friend nicolle wallace starts right now. /s >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. rudy giuliani's associates haar starting to express concern that the former mayor may be in over his head. two sources close to giuliani say they advise him against repping his pal donald trump, and one this morning saying he advised giuliani against sitting for the abc interview yesterday that landed the mayor in more hot water. the ensuing media storm and questions about whether giuliani is exposing trump to more legal liability touched a raw presidential nerve today and resulted in an early morning tweet storm. the president writing, quote, the russia witch hunt is rapidly losing credibility. house intelligence committee found no collusion or anything else with russia. so now the probe says, okay, what else is there? how about obstruction for a made-up phony crime? there is no -- oh, it's called

fighting back. i'm going to leave that capitalized o alone for now. a quick fact check fighting back if it included intent to halt the russia investigation, as detailed by rod rosenstein, it was always meant to include an investigation into other crimes uncovered while investigating the trump campaign's ties to russia. to date, that investigation has yielded 15 indictments, five guilty pleas, including pleas by michael flynn, the president's former national security advisor. and rick gates, the number two on his presidential campaign. but the mess requiring triage today is giuliani's contradictory and easily disproved responses around the president's alleged sexual relationship with porn star stormy daniels. something one of giuliani's aides told me he, quote, wasn't supposed to talk about at all. >> the president does acknowledge meeting stormy daniels, correct?

>> i'm not really involved in the daniels thing so i don't know. i mean, he denies that it happened. she has written a letter denying it. >> well, we do have a picture of them together. so, the president -- >> it depends on what you mean by met her. >> there's the picture right there. i want to get that fact on the table. >> it looks like my friend donald trump before est was president. >> sure does. and things only got worse from there. >> the retainer agreement was to repay expenses which turns out to have included this one. >> you said he -- this was a regular arrangement he had with michael cone. so did michael cohen make other payments to other women for the president? >> i have no knowledge of that, but i would think if it was necessary, yes. he made payments for the president or he conducted business for the president, which means he had legal fees, monies laid out, and expenditures, which i have on my bills to my clients. >> is that one of his bills? wow. michael avenatti, the attorney who represents daniels, added this. >> the president had effectively

an extra marital affair slush fund that was administered by michael cohen and then he would just be expected to take care of these things. they were a regular occurrence. i mean, that in and of itself should be very disturbing. >> here to take us through the latest and i must say extraordinary developments, the reporters on the front lines of these intersecting story lines, washington post reporter ashley parker from "the new york times" justice reporter matt apuzzo, former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade, and here on set with us msnbc analyst eli stokols who has been covering the white house since day one. kimberly atkins, chief washington reporter for the boston herald, also msnbc analyst. ashley parker, take me inside the current white house state of mind about rudy giuliani as a public face of donald trump's legal lollapalooza of woes. >> sure. if you remember back a week or tua go whether he first came on, there was some concern inside the white house of people who

were worried about sort of if he was the right lawyer and legal person for the job. but at the time they all sort of said, you know, we also expect him to be a public face of the administration's legal team on television. and we think he will do a good job in that role. the president wanted an attack dog and that is a roele juniang is coming on to fill. he is a public face and certainly an attack dog. in addition to not being the right legal mind for the job, he is also not the right public face because if you're following this, giuliani is going on television. the first time he went on with that first bombshell at sean hannity last week, that was hatched with just him and the president, no one else knew it was coming and so it's not a sort of coordinated messaging strategy. it's we see him going out, saying those things, kind of going back and forth. and then the white house, especially those public facing people, sarah huckabee sanders,

are forced to sort of clean it up and try to explain away the various stories and shifting accounts that giuliani has provided. so, it's tricky and no one is particularly thrilled. >> matt apuzzo, you and i were on a much later program together the night after the first big mia splash rudy had. we disagreed about whether there was any strategy at play there. you said it was a plan. i thought it was such a bad plan i wasn't sure that was the case. whether it was a plan or not, rude any this appearance yesterday did reveal, the washington post reports that michael cohen gained access to as much as $774,000 through two financial transactions during the 2016 presidential campaign as he sought to fix problems for his boss. i know this builds on some excellent reporting we're going to get to in a minute you and your colleagues did friday night that gets at what the president knew about that. but clearly, and people close to the president do not deny, that cohen's mission was to clean things up for the president

before the election and after the access hollywood tape came out. and the reporting in your paper and others seems to be bearing that out. >> yeah, and, look, i mean, i've said this to you before. this isn't a story where we're all like, oh, i'm so glad to be covering donald trump's relationship with stormy daniels. >> right. >> this is only kind of a story that keeps going because the president and his lawyer keep going out and talking about it, which then we have to then kind of figure out, well, is that right? no, that's not right. and then they go on television, they clean that up. so, that's just a big part of what this story has been for the past week. i had a time when the president could be talking about, you know, oh, maybe we're going to have a diplomatic breakthrough with north korea. he's obviously, you know, on the verge of making decision with iran, unemployment is very low.

the president's lawyer does a media blitz about stormy daniels. and he can tweet about why don't i get more attention for my policies. last week is a perfect example. >> and barbara mcquade, what matt is also speaking to is the fact that rudy can't get his facts straight. let's watch something i think encapsulates that perfectly. >> my issue is getting up to speed on the facts here. i'm about halfway there. those are the facts that we're still working on. i'm at the point where i'm learning. he knows less about the facts of the case than i do. i can prove it's rumor but i can't prove it's fact. how do you separate fact and opinion? main fact is i don't care. >> it's funny, but it does lead to a more serious point. jonathan turlay writes in usa today, rudy giuliani's flubz may let stormy daniels take down president trump. he writes the danger is far greater than a lawyer learning about a case on live television like some legal reality show. the problem for trump is that the daniels controversy could supply the obstruction case that has long evaded special counsel

robert mueller. if the president was involved in sending out a false public account by both his private counsel and white house staff, it could be treated as a potential criminal matter. likewise, any evidence that cohen was warned or in any way protected by government officials before the raids could prove incriminating. barbara? >> yeah, it is shocking to me that a lawyer of rudy giuliani's stature would go out on national television and be talking on behalf of the president of the united states when he's halfway through reviewing the facts of the case. that is really shocking. you know, number one, whether you talk at all about a client is a really tricky matter and you sure don't do it until you have all of the facts straight and you decide which ones you're going to divulge publicly. there is a federal rule of evidence 801 d under the hearsay rules that say statements made by your agent, including your lawyer on your behalf, are binding against the client. so, all of these things that rudy giuliani is saying can be used against president trump down the road.

i imagine robert mueller will use them with a grain of salt because of the shifting stories that we've seen here. but it's really legally perilous for a lawyer to get out there and make these statements on behalf of his client. >> and, ashley parker, your paper included a story on saturday and i heard it today from sources close to white house counsel don mcgahn and new russia lawyer emmet flood that those two lawyers who have a lot of responsibilities, flood in the russia investigation and don mcgahn as white house counsel, have not green lit whatever this strategy is that rudy and the president seem to be carrying out. is that -- do you have anything new on that today? >> so, that was certainly true initially. not did they just not green light, but they had no idea what was coming. there was a sense that in at least one of the clean up efforts, i believe it was on friday, rudy giuliani sort of put out a statement trying to walk back some of the stuff he said previously, that there was

more input there. but we do get this sense that all of these elements of this team are not kind of in full coordination and sort of firing on all of those cylinders and that's kind of, of course, the frustration. and you even had the president expressing that when he said, he likes giuliani being out there, but he thinks he needs to get his facts straight. that's a pretty fair assessment by president trump. >> and, matt apuzzo, you got the facts straight before rudy did, breaking the news friday night that president trump knew about a six-figure payment that michael cohen, his personal lawyer made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard air force one in april according to two people familiar with the arrangement. take us through your reporting and your understanding of what the president knew and when he knew it. >> well, this feels like an advancement of the story, you're right. if this feels like a regression of the story, you're right. it advances our understanding and takes us back to where we

were in january when "the wall street journal" first revealed the exist ennis of the payment. i don't think anybody who read this story the first time, i wonder if donald trump knew about the payment made by his personal lawyer to get a nondisclosure agreement on his behalf. i mean, i think everybody just sort of assumed that was being done on donald trump's behalf and with his knowledge. it got fuzzy because the president said on air force one that he didn't know anything about it, and then giuliani went on television and said he only recently found out about that. and then giuliani said well, actually, i'm not talking about the time line as the president understands it, i was talking about the time line as i understand it. so, ultimately, yes, the president knew when he was on air force one and said i don't know anything about it. he did know something about it, but you know, we're just trying to keep the time line straight over here.

>> see, we don't even put up a red banner any more when you say the president got caught lying. we used to do that in the good old days. barbara mcquade, let me ask you about cover ups and how they often ensnare people who may have been found to have not had criminal intent for the original sin, but sometimes get tripped up in the cover up. happens in politics all the time. let me show you something michael avenatti stormy daniels's attorney said on abc and have you react to it. >> he expects the american people to believe he doesn't know the facts. i think it is obvious i george, to the american people that this is a cover up, that they are making it up as they go along. >> your thoughts? >> you know, whether there is a legal problem in terms of obstruction of justice is a little different from a political problem of lying to the american people. although, you know, in the bill clinton case, it was a sort of aggressive charge, but the special counsel there, independent counsel, kenneth starr, did charge bill clinton

with lying to the american people about not having a relationship with monica lewinsky as part of the obstruction charge. it is possible public statements could end up spilling over into obstruction of justice. usually it relates to lying to investigators, but there is some precedent for that broader theory of lying to the public. >> and never mind the object fo believing what the white house says. i want to get your thoughts, they don't call itself endeadly sins. they call it as giuliani calls them, seven mistakes that brought down previous trump advisors. he's overconfident with the president like scaramucci was. he's acting like a principal, not a staffer. the president doesn't like the idea that anyone else is pulling his strings, three, he's embarrassing the president. that's clear. the president had to go out and clean up his comments. he's clashing with the kids, calling jared disposable which

ha landed in an snl skit. it ticks through all these cardinal sins that have felled, dare i say more able advisors than giuliani. >> it brings to mind scaramucci. scaramucci week and how he flamed out after just 11 days on the job and there was so much -- >> and h.r. mcmaster is gone for far less. >> right. i don't know -- rudy, his incoherence is trump like. getting on your skis before you have all your facts is trump like. being drawn to the camera like a moth to a flame, that is trump like. trump may identify with some of these behaviors. he may not know or immediately understand the degree to which what rudy is saying may be hurting his legal case, but i think in a case of public opinion, you know, rudy is out there very cavalierly just making a muddle of these things. he's not making the fact pattern more clear. he's undermining their case in a lot of ways. obviously like everybody else he's start forgive this not an

assumption of innocence but an assumption of guilt. talking about he may take the 5th. the interview with mueller is a perjury trap. none of these things you say when you think your client be is innocent. in terms of making a mess of it, and as in the clip you showed basically saying i don't know what the facts are. whatever. he's basically telling people in the country, look, the same thing that trump is communicating in that tweet this morning, which is there's no obstruction, it's called defending yourself. rudy is effectively trying to say, it seems like, to the public is whatever this president did, you can understand. he's just trying to defend himself. that's all there is here. this is a witch hunt and they should just get off his back. >> kim, what i'm hearing so far is the president's fine with what rudy is doing so far. he felt like he had to go out there and participate in the clean-up. but this idea that the public is entitled to any sort of clarity on facts, that's not a premise that the president -- i mean, what to me is so self-inflicted here is i understand that rudy's mission and being out on television is to combat

philosophically the idea of a special counsel, to say they're way outside the scope. rudy is way outside the scope of his mission, his self-stated mission, by being out there, you know, putting the president in the center of the stormy daniels case which is being prosecuted by an actual attorney who does a very good job on television, michael avenatti. he's losing that battle. >> he is. look, all the things that the president likes, he likes somebody who is outspoken, combative, really wants to fight against this and the number one goal is to undermine this mueller investigation, to cast it as something that is illegitimate, as politically motivated, as a witch hunt. all those things rudy julian gi is doing well. what he's not doing well, he's a prosecutor, is protecting him legally. when that happens and that starts getting a lot of coverage, that's when the president says rudy needs to get his facts straight, pull him in, rein him in. every time he goes out he opens the pandora's box a little more,

contradicting himself, my favorite comment is i don't want to talk about the cohen matter because i'm not really -- i'm not involved in that. he's the one who revealed that the president reimbursed michael cohen, which got this whole, you know, strange ride going. but i think as long as he remains in this position where he's being combative, where he's speaking on behalf of the president, calling this a witch hunt, saying that everything that -- >> but that gets lost when all of the -- i looked at every front page of every print edition of every newspaper this morning there. were no front page stories -- and i guess that's yt president started tweeting about it. all the coverage was rudy giuliani being confronted with an able george stephanopoulous when rudy fumbled whether he ever met her. >> on that point, what giuliani himself said, it's his job to handle the mueller thing with while the president focuses on china and iran and north korea and all these things happening. he's not doing that because the president, the first thing he tweets about today is the

mueller investigation. so, yes, he's undermining himself with his zeal. rudy giuliani is the same guy that went out on the campaign trail and talked about hillary clinton having some sort of mysterious illness and talked about obama not loving america. this is a guy who has a history of not staying on point and saying things that are not true and looking unhinged. >> ashley parker, matt apuzzo, thank you so much for starting us off. when we come back, rudy giuliani on trump taking the 5th amendment in the mueller probe. i think, i think rudy called his client a fool for wanting to testify. but i'm going to let you decide for yourself. we'll show that to you. also ahead, michael cohen's shadowy empire, great reporting about the president's fixer, behind the extraordinary raid of cohen's homes and offices. melania trump takes center stage amid reports that the couple leads very separate lives. the first lady takes the microphone. we'll listen in. mr. elliot, what's your wifi password?

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are you confident the president will not take the 5th in this case? >> oh, how can i be confident of that? when i'm facing a situation with the president and all the other lawyers are, which every lawyer in america thinks he'd be a fool to testify, i have a client who wants to testify. he said it yesterday. jay and i said to ourselves, my goodness, i hope we get a chance to tell him the risk that he's taking. >> the president's personal attorney in the mueller investigation appears to believe if the president testifies before robert mueller he'll risk incriminating himself or he could be forced to take the 5th.

yet in the same interview giuliani tried to make the case that trump had nothing to hide. >> mayor, if the president has done nothing wrong as you say again and again and he tells the truth -- >> he hasn't done anything wrong, george. >> and he tells the truth as you advised him to do, what is the danger in answering robert mueller's questions? ary >> they're trying to trap him. >> it's only a trap situation if he doesn't tell the truth. >> no, it isn't. it's only prosecutable if they have some built-up manipulated evidence to prove the president didn't tell the truth. how often has that happened? >> you believe the president is telling the truth. if you believe that, you have that conviction, you're his attorney. why don't you say go in, talk to robert mueller, tell the truth. >> because i wouldn't be an attorney if i did that, george. i'd be living in an unreal fantasy world that everybody tells the truth. >> it's called the real world. joining us on set, jan palmieri.

bill crystal, eli and kim are still with us. we only tell the truth now in fantasy land, is that where we are, bill crystal? >> yes. are you aware, nicolle, we've had a president 15 months that doesn't tell the truth much. >> that was his lawyer. >> that's the key thing. he is not really his lawyer. >> what is he really? >> he's his attack dog. trump will have lawyers -- >> how does that go? >> if it comes to impeachment in the house or if it came to a trial, trump will have lawyers to handle his legal -- i think it's a mistake people say, can you imagine rudy saying this and that? rudy is doing from trump's point of view what he was hired to do, attack and discredit mueller and the fbi and the whole investigation as much as possible, throw as much sand in the air and mud at the wall and try to confuse people the. make it seem like he's fighting, the trump team is fighting against this conspiracy to take him down. trump doesn't care if he didn't tell the truth about stormy

daniels and contradicted himself. we can sit here and say, look at that, that's a real contradiction. can you believe he's getting away with lying? at the end of the day, trump's strategy and giuliani is a exclamation, it's a political war, i'm probably going to fire rosenstein, sessions and mueller. i need to discredit it enough they will rally me when the report comes out. that's all it is. he doesn't care about possible fec violations, he's not going to be impeached for that, contradict iguodala himself. from their point of view, i don't like it. this is not good for the american politics. but from their point of view, i'm not sure that rudy isn't doing what -- he's certainly doing what trump wants him to do. i believe that. maybe, look, i don't hear a lot of conservatives out there in the media and fox, maybe they're beginning to get a little worried about all the lying. there is an awful lot of rationalizing and excusing. >> the truth telling in there was that no lawyer would put donald trump in front of bob mueller because he would perjure himself because he would either

lie or have to take the 5th. to put the liza side for a minute, i agree with you they're so massive that they're hard to keep straight. but let's assume that that part was the little, you know, 1% of the truth that he told there. the truth is that his new lawyer doesn't think that he can sit with mueller because he can't -- the choices in the eyes of his new attorney is that he will either perjure himself or have to take the 5th to avoid doing so. >> well, because he can't afford to tell the truth. it sort of depends -- >> what's the truth? >> the truth would implicate him in either collusion, conspiracy to affect the election results with the russians or obstruction of justice. if you believe trump really does have something to hide, his behavior is reasonably explicable. it's not foolish of rude toy lay the predicate early so we're less shocked. a year ago if we were sitting here, he's going to take the the 5th, the president of the united states taking the 5th, it would be a political disaster. two months from now -- >> till be like our third story.

>> he will have normalized it. the reason he's doing it is he can't afford to tell the whole truth about what happened in the campaign. he can't afford to tell the whole truth about what happened in the white house. so they have to have a strategy, it's an o.j. strategy, if you want, discrediting the investigation. it can't be a strategy that says, look, i'm innocent because he's not. >> he's not. so, a lot of people interpret, jan palmieri, his tweets an increasingly aggressive threat against the special counsel. the 13 angry democrats in charge of the russian witch hunt are starting to find out that there is a court system -- they are going to drive me into an asylum. >> he has angry men in his head. >> i guess. it actually protects people from injustice, and just wait till the courts get to see your unrevealed conflicts of interest. what is unrevealed? he tweets about them all the time. >> what democrats are not going

to want to hear what i think is true is we are on a course to having this all played out in the mid terms. that is what the mid terms are going to end up being about. >> does it help democrats or hurt them? >> it is reality and i don't -- it's not what they want, but, you know, you see -- i think he has something to hide. i think they can't trust him to not perjure himself. they're trying to set this up as giuliani and others are trying to set this up as the fix is in from the start. that there is -- and the democrats are in on it and they are going to run to try to take back the house to impeach him. and i think democrats, you know, that is where i think this is headed. i think democratic candidates should run their own race in their states and run on local issues, but they're not going to be able to avoid this. they're going to have to accept that part of the job of congress written right there in the constitution is to hold the president of the united states accountable and the republicans aren't doing that. and it's going to be a big

political fight. >> i cannot articulate how bizarre it is to watch republicans stand silent as mueller's character is assassinated. he was george w. bush's hand picked director of the fbi. he started days before 9/11. he is the architect of all the -- you were there, you wrote about it. sean hannity reported on it night after night after night. he's one of the architects of the counterterrorism policies that kept this country safe after 9/11 from another attack on the homeland. the idea that his job is in danger from a bunch of republican lemmings marching along to the beat of donald trump's lunacy is the biggest disgrace of his presidency. >> and i remember when mueller was a int toed the chatter was first on capitol hill, he would never fire him. that would be a bridge too far for all these republicans. now as he is basically the better part of a year talked more seriously about getting rid of mueller as we have reporting that says from people close to the president that likely at the end of the day he will try to get rid of mueller and

rosenstein because, as bill has laid out, he can't afford to tell the truth. donny deutsche said it on your show a few weeks ago, he can't open up and expose what it's been like 30 years of being donald trump. that behavior cannot see the light of day. so, he is going to do this. we're in such an age of almost absolute tribalism that you have republicans on the hill looking around, figuring out, elections coming, who is the head of our tribe and whether they're happy with it or not, it's donald trump. and to save their butts politically, whatever it is to keep their heads down, that is where they are. that's why the president and his legal team are also so willing to sort of test these norms. nobody knows what happens if a president defies a subpoena. but we might find out. and we might find out that some of these checks and balances of the constitution, you know, the constitution doesn't defend itself. we might find out that it's only as strong as the people we elect to represent us and i think the president, his legal team are very interested in exploring

what happens there. >> barbara mcquade, what is it like for the men and women who drive into work at the justice department and the fbi either as trump appointees or career justice officials? >> well, i'm not one of them any more unfortunately. but i know many who are. i think it's a very odd time. time magazine has a cover story this week talking about the tarnished badge of the fbi. i think it's probably difficult for them and confusing for them to suddenly be in the bull's eye of republicans who have long supported law and order in the department of justice and the fbi, but i do know that the people who work there are really dedicated to the mission. and although it might bother them on a personal level, i'm sure they keep their heads down and do their jobs and work. what worries me more is the impact this criticism has on the public is it makes it harder doing their jobs. when they're conducting interviews in rural and you are urban and suburban areas, sex trafficking crimes, child exploitation cases, people are

going to slam the door on them. when asked to believe their testimony in a jury trial they're not going to believe them because of all the things that president has said, they're not going to believe them. >> after the break, we may have barely scratched the surface of what we know about the president's long time fixer and attorney michael cohen. what the "the new york times" described as his shadowy business empire. that's next. the blade quality you'd expect from gillette...

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call up stormy daniels and fix this once and for all. maybe keep me on the phone, too. i'll just be quiet and listen. [ cheers and applause ] >> hello? >> stormy, this is michael cohen. are you alone? >> yes. >> and what are you wearing?

i solved north and south korea. why can't i solve us? >> sorry, donald, it's too late for that. i know you don't believe in climate change, but a storm's a coming, baby. >> imagine how the president must have felt seeing that on saturday night. what i wouldn't have paid to be a fly on the wall. watching the woman responsible for allegedly he cans posing a secret hush money operation telling jokes on live national television where he likes to be. uncertainty lingers around whether or not the man who paid her is spilling secrets to the special counsel. so, is team trump worries? let's ask rudy giuliani. >> are you concerned at all that michael cohen is going to cooperate with prosecutors? >> no, i expect that he is going to cooperate with them. i don't think they'll be happy with it because he doesn't have any incriminating evidence about the president or himself. >> what is he talking about, kimberly? >> i have -- i have no idea. i mean, i think that's part of

the problem is he's doing as much muddling as he's trying to clarify. whether it's this, whether -- all of it. >> let's take it apart. he has no incriminating evidence on himself. you only get to raid someone's lawyer's home and offices if there is so much incriminating evidence that you are afraid they're destroying said incriminating evidence. >> look, as much as they try to cast doubt on this investigation, there are career law enforcement officials who are working on this. there are judges granting warrants that have advanced this investigation. clearly there is evidence there. the fact that there is this strong campaign to discredit this investigation shows just how strong the evidence is there. the more they protest, the more it feels like there is some there-there. an innocent person, someone who is the subject of an investigation, who doesn't think it's really legitimate would sit back and say, go ahead. >> right. >> i'll wait to show me what you

have because there's nothing there. and they go about their business of running the country. this is not what's happening here. >> bill crystal, great reporting in "the new york times" about michael cohen who is a fascinating character, if you will. in addition to his legal and taxi businesses, cohen has had a seemingly charm touch as a real estate investor. imagine that. in one day in 2014 he sold four buildings in manhattan for $32 million entirely in cash. that was nearly three times what he paid for them, no more than three years earlier. does this look innocuous? >> who doesn't, who doesn't sell three or four buildings on a good day for two or three times what they were worth three years earlier? this is typical of the liberals, the left wing. you don't like capitalism, you don't like free markets. donald trump and michael cohen are successful and now these jealous people out in the media -- >> he sold four buildings in carbon o cash on one day. >> you can't make it up. michael cohen, stormy daniels,

this doctor. it's one -- i don't know, somehow -- well, whatever. it is what it is, and i do wonder -- >> what is it? what do you think michael cohen is in this story? is he the person who looks at his family and says, yeah, i love donald trump but not enough to go to jail and never see them again? who is michael cohen in the story? >> that is a good question. i think it depends whether he gets a pardon. the pardon thing is under rated. it is sophisticated whether he gets a pardon now, the state will go after him. he doesn't have to give a pardon now. cohen has to be confident he gets a pardon at the end of maybe this election or election 2 1/2 years from now. if i were -- you know, do we not think trump is quietly telling someone who is telling someone who is telling cohen, hang in there -- in november of 2020, you will be off whether i win or lose. that's my last election. all you need to do is delay and confuse. i don't know, does that work? i don't know. >> but if he does -- if the president is doing that and signalling to cohen am in some

a pardon is waiting for him, that is evidence of obstruction. a pardon is not meant to be a political strategy to get you out of trouble -- >> or a legal strategy to prevent you from cooperating. >> like everything else with this, they sent mixed signals. there was the national inquirer piece hit job, wink, nod of course the president approved this. so now they're basically trying to tell him, hang out, don't fold on us and we'll take care of it later. >> isn't that how people do this? you read this in novels. you do the threat, you do the promise, right? and you tell them this is your life if you cooperate with mueller and this is your life if you don't. look, i don't know what's happening, but i just think, you know, i worry about -- maybe he'll flip and tell the full truth. i think -- i wouldn't be surprised if we see more talk about pardons. >> we know that donald trump called michael cohen that week, "the new york times" reported by the end of that week he had been in touch with michael. we don't know what we don't know about the pardon question. >> and also, you know, bill said

that you can make a sophisticated legal argument about how a pardon is not going to necessarily protect michael cohen, but he does not seem to be a guy who pays attention to sophisticated arguments. this is the guy who has lived his life with a lot of blind faith in donald trump. so i would suspect that he would continue with that and the idea of a payoff at the end and a payoff with a pardon is probably pretty compelling. >> but even if he does get the pardon, he has to go through the process of being convicted of being charged, of pleading guilty and that is still -- that is still very costly. it's very hard on himself financially and personally for his family. that's still a big ask. >> also a trial would reveal a whole bunch of things seized from his offices . up next, melania trump formally rolls out the initiative she plans to folcus n as first lady. is her challenge one on the home front?

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when children learn positive online behaviors early on, social media can be used in productive ways and can effect positive change. i do believe the children should be both seen and heard, and it is our responsibility as adults to educate and remind them that when they are using their voices, whether verbally or online, they must choose their words wisely and speak with respect and compassion. >> choosing her words wisely, first lady melania trump announcing her be best initiative a campaign to help children tackle today's challenges. what we saw a united front from the trumps. less than 24 hours ago the washington post provided an inside look at their strained marriage. amid the noise and churn, melania has setled for a quieter routine. even their free time at mar-a-lago, the president golfs or dines with politicians,

business executives and media personalities on the patio while melania is off and nowhere to be seen. that rift extends into melania's political role as well. she's been heard saying she knows her husband has contributed to the combative nature of today's online chatter. one associate said she has persisted with her anti-bullying issue. i love that she did that, kimberly. >> if that's her way of subtly pushing back against her husband to the extent that she can, you know, more power to her. look, i'm not a marriage counselor so -- i'm a political analyst. i don't know anything about what is going on with their marriage. one thing i can see is that their advisors in the white house certainly are not serving her well from the fact this be best slogan sounds very similar to be better, which was a slogan by michelle obama for an initiative she launched, she already had a lot of trouble

appearing she is copying michelle obama to the fact the president said he's going to announce his nuclear deal in the middle of this announcement that the first lady was making. it seems like in every corner she is not being served well by this white house. >> one of the president's closest friends and outsiders said anything that eclipses him from the sun, even his lovely stoic wife having to endure and shield her son from the porn cycle of news, he can't take it. so, i thought that was interesting time to tweet about the iran deal, too. let me show you. not one of us is here to weigh in on their marriage. we're talking about what was reported by the washington post. our own peter alexander pressed sarah sanders about the president's role making twitter and the internet more hostile. let's watch. >> does he accept responsibility for this climate that exists right now, that there is the need to sort of address an issue like cyber bullying? >> i think the idea you are trying to blame cyber bullying

on the president is kind of ridiculous. when it comes to kids, that is something that has been problematic and something that we have seen over the last decade and the first lady sees it to be an important issue and something she wants to address. >> i have a kid. kids certainly model the behavior they see from adults. she's a mom. she's lying again from the podium. >> yeah, and i wonder about barron, too, the son. the impact that what he hears about his father, but also what happens with him with cyber bullying. i suspect that having worked in a couple white houses and watched first ladies go through difficult things, it's probably not all that complicated. i think her message from the podium was a message to the president of the united states today about his own behavior and it's her own way that she can push back on him. you know, i think we try to make things a little more complicated

than they really are and i take a lot of what she does at face value. it shows us what's really bothering her. >> she also -- the post says some incredible reporting about the complicated relationship between her and the president's very high profile west wing advisory. ivanka 36 and melania both former models do not have a close relationship and are very different from one another several people who know them both said. grish ham, advisor, said it is not wrong to say melania is not close to her stepdaughter is hurtful. melania's presence is growing as ivanka's fades. what do you make, eli, as sort of the broader picture of donald trump and the women, high profile women in his orbit? >> it's always been very strange in the way that he would refer to his daughter -- talk about women being beautiful. you remind me of your daughter. there's always been sort of a strange bleeding into all these

different feelings and objectiva and jared power center that existed in the first few months this presidency has receded. maybe melania sense as vacuum but i agree with jen that this is something she is genuine against. she is against bull ego and on line trolling. this is in its own way a troll of her husband. >> i was struck when rudy giuliani mixed the two subjects together and tried to put ivanka off limits, if mueller tries to interview her that would be unacceptable. which is ridiculous. i'm not a lawyer but if mueller was doing his due diligence, she was at a couple the meetings or at the company of occasions that were at the possible obstruction of justice occasions, including on air force one, and also the

weekend that he decided to fire comey. and she is a senior adviser in the white house. it is legitimate, almost necessary if you are calling in reince priebus to testify and don mcgant to testify. you have to call jared and ivanka. i think mueller is holding off on that, though, because i think that could be a moment where trump says see what i mean, look at it, they are so unbelievably out of control they are going after my own daughter and that's the moment he fires everyone. >> another difference with melania and ivanka's role. melania never tried to have it both ways. melania did not say to peter alexander who interviewed ivanka at the olympics and asked about some of the issues about sexual misconduct she said how dare you ask a president's daughter -- well, you can't be both a white house staffer and then claim i'm daddy's little girl. and you sure can't say that to the special counsel.

talk about the two women and this reporting in the "washington post" that seems to break new ground that's been rumored but never reported out the way the post doesi today. >> melania has taken a different approach than ivanka does. so has the president towards them. the president brought in ivanka to sort of be the de facto first lady when melania stayed in new york. but then she is sort of an amorphous white house person. okay, now she is officially a staffer there. and gave her this very high-profile role. seems to be very close to her. seems to express more protectiveness than other members of his family. and so i think that was the point that giuliani was making, not that it's improper because of her role to investigate her, but that if mueller looks at ivanka trump, donald trump will blow. that's the big take away here you. >> heard it here first. >> mueller is going the time that, is it worth what she has to say -- >> i have the practice docs.

he will send -- when we come back, new take of what we talked a lot about last week. jared kushner and disposable men. ♪ ♪ (baby crying) ♪ ♪ don't juggle your home life and work life without it. ♪ ♪ and don't forget who you're really working for without it. ♪ ♪ funding to help grow your business... ♪ ♪

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michael, did we hear giuliani call jared disposable on national television? >> yeah, man, i'm so mad right now. i could cut bitch. >> if you didn't see it, go look at it. you asked and we pulled it up. rudy on disposable men. >> it's generally true. especially these days. but. >> jared is disposable. we are wondering if giuliani knows something about jared's legal status. >> i don't know. i guess he has met about the special counsel briefly. i don't think he had the full day kind of interrogation. last week, mark caputo who worked on the campaign and who had been on the trump talking points mode, these guys are

terrible, it is a fishing expedition, after spending a day with mueller's team he was suddenly they know a lot, they are very serious and they are very careful. i think trump watched that and thought it's not an accident to say that giuliani is out this weekend throwing mud and sand in the air. i keep coming back to the fact that trump -- trump knows he can't afford to have the whole truth come out. what do you do then? you try to discredit the investigation in any way you can. i wonder if eggs going to allow -- i worry that something could happen soon in terms of rosenstein, all of them, rosenstein, sessions and mueller. >> do you think the kids are the red line that triggers? >> i think they are the excuse for him to say okay this is too far. forget how disingenuous that is when they have been in the white house, party to all of these thing, the letter on the -- the statement on the airplane, everything, firing comey, jared was closely involved in that. but publicly, and again, for the president's legal team this is as much about pr as legal

defense, i do think it is a convenient place to say okay that's my red line. >> or what -- i wonder about jared becoming a fall guy. right? i mean, that seems, you know, from what i've heard from people that report on that white house, he's not necessarily in that much of a favor. he said it changes form 40 times. >> he is back on form. >> he has put himself into a lot of legal jeopardy. i wonder, are they setting him up to toss him aside. >> you remember what bannon today to michael wolf in the book about how exposed he is. bannon has been in to meet with mueller and told people privately and probably told the president since there are reports they are talking again, they have and know an awful lot. >> that thing that he -- he talk about weismann, money laundering, from manafort, goes right through jared and that's how they bleep trump. >> these aren't thing that are in the headlines every day but this is all of the information

that robert mueller has and has had for quite a long time. we don't know exactly what is coming next out of this investigation. so certainly, jared kushner could still potentially be a point of liability for the administration. >> all right. never boring. my thanks to jen, eli, kimberly and bill. that does it for our hour. auto 'nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now with my friend katy tur in for chuck todd. >> you are not in the studio, i had to dress like you to feel close to you. >> i will be back in monday. >> if it's monday, we are walking, and we are walking, and we are stopping. tonight, a rudy awakening. the president's attorney and his complicated relationship with the truth. >> living in some kind of unreal fantasy world that everybody tells the truth. >> plus donald versus don. why president trump is telling west virginia not to