hoping they could get verdicts without someone explaining the smiths. tlan thanks for all the work you've done in getting society to the place it is today. dan i and ron for his reporting. that wraps up the business iz afternoon for me. see you tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern and 3:00 p.m. eastern find me on social media. thank you for watching. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington. that sound you hear is the primal scream from the president's lawyers who could not have been down with donald trump's plan to bring back the pajama phoner on fox and friends. the president spoke to his favorite morning show hosts for 29 jaw-dropping minutes on a range of topics from robert mueller to north korea to kanye west to melania's lack of birthday gifts. it was so long and free wheeling that the hosts were the ones who ended the interview. for his part trump appeared to

have more to give, but the change that had the lasting was two arguments central to his legal battles. one, the criminal case related to the raid of his lawyer michael cohen and the civil case against actress stormy daniels. it may have weakened his standing in all those casees and accomplished that in a 42-second answer. >> mr. president, how much of your legal work was handled by michael cohen? >> well, as a percentage of my yoev all legal work, a tiny, tiny little fraction. but michael would represent me and represent me on some things. he represents me like with this crazy stormy daniels deal. he represented me and, you know, from what i see he did absolutely nothing wrong. there were no campaign funds -- >> why is he pleading the 5th? >> because he's got other things, he's got businesses.

from what i understand they're looking at his businesses and i hope he's in great shape. but he's got businesses and his lawyers probably told him to do that. but i'm not involved and i'm not -- and i've been told i'm not involved. >> each word he uttered left a mark. let's go through it line by line starting with this. >> mr. president, how much of your legal work was handled by michael cohen? >> well, as a perlg of my overall legal work, a tiny, tiny little fraction. but michael would represent me and represent me on some things. >> it took less than three hours for prosecutors in the michael cohen case to use those exact words against trump. prior to his appearance on fox and friends, the president's lawyers were arguing that some of the items seized in the cohen raid should be protected under attorney/client privilege. you'll remember the president's dramatic tweet after the day of the raid, he tweeted, coat, attorney/client privilege is dead. it would appear that trump helped kill it. government lawyers argued today

in a court filing that since trump says cohen is barely his attorney, evidence seized in the cohen raid should barely be protected by attorney/client privilege, which could mean that prosecutors gain access to more evidence connecting him to more possible crimes. trump also for the very first time revealed that cohen was indeed his man on the stormy daniels situation. >> michael would represent me and represent me on some things. he represents me like with this crazy stormy daniels deal. he represented me and, you know, from what i see, he did absolutely nothing wrong, there were no campaign funds -- >> why is he pleading the 5th? >> because he's got other things. >> the president appearing to acknowledge that michael cohen represented him in negotiations with stormy daniels. this is the most trump has ever said about the hush money payment and he seems to know

more than he ever previously disclosed according the fact, according to him, no campaign funds were involved. his comments also directly contradict his claims earlier this month aboard air force one when he said he didn't know about the payment at all. daniels' attorney michael avenatti respond on twitter, quote, mr. trump and mr. cohen previously represented to the american people that mr. cohen acted on his own and that mr. trump knew nothing about the agreement with my client, the $130,000 payment. as i predicted that has now been shown to be completely false. joining me here on set, "the new york times" reporter michael schmidt, matt miller chief spokesman for the justice department, former u.s. attorney and former senior fbi official, all luck ill for us, msnbc analysts. you watched this interview, mike schmidt. how much did the president do to him snefl >> sort of a repeated pattern of behavior where he comes out hurting himself, go back to the tweet last may about comey on tapes. comey, i hope there's no tapes.

prompts comey to release the memo that leads to mueller being appointed. going after sessions, criticizing the investigation. constantly undermining himself. we've seen it so many times before. why are we surprised? >> and he's still in the process of trying to recruit more and better lawyers. i know he's added rudy. he would like a ted olson and a caliber attorney representing him. this does not show him to be a particularly disciplined client. >> he had john dowd, a long-time washington lawyer, someone who had investigated pete rose, done a lot of things. john dowd concluded he could not get the president to listen to him. a very simple thing. he said, i can't continue to do this. this is a terrible place to be as a lawyer. and then the president went almost a month or so with just one lawyer as a personal lawyer, still looking for more. >> so, the behavior is one thing and as someone who covers him it's great to hear him, you know, i just imagine him in his

pjs calling into his favor show, riffing on everything. but as a person dealing with more than a few legal battles, he seemed to undermine the case that his lawyers were in court today arguing, that some of those materials seized in the cohen raid were privileged. something the president was very upset about. he called it an act of war when cohen's home and offices were seized. today he seemed to say, well, he wasn't really acting as my lawyer, which under cuts the central argument about privileged material. >> he absolutely did. i think it is a reminder the president even in the friendly confines of a fox and friends interview can do great harm to his legal case. let's remember it's been almost a year since he sat down with a reporter from one of the mainstream networks, lester holt and did a real interview. since then he's done interviews with fox and friends, sometimes "the new york times." it was in that lester holt interview when he said he fired jim comey he was thinking of russia. gave one of the most damaging pieces of evidence to the obstruction of justice case. >> said i was going to fire him all along because i didn't like

the way the russia investigation was going. >> that's exactly right. and since then they've stopped doing tv interviews with reporters that will ask aggressive questions. even with the friendly est possible reporters you can come up with, you saw the president trying to be -- being cut off by the fox and friends anchors. they knew he was doing himself damage and wanted to cut him off. in fact, ended the interview at the end. it is an extraordinary thing. we've heard a lot of reasons why people don't want to work for the president, lawyers don't want to work for the president. one you, john dowd said he didn't listen to advice. two, he might not pay them. three, a lot of lawyers don't want to work for someone whose central strategy is an assault on the rule of law. i think one of the other things you see he constantly does damage to his own efforts talking publicly about his case. >> so, chuck, take us -- take me to law school. what is the legal damage that he did by saying that he wasn't really my lawyer, he's a business guy, that seemed to undermine and the words used against him, he was barely doing

legal work. these things should barely be protected. that was the first time he's ever come out and said publicly, yeah, michael cohen was handling stormy daniels for me. he knew enough to know where the money had come from and where it hadn't come from. >> right. so, the prosecutors in new york, nicolle, jumped on this. that's not surprising. they're a smart bunch. what did they see? they saw a president acknowledging that his lawyer wasn't really acting as his lawyer. if that's the case, then the conversations that the two of them had about anything presumably are not privileged and if that's the case, that means the filter team, the team that seized the stuff from michael cohen's office will eventually be able to give all of that material to the investigative team. and that could be damaging not just to mr. cohen, but to others. >> you're saying he tore down the wall. he tore down and he sort of claimed privilege by saying he really was a business guy, he did very little legal work. >> he's pushing pretty hard on that wall. the prosecutors i'm sure

appreciate his help. whether the wall comes down entirely or not, we'll see. the prosecutors have another argument to advance to the federal judge, that he is they should rule in their favor. >> what is the legal jeopardy the president has on the payment to stormy daniels? >> another interesting question. so, if you take the president at his word, that campaign funds were not used to pay ms. daniels, let's say that's true and set that aside for a minute. it doesn't answer the other question. what if the payments to ms. daniels, regardless of the source of funds, were intended to influence the outcome of an election for federal office. because that is a separate crime. and so the president may be missing sort of the bigger part of the import of those payments, right. if they're made to influence the outcome of an election, then that is a separate crime. >> you reported that the president called michael cohen after the raid. do you think that at any point along the way they've had a

conversation about how much trouble either one of them is in legally? >> i think one of the problems that the lawyers are actually having around them is that they're not talking about it. cohen and trump are not talking to their lawyers about what could be in there. the lawyers don't think they're getting a fair shake of what's really going on. and that comes back to your original point. this is why lawyers don't want to work for the president because you need a client that's going to be candid with you, give you the facts, tell you what's going on, and they're not doing that. and this is why people that are close to trump are really worried about the new york thing. >> new york thing. >> they're more worried about the new york than the mueller thing. they think mueller is fine. >> let's talk about why they might be so worried. cohen, there is a lot of mythology around the cohen/trump relationship, that he'd take a bullet for the guy. the "wall street journal" reporting today, building on your colleague maggie haberman's reporting over the weekend that so triggered the president that an hour before the country buried a former first lady tweeted out a personal attack against her.

the "wall street journal" building on that reporting today writing that, privately cohen had been complaining to associates both about being left behind in new york and about trump's failure to repay him the $130,000 he had drawn off his home equity line to pay ms. clifrt people finale with the matter say. deflecting for mr. trump a person familiar with the conversations. cohen stopped complaining about mr. trump not paying him mid 2017. he wasn't paid by the trump organization or the campaign, he declined whether trump himself paid him. clearly a jilted pal. >> the other thing is he also talked really tough. i'll take a bullet for the president, all these things. i was talking to someone connected to all this the other day. the people who say that, the tough guys who say that, are often the first ones to go. or the first ones to crumble. >> what does that mean, to flip? >> to flip, yeah, to flip. but the question is what does he really have to give? does he even have anything? are they simply just really

nervous about all this stuff or is there really a there-there? is there something more that really brings the president into it? that's what we don't know. that's what the lawyers around the president don't know. >> but i'm guessing a fixer is a pretty fruitful person to roll the dice on if you're a prosecutor. you've given some favorable treatment to see what he's fixed. >> a lot of people who are targets of investigations are ultimately defendants will say they'll take a bullet, say they'll never flip. right at the time they're looking at 15, 20 or 30 years in jail. that has a way of focusing the mind and making you look at the calculation differently. i think you see the president playing a dangerous game with michael cohen and you can see him in public comments. first on twitter he was a lawyer on his own account. in today his comments to fox and friends where he said i have lots of lawyers. he's pushing michael cohen away from him a little bit. pushing him out of the boat. that is a dangerous game for someone in the situation that the president is in where ultimately michael cohen could flip on him. >> it's a schizophrenic.

even as he does that, i've got lots and lots of lawyers, i'm sure the coffee boy is coming next, he's also pardoned scooter libby, was tweeting over the weekend about pardoning a boxer that sylvester stallone suggest he pardon. he's putting a lot of different very significant signals out into the ether, isn't he? >> the folks on the receiving end of these messages -- that's what they are -- sort of catch them and run with them. not to take the metaphor too far. to matt's point, i was a prosecutor for a long time, nicolle, and it's true. folks often come in defiant. they're going to take a bullet, they're going to do this, they're going to do that, they're never going to cooperate until metaphorically speaking there is a loaded weapon pointed at them. the way prosecutors work this -- this is important -- they don't give favorable treatment before they know what the information is or that the person is going to be truthful. if there is a deal to be made,

it's after they know what that person has to say. so, if there is stuff out there, michael cohen is going to have to provide it first and then and only then will prosecutors entertain sort of what the resolution ought to be. >> so, just from the 42 seconds that we played, and we're going to get into a lot more of it, what would you as a prosecutor do with that? he acknowledged that he knew about the payment to stormy daniels. we don't know how long he's known about it. but would you start looking at campaign finance violations? would you look at -- i mean, what would you do as a prosecutor with what is revealed in that 42-second clip? >> as a prosecutor -- >> you play one on tv, come on >> if i were still a prosecutor i would have will been looking at that payment months and months and months. we don't know if they were. if i were a prosecutor i would do what the prosecutors in the southern district of new york did today, go right to the federal judge and say, look, see, he's not really a client of

an attorney and these communications are not really privileged. let's get this thing moving so we can have the stuff and continue our investigation. >> and sean hannity said the same thing. i just got his advice about real estate deals. is there a possibility that the president blew up the whole debate about whether or not any of the materials seized in the fbi raid should be privileged? i mean, no one is describing cohen as their attorney today. >> at the bottom of cohen's e-mails it says donald trump's attorney. >> no one is claiming him as their lawyer. >> i don't know. it's a problem, and i don't know how else. but they'll go back to court and make arguments. the president's lawyers always find a way to get him out of this. to try and make an argument one way or another and he's survived this long. >> no one has described cohen as their lawyer, except client number three. as of this hour, as of whatever

it is, 4:15, donald trump says he was barely his lawyer. sean hannity said i just got real estate advice from him. they were in court today. what kind of argument do they have in front of a judge to say that anything seized is privileged? >> well, what's going to happen now is there is a special master the judge has a int toed that is going to look through the materials. i think what you're going to find when the special master looks at these materials is the number of them that are legitimately attorney/client privilege are going to be vanishingly small. and even some of those documents that are supposedly attorney/client privilege, if they're documents for his representation of donald trump, the prosecutors in the southern district of new york might get those anyway because there is a crime fraud exception that they might be able -- they will almost certainly try to challenge if need be to get hold of some of those documents if they can show that, yes, he was donald trump's attorney, but he was committing a crime in the act of being his attorney. in that case, the attorney/client privilege won't apply. >> the justice department has had the same problem on the travel ban where the president went out and said things that hurt their argument that they

needed to make in court and they had to go and work around this. so, we've seen the president shall -- >> go to legal zoom. >> they can work together, justice department and his lawyers. >> when we come back, stormy daniels' attorney just babbling from court. michael avenatti fills us in on what happened there. we'll get his reaction on what the president said this morning. also ahead, the man donald trump's transition team made sure didn't become a candidate for the one job he wanted, after trump's surprising election has now been elevated to houdini status. we'll update you on his promise to wrap up the mueller probe in a matter of weeks. plusz the other big story breaking today, bill cosby found guilty on all counts in his sexual assault trial. we'll talk about what happens next for him. stay with us. great, another dead end. sarge, i just got a tip that'll crack this case wide open! turns out the prints at the crime scene- awwwww...did mcgruffy wuffy get a tippy wippy? i'm serious! we gotta move fast before-

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when everything's connected, it's simple. easy. awesome. mr. president, how much of your legal work was handled by michael cohen? >> well, as a percentage of my overall legal work, a tiny, tiny little fraction. but michael would represent me and represent me on some things. he represents me, like with this crazy stormy daniels deal, he represented me and, you know, from what i see he did absolutely nothing wrong. there were no campaign funds going -- >> why he is pleading the 5th? >> because he's got other things. he's got businesses. from what i understand he's got businesses. i hope he's in great shape, but he's got businesses and his lawyers probably told him to do that. but i'm not involved and i've been told i'm not involved.

>> let's bring in michael avenatti, stormy daniels's attorney. i am just dying to hear what you think of the president's entire appearance on fox and friends. but let's take it one step at a time. first, the president's comments about -- i mean, you were right again. he did have knowledge of the payment to your client. >> well, nicolle, i mean, this was another, another gift from the heavens. i don't know how we lucked into such, such great fortune. but the president continues to help us in this case on a daily, if not hourly basis between him and his band of merry men that he's surrounded himself with. this is a very damaging admission for mr. trump. there's no question about that. i'm actually kind of hopeful he goes on fox and friends every morning from here on out of the case. it directly contradicts what he told us on air force one. it directly contradicts what michael cohen has said in the past. it directly contradicts what michael cohen's lawyer david

schwartz went around to megyn kelly and others and stated. i mean, this is a devastating admission. we are obviously very pleased by it. it's consistent with what we've predicted. and our case gets stronger and stronger by the day. >> michael cohen taking the 5th, what's the significance of that? >> i don't think the significance can be overstated, nicolle. it's the first time in this country's history that the attorney for the president of the united states, not a recent attorney, but michael cohen represented mr. trump for ten or 12 years. it's the first time that such an attorney has pled the 5th and stated that if he answered questions, the answers might incriminate himself. i mean, it's nothing short of staggering. and people should be very upset by it. the american people, i think, are starting to see through what happened here and we're starting to see the first cracks, if you

will. we're not going to stop until the dam completely breaks and the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth are known to the american people. >> i know you have a new filing in the southern district. i want to get to the legal developments. i've noticed a change in your tone toward mr. cohen and i wonder as the body of reporting has been filled in in "the new york times" over the weekend about how badly mr. cohen was treated by mr. trump, "wall street journal" has a piece out today saying that cohen had been complaining to associates about being left behind in new york and about the president's at the time failure to repay him. i wonder if you had any sense of the actual state of the cohen/trump relationship at an earlier point before they were public in these accounts. and i wonder if you can just -- are you worried about mr. cohen in any way? >> well, i am worried about mr. cohen and his ability to withstand this amount of stress and pressure. i mean, as a human being, as a

man, as a father, i'm concerned about that. i'm concerned for his kids and his family, quite honestly. i mean, these are very trying times for him. you know, he's put himself in this position. there's no question about that. and he's going to have to pay a very, very steep price for it. i think he already is. you know, i think that with time he's going to come to learn really what, what happened to him is largely his responsibility, no question. but that mr. trump bears also some significant responsibility. you know, mr. trump's aptitude of treating people around him like dirt and demanding loyalty but not giving any loyalty back, i think sooner or later is going to catch up to him. and i think we are on the doorsteps of it catching up to him in a very, very big and painful way. >> so, let me ask you about the significance of the two

admissions from the president. we've talked about acknowledging the payment. the others seem to be acknowledging cohen really did operate as a fixer, not as an attorney. what is the significance, in your view, of that admission in terms of what's going on in court about how much of the material seized in the fbi raid should be protected and privileged by attorney/client privilege? >> well, generally the attorney/client privilege only protects those communications that are in furtherance of providing legal services or advice. so, if mr. cohen and mr. trump were communicating on matters that were unrelated to mr. cohen providing legal advice -- and it sounds like that was the vast, vast majority of their communications -- then those communications would not be privileged and mr. trump could not prevent federal authorities or others from discovering them. now, nicolle, i think the most shocking or surprising thing to come out of the hearing today that i just returned from was that my understanding is that in connection with the raids that the fbi conducted at

mr. cohen's house, the hotel room and the office, they seized somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 cell phones, including a couple blackberries. now, i don't know about you, but the last time i had a blackberry was sometime ago. so, what that says -- >> i love my blackberry, but yes, i hear you. >> i used to love mine, too. but that was ten or 12 years ago. what that tells me is michael cohen had the propensity when he changed phones to keep his old phone, put it in a drawer or in a box or something of that nature. that could prove to be very, very problematic for mr. cohen and those around him because the fbi will be able to image those devices and obtain likely a treasure trove of evidence, text messages and the like. >> and you have a new filing in the southern district. tell us about that development and what your legal objective is with that. >> we made a formal motion to intervene. that's what they call it, and that basically is a formal motion asking that we be given a

seat at the table as it relates to this document review that's going on in the southern district of new york. the basis for that is that we have substantial reason to believe that documents that belong to my client, including attorney/client privilege documents, were transmitted or provide today mr. cohen and subsequently seized in the fbi raids. we are hopeful we'll be able to work that issue out with the parties in that case and that the motion will be granted and that we will be given access to the documents at issue. >> let me ask you one thing in light of today's developments. you've said on our air before that you believe you'll eventually have an opportunity to depose mr. cohen. does his taking the 5th rule that out? does that mean you won't have that opportunity or could you depose him in a civil matter? because that only protects you in the criminal matter. >> i think that we still will have an opportunity to depose him. it may -- his pleading of the 5th may change the order of the depositions. it may actually advance the

president's deposition. we have yet to see. frankly, mr. cohen has to invoke the 5th on a question by question basis formally in order to assert the right. so, i don't think it's going to have a huge impact on our ability to dee positive him in connection with the civil case. >> and you still believe -- i know i got in a lot of trouble saying bob mueller, you make me regret those words every day. do you believe you'll at some point depose the president in your case as well? >> i like making you regret those words. >> you win. >> we haven't won anything yet. we won a couple battles, but we're going to win the war. >> all right. well, michael avenatti, thank you for keeping us posted. we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> when we come back after his performance today, will the president's lawyers ever let him sit down with special counsel robert mueller? on our planet than people. we're putting ai into everything, and everything into the cloud.

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when you have your staff taking the 5th amendment, taking the 5th so they're not prosecuted. >> 5th amendment, 5th amendment, 5th amendment. horrible. horrible. her staffers taking the 5th amendment, how about that? five people taking the 5th amendment, like you see on the mob, right? you see the mob takes the 5th. if you're innocent, why are you taking the 5th amendment? >> five people. that was president trump on what it means to plead the 5th. so we can only wonder how he reacted when he first learned the news that his personal attorney michael cohen will plead the 5th in the stormy daniels case. joining us from the washington post white house reporter ashley parker. mike, matt and chuck, you guys sound like a boy band. you're all still here. ashley parker, how do you think the president reacted to this news after being on the record with such harsh condemnation of anyone that dares to take the 5th? >> well, i think we saw it a

little bit, that fox and friends news call this morning was kind of fired up in defiant and you had the hosts even kind of trying to get him off the phone, which is kind of rare to try to be ending an interview with the president. but you saw the president going pretty much distancing himself from michael cohen. so, i think he was not that happy. this is someone you talked about this earlier on the show. he's now trying to say he was barely a lawyer at all. and the thing that struck me as even more, both interesting and amusing was when he said, like, look, michael cohen has, you know, his thing was really business. it wasn't law and i don't know much about his business. well, that's a little strange because michael cohen's business was the business of the trump organization. it was the business of donald trump and his family and his organization. so they are deeply embroiled and taking the 5th for whatever the reasons as the president said before, generally does not look great. >> ashley, let's talk about the

rudy era because it's only been a few days and it's off to a bang. let's put up some of the headlines. trump's lawyers seek to determine whether mueller has a an open mind. giuliani reopens negotiation of the president's interview. what do you think rudy giuliani's mission is? it can't be people talking on camera wrapping up the mueller investigation in two weeks. what is the actual mission as you understand it for rudy giuliani? >> so, part of it is that the president, his long wanted to be more aggressive on this probe, both actually and just sort of in the court of public opinion. and if you look at just, you know, rudy's first few days on the job, that's very much what he's doing. the truth is those conversations he had when he met with mueller's team earlier this week are not actually that dissimilar to the conversations that the president's previous legal team

was having. sort of there going back and forth, trying to understand one another to the best they can. they're trying to figure out if an interview makes sense and what the terms of the interview are, to try to limit the president's portion and to try to wrap up his involvement in the probe as quickly as possible. but giuliani is doing it with a sort of more aggressive and tough talking and confident public posture, which is something that you can debate the merits of that, but it's something that the president himself likes. >> so, just picking up where ashley left off, mike, that vanity fair reports john dowd, the last person to have this job, they write that dowd sounds baffled by how the hiring of rudy giuliani will advance trump's legal cause. i worked with him many years ago in the department of justice. i knew him a little bit when he was mayor of new york. i haven't talked to him yet. i've never done a case with him. i'm not aware of him defending a case so i don't know what he's going to do. it sounds like the baton isn't

exactly being handed off with a vote of confidence. >> the problem here is that the president still really wants to go in and talks and they realize that he has to talk to bring an end to this. that if mueller is going to be done, they think the president is going to have to do this. the problem was dowd was not going to allow him to do it. he was not going to allow him to go in. he knew that it was a disaster waiting to happen. he knew the president was someone that could easily get distracted, would go on and on about different things. he was not prepared to do it. the question is, is rudy the person to prepare the president for such an interview? could he actually get the president to study and be prepared, to be incredibly disciplined in the most important moments of his presidency? >> is it study? i've heard his friends are worried he'll lie. >> well -- >> i've heard that the president's friends are worried that what they're afraid he'll do is tell a lie. >> look, that was one of dowd's biggest concerns. i mean, look -- >> that he'd lie.

>> the president provides false information on a daily basis. >> i think everybody here knows that. >> why would it be any different? i don't know. >> what do you think? i mean, the president's friends who have experience in -- as prosecutors have long held out this narrative he's innocent of collusion because he couldn't even collude with corey lewandowski during the campaign, but he could easily be in jeopardy of obstructing justice because of how he operates. >> i think he's absolutely in jeopardy with that. two problems with the interview. one he goes in and lies, the others he goes in and kwon guesses to the crime. that may be the horns of his dilemma. if he lies, or tells the truth -- >> that is that what john dowd is worried about? >> he's under instruction from his laurtz not to say the things he said on television today. why do you think going in front of mueller would be different? >> what do you make of rudy giuliani as a character in the story? rudy giuliani was the man, chuck rosenberg, who was on tv before

the hacked dnc e-mails came out. watch out, watch out, it's a much whispered theory, he has a pipeline from people at the fbi to get information. he's one of the people believed to be funneling information to fox news. do you think there is any point he might be a witness to the mueller investigation? >> potentially yes, nicolle, he could be a witness. one of the things that prosecutors and agents will want to know is how did rudy know -- i shouldn't call him rudy, i don't know the man. >> i don't think he'll mind. >> i'll call him mr. giuliani. i mind. how would mr. giuliani know these e-mails were on his way? did he know that derivatively because somebody else told him? or was he part of discussions to sort of pry those e-mails loose? if it's the second thing, you can't be both a witness and a lawyer in the same case. and so if you're asking whether or not there might be a conflict, the answer is there

might be a conflict. >> ashley, let me ask you about something else the president said on fox and friends this morning. he's still, he's still after the justice department for being biased. let me play this for you and we'll talk about it on the other side. >> the people that are doing the investigation, you have 13 people that are democrats. you have hillary clinton people, you have people that worked on hillary clinton's foundation. they're all -- i don't mean democrats . i mean like the real deal. and then you look at the phony lisa page and strzok and the memos back and forth and the fbi. and by the way, you take a poll at the fbi. i love the fbi, the fbi loves me. but the top people in the fbi headed by comey were crooked. you look at mccabe where he takes $700,000 from somebody supporting hillary clinton. he takes $700,000 for his wife's campaign. by the way, didn't even spend

that money -- >> so, ashley, he goes on, my favorite part of it is he goes on to wish ainsley harte good luck on her book tour. his beef with the fbi, everyone he's attacked has been fired, andy mccabe has been fired. they're all gone. how does rudy walk into the mueller office and say i've got him in a much better place, he's going to stop attacking the justice department, stop attacking the rule of law. he wants to be assured you're going to be fair to him. ho how do these things happen in a parallel universe where the president is on tv railing against the fbi? >> i think one thing that is clear is that rudy can say or mr. giuliani can say whatever he wants. but this president is -- is never going to stop attacking his own justice department, which is sort of a bizarre thing to acknowledge. but he's simply not. you know, what you played there, it was angry, again, it was defiant. it was exactly what all of his aides and lawyers don't want him

to say. but it is par for the course. it is something he has been repeating publicly and privately for months. and he has a real problem with the leadership there. and that's sort of the thing that, you know, causes these rumors every few weeks. the president is actually in a position to do something about it. there's a number of people he could fire. there would be deep political ramifications if he did, but when you hear rhetoric like that and you hear the things he's mused about privately about wanting to fire mueller, about wanting to fire rod rosenstein, about wanting to fire jeff sessions, it's sort of understandable that everyone involved in this case is incredibly on edge, and it does not give mr. giuliani a ton of credibility to go in and make that hypothetical case you laid out. >> and so other than concerns about the actual interview, it seems to me that the heart of the president's concerns is this question that rudy has asked, does the special counsel really have an open mind? that's what rudy put out there after his first meeting.

do you think that that answer will be available to him and will satisfy rudy in the present? >> the question is they want to know whether the special counsel believes comey and whether they think that comey has authenticity. and the problem that they're going to run into is that there's a lot of stuff backing up what comey said. comey's notes and memos are very detailed. there's contemporaneous handwritten stuff from other justice department officials. there's a lot backing it up -- >> including people that are still there. >> correct. so they're going to go in -- and i can't believe bob mueller is going to say, hey, let me give you my assessment of james comey's credibility. >> if it's thursday the president is quite literally phoning it in. that's next.

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we have an update now on the big story breaking this afternoon. a verdict in one of the most high profile sexual assault trials of our time. bill cosby was found guilty on all three counts he faced of

aggravated indecent assault against one woman, andrea constand. the trial featured half dozen women testifying that the famed comedian once called america's dad drugged and assaulted them. each count carries a maximum sentence of ten years and a fine of up to $25,000. as we speak, the 80-year-old cosby remains freon bail unte ol sentencing. they are asking bail be revoked because of flight concerns. that evidently prompted cosby to lash out in court in an expletive filled outburst. cosby's lawyers says they will he appeal the decision. one of his a curesers spoke to the media outside the courtroom. >> i feel like my faith in humanity is restored. this is a victory not just for the commonwealth of pennsylvania, not just for the victim in the case andrea constand, not just for the 62 of us publicly known survivors of bill cosby's drug facilitated

sexual crimes against women, it is also a victory for all sexual assault survivors, female and male. it's a victory for woman hood. >> chuck rosenberg, he stood accused by so many women over so many years. why did the dam break in this trial? >> so, what's the difference between this trial and the previous trial that ended in a hung jury? i'm going to turn to the evidence for a second. >> please. >> in this trial, the trial judge allowed in evidence of what we call prior bad acts. the federal rule in the pennsylvania rule are the same. i can't put in bad acts to show that you're a bad character, nicolle, but i can put in prior bad acts to show your intent or your plans, your preparation, your m.o., that it wasn't a mistake or an accident. so, those other women who testified weren't testifying about conduct charged regarding their sexual assaults. they were just testifying generally about what happened to

them. and the jury looks at that and they look at mr. cosby and they decide that all of these women are telling the truth and so andrea constand is telling the truth. >> so let me just ask you for the nonlegal version of that. other women who had had similar experiences to the woman who was charging him or had brought this case against him were allowed to tell their stories of their interaction was mr. cosby? >> yes. even though the prosecutor couldn't charge what happened to them -- >> right, separate cases. >> in a norris town, pennsylvania courthouse, he could nevertheless put them on the stand to describe what happened to them. >> why hadn't a judge permit that had before? there were so many women and so many horrific accounts. >> so you can see this kind of ed's, what we call prior bad act evidence is really powerful. so, judges are often quite careful. when you hear mr. cosby's attorneys say we're going to appeal, i can assure you that the judge's decision to let this type of evidence in will be one of the grounds of appeal.

>> do trials work in that people see this and will this become the new normal in these sort of sexual assault cases do you think? >> this rule exists pretty much in every state and it exists at the federal level and different trial judges handle it in feder. different trial judges handle it in different ways. but this trial judge let it in. as a prosecutor, init's generally the right thing to do. but it is a rule you have to be careful about because of its power. >> we saw the power today on full display. up next, what else we learned in the free healing conversation with the president with this morning, including his birthday present for the first lady. it took guts to start my business.

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i went to russia for a day or so, a day or two because i own the miss universe pageant. he said i didn't stay there at night. of course i stayed there, i stayed there a very short period of time but of course i stayed. well his memo said i left immediately. i never said that. i never said i left immediately. >> we want to get to kanye west. he tweeted that he lochs you, that he is your brother. >> he has good taste. i get along with kanye. i get a long with a lot of people. kanye looks and sees black unemployment at the lowest it has been in the history of our country. look it was nasty with little rocket man and with the buttons and my button is bigger than -- everybody said this guy is going to get us into nuclear war. let me tell you, the nuclear war

would have happened if you had weak people. mike pompeo did go there. he wasn't supposed to meet with kim jong-un. but he did. they arranged actually while he was there to say hello. we have incredible pictures of the two talking. i don't watch nbc anymore. they are as bad as cnn. by the way i made them a fortune with the apprentice. >> we brought this desk with that fortune. joining us, my panel. go. >> first of all the expressions on theis if a of the host. it's like that look you have when your uncle gets really drunk and starts telling stories and you have to smile and grin through it and hope he doesn't say anything too crazy. this is why his lawyers don't want him to talk to mueller. you put a camera in front of the president and he is going to go on and on and admit thing he is not supposed to admit. he is going to say thing that

prove to be problemate i believe and lies. this has been why he has continued to be a drag on people, because he runs his mouth. >> the range, it's breath taking. what stuck out for you as the most -- >> two things. first had he he is talking about the war. in glib nature in which he talks about nuclear conflict scares the heck out of me. i am an '80s baby, i remember the day after. these are terrifying i think. yeah, weak people don't get into wars but you were arguing about buttons. i had a moratorium on kanye this week but when the president starts brags about all the things he has done for black people -- the fact he is so out of touch that he talks about a lost sunken place rapper who married into a reality tv family is reflective of african-americans in this country, he has no idea what it

takes to make america great. >> let's play his comments about melania's birthday. >> i picked a very special day. it's melania's birthday. i said let's do it on melania's birthday. haeb birthday to her. >> do you want to tell us what you got her? >> i better not get into that because i might get in trouble. maybe i didn't get her much. i tell you she has done. i got her a really beautiful card. imbusines -- i'ms abouty. >> let me read off what past presidents did for their wives on their birthday. president obama wrote to michele from the girl from the south side who took on a role she didn't ask for and made it her on. beyonce sang, hillary clinton danced. george bush give laura a dog,

miss beasley and a necklace while they were president. what do you make of the melania birthday answer? >> i like i think most people who follow this president were not particularly surprised. there is something sort of classic trump about his gift to his wife being a call-in television interview featuring him. he always manages to put himself at the center of attention even when it's his wife's birthday. our understanding and also it's worth noting in talking to people who are close to them say this is a tense time, a tough time in their marriage where melania is well aware of all of these allegations against the president. so sort of rough moment. and then the president does have the ability to make him the center of attention each if his wife is i believe turning 48. >> and you better be the president -- what surprised you in the interview?

>> i couldn't believe that the fox host didn't het him keep on going. >> how long would he have gone? would he have kept on talking? >> i think several hours. this is his favorite thing to do. we had a chance to interview him in july. hope hicks kept trying to say last question last question and all he wanted to to was talk. we think he would have gone on the rest of the day if he could have. >> how long did it sound like he could have gone on this morning. >> i honestly think he would have gone on several hours. the man loves this. he believes he is his best spokesman, best strategist, his best lawyer. that's his favorite then to document to he loves campaigning. he is not a process guy. he's not a policy by. >> any danger in that strategy art miller? >> why. i think the most striking thin was the president basically threatening to obstruct justice again in this interview. said i'm thinking about interfering with my justice department at this point. we are kind of used to. it's routine to take the step

that no other president has done. in a way we treat it as lunatic ravings of a deranged man and not something he will do. i don't think we know that. >> thank to ashley, matt, mike, that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" starts right now. >> sorry, i was distracted because howard feynman was bragging about the fact i'm going to be in the penguins box tonight for caps sbsh penguins. >> i think there are people watching baseball games in our building instead of watching us. it's the season. >> nicole. some of us need a break from the special master every once in a while. go see the special master and they will let you know. thank you. >> have a good show. >> if it's thursday, the president phones it in. literally. tonight, president trump sound off on the legal clouds darkening over the white house. >> it is a fix. okay? it is a witch-hunt.