alaho, everyone. it's my personal favorite holiday of the yore, 4/20. the president is in triage mode as his simmering legal battle s erupt into an all-out war. those fronts, 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, the president arguably worse off on all of them. what remains unclear is which of these fronts pose the gravest danger to donald trump's presidency. is it special counsel robert mueller's front? the man who is putting so much

pressure on donald trump that he's brought in rudy giuliani to join his legal team. or is it the front involving donald trump's personal attorney, michael cohen? now the subject of a wide-ranging criminal probe that could lead to multiple indictments, thus prompting fears among trump allies that he will flip on the president. or could it be the front involving adult film star, stormy daniels, whose attorney today vowed that his client will not rest until she can tell the full story of her alleged affair with the president and his efforts to silence her. but the crisis that is driving the most headlines at this hour is one of donald trump's party's own making. the justice department releasing james comey's famous memos to se self, memos to file after house republicans threatened to subpoena. what emerged from those memos is a picture of a president obsessed with the russia investigation, desperate to end it, and fixated on his relationship with vladimir putin. the memos are completely consistent with jim comey's public comments about his interactions with trump and they

expose new details about the allegations contained in the zales, as well as the case against michael flynn. with us to dive into all of this from the "new york times," the person who first broke the news last year that there were actually comey memos, that would be michael schmidt. natasha bertrand who covers the vugs investigation for the atlantic, and at this table, msnbc's chief legal correspondent, ari melber, host of "the beat," and bill kristol, the founder and editor of "the weekly standard." guys, it's an incredible week full of legal news. let's start with this week full of comey stuff. michael schmidt, i want to ask you to start things off today. the president tweeting today, seeming to believe that the comey memos somehow exonerate him. true or false? >> not sure, i guess, it depends, you know, 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 in 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 russian -- when the dossier says the russians have this tape of trump with these prostitutes. he's saying that he went through a chronology at least twice with him about it. that's an entirely new thing we didn't know anything about. we knew about the president's comments to comey that he said putin had talked to him about prostitutes there. it's those kind of details, those new, revealing things that i can't imagine are helpful for the president. >> natasha, let me ask you. there's something about these memos. you read them last night when they first came out. and the first thing you were struck by, there's not a whole lot of news in them. we'll talk about some of it. but by and large, they are consistent with things that comey has already said publicly, either in testimony or in his book. and yet, there's something about the quality of them, the detail

in them, the 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 just feel human and feel real. >> that's exactly the word that i 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, reputation have come out and said that these memos actually vindicate the president, because they show that comey had 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 failed 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 couns 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 -- 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 then we'll talk about some of the specific things in the memos. i want to read this first and go to you, ari, and ask what you think about this. you said, mr. comey's decision to brief mr. trump on the dossier was based, at least in part, on the fact that american intelligence agencies had corroborated parts of the steele dossier, according to the memos. comey where this in february of 2017. he said, i explained that the analysts from all three agencies agreed that it, 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 for the past, now, 15 months, that this is an uncorroborated dossier. it's all garbage, it's all trash. and 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, at least, skpand said, it's real. it's fact. >> the dossier has aged well in the sense that parts of it have been publicly verified. what comes through in the memo is something 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 inserted a different president, one who is 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 or governing experience and do this dramatic briefing. if you've ever been out to dinner, john, and you dgo to th

bathroom and come back and you can tell everyone's been talking about, you know how that feels. >> that happens to literally every dinner i go to. >> so in hindsight, we all know is a benefit, but on hindsight, having everyone sit with the president in trump tower and say, we're all going to leave now, while one of us, james com comey, is going to hit you with this thing, i think a lot of presidents 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. and when they talk, it comes back up, and he talks to him about the pee tape. it is extraordinary to even discuss this on air, although now that it's been in memos that the doj has given to congress -- >> it's open season -- >> it is what it is. >> it's open season on golden showers, basically. >> it's matters of state at this juncture. but i do think that that's what 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 federal government and have worked for some pretty serious people, including the former vice president of the united states. do you agree with that? do you think that -- what else were the intelligence agencies supposed to do, given the circumstances of the election, given the existence of the dossier, given that donald trump was about to dmcome in and that they knew 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 should they have handled that that would have been better? >> i don't know, but you don't want the president to turn on his tv and find out about it five hours later in a briefing. and they knew that russia had interfered in the lerelection. they were briefing someone with on whose behalf russia had interfered, so that's awkward in itself. i always come back, if you get out of the trees to the forest level again. so, look, the president had decided, you know what, i don't think all in all james comey might be the guy i want to have as an fbi director.

he interviewed in the election somewhat bizarrely with the announcement of the hillary e-mails and all that stuff. he called your attorney general, you have an orderly process, you get a good replacement, two weeks in, you ask james comey to resign, he resigns. i don't think anyone -- honestly, it would have been legitimate. but 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 pout what is really -- what they know and where he's going and how influenceable and persuadable and pressurable he is. so that is part of a beginning of an attempt to control, limit, curb, obstruct the investigation. >> two key points. one that's bad for the intelligences. you say, what else could they have done? there are many things they could have done that were less dramatic, given what an explosive and unverified charge it was. you could call the white house counsel and say, we have no reason to think this is true, it might come out on cnn, we're flagging it for you, you might want to brief the president. and you have a real one on one.

and the other thing that's come out in this these memos, yesterday we learned there's the possible prosecution of a witness in the mueller probe, andy mccabe, is donald trump was laser focussed to bill's point on comey and mccabe from the start. on testing their personal loyalty, on whether mccabe was mad at him for things he'd said. he kept returning to it and the memos bear that out. and that's very bad for donald trump because it makes it look like more elements of the case of obstruction. >> you want to talk about andy mccabe, i want to talk about hookers. let's move on to that aspect of this comey memo that's gotten a lot of attention. another quote here from one of the memos. one of the most stunning things about these, is the number of times that president trump comes back to this topic in the course of his various interactions with jim comey. the president said, quoting comey here from a memo dated february 8th, the president 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 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 becoming public. i want to just play that tape so you can hear what jim comey had to say about this. >> the president 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 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 had a personal conversation with mr. 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 have claimed to jim comey, if we believe comey's

account, that he had a conversation at some point. we know he had recently spoken to putin, because he got a congratulatory phone call to him. we don't know if there were previous phone calls when he was a private citizen. but the president seems to be claiming to jim comey that in one of his conversations with vladimir putin there was this discussion that took place. we now have television evidence 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 wether or not you think this is possibly a case where 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 line up f"fox & 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 that 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 just bounces around from fact to fiction, and it's hard to tell where his head really is. >> barbara, i want to ask you, bring you into this, into this topic. you think about -- it's not really a strictly a legal matter, although it touches on some legal matters. but when you have the president, there are salacious claims in the dossier. off president who is speaking freely about related matters. he's speaking about prostitutes, even if he's denying there were

ever hookers, even if he's denying the allegations of golden showers or taking part in those activities. the fact that he speaks about them so freely and comes back to them over and over again with 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 they maybe some of the most salacious claims of the dossier kind of have the kind of whiff of truth? >> yeah, you know, i don't know about engaging in these acts themselves. you know, people can judge for themselves whether people think it's immoral or those kinds of things, but the danger of engaging in these kind of acts is it leaves the president susceptible to blackmail. and that's 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're asked or that 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've been elected by the people. all of these concerns make one wonder whether president trump has been compromised in some way. >> i see bill kristol like chomp chomping at the bit to weigh in on hookers. so, please, bill. >> of course -- now, of course, i can't remember what i was going to say. i was rattled by that terrible slander on me. look, who knows, he does troll trump and he says things to test people and sort of throws things out. i am struck, he seemingly apparently keeps raising the issue of hookers and very concerned, apparently, that melania, that mrs. trump might have a 1% chance of believing it. he says that a couple of times, at least according to comey, right? it just feels like, i don't know, whether she does or

doesn't believe it, what is he telling comey about it all the time for? it's sort of irrelevant, right? he does seem to very much want to push comey. it's a way soft, i would say, testing whether comey, whether the intelligence agency or the fbi have this information or not. whether they think it's possibly credible or not? don't you think? it feels like what you would do, think of it a as a human matter. he sort of -- and if you know it's totally 100% false, you're not too worried. if it didn't happen, they're not going to have information that it did happen, right? so i don't know. the whole dossier thing, i assume parts are true and parts are false, but i have to say, the more we learn, more parts seem to line up with reality and fewer parts seem to be clearly wrong. and again, someone sort of obsessing about whether -- if i were obsessed whether you knew something about me -- of course it's false, but you don't think there's any chance. cuddle y could you prove whether it's false? he's trying to determine whether they have really looked into this. >> it struck me as strange the entire time that you would be asking someone to prove

something. proving a negative is hard in general. but you're saying, there's no possibility that i ever could have done that. please go out and prove that that's true. that's a very difficult thing to ask, even as an accomplished an investigator as jim comey, ari? >> i don't think people are giving enough benefit to the doubt of how strange the entire situation. if you remove the individual involved, which i already stipulated, doesn't have the greatest credibility, donald trump, and imagine a scenario where the head of state of any country is facing potentially false cokompromat that is desigd to drive a we think between him and the public and the intelligence agency and him and his family, that could be an issue you obsess over. i'm not saying they could have done it better knowing what they knew then, but making it what we know now, making it such a big deal in trump tower and having all of these new people come in, that's another depiction that's new. that's another thing that's new. we got more contemporaneous depiction of how this meeting

went down. and it did not go well for the goals of intelligence agency. >> let's just say it didn't happen and trump really wants to -- say, you know what, mr. director, mr. comey, let's get the people who were with me in moscow. i'll bring them into the white house on monday. we'll do it somewhere off grounds and you can talk to each of them. we'll go hour through hour in my time in russia and i can prove it didn't happen. that's what you would do as a normal matter. instead, he's sort of testing comey to see what comey knows, but doesn't seem to be offering to help in disproving this thing. which of course he could do. >> i would dispute that as well, slightly. he also raises another very odd idea, which is to prove the negative. maybe you could run this down skpre and investigate it. comey says, we don't necessarily want to go down that road. there is a lot there that is weird. i know you think i'm pouring cold water on the story. >> i like it when you're defending donald trump. it's a good look for you. >> now he's -- >> i don't care how it looks. i don't care how it looks. i'm telling you from an

investigative legal perspective, there is a lot here that is salacious and not probative. what is more probative but takes more time is 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 mastery of comey one, comey two, comey three, the hillary clinton investigation? why is it, let me ask you this, and i'll pass you back the ball, because you're our moderator, 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 the michael cohen proceedings going on in new york. >> that's where i'm going. this is where i'm going. >> that relates to the things that were 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 way that is shocking. >> i agree with you. it is powerful and i think it points 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 that we are 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 am really sorry to natasha bertrand, because i desperately wanted to get back to her, but ari just kept talking. next time you come back, we won't invite ari. >> natasha, we'll give you extra time on "the beat." my bad. >> michael schmidt, thank you for coming in. ari melber, you are always a pleasure. do not miss him on "the beat." it's coming up at 6:00. he has a special guest today, sean penn. that's going to be incredible. still ahead, michael cohen's lawyer is back in court today, hoping to delay the case that was brought by stormy daniels. but based on what we heard in that hearing, cohen could be facing much more serious

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the worst-kept secret in the world -- well, the second worst-kept secret is that donald trump has had a hard time recruiting brand name lawyers for his legal defense team. but as of last night, the dry spell may be over for trump. rudy giuliani is back, firmly ensconced in trumplandya. the man once known as america e's mayor, he's got a pretty impressive legal resume, although most of the entries from that resume date back to the 1980s. he's a former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, which just so happens to be same district currently overseeing the michael cohen investigation. giuliani says he will try to negotiate an end to the mueller probe, quote, for the good of the country, end quote. now, if that sounds a little pie in the sky, wait until you hear giuliani's timeline for this. he 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. i'm not sure where there is, but

apparently, 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 y mano or even speak to mueller. and on that front, another trump attorney, ty cobb, told the daily beast in an interview that the interview with mueller is still on the table. quote, the cohen searches, while i have taken time away from discussions with with regard to an interview, certainly have not brought those discussions to a halt. they continue, end quote. joining us now is betsey woodruff, who wrote that piece for the daily beast and joining the table in ari melber's place, the reverend al sharpton. a great man, my friend, the host of "politics nation" here on msnbc. bill kristol and barbara mcquade are still with us. so, betsey, you were the first one to report on the news of the giuliani joining the legal team. just tell us what -- how did we get from rudy giuliani as part of team trump? >> we had to go through a whole

bunch of other attorneys before giuliani finally was the one who they settled on. one thing i can tell you is that a source familiar with the matter told me that part of the reason it took so long for the president to finally refill 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 past several weeks. i was told that syria and north korea took up a lot of the president's essential free time. and that 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, he did do interviews with a number of attorneys, many of who 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 enmeshed in the probe. this probe is so big that it's brought in so many different white collar attorneys and firms that 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? >> i can't speak to that. i don't have that level of detail. my guess that giuliani is sort of embracing this new role. we know that he likes 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. when the first travel ban came down, giuliani went on fox news and bragged that the whole thing was his idea. that he came up with the travel ban as of legally doing a muslim ban. it played a big role in the ban, having such a rough rollout and having so many legal problems. so giuliani likes to sort of insert himself into some of these controversies and big stories of the day, remains to be seen whether he's a constructive player on the president's team this time around. >> barbara, you know a lot 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 that 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 for a landing in a couple of weeks, you think what? >> i think that's very far fetched. in fact, if anything, i think maybe he is setting expectations for the public so when he is unable to bring it in for a l d landilan landing in two weeks, he can blame robert mueller and his team for being inflexible. i can't imagine this could be over with even the most skilled lawyer in just a couple of weeks. i think he's playing a pr role instead of a legal role. he's hired two other lawyers to be part of the team.

my guess is is that those lawyers will be doing the legal work and giuliani will be doing more of the pr work. >> giuliani is part of a political team, not a legal team. but to me, this tells me a lot of what trump thinks he's involved in. he does not think of himself as a defendant who's innocent, he is in a political war with robert mueller. and he is going to fight that war on the legal front and on the pr front and on the political front. and he thinks giuliani might be effective in helping fight it on the political front. but i think it's worth -- of course, there are a million legal tactics as part of this war. but for trump, it's about discrediting mueller and the fbi, causing enough doubt that at the end of the day, he can survive this. >> rev, you're a great new yorker. as a great new yorker, you've had a lot of encounters over the year with giuliani. what did 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, 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. >> why would you hire a team if you've got one guy that thinks

that he he can really solve this. >> i want to go around the thorn re real quick in a topic that i think in all of this legal warfare, this embattle that donald trump has been engaged in over the course of 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 seems to have receded over the course of this week. then we got reporting that rosenstein had gone to trump and said, you're not a target. and that had somehow eased trump's mind. that's how he seemed to calm about it at the press conference at mar-a-lago on monday. but now we have reporting, no, no, no, trump is still on the brink of firing rosenstein. so betsy, from all you know, is rosenstein in serious jeopardy at this moment? trump goes back and forth on everything. but right now, rod rosenstein in serious jeopardy or trivirelati safe? >> i think rosenstein is always

on slightly thin ice, because the president doesn't like him very much personally. but i don't think rosenstein is currently on thinner ice than he was at the middle or the beginning of this week. ic he's probably going to be okay for the time being. >> barbara, what do you think about that? >> i think -- i agree that he's always on thin ice, because rod rosenstein is someone who plays by the rules of being a professional and loyal to the mission and not loyal to the man. and so i think for that reason, trump would fire him in a heartbeat if he thought he could, but i think he understands that firing rosenstein could lead to a saturday night massacre, which could spell the end of his presidency. so i think as long as there's that risk for president trump, rod rosenstein is safe. >> all right, great to see you, thanks for doing the show. betsy, 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 stormy daniels, they're back in court today out in los angeles where cohen's own attorney indicated

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together to make a difference for other people's lives. together, we're building a better california. 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 is that someone with 18 years of experience that 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 avenatti, making a bold call on the legal peril that awaiting michael cohen. this came as cohen's own attorney acknowledged in court

today that his client might be acknowledged in the next 90 days. and the judge himself indicated that 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. and 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 fifth if he is indicted by prosecutors in new york. joining us now is regnatta ma marrioiotti mariotti, and betsy woodruff, who i tried to dismiss at the end of the last block, but she's still here, thank god. so regnatta, we're going to talk about michael cohen 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 a decision, what does all of

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 him in a criminal case. so he would have to take the fifth. and in a regular lawsuit, taking the fifth could be used against you. he could be in this really tough position, where he either has to take the fifth and lose the civil case, or waive his constitutional right and then be in greater legal jeopardy in the criminal case. so, he's asking a 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 fifth. 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. the judge didn't like that. he is giving him more time to come out and say what is

obvious, that he'll have to take the fifth. >> so regnatta, do you think this judge, when all is said and done, this judge is going to allow the civil case -- the civil suit to proceed in parallel with the criminal investigation, or do you think the judge is likely to grant a stay of some period of time and then keep renewing that stay until the criminal matter is resolved? >> well, it seems like the judge recognized that there were some very severe criminal jeopardy for cohen and in fact, i think he cited the fact that mr. avenatti conceded as much. so i think he's going sty tay t case. he may decide some legal issues related to the defamation claim and nothing else. >> there's an incredible story in "the new york times" that just talks about michael cohen and i want to get to michael cohen. the stormy daniels thing is kuf the way in which that seemed to have triggered the michael cohen story and now we are in the middle of this michael cohen story. over the course of this weak

wu week what used to be a controversial position, what's happening with michael cohen in the southern district might be as much of a threat as the bob mueller investigation. that conventional wisdom is now firmly cemented, that it is now more threatening what's happening with michael cohen than the mueller investigation, all in the space of about a week. this "new york times" story talks about michael cohen. the headline is, michael cohen has said he would take a bullet for mr. trump, maybe not anymore. for years, mr. trump treated mr. cohen poorly with at least twice threats of being fired kooraccog to interviews with at least half a dozen people familiar with their relationship. rev, i want to ask you. 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, that it poses great harm to donald trump, but that michael cohen is

almost certainly going to flip on donald trump. this story that donald trump is maybe a bad boss, this is part of the narrative that's going to get us to the moment when 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 someone who says, i'll take a bullet, until somebody points a gun at them and now you're looking at a real bullet. and what michael cohen now has to assess is the character of the person he's been working for. if "the times" story is right that he was poorly treated, that's only icing on the cake. the cake is that he knows he can go to jail now for real. this is not something saying something that will ingratiate himself to the boss. you've got to sit there and 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 cohen is having the biggest reality check of his

life. >> do you think this is also cohen sending a message possibly to his former boss which is, hey, don't count on me. now, pardon, that would be a different story. i totally agree. the gravity of the cohen thing has been under reported for the beginning. they're not really separate. 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, they had reason to believe there's criminal activity. and if there's illegal activity that cohen's gauged in, you would have to think it might have to do with his employer. so cohen is more important than comey, kocomey is more importan than stormy daniels.

mueller's team and sdny is being brought to bear on this case. and that's why i think the possibility of firing rosenstein soon is high, the possibility of pardons is high and the possibility of all of this coming to a head is high. i totally agree with al, giuliani is setting up a narrative here where he will be the guy with some credibility. >> all-ygiuliani can give trump 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. identi i've got to listen to rudy giuliani's advice. >> i think this "new york times" story, anyone who covers donald trump and his orbit, they all trash the press constantly, but all talk to the press all the time. this story is a plant, i'm sure. not demeaning "the new york times in reporting it, but this

is michael cohen starting to lay the groundwork for why the ultimate loyalist might have to ultimately turn on his boss. so betsy, i want to ask you this question. it seems to me, you know, there was a story in "the new york times" a week ago that first hinted at the notion that not only was therein ae early morninging view that the cohen case was more of a threat to trump than the mahlueller probe but trump and his people believe that to be true. so 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 mahler, of course, but really lacking 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 and it crystallizes the extent to which that's true. remember, michael cohen will have to go into a federal court, probably early next week and say

that he thinks he's about to be charged with a very grave crime and that he can't deal with this civil litigation, because it might force him to incriminate himself. imagine being in a position where you were going to of to personally say that to a federal judge. that's a scary thing. that's a bad place. it's very much dawning on moen, it h -- michael cohen, that he's been a rock and a hard place. at the same time, cohen has allies in extremely high places. not just the white house, but cohen actually got what appeared to be a strategic leak from the house intelligence community -- committee. there was te that was given behind closed doors in the house intelligence committee that wasn't available publicly that michael cohen's attorney somehow got his hands on. the idea that this guy is doomed is certainly far from the truth. hays going to have lots of supporters throughout government who could potentially help him, but he's in a really bad place and he knows it. >> renato, i want to end this

segment by asking you a question. we started with the picture of michael avenatti, wloho's becoma ubiquitous figure in the media because of the stormy daniels case. and he's doing to donald trump what donald trump did to the republican party and hillary clinton. casting out the rule book, understanding the new media environment on social media, praying the tabloid game, he's a totally nontraditional lawyer, but it's made him more of a thorn in trump's side than anyone else in the legal sphere. i want you to talk about the kind of unusual and kind of extraordinary thing that's happening. this l.a. world, 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 >> i'll tell you, it's something i have watched with great interest. i've even met mr. avenatti. we've gone back and forth on

twitter a number of times. and i will say, he is not behaving like a typical lawyer and husband behaviclient is not a typical person who has filed a lawsuit. so typically you want some money. you have a set of demands and want some money and that's it. you can understand what the person is doing under those terms. at this point, it's not really the case that stormy daniels needs anymore opportunity to tell her story. she doesn't really seem like she's scared to tell her story. she's telling her story to all sorts of people all over the place all the time. so what is this about at this point? here you have a litigation, a litigation that they have a pretty good shot of winning, and they don't really seem to want anything. avenatti said on twitter, he's not willing to settle unless the truth comes out. and he's putting trump in a very difficult spot. if they do want something, they've got a lot of leverage because they're embarrassing trump, they're a thorn in his side. they got 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 this story, you'll be interested -- in michael avenatti and stormy daniels, you'll be interested in watching "the circus" sunday night on showtime. he says over and over again, i am dangerous, and you'll believe him when he says why. this morning, president trump was public more his support for national security adviser, michael flynn, but we're learning about a time when he wasn't particularly pleased with michael flynn. would it surprise you to know that it had to do with russia?

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never have been written. is that the way life in american is supposed to work? i don't think so. first of all, there's no "e" in shady. those newly released memos show trump had reservations about michael flynn from the beginning. i want to just read to you this comey thing real quick and we'll talk about this from the comey memo. we do not know -- we only learned from the a.p., what involved vladimir putin was redacted from the comey memo, but the associated press has reported it, and it's now been confirmed. the memo says, trump went on to explain that he has serious reservations about mike flynn's judgment and illustrated that with a story that day in which the president apparently discovered during his toast to theresa may that redacted had called four days ago. flynn interrupted to say that -- redacted, putin, had called first apparently. flynn said the return call was

scheduled for saturday, which prompted a heated reply from the president that six days was not an appropriate period of time to return a call from redacted, ie, putin. bill, it's kind of amazing. first of all, the notion that trump's -- and he pointed to his head, i believe. flynn has judgment problems, right? it's kind of amazing that trump is talking about flynn having judgment problems, but even more amazing, it was over the fact that flynn failed to convey a message from putin fast enough to donald trump. >> getting along with vladimir putin has been a top priority for trump in the campaign and as president. we've seen it time and time again as recently as this past week. even when our policy actually is forced by putin's own actions really to be somewhat tougher on putin. so he hates -- he very much wants to get along with vladimir putin, and he hates the probe into russian interference and possible collusion in his campaign. >> ronaldo, 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, and yet donald trump is using the power of the presidency and his twitter feed to still, to this day, defend him. i find that astonishing. you? >> yeah, i do too, and i will say that regarding michael flynn, what i find astonishing, here's a man who is still going and endorsing republican candidates. he's giving speaking -- you know, he's doing speaking engagements. his son is on twitter blasting the prosecution, blasting democrats, blasting mueller, blasting the fbi. i will tell you when i was a prosecutor, my witnesses, people who were cooperating on my side, were sticking with the government. i mean they were toeing the line. they were not speaking publicly. they were not out there doing a victory lap. it's really hard for me to understand. i think flynn got a very good deal. no one reading those memos yesterday would have -- you know, would not have gotten a

sense that there's more there on flynn. i mean it seems to me like flynn got an awfully great deal just pleading to one count of lying to the fbi. he should be thanking his lucky stars. >> i got 15 seconds for you to tell me whether you think, when you hear news today that mike flynn might be trying to launch some kind of 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's watching michael cohen send these signals, he's very concerned and flynn knows he's in his corner. >> we will be right back. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. that's it? everybody two seconds! "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..."

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my thanks to renato, bill, reverend al. don't miss the rev on his politics nation show on sunday at 8:00 a.m. that does it for this hour. i'm john heilemann in for nicolle wallace. have a great weekend, everybody. i wrote it down. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. james comey's memos from about his conversations with president trump are out there now for all to see. they document in realtime the accounts the former fbi director gave in his public testimony, under oath, and his recently published book. the justice department turned