp daily" starts as soon as i say now, hi chuck. now, hi chuck. >> somebody is enjoying 420 too much today. >> the circus is in town, so i hear. >> please watch. >> if it's friday. so sue me. >> tonight, the dnc sues russia. is the lawsuit a serious legal maneuver or