is one dancing up there, i promise you. and every time we have class, she's dancing. of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc headquarters. 7:00 on the east, 4:00 out west. here's what's happening. back in line, new comments from rudy giuliani defending the payment to stormy daniels and insisting the attorney general dismissed the investigation. and keeping his friends close. robert mueller interviewed one of the president's confidants. what could mueller have obtained? and live from new york, it's stormy daniels. >> okay, michael, i can take it from here. >> okay, but as your attorney, i highly advise against you to -- >> so what up, girl?

>> hello, donald. >> the porn star takes on the president during "saturday night live." and let's get right to new reaction from rudy giuliani returning to fox news to insist president trump didn't commit any crime in regards to michael cohen's payment to stormy daniels and also to explain why just a few days ago he misspoke about it. here's what giuliani said about it last night. >> the facts, the facts, i'm still learning, this is 1.2 million documents. i've been on the case for two weeks, virtually one day in comparison to other people. so i'm not an expert on the facts yet, i'm getting there. the fact is there's no way the campaign finance violation was there of any kind. it was an expenditure. and this expenditure would have been made whether he was running for president or wasn't running for president. and we can show that from the history of the two gentlemen. >> giuliani also ramping up

calls to the end of the investigation with internal general jeff sessions. >> there's no obstruction of justice. everything he did, he has perfect regard to do under article 2. >> and let's bridge in shawn sullivan, reporter for "the washington post." great to have you here on this sunday morning. >> greet be here. >> kate, what did you hear in the new comments from rudy je l giulia giuliani? >> well, he's getting his facts straight. that's telling. saying he didn't know what he was saying on wednesday, he's still looking at the documents and still trying to get the facts straight. so it's hard to know if he's

coming ta coming straight. i cover political and money finance. and the lawyers i talked to said this raises serious potential questions about campaign finance law violations. so if giuliani is still working to get his facts straight, he continues to talk about the issues and. >> are we any closer on understanding when the president knew about the payment and how it was facilitated? >> not really. if you look at a series of the statements he's made, it seems to raise more queens about the specifics of what president trump new, when he knew it.

and if you look at the statements, what he's done is created more questions at the white house to face, more questions that the president has had to face. so it is not when you usually expect when you have somebody come in to represent you to join the legal team. traditionally, you're able to put the questions to rest, not give rise to new ones. what we are seeing with giuliani right now, he's creating new questions and doing this on the fly. he's saying, i'm still trying to get up to speed on all this stuff, but at the same time he's out on national television giving interviews and talking to the national media outlets. at the same time, he's saying i'm trying to get up to speed and trying to play catch-up. but there's been whiplash over the last few days when we look at what he said and the contrast in some of his remarks. >> and kate, let me play for you what giuliani said about the mueller investigation. take a listen.

>> it kind of gives the american people a glimpse of what we deal with day in and day out with the abuses, not so much with bob mueller but the people who work with him. what do you think? what do you feel? it is like, come on in and commit perjury. >> kate, if this is giuliani's message to robert mueller, why make the distension between him and his lawyers on the team? >> i think he's, still, like you said, rudy giuliani has basically become the story himself. as far as putting distance between staff and mueller, i don't know there's a specific strategy behind that, but you are seeing rudy giuliani become the story himself. he's trying to deflect that, calling it a witchhunt. a judge in the paul manafort case on friday said, basically

rebuked robert mueller for the scope of the investigation not being completely clear. so it's -- rudy giuliani is trying to turn this around for the president, but at the same time giuliani has become the story this weekend. >> john, at the policy event yesterday he once again brought up the fate of the detainees in north korea. let's listen to that. >> withere is a good chance tha three long-time hostages in north korea will be released over the next several days. >> shawn, this is something sarah sanders was pressed on in the briefing room on thursday when he said the attendees would be released that day. why is giuliani waiting in this territory? >> glad to question. he's not the secretary of the state or work for the national security counsel.

he's an attorney working for the president. so i think a lot of people have questions about why he's dealing with the issues. he's somebody who has ran for president. he likes to be in the political and policy arena and likes to talk about this stuff. but the question is, does the white house think this is helpful when trump's attorney who is supposed to be dealing with one thing and says he's trying to get up to speed on one thing, he's out there talking to represent the state department or of the white house. it remains to be seen how the white house reacts to this, whether they sort of try to get him to dial back, focus on the portfolio or shrug and say, the president likes this guy. if he wants to talk about it,

that's fine. >> we have a few people wanting to spotlight there. i want to turn to the "cameo on "saturday night live. s. >> what do you need for this to resolve? >> i need a resolution. a storm is a coming, baby. >> this was a scripted case, but this is as close as stormy daniels gets to visit donald trump. what did you make of her appearance? >> this was a surprise appearance. i didn't know she was going to be on, and other people watching including the live audience didn't know about the surprise. but it certainly keeps the conversation going on stormy daniels and this $130,000 payment that rudy giuliani has been talking about. so it just sort of from morning

until late night tv, this issue continues to simmer. so whoever has the audience, people are seeing it comedy news. stormy daniels continues to be a story line. this has been going on for weeks and weeks now and can't be something the white house is enjoying. >> shawn, how do you see this? >> i agree with kate. this is not a story going away any time soon. and if you look at this in the context of the midterm election, it raises the questions of, what are voters going to think when they go to the ballot box. when they have to decide between electing someone in the president's party or someone in the democratic party? are they going to think about the issue, is this going away

any time soon? everybody is aware of this. and yeah, i think there are a lot of republicans who wish that this was not a story that, you know, the stories about the president involved tax reform or policies they were trying to pass. every time there's a new chapter in the story, they are not talking about those things. so it raises a lot of worry in the republican party how it reflects when voters go to the polls. >> are you getting a sense for why you came around to confronting her since the story broke a few months ago? >> we saw rudy giuliani say he's still getting his facts straight. i don't know if we have a clear picture or timeline of what happens. but we have seen president trump, his spokespeople, his attorneys, sort of say one thing

and then the next day a statement comes out or someone else says something contradictory. it is hard to sort of figure out what exactly the message is from the white house, from his attorne attorneys. >> i'll have more for you to stick around. robert mueller has interviewed one of president trump's closest confidants. and we are celebrating with nbc's "asian america a to z." it will give you specific information on the show. a coconut water company. we've got drinks for long days.

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the end result is real simple, and that is all we are interested in. the president of the united states did not in any way violate the campaign finance law. and trump attorney rudy giuliani went on fox last night to clarify comments he made earlier regarding the $130,000 payment michael cohen made to porn star stormy daniels. joining me is prosecutor doug burns. and giuliani is doubling-down on his position that the president didn't violate campaign finance laws. your thoughts? >> well, it is interesting, dara, amid all the confusion that he appears to be creating, i think there's a concerted effort to couple together a legal defense strategy, which is number one. it wasn't a campaign matter because it was an affair potentially embarrassing to the

family member. then number two, they backed that up that even if it were, it was paid back. and number three is, we don't know the chronology of when this occurred. but the fact of the matter is that can be muddied up and diffuse the campaign payment notion. that's what this is all about, dara. >> it's amazing they are muddying up what has already been muddied. >> they really are. and it is so interesting because the -- it is clear that i'll flip my analysis a little bit. we made statements on air force one later contradict bid mayor giuliani's at the same time. but again, law is not a balancing test. but the one that did on legal explor

explorer, by the way, he paid that back. i was watching it live and surprised. by doing that, the legal message is, it was reimbursed and not a campaign violation. >> and giuliani also called on attorney general jeff sessions to distance the entire investigation into the stormy daniels payment. michael cohen and the mueller probe, but because sessions recused himself from the russia investigation, is he even in a position to do that? >> that's a very good point. as far as dropping the investigation, i think that was really him texting to be a p--

>> who is barrack? and what is the significance of this interview? >> barrack is a close friend of the president. and it is also described as a situation where the president doesn't have a lot of close friends. which, by the way, is fairly common a lot of times with people that are well talthy and prominent and so forth. but the prosecutors probably said, look, he may have a good path of information and knows the president really well. but to answer your specific question, they apparently, at least from the reports that came out, apparently were asking about paul manafort specifically and gates. tied into the flow of money in the campaign barrack ran. they are methodical and speaking to a lot of people. and that is not uncommon.

>> in the case against paul manafort you said, you don't care about manafort's bank fraud but care about getting information that mr. manafort could give you to reflect on mr. trump and lead to his prosecution, impeachment or whatever. do you agree with the judge there? >> well, you have to break it down into political and legal, okay? politically, the judge gave him quite the tongue lashing and said, you are doing the legal venting. the judge made a strong point to tongue lash them and say, wait a minute? with the special counsel in new yo york, why didn't you give it to the eastern district attorney in virginia? if it's not related to the scope, i mean, the whole debate

is the august 2 follow-up order because the special counsel went back to ask for jurisdiction. so he wanted to see the ruling, the judge said, i'll be the one to do that and that led to a repercussion. what is missing for the republicans in midterms? we'll tell you about that, next. . but then one night, a truck didn't stop. but thanks to our forester, neither did our story.

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being built. >> we need much more money. we're going to do them. and we may have to close-up our country. either we have a country or we don't. and you can't allow people to pour into our country. >> michelle, we'll start with you. despite a number of republicans that don't want him near the distric districts, how will this impact them? >> there are a lot of senate races in deeply conservative states that the president won overwhelmingly in the 2016 election, places like north dakota, montana, indiana. and so the president could be more of an asset in those places in terms of bringing out the republican base, the conservative base. when he talks about immigration and border security, that's an issue that resonates with the base. so i think there are some republicans who want him to talk

more about this, but the flip side is you're right, there are a lot of republicans who don't. and every time the president does say something like this, it threatens to further alienate voters in the swing suburban districts that could decide which party controls the house come 2019. >> and kate, looking ahead to tuesday's primaries, when you look at the west virginia race, for example, do you think congressional republicans are trying to shift away from roy blankenship like they did ray moore? >> that primary does expose the fissure in the republican party, one that republicans don't necessarily want on display right now. you saw blankenship's ad recently. he was criticizing senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and said he had gotten rich off his china family. and these are widely denounced to say, blankenship said, it is not the case.

i'm paraphrase iing, but that h become an interparty feud on display in west virginia, this is a pivotal battleground state in the sense where you have a sitting u.s. senator, joe manchin, who is a detective in the case of supporting president trump. and you have democratic senators who are up for re-election in states that trump won, such as ohio. we're getting into the campaign season now, so we'll see what happens on tuesday in some of the states, what kind of candidates emerge to face-off in the general election. >> it sure will be a pivotal day. thank you for joining me.

>> thank you. that will do it for me, i'm dara brown. at the top of the hour, "politics nation." but first, stay with us, "your business with jj ramberg" is up next. to ugly thin grass! now there's new scotts thick 'r lawn, the revolutionary 3-in-1 solution for weak lawns. with a soil improver to strengthen roots! seed to fill in gaps! and fertilizer to feed! the result, up to a 50% thicker lawn after just one application. ♪ ♪ now yard time is our time. this is a scotts yard. never owned a business.e term "small business," now yard time is our time.

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good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business." this company doesn't care if you buy anything at their retail stores because they're selling data on your shopping habits. we have advice on how to better promote youtube and your business. and this woman created high-tech backings for earrings so you won't lose them. will the execs at hsn let her sell them on their network? when it comes to making decisions, let's grow smart. that's coming up next on "your business. "