>> tomorrow, which begins in seconds, is day 469 of the trump presidency. say it with me. we'll see what happens. that for us is our broadcast for tonight. thank you so very much for being here. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. this morning, a stunning admission from president trump's new lawyer rudy giuliani. he says trump reimbursed michael cohen the $130,000 before the election to stormy daniels. he previously denied knowledge of the payment. another shakeup for the legal team. his impeachment attorney is in. a military plane crash, officials noway all nine passengers on board the aircraft were killed when the plane hit the busy roadway.

good morning, it's thursday, may 3rd. we begin with that stunning revelation from president trump's attorney. rudy giuliani last night telling fox news that trump reimbursed his fixer michael cohen for that $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star stormy daniels. despite president trump's assertion last month o that he was unaware of it. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no. >> why did michael cohen make it? >> michael is my attorney. you'll have to ask michael. >> do you know where he got the money to make that payment? >> i don't know. >> having something to do with paying some stormy daniels woman

$130,000, which is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. that money was not campaign money. sorry, i'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. it's not campaign money. no campaign finance violation. >> so they funneled it through the law firm and the president repaid it. >> i didn't know he did. >> he did. >> there's no campaign finance law. >> zero. >> this decision -- >> everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. i wasn't. i knew how much money donald trump put into that campaign. i said $130,000. a couple checks for $130,000. >> the president didn't know about this? >> he didn't know about the specifics of it, as far as i know. but he did know about the general arrangement that michael would take care of things like this. like i take care of things like for my clients.

i don't burden them with every single thing that comes along. these are busy people. >> wow, so "the washington post" spoke to giuliani after his fox news interview. he tweetd, giuliani tells me he spoke with potus. the president very pleased. he says they discussed his revelation of the reimbursements long in advance. does not expect to be fired. insists his remarks on fox news were approved by trump. according to the post, giuliani does not know when the president learned of the nature of the payment cohen made to daniels. giuliani said the president did not learn many of the details about the settlement until the past two weeks in the wake of an fbi raid on cohen's office. his lawyer said he's quote rendered speechless by the revelation. he will be live on "morning joe" later this morning. do not miss that. >> that should be very interesting. so president trump is getting a

new white house attorney to handle the russia investigation. bringing in a lawyer with impeachment experience. emmet flood worked in bill clinton's administration as an independent counsel and helped george w. bush's white house fight off investigations and later represented dick cheney in private practice. he's going to replace ty cobb as the russian investigation is heating up. cobb said his work was done long ago saying he was handled to hire requests from the special counsel and that's been largely done since january. his departure marks the complete turnover of the legal team who urged cooperation with the mueller probe. rudy giuliani said the team member felt he needed someone more aggressive, becoming more assertive with executive privilege. "the washington post" reports that flood is seen by trump aids and allies as a likely successor

to megan as white house counsel. one possible reason that source told reuters last here his firm turned down representing trump as outside counsel. >> departing special counsel ty cobb said yesterday an interview between trump and mueller is not off the table. while giuliani told the hail that a decision is several weeks away and it would be at max two to three hours around a narrow set of questions. but on fox news giuliani called the probe a totally garbage investigation describing it as biassed and an obstacle to the president's performance. >> here's what it's all about. it's real simple. are they objective? right now a lot of things point in the direction of they made up their mind that comey is telling the truth and not the president. when you look at those questions about what does the president think, what does the president

feel, what does the president really desire, those are all questions intended to trap him in some way contradicting what is a very, very solid explanation of what happened. he fired comey because comey would not, among other things, say he wasn't a target of the investigation. he's sbielted to that. hillary clinton got that. and he couldn't get that. he can't blame the president for feeling i'm not being treated the same way they were. i don't expect we're going to have an interview. i have a will the of questions for you. i would like to get one not under oath. i wanted a video tape, audio tapes, that they don't misrepresent his answers. this is outrageous miscarriage

of justice. if they issue a subpoena, that will be unprecedented in the sense that it's pretty clear that a president can't be subpoenaed to a criminal proceeding about him. do we have the real life circumstance going on that the founding fathers thought about. which is a president cannot be distracted by a criminal investigation. you can always prosecute him after. if mueller said to me tomorrow, bring him in, two hours, like you want, no questions that you don't want and we're pretty much ready to clear him. i could not go to the president and say take two days off to get ready for that and screw the whole thing with north korea. >> so giuliani gave a new justification for why president trump fired jim comey. watch this. >> he fired him and said i'm free of this guy. he went on lester holt. the interview was as good as anybody could do.

better than any of the people around mueller could have done. and lester holt asked why he did it. he said i did it because i felt i had to explain to the american people the president was not the target of the investigation. >> but that reasoning was not what the president told lester holt in 2017. here's the response from just 48 hours after comey's firing. >> he's a show boat. he's a grand stander. the fbi has been in turmoil. you know that. i know that. everybody knows that. you take a look at the fbi a year ago. it was in virtual turmoil, less than a year ago. >> monday you met with the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. did you ask for a recommendation? >> what i did is i was going to fire comey. my decision. >> you made the decision before. >> i was going to fire comey. there's no good time to do it, by the way.

>> because you said i accepted their recommendation. but you had already made the decision. >> i was going to fire regardless of the recommendation. >> so michael flynn is hitting the campaign trail this weekend on behalf of a republican hopeful. he's scheduled to appear in billings, montana, with troy downing, one of four candidates running in the june 5th republican senate primary. he's promoting his appearance on the campaign website. flynn has pled guilty to lying to the fbi as part of the special counsel's probe. we reported that mueller's team asked that flynn's sentencing be delayed by 60 days, quote, due to the status of the special counsel's investigation. joining us now from washington is white house report er for th associated press jill colvin. lots to talk about. let's start with the legal front. the team there has been shaken up with giuliani being added.

from what we can expect to see from the legal team going forward, what should we be looking at here? >> this is significant not just because new people have joined the team, but this indicates that the white house is going to be going in a much more aggressive direction now. ty cobb was the person in the room who always spoken as being the moderating influence. he was encouraging the president and everyone else around the president to cooperate with muell mueller's investigation. he said if we sit down for the interviews and provide the documents, that's the best strategy to make this it thing go away. he was also the one that kept promise lg the president this thing is is going to be over by thanksgiving of last year. that obviously hasn't. happened. keep in mind that there is likely or there's talk there could be some changes in the white house counsel's team with right now the white house counsel looking for the exits. we could see him taking over

that position. >> let's talk about another big revelation, which is rudy giuliani saying president trump actually paid michael cohen back $130,000, which is pretty incredible. >> a small revelation. >> just a little revelation. what do you think is the strategy behind this? >> this is a white house where there's often breaking news. there are often things that have people raising their eyebrows. this was one everyone who follow this is white house really kind of collectively had a gasp when rudy giuliani said this last night. it's quite extraordinary. he's contradict iing what the president said personally. it's unclear to me at this point whether this was some type of purposeful leak. giuliani has been on the phone with a couple of reporters since the hannity interview saying he spoke with the president. he told bob costa that the president was pleased.

this was a purposeful leak. watching that interview, hannity was surprised when the words came out of giuliani's mouth that the president had repaid this. i think we'll see in the next couple days. but what this tells us is the president brought on giuliani because he wants a fighter. he wants someone who is going to be on television defending him and that's most certainly what you saw last night. >> not sure hannity was even expecting that answer. >> not from his reaction. it will be interesting what robert mueller is thinking this morning. jill, thank you. still ahead, new details on the military plane that crashed on a georgia highway leaving all nine passengers on board dead. plus new questions about the three americans being detained in north korea with tensions easing, will we see them released? plus your weather, when we come back. i feel a great deal of urgency...

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welcome back. a puerto rican international guard plane crashed on a roadway yesterday killing all nine people on board. the 60-year-old plane was being repaired before takeoff after being used in hurricane relief efforts in the caribbean last year. it was en route to tucson, arizona, to be decommissioned because it was one of the oldest in the national guard's invento inventory. the crash occurred shortly after takeoff. no one on the ground was injured. the plane did not hit any cars on the busy roadway. one official call it is an absolute miracle. president trump tweeted thoughts and prayers for the families and victims. switching gears now to the crisis in north korea, tensions there begin to ease on the peninsula, one of the lingering questions is the status of three americans detained in north korea. the head of the north korea

families association, this is an activist group, tells nbc news that according to multiple sources that three americans were released from a labor camp at the beginning of april and, quote, are now under north korea's protection in pyongyang. that timing coincides to just after then cia director miami pompeo's secret trip to north korea and his meeting with kim jong-un. now the activist adds that the americans are staying in a hotel in the suburbs of pyongyang and receiving medical attention and may be returned to the united states either before president trump's summit with kim or even at the summit itself. the u.s. state department in the unification ministry are not confirming the reports. president trump added to the intrigue tweeting out, as everybody is aware the past administration has been asking for three hostages to be released from a north korean labor camp but to no avail. stay tuned. >> it would certainly make the

summit more dramatic. >> absolutely. it would be a big breakthrough for the families of these three americans. >> absolutely. let's get a check now on your weather with bonnie schneider. >> what we're looking at right now is some rain and storms. it was a really nasty day across the plains yesterday. more severe weather but this time it's pushing eastward. 40 million americans at risk for some type of severe weather. it could include a tornado today. large hail as well. the bulls eye is into kansas. but the rain will persist for chicago, cincinnati and detroit. we'll watch for that. and as it does, it's going to change things for friday. because a lot of that moisture will be affecting cities in the mid-atlantic and northeast. speaking of those cities, if it's feeling like july to you, you're not mistaken. look at these temperatures. yesterday we had highs in the 90s for d.c. we're seeing 93 is the forecast for today. and as you can see, the typical temperatures that were in the forecast for boston, new york

and washington, d.c., they are much more like july well above normal. even climbing to the upper 80s for boston. and it is going to stick around for today. eventually we'll start to get cooler conditions, but not by much. we're looking at high temperatures today in the 90s. even for baltimore and warming up to charleston in the mid- to upper 80s. a little cooler towards friday. but still well above normal. i guess there's really not much to complain about considering we got a late start to the spring season. now we're looking at kind of a taste of summer for the next couple days. >> it feels good. >> we'll take it. while the nfl is facing an identity crisis in regards to the anthem protests, continued ratings slip and concussions that focuses on the players, a new report focuses on the treatment of another group on the sidelines. and that's the cheerleaders. the squad from the reds re skin

were in a fphoto shoot that required them to be topless even though the photographs would not show nudity. the report is based on interviews from five cheerleaders. several involved in the trip said the redskins collected their passports upon arrival and allowed male sponsors and suite holders up close access to the photo shoots. the report continues that the squad's director told 9 of the 36 cheerleaders they were to be personal escorts to some of the male sponsors following the photo shoot. so one of the cheerleaders said, quote, they weren't putting a gun to our heads, but it was mandatory for us to go. we weren't asked, we were told. the redskins deny the allegations and the squad's director told the times she was not forcing anyone to go. nfl said the league office, quote, has no role in how the clubs, which have cheerleaders, utilize them. >> what a disturbing story.

still ahead, the hughouston rockets have themselves a series as jazz steal momentum. mooky makes history at fenway. next in sports. ortant than a good bedside manner. i don't know how to say this. it's ok doc. give it to me straight. no you don't understand. i don't know how to say this. i'm just a tv doctor. they also know you should get your annual check-up. it could save your life. and now you can page a tv doctor to set up a check-up reminder. call 1-833-page-doc. cigna. together, all the way. you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brain-health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. we're on a mission to show drip coffee drinkers, it's time to wake up to keurig. wakey! wakey! rise and shine! oh my gosh! how are you? well watch this.

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mitchell and company didn't. follow the script. 19 up on the rockets early in the first half. james harden, chris paul and the rest of the squad would battle back gaining a slight lead in the third quarter. but the jazz did not go gently into the night. rudy and mitchell amassed double-doubles in a 116-108 stealing one on the road from the top seeded rockets. the series goes back to utah. switching from the court to the ice. game four of the las vegas golden knights traveled to san jose to face-off against the sharks. it was like they weren't even there. they did not have any answers. mostly because their goalie was like a stone wall saving every shot attempt on goal. all 34 saves in total. meanwhile, the sharks offense scored four times, more than enough to win the game and even the series at 2-2. and in boston, the lightning wasted no time against the bruins in game three. much to the disappointment of

mike barnacle. tampa bay nets back to back goals. they hold to just one goal on the night earning a one-game edge on the series after the 4-1 win. and turning to major league baseball, in boston mook key betts waste d no time with a hoe run in the line up. yesterday's 5-4 win against the royals is the fourth time betts has hit three homers in a single game. good enough to pass ted williams for the most in red sox history. and in houston, john carlos stanton is beginning to look a bit more comfortable in that yankee line up. homering in his first two at bats in the game against the world champion. sound effects a all. astros as they avail 4-0. he's got seven so far this season. >> that was my contribution to

sports. ask me nothing else. >> what did you think? did you see him back in action? >> no. >> he's the greatest. it's official. mike barnacle weighs in. still ahead, more from that stunning interview with trump' new lawyer rudy giuliani and what he has to say about the hush money paid to stormy daniels. president trump escalates with the department of justice and gets a warning from top democrat. we'll be right back. captivating exteriors dynamic lighting elevated comfort powerfully efficient and one more thing the world comes with it ♪you can go your own way... the 2019 jeep cherokee

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. welcome back, everyone. it's the bottom of the the hour. we begin with those two major revelations from rudy giuliani's new interview as president trump's attorney. more on the stunning admission regarding stormy daniels in a moment. but first, a major shift in donald trump's story regarding james comey as rudy giuliani offers a new reason for why the president fired him. >> he fired comey because comey would not, among other things, say he wasn't a target of the investigation. he's entitled to that. hillary clinton got that. and he couldn't get that. so he fired him and he said i'm free of this guy. he went on lester holt. lester holt's interview was as good as anybody could do. better than any of the people around mueller could have done. lester holt asked him why did you do it.

he said i thought i had to explain their president of not the target of the the investigation. >> so two weeks ago, the president tweeted this. sliply james comey, the worst fbi director in history, was not fire d because of the phoney russia investigation where, by the way, there was no collusion except by the dems. >> there was also this major admission about stormy daniels. giuliani now claims the president repaid his fixer michael cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment to stormy daniels. despite the claim that he knew nothing about it. >> the settlement payment, which is a very regular thing for lawyers to do, the question there was the only possible violation there would be was it a campaign finance violation. usually it would result in a fine. not this big storm troopers coming in and breaking down his apartment and his office. that was money that was paid by

his lawyer, the way i would do out of his law firm funds or whatever funds, doesn't matter. the president reimbursed that. >> stormy daniels' attorney says he was renderred speechless by the revelation. hopefully he has it together in time for his interview on "morning joe." something tell mess he's going to have something to say. >> meanwhile, president trump has shaken up his legal team once again. his top white house lawyer in the russia probe is out and a new attorney who acted as bil clinton's impeachment lawyer is in. chief white house crespondent hallie jackson has more. >> reporter: new signs of a more aggressive chapter in president's fight with the special counsel. he's losing a lawyer who is taking a conciliatory tone. >> my cooperation was the right move and a path that would lead to the quickest resolution. >> and the president is adding another attorney, emmit flood, who represented bill clinton during his impeachment. his hiring seen as a signal the

president may rely more heavily on executive privilege, which could shut down certain questions from robert mueller. the scope of that interview is being negotiated. with prudy giuliani explain wha they want. >> questions in advance. relevant topics. and they are going to decide before the end of the summer. >> reporter: so what happens if both sides can't come to an agreement? mueller might try to force the president to talk by issuing a subpoena. any president can be subpoenaed, jefferson, nixon and clinton all were. but it would be up to the president whether to comply or not. he would have four options to consider. option one, testify and answer questions like the president said he'd be willing to do last summer. >> 100%. >> reporter: option two, plead the fifth and answer no questions. a maneuver he's blasted before. >> the mob takes the fifth. if you're innocent, why are you

taking the fifth amendment. >> reporter: option three, fight the subpoena. that would open up a legal bat thal could go all the way to the supreme court. then there's option four, ignore the subpoena. which would put the president in uncharted territory. >> the likelihood of some kind of subpoena coming into play is becoming more and more real. >> reporter: it's not just the legal component to this. there's another piece coming into play and that's whether the president could face fallout politically. if he does decide to say fight a subpoena, especially with the midterms coming up right around the corner. back to you. >> thanks to hallie jackson for that report. the president received a stern warning against a purge of the department of justice after the president tweeted that the department led by his own appointees is quote, a rigged system. they don't want to turn over documents to congress. what are they afraid of? why so much redacting and unequal justice? at some point, i will have no choice but to use the powers

granlted to the presidency and get involved. now that threat is similar to the one he made on fox news last week. >> because of the fact that they have this witch hunt going on with people in the justice department that shouldn't be there, they have a witch hunt against the president of the united states going on, i have taken the position and i don't have to take this position and maybe i'll change that i will not be involved with the justice department. i'm very disappointed in my justice department. but because of the fact that it's going on, and i think you'll understand this, i have decided that i won't be involved. i may change my mind at some point because what's going on is a disgrace. you look at the corruption at the top of the fbi. it's a disgrace. and our justice department, which i try and stay away from, but at some point i won't. >> so in response to the president's latest tweets, senate minority leader chuck humer tweed mr. presiden the powers of the presidency do not give you the right to interview

or shut down the russia investigation. firing the deputy attorney general or director mueller would create a constitutional crisis. do not go down this road. >> joining us from washington is white house reporter for the associated press jill colvin. good to talk to you once again. so sort of rounding all this up, everything that's been going on in the last couple days or so, rudy giuliani's new revelations, the president's new lawyers and now the attacks on the doj. where do people stand in washington right now? what's the word on the street in washington this morning? >> right now, we're all just looking at the president just waiting and asking what he's going to do next. where he's going to draw the red line for himself. that he want s s to intervene i the doj and asking questions from that giuliani interview. exactly when did the president find out about the cohen payment, how is that money transferred, when did he know, at what point was he being untruthful with the american public. all these questions spiraling

around that account. in addition to the fact we have all these questions about whether there was a campaign finance violation, whether there was a loan not disclosed to the fec during the election, whether the president failed to disclose this loan in his personal financial disclosure forms. this is all bubbling up at the same time as the president has serious work to do. take a look at north korea. >> i want to ask about the president's legal team for a moment. do you think that the legal team is actually getting closer to an interview with the special counsel with robert mueller? what's the consensus in terms of how the legal team strategy is shaping up here? >> all of our reporting right now is that they are getting closer. they are negotiating what that session might look like, how long the president might be willing to sit down. but it's still unclear whether the president is going to agree to that. that said, another thing to mention with the legal team is keep in mind, what was the old position. it was working on the clinton

impeachment hearings. we're about to reach a midterm election where the composition of the senate can change. if that happens, we might be going into some kind of impeachment proceedings involving this president and his legal team will have to handle. >> the optics. >> i heard james comey say the calendar of the year in the midterm elections is something in robert mueller's mind. he'll be aware of it. may not shape his outcome, but he'll be aware of that schedule. >> thank you. so president trump was the state department yesterday for secretary of state mike pompeo's swearing in ceremony. it was trump's first visit to the state department as commander-in-chief. and in his remarks, pompeo discusses the challenges facing the nation. >> we're confronting all types of hostility. we have imposed real consequences on russia for its acts of aggression.

we will soon move our embassy years ahead of schedule. right now we have an unprecedented opportunity to change the course of history on the korean peninsula. i underscore the word opportunity. we're in the beginning stages of the work. and the outcome is certainly yet unknown. but one thing is certain. this administration will not repeat the mistakes of the past. our eyes are wide open. it's time to solve this once and for all. that deal is not an option. the american people are counting on us to get this right. to my colleagues here, when i say we're going to do this i mean we. this is a team effort at the state department. and the whole of the united states government. >> joining us now is international correspondent cal perry. good to have you with us. we were just kind of running a little bit of some of the sound bytes from that press conference or the swear iing in ceremony. walk us through some of the challenge pompeo face as he enters the state department as you look at a map of the world. >> you saw all the theater that

took place there. one of the big challenges is moral. rex tillerson gave that brutal speech on his way out where he didn't even mention president trump. so moral a top issue. and pompeo going out of his way to talk about moral. take a listen. >> you all lay it on the line to make sure that america is safe and prosperous and free. thank you for that. as i said, and i'll elaborate more, i want the state department to get its swagger back. we need our men and women at the front lines executing american diplomacy with great vigor and energy. and to represent the finest nation in the history of the civilizati civilization. you know this is essential work. that's why you're here. it's why i'm here. i look forward to doing this together. >> so those challenges that apparently the state department is going to apply swagger to, just this month, iran, korea, tariffs and jerusalem. just this mother going to have to go through those issues. another huge challenge is the amount of vacancies around the

world. there you see it in red. those are the vacancies. purple are the nominated posts. and some of these places are places where it's going to be questionable like syria, but saudi arabia, qatar, south korea, turkey, all without a u.s. ambassador. >> cal perry bringing a little london swagger. i like that. >> still ahead, marco rubio made headline when is he criticized the tax law, but he's walking back comments. his remarks, next.

we have got a problem. a few problems actually. we're overproducing, overcrowding, and overheating. we've got aging roadways, aging power grids, ...aging everything. you're kinda bumming me out clive owen. no, wait... it gets worse. we also have the age-old problem of bias in the workplace. really... never heard of it. seriously? it's all over the news. i've heard of it. ahh. the question is... who's going to fix all of this? an actor? probably not. but you know who can solve it? business. that's right. the best-run businesses can make the world run better. because solving big problems is what business does best. and doing good is just good business. shhh! sorry. so let's grow more food, with less water. and make healthcare, more healthy. it's okay, i've played a doctor. what have we got here? let's take on the wage gap, the opportunity gap, the achievement gap. together, we can tackle every elephant in the room. and save the rhino while we're at it. because, whatever the problem, business can help. and i know who can help them do it...

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takes to succeed. i know that you are me. if i can be standing here as your forever first lady, then you can do anything you put your mind to. >> inspiring moment for so many. that was michelle obama, as you well know, celebrating college signing day with thousands of high school students in philadelphia yesterday. delivering the keynote at temple university. >> switching gears for a moment on capitol hill, republican senator marco rubio is walking back some of his criticism about the gop tax cut law he voted for. in an interview with the economist published monday, rubio questioned how much the legislation is helping the working class saying in part, there's no evidence whatsoever that the money being poured into the american worker. now senator rubio is out with a new op-ed in the national review where he tones down his

criticism of the gop legislation. in fact, rubio writes in part, overall the republican tax cut bill has been good for americans. that's why i voted for it. but it could have been even better for american workers and their families. the central reason why it wasn't is that in the new economy, it isn't enough just to cut taxes, you have to cut the right ones. >> let's get a check of your weather now with meteorologist bonnie schneider. >> we are definitely looking at some more severe weather for today. we're seeing storms rolling into quincy, as well as st. louis. let's take a closer look. st. louis under a severe thunderstorm watch and the suburbs west of the city are getting severe thunderstorm warnings because the winds are so strong and we have hail. speaking of severe weather, 40 million americans at risk today. this is the first week we we have had had a severe weather outbreak across the areas of the center of the country. we'll look for that risk down through texas today. temperatures have been so warm

it's feeling like july in new york city. we had records shattered. 90 degrees yesterday. look for the summer heat to persist today and get even hotter out there. a high of 91 is in the forecast. look how high that is compared to the normal temperatures. it will stay in the 90s from the midatlantic into baltimore as well for today. then it cools down relatively speaking, if you consider 87 degrees in atlantic city in early may cool. it gets cooler though. towards the weekend, temperatures start getting closer to what we would typically see this time of year in the 60s by the time we get to sunday. so we'll have a nice day saturday. here's where we're getting cooler weather. temperatures are in the 50s. you saw the warm conditions in the southeast. if you're watching us from this area looking out at your car, you probably know what i'm talking about. the pollen. you're looking at a high level for today for those suffering from allergies. so just be weather aware. >> thank you very much. still ahead, cambridge shutting down its doors and the city of brotherly love settles a

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cambridge analytica announced it is shutting down after allegations about the company's misuse of facebook data. in a statement posted to its website.

no longer viable to continue operating the business, cambridge analytica's parent company is shutting down. the whistleblower will be a guest on "morning joe" this morning. the two black men whose arrest at a philadelphia starbucks set off a wave of protests have reached a settlement with the city. donte robinson and rashon nelson will receive a symbolic payment of $1 each as well as the establishment of a $200 fund for young entrepreneurs. starbucks apologized to the 23-year-olds after videos of their arrest while waiting for a business meeting went viral last month. the incident prompted widespread accusations of racism within the philadelphia police. and the company plans on closing more than 8,000 locations for an afternoon this month for racial bias training.

of the settlement robinson told the "associated press" we thought long and hard about it, and we feel like this is the best way to see that change that we want to see. it's not a right-now thing that's good for right now, but i feel like we will see the true change over time. >> we already knew the incredible amount of character that these two gentlemen had and now seeing the settlement, we know it. up next, axios co-founder has a look at this morning's one big thing. and coming up on "morning joe," much more on rudy giuliani's bombshell overnight, as he claims that donald trump reimbursed michael cohen for the stormy daniels payment. and what this means for the special counsel's investigation, plus, michael avenatti, the lawyer for stormy daniels, on what the new revelations mean for his case. "morning joe" just moments away.

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(burke) we seen it. covered it. uys? we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ welcome back, joining us from washington with a look at axios a.m., co-founder and ceo

of axios, jim van dehi. >> this is one of those weeks where i think we're going to look back as a pivotal week in the trump presidency. step back and think about the things that have happened this week. those mueller questions that leaked. more than 40 questions, 13 of which were linked to very specific dates. they weren't questions as much as topics, they showed the breadth of the investigation. and those questions didn't even include any of the michel cohen material, because those questions took place before the cohen raid by the fbi. then you have another white house lawyer, another trump lawyer, quit, in the middle of this fury, and now you have the rudy giuliani stuff on fox news last night where they're admitting they had repaid michael cohen who had paid off

stormy daniels on the eve of the campaign. those are big deals. they all fit together. and they show that those walls, that trump feels are so sturdy around him, are starting to deteriorate if not start to crumble. >> to that point, jim, why do you think giuliani made those revelations last night on fox news? why now? >> i don't know for sure, but it definitely was not him just sort of talking off the cuff. it was premeditated. he and trump had planned to do this at some point. i don't think they had planned to do it specifically last night with hannity. they believe that they needed to have that repavement proven so they could get out of whether or not this was an illegal contribution to the campaign. through michael cohen. i guess they assumed that michael cohen's is talking anyway and this is going to come out. so it's definitely part of whatever legal strategy rudy giuliani, who was hired a couple of weeks ago to come in and help donald trump, part of what he is

advocating internally with trump. i think we'll see today, my guess is we'll hear from the president, my guess is sometime on twitter, some thoughts on this. but it definitely blindsided almost everybody we know inside the white house, took them by surprise, left them scrambling past midnight. trying to figure out what's going on. >> talk more about the change in trump's legal team and that's sort of reflecting a new stage. >> since those, the mueller questions that were leaked this week, in "the new york times" wrote about, happened in march. he's now lost two lawyers since then. and the big changes you now have rudy giuliani, who is obviously the public face, who is talking to reporters on a daily basis. who is sort of the brawler for the president. and now it looks like they're going to bring in a true impeachment specialist. someone who had worked for bill clinton, someone who had worked for george bush, someone who has been in the trenches, dealt with

high profile cases of presidential power and presidential mischief. they're girding for a fight. it's all the president talks about in private is wanting to fight this wanting to fight mueller. wanting to get it over. and the problem is to get it over, certainly if you want to get it over quickly, he has to do the interview with mueller. now that we all know what the questions are that he's going to ask, every lawyer you talk to, every lawyer that trump talks to says hell no, you can't sit for an interview like that you'll trap yourself. too broad, too much into your thinking. it covers every part of your life. way too many landmines for the most disciplined of clients, and certainly way too many for donald trump. >> jim vandehei. you can sign up for the axios newsletter at axios.com. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. and "morning joe" starts right now. there was no knowledge of

any payments from the president and he's denied all of these allegations. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no, no. >> why did michael cohen make it if there's no truth to the allegations? >> you'll have to ask michael -- michael is an attorney and you'll have to ask michael. >> michael would represent me and would represent me on some things. he represents me like with this crazy stormy daniels deal. he represented me. >> sorry i'm giving you a fact that you don't know. it not campaign money. no -- campaign finance violation. so -- >> they funneled it through a law firm? >> funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it. >> oh, i -- he did? >> yeah. >> single softball interview, i think it was hannity, right? one of his first appearances