morning. of course we're going to be reading axios a.m. in a little bit. to all viewers, you, too, can sign up for the newsletter by going to axios.com. that does it for us on this thursday, i'm yasmin vossoughian, along side ayman mohyeldin and louis burgdorf, "morning joe" starts right now. >> we very much appreciate that he allowed them to go before the meeting. it was sort of understood that we would be able to get these three terrific people during the meeting and bring them home after the meeting. and he was nice in letting them go before the meeting. i mean frankly, we didn't think this was going to happen. and it did. >> breaking news overnight, the three men formally detained in north korea have returned to the continental united states, landing in maryland just hours ago. president trump on hand to greet them. saying that kim jong un was quote, nice to let them go. before the planned meeting

between the two leaders. was kim nice to imprison them in the first place? we'll have full analysis of that. also this morning, more questions around whether president trump's personal attorney michael cohen was peddling access to and cashing in on his association with donald trump. the "washington post" reports that cohen told an associate in the summer of 2017, quote, i'm crushing it. we'll dig in to the implications for cohen and the trump white house. welcome to "morning joe." it's thursday, may 10th. with us we have msnbc contributor, mike barnicle. washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay, and in washington, columnist and associate editor for the "washington post," david ignatius and nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie d.c. on msnbc -- kasie hunt. >> let me turn right back. joe, you tweeted last night,

bloodthirsty tyrants get no credit for kidnapping americans, using them as bait and releasing them for cheap headlines. north korea is a terrorist state. that has lied to the united states for decades. and we know that 22-year-old otto warmbier, was sent home in june of last year and later died because he was in such bad shape. joe, you tweeted that late last night. >> yeah i tweeted that late last night. i won't tell you what i was doing. >> what were you doing late last night? >> were you up watching -- >> don't, don't. >> let's, let -- let's just say our bull pen did not perform the eighth and ninth inning as it should have performed. but i don't want to talk about it. congratulations, willie.

a couple of great games and last night, red sox, it was back and forth affair. red sox, 6-5, until the eighth inning and then the yankees just stepped on the gas. >> the playoff atmosphere, the stadium was rocking, mike barnicle was there. the yankee line-up, 1-9 is brutal. >> yup. exactly. >> where were we? >> where were we? >> let me just say congratulations you guys are in first place. on may 10th. that's awesome. i've got to tell you, it felt really good being in first place, april 22nd. but it's a long, as we've all said, both sides have said, it's a long, long season. but i think as long as david price decides to show up this year and earn at least $15 of his multimillion-dollar salary, we'll have a very good pennant race, mike, right? >> absolutely. it's not even memorial day.

we hang in there, the yankees have a very, very good team. 1-9 is brutal. pitching to them. look on the bright side, the celtics beat the 76ers last night. >> you there. go. >> we won't won't ask you any questions about the red sox/yankees game. we're not going to be talking about that game any more. but when you hear, when i hear donald trump talking about kim jong un, in terms of nice, saying he's nice -- it's just, first of all, who do you call nice, who has kidnapped three americans? who beat up and murdered a kid from cincinnati. who visited there the last year or two. it just leads me to worry, what we were saying yesterday. as you know, one of my chief complaints during the iran deal. was that america seemed to be

over-eager for a deal and we didn't get the terms that i personally thought at the time we could have gotten. it seems like we're doing the same thing with donald trump. he rushes in to west wing offices when he's not supposed to be in meetings, saying hey, let's get together and have a summit. none of the groundwork has been laid. this seems like he's making the classic, classic diplomatic mistake of thinking that he can charm his way into a win, on diplomatic stage. >> joy, i think it's certainly true that you could fall in love with your own deal. and that you can begin to read your own clippings, as we say in our business. i think on the question of this is this deal being adequately prepared, the visits of mike pompeo to pyongyang to get these three detainees and bring them back have clearly been pretty

substantial. pompeo began to make his first real remarks while he was in pyongyang saying that kim jong un was setting appropriate conditions for the summit. that they were preparing and laying out the nature of the deal that president trump will offer. he said north korean people deserve all of the benefits of entering the modern world in exchange for the concessions that they're going to be making. so i do think that process is going forward. you have to say looking at last night, footage. this is what presidents get to do when people are released, hostages, prisoners are released. presidents go to andrews air base and they walk them home and that's a moment where all americans should take pride. at these people coming back. yes, there is the danger of getting overly wrapped up and my friend kim, kim, the generous, release for these prisoners.

my sense is we aren't there yet. trump does still want to have surprises up his sleeve. but middle of last night was his night. >> we're going to dig deeper into this. bring in katty as well. as the private business dealings of president trump's personal attorney come to light, the white house is facing questions of access peddling by michael cohen. who was locked out of a west wing job and cashed in on his association with donald trump. the "washington post" reporting that cohen told an associate in the summer of 2017, i'm crushing it. reported payments to cohen, his company in the first year of the trump administration nearly $3 million so far. including $1.2 million from drug maker novartis. up to $600,000, at&t. half a million dollars each from squire patent boggs and columbus

nova and another $150,000 from korea aerospace in january of 2017 cohen announced he would continue to serve as the president's personal attorney in office. and said he would resign from the trump organization quote, to avoid a perceived conflict. cohen's partnership with lobbying firm squire patent boggs was publicly announced in april of of 2017, but was separate from his shell company, essential consultants. at least one company claims that cohen initiated discussions about offering insight into trump's white house. yesterday, the white house would not say what the president thinks about his personal lawyer's clients. >> he's the president concerned about any aspect of what we've learned in the last 24 hours? >> as you know, due to the complications of the different components of this investigation, i would refer you to the president's outside counsel to address those concerns. >> do you know whether mr. cohen ever approached the white house

as a representative of any of those companies? whether the president was aware of the payments? or whether he was aware that mr. cohen was marking himself -- >> i would refer to you the outside counsel. >> michael cohen received millions of dollars apparently peddling the insights that he said he could provide into this administration to america's largest corporations. is the president in any way embarrassed or ashamed of that? because it seems to be the definition of swampy behavior. >> i think that would be up to those individuals who make the decision to hire someone. just the same way that the companies that you work for make the decision to determine whether or not they think that you're qualified to serve in a position. that's the decision of an independent company and has nothing to do with the white house. >> the president promised to drain the swamp. does he feel it's appropriate that michael cohen, his personal attorney, was selling access to him? >> i'm not going to weigh in to this. that's a determination that individual companies have to make and i haven't spoken with

the president. >> has the president taken any action during his administration to benefit novartis, at&t, korea aerospace. >> not that i'm aware of. >> you wonder is she getting the news, or just answering the questionsing taking in the news. >> last night rudy giuliani told nbc news that president trump was not involved in cohen's business dealings before or after the election. >> you know, rudy has been knighted by the queen of england. >> he was very angry, he said he's smarter than you. >> he said he's been knighted by the queen of england. >> no, he says he saved new york and he did all of these things and you said nothing. >> but he was knighted by the queen of england. which i think willie and i, i think we were knighted by the queen of england. we can't remember, 1987 was a haze. so willie, a couple of things

beyond our knighting, we can talk about our own knighting later on and how intelligent you are. >> let's be humble, though. people know all that about us. >> can i just say this about rudy? there's something about him and trump, the president, excuse me, they go around talking about how intelligent they are. and how smart they are. >> it's like a big sports car. >> have you ever had, like have you ever known people so desperate to go around and talk about how smart they are? i've never met anybody -- if i heard ssh and they told me how intelligent they were, i would probably fire them right there on the spot. who does that? >> i carry around a copy of my s.a.t. scores, but other than that, i don't mention it it's implied, i think, for me. >> it's really strange behavior. but anyway -- it's, you've got, you've got like, you get it

framed? >> yeah, it still has the dot matrix perforations on the side. i carry it with me. i almost forgot about what i was going to talk about, but of course i didn't. >> proving once again how intelligent rudy giuliani is. and how just how i'm just a dumb country lawyer, willie, sometimes i wonder how i get through three hours every day, you know. it was because you're so smart with your s.a.t. scores. so anyway, michael cohen, him trading access for money, that is the swamp. but that's what the obama people, a lot of them are doing after you know, people that knew barack obama, or people thought

they had an in with barack obama, or george w. bush. nothing its face illegal about that. the problem here is we had the money with the stormy daniels slush fund before that may have been up to $400,000. you also have the problem, did all this money go to michael cohen or was it like his other businesses, was it a shell corporation? did money pass through that, did some get back to donald trump or the trump organization. finally what sticks out to me with all of these corporations that gave money, is at&t. they have been struggling to get a merger with time warner now for quite some time. we heard it was dead. the president didn't want it. now we've heard that everything is okay, it's probably going to go through in june, most likely. i wonder what this massive payment to michael cohen does actually to the regulators, who

are trying to figure out if that payment may have made a difference in how the trump administration is treating the at&t time warner merger. >> we've got new information on that, joe. a source tells cnbc, that at&t paid cohen up to $600,000 last year, saying it was for actual work done and not for access. including an understanding of the inner workings of trump. in an email to employees, the company wrote in 2017, we hired several consultants to help us understand how the president and his administration might approach a wide range of policy issues important to the company. including regulatory reform at the fcc, corporate tax reform and antitrust enforcement. cohen was one of those consultants. he did no legal or lobbying work for us and our contract with cohen expired at the end of its term in december of 2017. it wasn't until january 2018 that the media first reported and at&t first became aware of

the current controversy surrounding cohen. however, in a statement late yesterday, at&t acknowledged it was contacted by special counsel robert mueller's office about cohen, in november of 2017. so katty kay, this story about michael cohen and essential consultants llc is fascinating about michael cohen and about the president and selling access. but it's also fascinating about a lot of these companies that are now outed and on this list, about what exactly they were trying to get out of it. and what in many cases they didn't get out of it. they thought michael cohen would have the ear of the president in many of these cases, they dropped the contracts, because it turned out he didn't quite have the access they thought they were going to get. >> to some extent you have to dial back to election day of 2016 when everybody had assumed that hillary clinton was going to win all of these companies presumably had big invamts in getting to know people on the clinton campaign, had spoken to her advisers around issues of trade and regulation. bam they're hit by the fak that they've backed the wrong horse, donald trump comes in, nobody knows him.

remember this, nobody knew donald trump when he came in he didn't have contacts in washington, he didn't have necessarily contacts in all of these companies, so they're scrambling to get any in they can. and here comes michael cohen who says i can get you access to the president. and when they're facing a at&t merger deal, dropping $500,000 was not an incredible amount of money. and the anomaly here is i think the two interesting things is one obviously donald trump came in saying he was going to end all of this. bringing no swampy activity under his presidency and two, we're starting to find out that bob mueller has known about this for a while. how much more does bob mueller know that we don't know, because he's already on to all of this. >> there's another interesting element to this story that gets to joe's issue of their iqs, how dumb are these corporations? novartis paid this guy $1.2 million. at&t pays $600,000.

>> they could pay us, in the end. what do their boards think about this? they paid michael cohen. who's michael cohen? he's trump's lawyer. is he just trump's lawyer? no, he owns a bunch of taxi cab medallions in new york city. he's a real mover and shaker. >> joe, it's -- anybody in the world of business. knows how trump does business. and you can watch tv to get into the mind of donald trump. you can watch us. you get it for free. it isn't that hard. what are you paying for? >> it's very painful and i've got to say, one of the reasons these companies may not watch us is that none of us have been knighted by the queen of england. >> to a larger point, it -- listen, donald trump got elected

unlike anybody else in modern history. if you look at everybody that ran before donald trump, the one thing you can say about him that we said during the campaign, that anybody is being truthful said during the campaign was, was that hishistoric, there had anything like it before. there will never be anything like it again. in future where one guy with a small ragtag operation, gets himself elected president of the united states. now, usually, if you do that, you have layers upon layers upon layers of people that worked for you when you were in congress, when were you a governor. when you were running the republican national committee. when you were an ambassador, when you were whatever, secretary of state. so there are scores of people

that at&t can purchase. and let's just call it what it is, that they can buy off to say hey, tell us how your boss works. and by the way, your boss is going to know that we've hired you. so it's like "peeky blinders." you know what side at&t is on. because they picked one of your men or one of your women. with donald trump, it was a very, very frightening world to these corporations in january of 2017. because there was no way to work donald trump. you could talk to michael cohen. you could talk to cory lewandoski. you could hire well, anybody else who had not been indicted by robert mueller. and there are very few people there. you certainly couldn't talk to manafort. because i think he had two or three ankle bracelets on. but there were very few people you could go to to figure out who the inner, how the inner

workings of the trump administration may be. michael cohen just happened to be one of them. same as it ever was, same as it ever was. only difference here is, unlike everybody else that's ever done this, trump had an historic run and he didn't have insiders around him that these companies could buy off. >> yeah. there isn't some amazing revelation that is still to come. it's more just a drip drip drip of how stupid and how bumbling and how crooked a lot of donald trump's business dealings are. and shallow. and kasie hunt, he is draining the swamp in a way that we could never imagine and that is, on capitol hill, revealing those who would still stand by a president who has lied thousands of times to the american people, about the obvious. a president who has been racist at times. and a president whose team is

being plucked out one by one by the special counsel and potentially flipping on him. if you stand by this, if you run on this, you are part of quite a swamp. >> i think you just outlined are why there are republicans who are still clinging to the special counsel and saying look, this guy has to finish doing what he's doing. it's the only way that they're going to have an opportunity in a lot of their views, to make a break. they've not yet, they've not yet made that break. you know this, i think there are a lot of republicans, obviously democrats on capitol hill who look at what michael cohen and say this is amateur hour what are these people doing? the key question is, and mike barnicle touched on this earlier, where is this money going? what are they -- what did michael cohen do with the money? was there any connection than back to the president? back to the trump administration and forgive me, maybe it was katty kay who made this point. i think that's the piece of this

that we still don't know and that you know, bob mueller who knows more than all of us at this point, may be following. >> and mike, the question of the morning, what is wrong with them? it's like the republicans on capitol hill, that keep shilling for president trump saying that he doesn't lie, he speaks in hyperbole, seriously? morons, i'll just say it. >> i want to go back to what you said, mike. it really is -- i don't know how to politely say this. >> it's not easy. >> they're not smart -- they are not intelligent people. they are not smart people. bumble around. i don't mean to go back to rudy giuliani, talking about how intelligent he is, who is dumb enough to go on the air, give three different accounts of an active case at the southern district of new york is investigating. and who -- look at jared kushner during transition, just blindly

going around calling other companies, calling other countries, that they then sought investment from. and bumbling around without talking to lawyers. now calling taiwan before you call china. and trump not even knowing that that might be a problem. because he just didn't know what he was doing. i can give you 1,000 different examples of how there was a combination of arrogance, and stupidity. and we're here, where we are today, with, with a special counsel in large part because of sheer ignorance. thinking that the federal government runs the way a crooked, a crooked real estate operation in new york and new jersey runs. and i'm speaking of trump's right now. it's insanity.

>> yeah, joe, you'll get no argument from me. on what you just laid out. there's one other factor, i think and we saw it in its own venue, just yesterday. there is no plan b for donald trump in this administration now that he scrapped the iran accord. there was no plan b on the night of the election. when he assumed the presidency. they were shocked, stunned that they won. they had no plan. they didn't know what to do, because they never expected to be there. and that's where we are today. with iran, with north korea perhaps, they have no idea. because it's spur-of-the-moment governing. >> let's continue the conversation, it's so true, though, still ahead on "morning joe," president trump's c.i.a. nominee, gina haspel faces tough questions on capitol hill. what she had to say about her role in using enhanced interrogation techniques, after the 9/11 attacks. plus what national security adviser john bolton has to say

about the summit between president trump and kim jong un. did you see what monica lewinsky tweeted? >> no. >> i'll have to show you all, fascinating. let's go to bill karins with a check of incoming severe weather. >> if you have airport plans there will be thunderstorms with delays and cancellations later today, right now the storms are rolling through ohio into pennsylvania, those will die off as they make it to i-95, another line of storms this afternoon and this evening, 28 million people at risk of severe weather, tornado threat very low, but damaging wind and hail with those strong storms. d.c. i have the threat around 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. for the storms. new york city, 5:00 to 7:00 this evening. the southern half of the country is just fine. mother's day weekend, unfortunately this rain in wisconsin and michigan by the time we get to saturday, it sinks into the ohio valley during the afternoon and evening and moves through pennsylvania, new york city, southern new england. and this boundary sits here all weekend long. so unfortunately for mother's

day, chicago, only 61, cloudy and showers, ohio is not going to be the greatest. pennsylvania and right through new york city. is going to be kind of unsettled, cloudy and damp and a little dreary. you may want to have the indoor picnic plans for those areas. rest of the country looks pretty nice for mom on sunday. new york city, been about five days in a row of fantastic weather, low clouds are in, showers and thunderstorms this afternoon. you're watching "morning joe," we'll be right back. dear foremothers, your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands... commanded armies... yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 5 times more detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com nand it's also a story detmail aabout people tests.

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nope! which is why i have xfinity xfi. it's super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey! let's basement. and thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. so we, i guess i just mentioned this, monica lewinsky tweet. so she tweeted, it's very interesting, dear world, please don't invite me to an event. especially one about social change. and then after i've accepted, uninvite me because bill clinton then decided to attend/was invited. it's 2018. emily post would def not

approve. me. this is about a "town and country" event. "town and country" to "huffington post's" request, did not immediately respond. but apparently president clinton attended. he introduced emma gonzales, an advocate for gun control. but monica lewinsky was claiming she was disinvited, kasie, because bill clinton was coming. is she right? i think she's right if it happened. >> does it happen in this day and age? clearly it happens in this day and age. yeah, especially if you're talking about social change, i mean -- you know we've -- it's been a painful revisiting of you know, we've talked a lot on this show about you know what happened to her in the wake of everything that played on the white house, the way she was kind of villainized and she was the one who was shoved aside in favor of him. so yeah. i mean next time, maybe just double-check your guest list. >> perhaps those two names

should not be on the same guest list. >> if you're doing an event on social change, bill clinton is not your guest. >> and if he is, well, then you have monica lewinsky on the guest list, also, you don't disinvite her. and willie geist, you look over the past 20 years and see what a remarkable transformation we've seen in how the public most of the public, actually looks at monica lewinsky. she went from being a late-night punchline, to being as she said in her ted talk, sort of at ground zero for online harassment and hate. she's carried herself starting with the "vanity fair" profile, she's carried herself with such dignity over these years. through an extraordinary, extraordinary difficult time. and you would think that whoever invited her, would have been proud to have her at the event. and if bill clinton wanted to

come -- well, that was his call. but you know, certainly shouldn't be disinviting this lady. >> i haven't seen a comment from "town and country" but the clinton camp did say they didn't know anything about this. he was invited to the event, he attended the event. he had no role in suggesting she not be there. i don't think any of us or anyone on this earth can imagine what monica lewinsky has lived with since she was a kid in her early 20s and she's done a lot of good with it especially in the last decade or so. when she decided to use her voice and her name and her experience for good in leading this anti-bullying campaign. i hope we get to the bottom of what happened here. >> she was 22 and here we are, 20 years later and it's still monica lewinsky who is still paying the price there were two of them in that relationship and who is paying the price? the fact that she was invited to something and if this is

correct, gets disinvited on the issue of social change. and this is exactly what we are fighting against. "town and country" should be ashamed of themselves, they made a decision to make her pay the price, not him. once again. >> mika, this is something that you've been talking about for years. you've been talking about this. since i first met you. over a decade ago. how shameful it was that bill clinton was worshipped by polite society. worshipped. let's say -- >> and continued to be. >> let's say that word again -- bill clinton worshipped by polite society. while monica lewinsky, who i guess you knew her family in washington, monica lewinsky was pushed to the shadows and was some sort of joke. because she was, let's put this in proper perspective now that we have kids.

she was at the time, first of all eight years younger than my oldest son now. she is the age of your oldest daughter right now. and she got hit on in the white house as an intern by a 50-something president of the united states. and 20 years later, she's the one that still has to hide her head in shame? according to "town and country" or whoever it was that disinvited her? what a joke. >> what is wrong with women who continue to be sort of falling all over bill clinton to this day? it's incredible and it's the hypocrisy that is the reason we have trump. people have always been mad about that. and we just haven't gotten it. i don't know why. joining us now from joint base andrews, nbc news chief white house correspondent halle jackson, halle you were on hand for this morning's return of the three american prisoners from north korea. tell us about that moment. >> hey, mika.

good morning to you. and to everybody there. we have been witness to what has been a remarkable several hours here at joint base andrews. the president is back at the white house, the detainees, the returnees are now at walter reed medical center. this is something we'll be talking about for a while. it was a moment of intense anticipation, carefully choreographed. the vice president landed, the president, secretary of state mike pompeo and then the plane carrying the three american citizens. what was sort of striking in the moment and you've talked already about the geopolitical implications. what it means for the summit between donald trump and kim jong un. what was striking, this was donald trump is a former reality show producer. this was a staged production meant for television. meant for the cameras, meant to be shown and seen here in this country and around the world. you had floodlights lighting up this 30 x 50-foot american flag, hanging between ladder trucks. the moment when the president

and first lady holding hands went up the stairs, spent six minutes in private conversation and unexpectedly coming over with these men and taking a number of questions from reporters who are gathered around in front yelling questions, about where the summit is, the president wouldn't say. including about whether he's spoken with president kim jong un. the president wouldn't say. he did call these gentlemen special people. this is a special moment. and then he also talked about his conversation with otto warmbier's parents. warmbier returned in a very different way. he came back in a coma after being treated badly in north korea. he died a few days later. his parents have released a statement saying they're so happy to see these men being released. but saying simply, we miss otto. president trump and vice president pence spoke with warmbier's parents and this is what they had to say. >> i want to pay my warmest respects to the parents of otto warmbier, who is a great young

man, who really suffered. and his parents have become friends of ours. they are spectacular people. and i just want to pay my respects. i called them the other day and mike called them also. mike pence. and they are really incredible people. >> and while it has been a celebration here at andrews, white house officials obviously feeling very good about what happened over the last several hours here. remember, guys, there are still americans being held in other countries overseas. five in iran. secretary of state mike pompeo says they're continuing to work to free those americans as well. >> halle jackson, thank you very much. a long night for you, great news in many ways. the president considered good news as well. he thought the ratings would be good for the moment. here's what he said. >> so i want to thank you all,

it's very early in the morning. i think you probably broke the all-time in history television rating for 3:00 in the morning, that i would say. >> that's just -- okay. joining us now -- >> i don't think that's correct, mika. i think paris hilton leaving prison might have been -- >> just stop, we're not going back there. that's ten years ago. >> remember that, willie? paris hilton leaves prison? so demure, she had her hands in front of her. >> i don't think i was a member of the nbc news coverage team that night. i don't remember specifically. >> willie -- no, no, no, willie that was the morning that you stopped mika from burning the scripts. >> that was an historic moment for "morning joe." that was at the very beginning of the show. isn't it amazing that that was even on the radar of the show,

11 years ago? but you stopped it, then and there. >> and that morning was actually, dick luger and a couple of other republicans had spoken out on the floor against the iraq war and it was massive news. and mika was handed this script by the overnight news team. this was the lead, and paris walking out of prison and -- i've got to say, mika, mika sort of set the bar i think it was like the first month. she said no, we're not going to do that type of show, tough luck, give me the hard news. >> in fact, mika pulled out a lighter. >> yeah, she pulled out a lighter. but willie, the sad thing is, you and i wanted to go the full three hours on paris getting out of prison. >> wall to wall. >> the clip we just played of the president, that's a bizarre thought to even pass through

your mind as these three men are standing with you who have been held captive and doing hard labor in north korea. >> all about the ratings. >> imagine that even entering your mind. let alone crossing your lips. >> it's incredible, he's incredible. we have david ignatius with us and we will continue the conversation and raise the bar just a tad. after a quick break. this is a story about mail and packages.

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joining us now, senior adviser and korea chair at the center for strak and international studies, and an nbc news and msnbc korean affairs analyst, dr. victor cha. always good to see you. i want to get your reaction to the scene we saw at 3:00 a.m., just a few hours ago, the president of the united states with the three men who had been detained, held after they were sentenced to hard labor over the last couple of years. american citizens returning home. good news, obviously, that they're home. what's the significance in the larger picture as the president tries to strike a deal with north korea? >> it's great news for the families, i have met with some of the family members, they were living in quiet agony over the

past years. it's difficult for the president, he's trying to congratulate the north korean leader. we shouldn't be giving the north korean leader any humanitarian awards, he murdered a university of virginia college student, otto warmbier and there are hundreds of thousands of north koreans in prison camps today, simply because they want to live in a more free and open society. the state department still has a travel ban on americans going to north korea. it's delicate, on the one hand he's trying to give credit to the north korean leader. on the other hand, this is the worst human rights abuser in the entire world. >> victor, is there any argument to use the sort of flattery that other world leaders have sort of used on donald trump, frankly, on kim jong un, to try to get to a deal? in other words some of this rhetoric may at least create some space for the president to negotiate with kim jong un? >> sure, i think diplomacy is all about momentum and so this is an important momentum buil r builder. my guess is the next thing the

north koreans will want to open the nuclear test site to international media. to come watch them completely shut that down. but in the end, the north koreans have not done anything to show they want to give up all of their nuclear weapons, president trump has raised the expectations on that summit by continually talking about how the north korean lead certificaer is ready to give up his weapons. butvy not seen anything this their statements thus far that makes me believe they're ready and willing to give up their weapons. >> dr. cha, you've been here before, you've watched cycles of rising expectations that have later been dashed. what would be your advice to president trump as he prepares for this historic summit, remarkable moment with kim jong un. how should he avoid the sudden letdown when the north koreans don't come forward with the

things that he wants? >> i think the most important thing right now is to really go into a quiet phase. it looks like the summit is probably going to happen in about a month there are some state department and nsc experts that went with pompeo to north korea. they should go into a quiet phase and try to do prenegotiations to see if there really is any "there" there in terms of seriousness on the part of the north koreans to give up their weapons, to stop reprocessing, to stop enriching, all the things that produce fissile material for bombs. if there's any traction there, i think there's more confidence that the summit will lead to something positive. but we won't know until we engage in those substantive, quiet, prenegotiations. >> katty kay, what's, what's the reaction from your vantage point as being bbc world anchor? in washington, what have you picked up among our allies in,

in britain and france, germany, across europe, to this dizzying display of diplomacy by donald trump, first getting out of the iran deal and then moving forward as quickly as possible. on a north korea summit. >> there's this kind of weird position we're in where either all of this is going to be a train wreck with terrifying and potentially violent consequences. or either iran or north korea works and donald trump really is a candidate for the nobel peace prize, and both of those are potentially possible. i think there is some concern about donald trump's personality going to these negotiations with north korea. i don't know what you think about this, victor cha. those scenes last night of the president celebrating the return of these hostages, he's clearly very keen to get a win out of this. would you be concerned he might go into the negotiations with too much desire to get a win? and paradoxically, that might

box him into a corper? >> katty, i think that would be possible. he would be violating his own cardinal rule, to never walk into a negotiation and want the negotiation all of this runup to the summit and all these this tweeting about how great kim jong-un is and what a great deals this going to be it's going to be very difficult for him to walk out of that summit without real actions by the north koreans to give up all their weapons. again, i did the last negotiation and we worked very hard to get the north koreans to disable some of their capabilities but not all of them. so this is a country that has been working on this program for 50 years and the notion that all of a sudden we don't need it any more, you take it all, that's a tough one. >> dr. victor cha, thank you very much. still ahead, mike barnicle, you were at the yankees game last night. you know who else was there? >> rudy giuliani.

>> yup. sat right behind home plate. were you sitting next to him? >> no, i was not. >> the president's new lawyer is taking no time off. he's waeighing in on michael avenatti's report, he tells "time" magazine nobody is concerned about michael cohen's questionable financial dealings. we'll talk to brian bennett about that coming up on "morning joe."

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katty kay, thanks for joining us, what are you looking at today? >> we're going to looking at the iran hostages releases, remembering there are south korean hostages, japanese hostages being leld by this regime, we should not forget what the nature of this regime is. as dr. cha said, they've been building this up for decades. the chances of them wanting to give it up, especially after what happened with the iran nuclear deal, we have to be skeptical about that. >> thank you, katty. comeing up, we'll have the

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still with us, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle and columnist and associate editor for the "washington post," david ignatius. nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie/dc on msnbc, kasie hunt. >> led zeppelin in the morning. >> and joining the conversation -- from that to this -- columnist for the "wall street journal" and political contributor for nbc news and msnbc, the very elegant peggy noonan and white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. good to have you on board. joe, breaking news overnight and also big news about the president's personal attorney. >> yeah, we're going to get to michael cohen in a minute and also the companies that were smart enough to spend shareholders' money on acquiring his services. robert mueller knows more about that than anybody and has for quite some time which really shows just how far ahead of the

game robert mueller is on just about every count. but david ignatius, i want to ask you the same question i asked peggy -- not peggy, i asked katty kay. how are our allies, how our our friends, how are our enemies viewing the -- instead of the inbox that donald trump is handling, the outbox where he tears up the iran deal one day and the same day he announces he's seconding his secretary of state to north korea yet again. are you beginning to see the outlines of a trump doctrine for terror states that are seeking nuclear weapons which is you can either continue your program or you can have a viable economy, but if you continue your program we are going to do everything we can to crush your economy. >> joe, i think the first thing to say is that our allies' heads

are spinning. the pace of change, action, disruption is so enormous people are just trying to keep straight where things are. i think europeans are particularly worried that in a sense they're now the targets of trump's iran policy. european companies are worried they'll be forced to choose between doing business with the u.s. and doing business with iran. they're afraid if they choose the u.s. they could be sued in court by iran, believe it or not. so all kinds of dilemmas for european companies i'm hearing a lot about. i think the whole world is trying to react to this very disruptive president who is now trying to harvest the accomplishments he was talking about in his first year, there's some anxiety, there's some home with north korea that he will achieve a real breakthrough. we had good cautionary words from victor cha a few minutes ago that we've been here before. it's important not to be too

premature in giving north korea a break when they're still holding this nuclear capability. in terms of the trump doctrine, i don't think we're there yet. i think the president does not yet formulate his policy goals clearly enough that we our our allies and adversaries overseas could say ah-ha, this is what he's trying to do. not there yet. >> peggy noonan, this is going to sound -- and i mean it with all respect that is due to chris matthews -- a chris matthews question because there's going to be a long wind up before the delivery and the pitch but as somebody that worked with reagan, that studies with reagan and somebody who understands that donald trump by no stretch of the imagination is ronald reagan. you go back from ronald reagan from 1908 to 1986/'87 and i remember when he ran in 1980, friends in my school who knew i supported reagan mocked him as

the fascist gun in the west. i remember when he tried to deploy pershing cruise two missiles to western europe the entire continent exploded, millions of people marching in the street wearing skulls and america was the great satan. i remember reagan after reykjavik and people saying this old wimpering fool had given away our last best chance for peace. many still will not admit that that's exactly when gorbachev knew they had lost the cold war. time and time again reagan was a warmonger, time and time again reagan was going to get us into world war iii and then, of course, at the end ronald reagan helped bring down the wall, something he's still for some reason people still give far more credit to gorbachev than he deserves and reagan was the

peace maker in the end. is there a slight possibility that we are all misjudging donald trump and actually it's his use of force, his threats, his thuggish behavior that may bring these tyrannical regimes to the table? >> no. >> okay, thank you, peggy noonan. >> i don't think we're misjudging this. look, i understand what you're saying, joe, i think both presidents, mr. reagan and mr. trump, had different things they were demonstrating. in mr. reagan's case, he had a serious, declared political philosophy which he had been talking about for 20 years. the thing he did when he became president in 1981 was show through his actions to the world "i mean it. i meant it. through the air traffic

controllers thing, through his dealings with the soviets so he was showing i seriously hold views that i am sticking to and putting forward. that's what made his progress. in the case of donald trump it wasn't a serious political philosophy so much as -- you've talked about this and ad hoc gut driven -- >> sort of a day trader. >> -- series of decisions. sort of aimed at hey, world, i can surprise you, i can surprise myself so i'm going to do this and this and this and this so he seems to have been surprising but i have to say, i think this korea thing, i don't know what is behind it exactly. i don't know the international moves of china and the thinking of kim but it has the feeling of a breakthrough that we haven't seen in a generation. as if things are moving. as if the it floes are coming

apart and might come together in a new way. so you know i think people tend to judge things by is this a little bit better or a little bit worse? as for korea now with the three detainees home, with the summit coming up, it looks a little better and you always give the seated president credit for good news so i think it's fair that he be given credit. i don't think we have a doctrine here yet. i think barack obama was correct, it's journalists who decide what the doctrine is and they normally decide after a few years of watching. i'm so sorry that was so long. i beg your pardon. >> not that long, you were perfect. joe, go ahead. >> yeah, i love the answer. no. [ laughter ] mike barnicle, call me a skeptic not only on north korea, they've

made fools out of us for 25 years. they will make a fool out of donald trump if he believes he's going to get a deal they won't cheat on. it happened in '94 when bill clinton thought he had the breakthrough. it happened with george w. bush when they thought they caught north korea red-handed and somehow that was going to stop them, they never stopped and they won't stop for donald trump but i was equally skeptical on iran. i would never trust iran. so you have these presidents who i guess they're doing what they feel like they have to do but i want to follow up with what peggy said for any donald trump supporters that thought her no came a little too quickly. you remember reading that martin anderson book about ronald reagan when he was talking about reagan's letters. he talked about ronald reagan for 30 years. every time he got on an airplane, everybody that went with him said the one thing reagan always had to have is he had to have his note pad and

what reagan would do during the flight while everybody else was reading books, ronald reagan was constantly writing and he is writing his governing philosophy. he developed it over 30 years. the best thing i've heard about reagan is that -- one of the funnier things i've heard about his speech as the great communicator is people saying he gave the same speech for 30 years, he just changed the words and the jokes which speaks to what peggy's insight that reagan had a governing philosophy developed over 30 years. donald trump changes by the day because tomorrow's episode of his reality tv presidency be bear no resemblance to what we saw yesterday. >> well, joe, and therein lies the danger, doesn't it? ronald reagan sat on planes going to give speeches for general electric around the country for 10, 15 years, became governor of california, president of the united states and indeed took notes on his

philosophy and what he thought about things everyday and was preoccupied for much of his adult life because of how he was raised and the era he was raised in about the then soviet union. so ronald reagan thought about all these things. donald trump consistently thinks about one thing each and everyday, himself. so now here we are, he's torn up tpp, he's torn you have nafta, he's trying to erase any image or memory of barack obama as president and he takes the iran accord and tosses that out. it's no accident, joe, we haven't mentioned this, it's no accident that yesterday from mobile missile sites in syria iran fired rockets into israel. and this gets to the nub of the problem with the trump doctrine or lack of doctrine. there is no tomorrow in his thinking. there's only today and only himself. >> david ignatius, let's move to

what took up some time yesterday on capitol hill, probably one of the more important things that happened yesterday on capitol hill and that was the discussion on who is going to be leading the united states' central intelligence agency in these most dangerous perilous of times. we have gina haspel who testified before the committee who has the supportover administration officials ranging from john kerry to george tenet to leon panetta to michael hayden, to mike morrell, to you name it, if they had any involvement in the cia more to the state department, so many people support this woman to be the first female cia director because they all say the same thing -- she puts the agency first and will not allow donald

trump to politicize intelligence gathering and if he does, general hayden said this, she will be the first to say no to donald trump. i understand a lot of people focused yesterday, especially the democrats running for president in 2020, who want to run for 2020 posing for the cameras, posing for their future supporters but it was depressing because there was so little discussed about north korea. so little discussed about iran, so little discussed about syria. so little discussed about where isis is. so little discussed about the very things that will determine how safe we are as americans over the next four years. instead, a lot of posing about a program and about enhanced interrogation techniques or torture regarding waterboarding that at the time a lot of

democrats after 9/11 quietly supported behind the scenes. what did you make of yesterday's spectacle? >> joe, i think you're right, there was an awful lot that matters that was not discussed but the thing that matters most right now for the cia and i think the work force would say this as much as the senators posing for the cameras is getting this issue of interrogation, of torture, right and i think haspel was trying to say to the senate and the country we're not going to do this again. we're not going to do it again because we've seen how destructive it is. i will resist an order from the president to do it, we're not going back in the interrogation business. the one thing she was reluctant to do and it was a classic moment of the cia old girl if you will was to say that what she and her colleagues had done at the time was wrong.

people kept pushing her. okay, so if you're not going to do it again, tell us it was wrong and she was reluctant to do that. i think because of the kind of code that the cia operates under. she's probably going to get confirmed but speaking as somebody who has been looking at the cia for many decades, i think it's important for her to say to the country this is wrong. i did it, we were told it was legal, we were told to do it but i was wrong, clearly and i want to say that to the country. these other issues we'll count on gina haspel's vablt if she's confirmed to be a good strong no-drama leader if she's confirmed and to stand up to a president who is willing to manipulate and intimidate u.s. intelligence agencies. if she's the person to stand up to that, that's a significant plus for her.

>> kasie hunt, gina haspel is a 33 year veteran of the cia. she says she was working within the law when she ran the secret prison in thailand. we saw joe manchin saying he would support her nomination. we heard moderate republican susan collins say she would support gina haspel''s ns nomination. is it a foregone conclusion she will be confirmed as the new director of the cia? >> i'm not sure i would go so far to say it's a foregone conclusion but i think it's on track for her cob on the firmed. i would expect some drama around this from senator rand paul who you may remember filibustered john brennan's nomination over these same issues. and one thing that's important and david ignatius hit on this to remember that it isn't just democrats. sure, there's always plenty of posturing, but john mccain put out a statement yesterday on

this and he says that her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying and he says that he has not been in the senate to vote but john mccain has been a voice on this that in some ways has been in the wilderness because both republicans and democrats decided that they wanted to close this chapter, the obama administration spent a lot of time looking at this, they decided we don't want to prosecute these people, we just want to close the book and what that has left is a sense and feeling that this issue has not been really debated, talked about and cleared away in the public eye. waterboarding was illegal when japanese did it to american soldiers after world war ii. it was illegal when americans were caught on camera doing in the the vietnam war and it was justified during this period and obviously it was a very intense and emotional period after 9/11 but that was some of what you saw spill into the open and it won't be fully explored in this

context but because we had a president who got out there and said these are techniques we should be using, i think that's why it was reopened. >> joe? >> and, by the way, donald trump was foolish to say these are techniques that we should be employing again. we should never waterboard again. we should never incorporate torture. of course things went so far overboard that suddenly sleep deppry nation is now defined as torture. other things that are in the army field manual now defined as torture and we've seen this cycle. after the next 9/11 we will go back the other way. instead of having a solid steady plan and program. you know, jonathan lemire, if we want to open up the books on what gina haspel is saying i'm totally fine with that, on what she did, i'm totally fine with that. but i want the democrats that were read into this program

after september 11, that were perfectly fine with it, i want them, including nancy pelosi sitting right next to gina haspel and i want nancy pelosi and the other democrats that were read into this program and were fine with this program until 2005, four years after 9/11 and suddenly we're all shocked about it. i want to hear what exactly they were saying and whether they are morally fit to still serve the united states because i can tell you the president of the united states, the vice president, the secretary of state, the attorney general and the democrats on the intel committee that were read into this program after 9/11 didn't whisper an objection about it. >> joe, you're asking for an act of political honesty that doesn't happen all that often. i wouldn't hold your breath to

make that admission but torture does remain a flash point here, these enhanced interrogation techniques. let's remember, president trump while on the campaign trail talked about how he felt like it would work, that some tactics like waterboarding wouldn't go far enough and told stories about how in the past -- acts of alleged terror or alleged torture to terror suspects, to war prisoners and he advocated the united states get back to that. now after taking office he says in conversation with defense secretary mattis he rised that perhaps that didn't work and he softened his stance but yesterday in the white house briefing, white house press secretary sarah sanders was asked if the president still believed that enhanced interrogation techniques were effective and needed and she didn't really answer. >> i know what the answer is. >> she sort of suggested she hadn't brought it up with him but as we know as close watchers of the sarah sanders daily press briefing, that's her go to when she doesn't want to answer

something, she simply doesn't ask the president what his opinion is so therefore she doesn't have to ask it, too. so the white house want this is to happen, we saw their scramble over the weekend when ms. haspel suggested she was going to withdraw her nominee, they send sarah sanders, marc short, others to shore her up but this is still going to be a flash point going forward. >> and mika, torture doesn't work. this is another example of how donald trump's reckless rhetoric actual actually rupts the entire debate. trump went around telling lies about american generals that would dip bullets in pig's blood and then -- total lies, total fabrications and he would say we need to be tougher, no, torture does not work. so it's just like immigration. i personally believe we need to

have a very conservatived policy when it comes to immigration. i think we have had problems over the past 20, 30 years on the number of illegal immigrants that come into the united states of america but donald trump's racist rhetoric makes it impossible to have a respectful conversation on this front and it is donald trump's own reckless rhetoric during the campaign saying that torture worked, saying we need to go farther, that stupidity that is actually hurting gina haspel today. somebody that democratic directors and republican directors all believe is america's best hope of having somebody who will stand up to donald trump trying to politicize the central intelligence agency. >> still ahead, if michael cohen really did try to sell access to the trump administration, what are the legal implications? we're going to bring in two legal experts to try and figure

that out. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> and don't tell me it doesn't work. torture works, okay, folks? i have these guys torture doesn't work. believe me, it works, okay. and waterboarding is your minor form, some people say it's not torture. let's assume it is, but they ask me the question, what do you think of waterboarding? fine, but we should go stronger than waterboarding. that's the way i feel. xotic? yeah, bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. what? what happened? i got a little over-confident on a moped. even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401(k) so it set us back a little bit. sometimes you don't have a choice. but it doesn't mean you can't get back on track. great. yeah, great. i'd like to go back to bermuda. i hear it's nice. yeah, i'd like to see it. no judgment. just guidance. td ameritrade. woman: on my tempur-pedic, the sleep i get is better than any other mattress i've ever tried. now's the best time to experience the most highly recommended bed in america.

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[ phone rings ] look at you. this tech stuff is easy. [ whirring sound ] you want a cookie? it's a drone! i know. find your phone easily with the xfinity voice remote. one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. is the president concerned about any aspect of what we've learned in the last 24 hours. >> as you know, due to the complications of the different components of this investigation i would refer you to the president's outside counsel to address those concerns. >> do you know whether mr. cohen ever approached the white house as a representative of any of those companies? whether the president was aware of the payments or whether he was aware that mr. cohen was marketing himself that way? >> i'm not aware and i would refer you to outside counsel.

>> the president promised to drain the swamp. does he feel it's appropriate that cohen, his personal attorney, was selling access to him? >> i'm not going to weigh into this, that's a determination individual companies have to make and i haven't spoke within the president. >> as the president taken any action during his administration to benefit novartis, at&t, korea airspace? >> not that i'm aware of. >> we're not stupid. >> mika, you have concerns with what sarah sanders says. you know what she's doing? she's not answering questions that she doesn't know the answer to and she's been left in the dark by donald trump and the administration and she's been lied to. i noticed you criticizing her the past couple times. if you don't know and you're the president's press secretary, then that's what you tell the press. they respect for you for saying idea i don't know, you'll have to refer your question here or there."

that's sarah sanders doing what she should be doing when she doesn't have the information, she doesn't fight back, she doesn't punch back or make something up, she just says i don't have that information. >> but ever? seriously ever? is she ever going to have information? >> that's -- that's donald trump's decision to make. that's the white house's decision to make. do they want to send her out there with no information. she can only say what she knows and she and sean spicer got in trouble when they said things that they didn't know. >> but it's her decision to make whether she wants to be used that way. at some point you have to make a decision for yourself. at some point you have to know what you're doing feels right or wrong. >> right. mika, i'm telling you, she made a decision. if you're just looking at what happened yesterday, she made the decision. i'm not going to lie for this president. if he doesn't give me information, i'm not going to make things up anymore. i'm going to tell people where

they can go. that's at least what i read from those clips right there. things could change today as they always do in that white house. but if she's not read in on something, let me go to you, peggy. if you're a press secretary and you're not read in on something, what can you do but say i don't have that information right now? you don't make it up. >> that's true. i think you are right a certain candor about, look, i don't have the answer to that question is helpful, actually, you're just being honest, i do not know the answer. it seems to me -- i feel some sympathy for saair i sarah sand part because i think she is almost used as an instrument of the president's disdain for the press. if you are impressed by the press and want to please them, want to make a good impression you give your press secretary

more authority and autonomy. so i think she's kind of stuck in a position and i think also what we're seeing each day is the fact that the white house has accepted the idea that 90% of the press hates them, the people in that room hate them, the white house hates them right back and so there's a sort of low key passive aggressive thing going on each day with sort of passive aggressive questions and passive aggressive answers. >> as someone in that white house briefing room a fair amount, i certainly -- i don't think we hate them. we're trying to cover them as fairly as we can. there's a distinction. sarah sanders is more disciplined about not getting ahead of something she doesn't know unlike sean spicer would who would talk himself into trouble because he would try to come up with an answer. for legal implications, the white house communications staff has tried to wall themselves off from the investigation in part because they don't want to face liability themselves, they don't

want to be read in on this stuff. that's an area where i think they're doing that correctly in terms of self-preservation and being mindful of rising legal bills but there is other issues where i think sarah and members of the communication staff don't want to know. it's not just that donald trump cuts them out. that does happen. he will tell certain advisers or not her or he'll tell something and change his mind and tell another adviser something else. you'll have three different accounts of the same conversation but i think it's also a defense mechanism for sarah sanders and raj shah when he's at the podium when when they don't want to have to answer a difficult question, they don't ask donald trump what his answer is so they can tell us i don't know and they don't have to take a stance. >> okay. reported payments to the president's personal attorney michael cohen or his company in the first year of the trump administration nears $3 million so far. including $1.2 million from drug maker novartis.

>> wow. >> up to 600,000 from at&t. half a million dollars each from square patton boggs and columbus nova and another $150,000 from korea aerospace. in january of 2017 cohen announced he would continue to serve as the president's personal attorney in office and said he would resign from the trump organization to avoid a perceived conflict. cohen's partnership with lobbying firm square patton boggs was announced in april 2017 but was separate from his shell company essential consultants. at least one company claims that cohen initiated discussions about offering insight into trump's white house. yeah, they could just watch here. the "washington post" reports cohen told an associate in the summer of 2017 "i'm crushing it." joining us now, former assistant united states attorney in the criminal division of the u.s. attorney's office for the souther district of new york, daniel goldman. and former u.s. attorney barbara

mcquaid. and willie, i wonder, what make said in the first hour, why are these companies -- if they're getting insight into trump, he blurts it out everyday, what do you need to know? >> and they didn't know where else to get it. in the early days after he became president he didn't have the infrastructure, he didn't have k street ties. so michael cohen wanted a job in the white house, he wanted to be the chief of staff to the president of the united states. didn't get those jobs so he says okay, how can i use what my relationship with the president is to make cash. so he sets up this essential consultants. what you saw sarah sanders doing yet was trying to wall off the president and white house from the business activities of cohen saying you'll have to ask him where the money came from. the problem is last week giuliani told us money went to michael cohen which is through essential consultants to pay off stormy daniels so there is a link to the president there. as a former assistant u.s.

attorney, as you look at this tableau of essential consultants of these companies that have come through there, the one company that had the russian oligarch as its chief backer, what do you see in what are the problems and terrific the president here? >> i think you have to separate out the liability or the exposure in the russia angle of things and everything else. because i do think that it's likely -- we don't know -- but i think there is at least some basis for thinking that michael cohen used his ties and closeness to the president to obtain money. he's kind of been on the fringe s of these various different worlds even when he was working in the trump organization. in the taxi medallion business, he'd had his own side businesses so it's not crazy to think that's what he was doing.

there are a number of things that go through that bank account that are suspicious to me that may be related to campaign finance violations, stormy daniels or other payments that have yet to be explained, there are wires going back and forth -- going to keith davidson, who was the lawyer for stormy daniels and karen mcdougal, the playmate, so there's stuff on the campaign finance side you want to look at and also just general sort of fraud issues, how he said up this essential consultants. so they're medium-range issues. the big question is what was michael cohen's relationship prior to payments from columbus nova. did she a relationship with vexberg? did he have other relationships with russians? because payments don't fall from trees. so you won't think the day he gets a payment that that was

when the relationship began rudy giuliani went on record saying this is separate from us. if mueller had information the president was involved he would not have referred it to the southern district of new york and i think there's some basis for that. i think anything related to the president is likely staying with mueller or flowing back to mueller. that's why i think this is maybe something cohen did for the most part on his own. >> david ignatius? >> barbara mcquaid, do you see a criminal liability for michael

cohen or is this where we say what's amazing isn't the things that are illegal but legal, the things that aren't subject to criminal prosecution. what do you think? >> we have to ask ourselves is this crime or just slime because there is a difference so i think there's enough here that merits further scrutiny and the facts will matter but there are are a number of potential crimes that stand out. one is was michael cohen acting as a lobbyist? if he was he is required to register as a lobbyist and failure to do so if it's knowing and corrupt can be penalized by up to five years in prison so that one one area to take a look at. was he trying to represent these companies with the administration? another potential crime would be campaign finance violations, were they accepting money and paying money north to influence the election and did they accept money from a foreign national because that is in itself a crime and is there any pay to play going on that would require some involvement by members of

the trump administration, maybe not president trump himself but others involved in the administration. this has some of the earmarks of what we saw in detroit when we were looking into the administration of former mayor kwame kilpatrick who had consultants around him who you had to pay if you wanted access to the mayor and they shared that action. so robert mueller is always several steps ahead of us, we've red he's interviewed many of these people and then spun it off to the southern district of new york so i imagine they've already looked into this and continue to explore. >> barbara, peggy noonan here. i am wondering if you have any sense or any guess where the latest information on the michael cohen case -- the apparent payments from at&t, drug companies, et cetera, where

that information came from. it looks to me like somebody went into his private financial records. how does that work? who would have done that? >> yeah, i don't know and i can't think of a legitimate source for providing that information. the treasury department maintains this database of suspicious activity reports which it looks like this perhaps came from. all of the banks in the country are required to file reports under law when they observe suspicious activities in their accounts. it could be large payments that are inconsistent with prior activity or large expenditures and they report those up to the treasury department and the other filing that was made by michael cohen's lawyers yesterday that said that the avenatti report included some instances of a wrong michael cohen suggests to me that somebody queries a database looking for a cohen and included those payment there is so it could have come from law enforcement or someone in banking, someone who is seeking to be perhaps a whistle-blower

or a friend to michael avenatti or wants to expose wrongdoing, perhaps, has shared this information with him but it looks like somebody queried a database using a name because it was overinclusive, including other michael cohens. >> willie geist, one thing that doesn't make sense to me is these news reports over the past week where we've heard of tens of millions of dollars going into michael cohen's bank account through flipping of apartments in new york city, now millions and millions of dollars flooding in through lobbying fees from major multinational corporations and yet michael cohen has to get a credit line extension on his in laws' home to scrape together $130,000 to pay off stormy daniels and he is

reportedly still complaining to friends months after doing that that he has not been repaid by donald trump. this smells to high heavens and i just -- i just wonder what it means? does the money pass straight through him and go to third parties? that's certainly what it seems like? >> it's so interesting if you look, dan, in the "new york times" piece, he says -- mika read it before -- i'm crushing it. michael cohen says i'm crushing it. excuse me, the "washington post." $4.4 million coming through consultants. the explanation given by rudy giuliani about the repayment of the stormy daniels payment was that it was paid in installments that totalled almost half a million dollars so there was money flowing through michael cohen's businesses yet he had to take out a home equity loan to pay the $130,000.

how do you square those? >> well, so far we've only and seen the inflows to the account and michael avenatti has foreshadowed he has more information about the outflows. that is really where the rubber will meet the road. >> which could be payments to other people, potentially. >> absolutely. so is he wiring the money from this essential consultants llc to his own bank accounts or from essential consultants to other people to pay off or to other businesses? . that will really tell us what is going on with michael cohen and his business. >> so it's a legitimate business or a slush fund is what you're looking at? >> the question is, it's in theory a consulting company. it was apparently established in order to pay stormy daniels because it was incorporated about ten days before that payment. then you see a lot of money coming into it after and i don't think we have the whole -- in fact, we know we don't have the

whole picture from michael avenatti's report because both at&t and novartis have said they paid more than what avenatti's report said. >> good lord. >> so we don't know the full picture of what is the in-flow and we have to keep that in mind. the question will be what kind of consulting was he doing? . was he just capitalizing on his access and doing that in a rogue nature or was he coordinating with the administration? that's one question to have, but you made one point, i want to point out at the beginning, willie, that the president reimbursed him with $35,000 a month. that is not shown in this account and so presumably we know michael cohen has at least one other account, that's also in michael avenatti's report -- we don't know it but michael avenatti's report says that and he almost certainly has a legal account for his law business that's going to be separate from this and so the question is, a, was there that $35,000 monthly

payment that rudy giuliani talked about? where did that go? and then the big question that still needs to be answered is where did all this money for essential consultants move out? >> all right, barbara mcquaid, daniel goldman, thank you both. coming up, we'll talk to one of the lawmakers who grilled the president ee's pick to lead the cia. independent senator angus king explains his opposition to gina haspel's nomination next on "morning joe."

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xfinity. the future of awesome. >> the president has asserted torture works. do you agree that statement? >> senator, i -- i don't believe that torture works. valuable information was obtained from senior al qaeda operatives that allowed us to defend this country and prevent another attack. >> is that a yes? >> no, it's not a yes. we got valuable information from debriefing of al qaeda detainees and i don't think it's knowable whether interrogation techniques played a role in that. >> in november and december of

2002, did you oversee the enhanced interrogation of al nashiri which included the use of the waterboard. yes or no. >> senator, anything about my classified assignment history throughout my 33 years we can talk about in this afternoon's classified session. >> exposing operational information can be damaging to sources and methods, as you know. >> who's deciding what's classified and isn't in terms of what's released to this committee? >> senator, we are following the existing guidelines. >> who's deciding? >> we are following the existing guideli guidelines -- >> who is we -- >> well i have chosen to follow the guidelines. >> so you are making the classification decisions about what materials should be released to this committee? >> i am electing not to make an exception for myself. >> that exchanges was between senate intel committee member

angus king and gina haspel yesterday during her conto confirmation to become the next cia the first question goes to david ignatius. >> senator king, i'd be interested in hearing overall what you made of gina haspel and her testimony before your committee. and specifically because you're still reluctant to support her, what you need to hear from her that would make you think, okay, this is a nominee i can back? >> i made a decision i went into those hearings yesterday morning concerned and came out opposed. i think she had ample opportunity, we had about six hours of hearings yesterday, i've met with her privately for probably about an hour. and i think the exchanges that you saw were indicative of one of the red flags that went up for me during the hearing. i don't think that she was forthcoming in her answers. she was very careful almost

lawyerly, although she kept saying she's not a lawyer, but you had to sort of pry the information out of her. i had to ask her three times who is making the classification decision. it was her. so she is deciding what of her record should be released. and we've gotten some good news things about meetings with mother taeresa and those kind o things, but there are there other things that haven't been released. so i wasn't satisfied with her answers. i don't think that she was fully forthcoming. and my focus was on the destruction of the tapes. that is where there is a lot of argument to be had about the torture program and whether it was legal and authorized. but in 2005 when that decision was made to destroy the tapes, which she was very much involved in, that is where i have a real problem. >> but senator, when you were asking her that question, you knew the answer to that

question. right? >> well, i thought i did. but i wanted -- and i was sort of giving her an opportunity to answer it. and as you saw, i had to ask it three times. my impression was she was making these decisions, but i sort of couldn't believe it. >> you also though -- there is also a lot of information that you could have gotten if the cameras were turned on which ff people were taken out of the room. tie dianne feinstein asked a question that she knew she could not answer in a public committee hearing and also knew that if the room were cleared and the cameras were turned off, you all could get the information. was this just a side show for your base? >> no, no, no. because we had a closed session for three hours after that meeting and the answers weren't anymore forthcoming. in fact i got very frustrated and felt that in some ways they were worse than we had in the public hearing. i didn't see that at all. and when i was asking that

question about who does the classification decision, i wasn't sure of the answer. i thought it was her, but i also thought she may have reduced herself and turned it over to the director of national intelligence which would have made more sense. >> senator, yesterday john mccain came out against this nominee which is not a surprise given his long opposition to waterboarding and other techniques that were used from 2001 through 2005 or so. i'm curious, i know you know jo john kerry, leon panetta, mike morell, george tenet, just go down the list, just about every cia director and a lot of democratic people that worked in foreign policy support gina haspel because they feel like she is the best chance to get somebody in there who can't be run over by donald trump.

what would you say to those democrats who are supporting her for that reason? >> well, here is the way i thought this through. and when you think about it, joe, if you have a bill, you can amend it, change it, move it around. when you have a nomination, it is up or down. yes or no. you can't vote for part of a person. and i think she's imminently well qualified in many areas. she has a 30 year career. she comes out of operations. she knows the cia. she could hit the ground running. all of those things are positive. she would be the first woman to head the agency. i think that is positive. all of that is good about. i just can't get over the idea of destroying evidence in the midst of the discussion of a possible congressional investigation. it just doesn't -- i just have a real problem with that. and then adding to that was what i saw yesterday which i thought was an effort to sometimes obscure the facts. as i say, i came out of it very

frustrated and feeling that she hadn't been fully forthcoming with the committee. and again, in my role as a member of the intelligence committee, we oversee the intelligence community largely by injury are chviinjurvirtue o the heads of these agencies. and if we don't get all of the information or we have to ask just the right question to get the answer, that is a real impairment of our ability to try to bring accountability to these other secret agencies. >> senator king, gina haspel said that although she did oversee that prison in thailand in 2002, that she would not initiate any new enhanced interrogation programs if she were made director of the cia. she made that vow and that promise before your committee. do you not take her at her word? >> i do. and i don't -- >> you do take her at her word? >> she said she won't do it and she made it clear that if the president asked her to, she

wouldn't do it. but she couched it in legalistic terms. i wouldn't do it because it is illegal, because it is not the role of the krooid cia to dose kinds of interrogations. she didn't get to the point of saying i wouldn't do it because it is the wrong thing to do. as a matter of fact she avoided that question. i believe if the president asked her to do something like that, she'd say no, this isn't the role of the cia, i can't do it. >> well, if you take her at her word and your objection to her is that she supports torture, what is the problem? >> that isn't my objection. i think i said a few minutes ago my problem is she participated directly in a decision to destroy evidence in 2005 and i don't think she's taken full responsibility for that. i don't think she's been fully forthcoming about that incident. that is the problem. i'm not one of those who said because she was involved in 2001, 2002 she is disqualified.

it is the destruction of the evidence that i think is a separate case and that's what i was bothered by. plus what i felt was her overly parsed testimony yesterday. >> so senator king, gina haspel, qualified? >> i think not qualified because of her bad judgment and participation in the destruction of evidence. >> competent? >> yes. >> if not her, who? >> well, that is a good question. and that is always a question around here is who comes next. and we'd have to wait and see who the president would nominate. there are a lot of people in the cia that have been there for many years that are very capable that may or may not have been involved in some of these issues that don't have this kind of issue in their history. and remember, one of the other problems is we don't really know all of her record because it hasn't been declassified. only on parts have been

declassified. >> senator king, i have been very critical of democrats through the years for being so hypocritical about quietly supporting a program in 2002 and 2003 while, you know, the ground zero was still smoldering. you bring up a great point. when this came out in 2005, and everybody was being hypocritical, the thing to do then was not destroy evidence. i completely understand and in your position i would be feeling the same way. but mike brings up a great point. these are extraordinary times. and we have a president who wants flunkies around him, he wants yemen and ys men and yes around him. so even with your grave concerns, isn't that question of who is next coming from this president that has contempt for

the intel agencies that serve this country? isn't that a question that you may have to grapple with a little bit more which is who would be next from this president? >> well, listen, i grappled with this ten days ago this very same question, very same subject and a lot of the same context when i decided to vote for mike pompeo. and the who might be next was certainly part of my consideration when i made that decision. but gina haspel is a career civil servant in the cia. there are thousands of people that work for the cia who are career civil servants who have risen to a high level in the agency. i'm not sure that she is the only one that could fulfill this responsibility and say no to the president and that doesn't have what i consider a serious blemish on her record. you have to think about who comes next if she's not confirmed. we'll find out.

it now appears that she will be confirmed. but i made that exact thought process ten days ago on mike pompeo. there were things i liked about him, things i didn't like about him. but in the end, i thought okay, we don't know who is going to come next, i'll vote yes. on this one, i can't get beyond this issue of destroying evidence and again, it wasn't in the heat of the moment. it wasn't in the midst of the smoldering 2001. this was 2005. it was on a week when there was a great deal of news about potential congressional investigations and suddenly at that moment gina haspel contributed to and she would say it was jose rodriguez's decision, but she drafted the cable, she was engaged in the decision, she knew that it was against the orders all the way from the white house down through her general counsel. and i just can't -- i can't excuse that. and also as i say, i feel like i had to ask questions three and four times and sometimes never

got the answer. >> it is the top of the hour. we're speaking with senator angus king of maine about the controversial choice, president trump's controversial choice for cia director. jonathan lemire has the next question. >> senator, a question on actually on a different topic. a few minutes ago the vice president in an interview with nbc on the mueller investigation says, quote, in the interest of the country, i think it is time to wrap it up. you're a member of the intelligence committee. this is right now of course this seems to be the highest ranking trump administration official to directly say this investigation needs to end. the president of course takes his shots, calls it a witch hunt, but now the vice president is actually saying that this investigation needs to end. we wanted to get your reaction. >> i would amendment that tweet or whatever it was to say in the interests of the country, this investigation needs to be completed so that the public knows exactly what happened or didn't happen. the worst thing for the administration would be if this

investigation was prematurely terminated because then the questions would linger for years and they would certainly hover over the administration. if they didn't do anything wrong, if there wasn't any collusion, the best thing they could have is a report from robert mueller two or three months from now that says there was no collusion, no wrongdoing, we're going home. and to cut it off prematurely would be terrible for the administration, terrible for the country and i think would just further divide the country rather than let's get to the bottom of it. i don't understand that -- well, i guess i understand the impulse, but i think it is mistaken. >> all right. senator angus king, thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. and as always, we appreciate your insights and also your independence. thank you. >> thank you, sir. so you know mike barnicle, i think it is a fair time to start

asking this question. what did mike pence know and when did he know it. mike pence is an honorable man. mike pence says that general flynn lied to him. really? did he? is this the way mike pence wants this investigation to begin and then end prematurely before we get the truth to all the questions? we're finding out now that russian oligarchs may have had money funneled to them by michael cohen. the southern district of new york is getting deep into this. we're going to find out what mike pence knew and when mike pence knew it about for instance that meeting that don jr. set up. did mike pence know anything about donald trump lying when he brought everybody together talking about the purpose of that meeting?

i mean mike pence has been claiming that he was just out in the dark and that he was just this clueless hapless indiana hoosier that donald trump and the rest of the white house said nothing to. but you've just got to start asking yourself, if mike pence wants to kill an investigation that is pursuing how the russians tried to undermine american democracy in 2016, my gosh, makes me sad to say this, mike, but i guess we have to start asking the question why does mike pence want to kill this investigation, what did mike pence though aboabout gene flynn, was he lied to or is mike pence the one who has been lying to us all this time. >> well, i don't know the answers to any of those questions, joe. i do know that mike pence's role

in this administration is not that much different from a lot of people around donald trump. he acts more as an accompany being a light than an independence. he was there at the creation of all these issues with regard to his distrust of mike flynn who is now under indictment. but i don't know the answers to those larger questions. but they are certainly pivotal questions and we don't know -- at least i don't know whether mike pence has indeed talked to the mueller investigatory team yet or will he be called to testi testify. but it does open up a door already open you bruhbut a ed w the stentsd of involvement whether active involvement or passive involvement in these ongoing and growing scandals around donald trump. >> mike pence like everybody around the president is going to

have to answer for his actions, her actions, behavior. i just would note that anytime one of these trump surrogates says it is time to close the investigation, i'm here to wrap up the investigation, we've been hearing that from rudy giuliani, you know that the investigation is getting close, that it hurts. and that is why we're hearing that these comments. i'm just struck the things that we're talking about today involving a payment fund to michael cohen the personal lawyer to get things done, fixer fund we'll call it, mueller was on to seven months ago. he's been chasing this. think of all the different places he's been since then. i've said before, mueller is like a shark. you only see him until a fin breaks the water and then pow, he moves in. and i think we'll see maybe very

quickly more on this script. >> so this is what he said. it is an interview with andrea mitchell which you'll see in a bit. he said it's been about one year since the investigation began. our administration's provided over a million documents. we fully cooperated. and in the interest of the country, i think it is time to wrap it up. and i would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion. and joe, you're been really restrained and respectful and even at times admiring of mike pence and the position he's in. but at this point, he has made this turn. i would ask the question did the president ask him to say that. and is he that loyal to the president and not the country that he would say that. or did he do that on his own and

is this comments for you just a bridge too far when it comes to mike pence. >> well, to me it doesn't matter why mike pence made this statement. he has free will. >> i think it does. >> and -- well, no, if somebody asked you to make that statement, you wouldn't make that statement. if somebody asked me to make that statement, i wouldn't make that statement. and alex, if you can -- once we get this tape, let's do a split of what richard nixon said in the summer of 1973 a year before he was run out of office, he said almost identically what mike pence has told andrea mitchell today. you know, when you go to a broadway play, and i don't go to a whole lot of bloof broadway p. willie and i are usually orphanages that time of night. but you know how they say now playing the roll tonight and then they talk about the

understudy? well, now playing the role of spiro agnew for the trump administration is mike pence. because this is exactly spiro agnew continually attacked watergate, he continually attacked the press's coverage of watergate. and of course spiro agnew ended up in jail. now, i don't know if mike pence is going to end up in jail. i do know this, mike pence was there when paul manafort was around, when those meetings were being taken. and willie geist, it seems strange to me that any american who wants to get to the bottom of russia's involvement in 20th 2016 campaign could call for the end of an investigation that a is actually uncovering new connections to russian oligarchs as we speak would want to get rid of an investigation that has already indicted 13 russians,

indicted donald trump's first national security adviser, indicted donald trump's campaign manager who trump said was absolutely necessary to get him the nomination of the republican party, indicted an assistant campaign manager in rick gates, indicted who donald trump said was one of his top foreign policy advisers. i mean, the indictments are going left and right and if everything we hear is correct, donald trump's personal attorney for a decade is going to be indicted by the southern district of new york. no rational sane human being who wants justice served says kill the investigation when the investigation is still making great progress. that is unless you're spiro agnew or richard nixon speaking before congress a year before you you learn about the tapes and nixon has to resign. >> for the last almost two years now, mike pence has walked a

line between ob seek would he he isness and staying just one foot outside the blast zone just in case this thing blows up and he can be left standing. s it unclear that he can continue to occupy that space. you can't be that close to the president and stay clean as anyone around donald trump has learned. the truth though, jonathan lemire, is in a bob mueller is not listening to the advice of mike pence. >> but he might take a closer look. but all they do is indictment themselves in some way and say we really would like this to be over. and bob mueller is sequestered in an office somewhere not paying attention to what they are saying to him. >> mob pullbob mueller is not l to mike pence.

but remember mike pence left a fs football game early because donald trump asked him to do so if a player went down on a knee. he denies knowing about -- he said mike flynn lied to him in the early months of the administration, but certainly he is in the building. certainly he has exposure to a lot of what has happened since then. he did not -- he had not joined the ticket yet by the time of the trump tower meeting. but he certainly knows of the events that occurred afterwards. and what we're seeing is this has become the new talking point for republicans is the idea that this investigation is interfering, it is a distraction. the president can't get the business of the country done because of it and it should end. and let's remember, if you were going to have a ground swell of republicans on the hill to sort of not -- perhaps not oppose the president trying to end this investigation, mike pence is a liaison to those republicans on the hill. he has a far better relationship with a number of those republican congressmen and

senators than donald trump does. that could be a bridge. if he is giving his blessing to ending this, that may wear down some of the resistance of some republicans who want to see the probe go forward. >> mike. >> peggy, the nation turns its lonely eyes toward you now for wisdom and perspective. en with tin the past 48 hour, w have seen in news reports that michael cohen has been given over the past 17 months or so basically 2 milli$2 million slu. we don't know where the money went. but we do know that he got the money. in the wake of that news revelation, we have the vice president of the united states with this still fresh in everyone's minds basically saying let's end this investigation. hugh does something like that happen to a rational human being? >> and it seemed to me it was

timed for the 8:00 a.m. news cycle if i'm judging the tweet correctly. it would have been thought through in mike pence's office, it would have been thought through by mike pence. my own question is what is the political play here. what is the desired domestic response, what exactly are they doing. is this simply a matter of the base didn't like the investigation? i mean any trump assumer in america wi supporter in america will tell you it's been going on for a year, we never thought trump was clean, so on, that they say things like i'm crushing it and oh, my god, everybody is giving me money. so the american people, they are there just telling their base we're with you. or are they telling bob mueller hurry up, buddy, everybody is tired, why don't you have it done by next thursday which

means visits must stop by next wednesday. i'm not sure exactly what they are doing. i do not find this tweet surprising expect to the extent that as you say, willie, mike pence has been able to keep himself out of the blast zone. it is an interesting decision and it wouldn't have been impetuous to jump into the blast zone. >> and it actually goes well beyond a tweet, it is an actual interview with andrea mitchell. we have the tape right now. so perfect segue. let's take a look at the vice president. >> our administration has been fully cooperating with the special counsel. >> do you think his investigation is a hoax? >> and we'll continue to. what i think is that it's been about a year since this investigation began. our administration's provided over a million documents. we've fully cooperated in it. and in the interests of the country, i think it is time to wrap it up. and i would very respectfully

encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion. >> it is so remarkable how much that copies richard nixon's statement before a joint session of congress in 1973, a year before he resigned. peggy noonan, you and i have been fellow travelers for some time. and you talked about the political impact of this. and politics is so fickle, you and i both know in 2004, both you and i broke from george w. bush, you did after a second inaugural address, i actually wrote a book blasting his massive deficits, his massive debts, medicare part d without paying for a dime of it, foreign policy. and the republican establishment turned on us. you had people actually the bush

people calling up everybody saying do not have peggy noonan come deliver speeches, do not sign peggy noonan for any books. if you are a friend of peggy noonan's, you're not a friend of ours's. and and i remember in 2005, and unfortunately mika will have to hear this story again, somebody from the bush administration called me up and was yelling at me because i was being unusually tough on bush's deficit spending. and i said he's going to be gone. he's going to be gone in 2 1/2 years. i'm still going to be here. we were friends before he was here, we will be friends after. but you need to make that decision right now. are you my friend or are you not my friend? this person said they were my friend and i have been forever grateful since. when mike pence denigrate s himself like that, peggy, can you explain to young politicians and wannabee politicians, that tape will live. and while the base is with

donald trump now, they will leave him just like they left george w. bush. by the time bush went out of office, everybody was saying in 2009 what we were saying in 2005. this damages mike pence in the long run. this helps nikki haley in the long run. why is mike pence being so short sighted? >> having just seen the tape now, it seems to me that with coolness and a sense of assurance what he was doing, mike pence, was laying out a rallying cry for the 2018 congressional election for republicans which is stop this stuff. enough is enough. we've been through it for a year. so i suspect we will be hearing more of that. you know he, pent oig hce has ba

delicate position being vice president of a hugely unique president. and it is very hard to not get the muck on you. do you know what i mean? sort of you're there and -- >> well, he puts a stain on everybody around him, bottom line. >> well, there is that tendency. but i think your larger point, joe, about always standing apart from what you think is not so helpful and stand where you stand and have good reasons for where you stand and defend your position and keep -- you may have your own mess, but keep other people's mess from getting on you, that is a hard thing to do. i'm not sure he advanced his position i guess with that interview with the intrepid andrea mitchell. >> and we'll have much more ahead on this breaking news. plus rudy giuliani says, quote, it's pretty clear the president

can't be subpoenaed. so if he says that, that is that. and he is smarter than you, joe. much smarter and much more successful. he that made that very clear yesterday. >> it hurts me that he says the president can't be subpoenaed because it seems to me just yesterday i saw a clip of him in 1998 saying that if the president is subpoenaed, he has no choice. he has to testify. so i don't know. maybe when the queen knighted him, maybe she did not strike him on the shoulder, maybe she hit him on the head and it jarred his memory. >> smomething's going on up there. we'll show you the videotape ahead. another anti-wrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair® works in just one week. with the fastest retinol formula available. it's clinically proven to work on fine lines and wrinkles.

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>> what happens if robert mueller subpoenas the president, will you comply? >> well, we don't have to. he's the president of the united states. >> if the president is asked to testify, subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, and says no, not going to do it -- >> you got to do it. you don't have a choice. it is pretty clear that the president can't be subpoenaed. as far as the criminal law is considered, he's a citizen. the president cannot be distracted buydistract distracted by a criminal investigation. all the watergate litigation resolved the fact that the president is not above the law, is not able to avoid subpoenas. >> wait a minute. this is completely confusing. is that the same person talking? what is the difference? jonathan lemire, i don't get it. >> it seems that the mayor's views have evolved on this subject. you know, he is out there, he is the new legal face of the

president's legal team. >> yes, but that doesn't change your opinion of the law. >> it does not. but that would far -- be far from the first moment where someone who works for this president has changed previous views in order to now advance what donald trump wants him to say. >> right. a loyalty oath to the president. >> rather than the constitution. >> sometimes where you sit is where you stand going back to what joe said. sometimes when you are a political figure as rudy is, when it is a democratic president under siege, you know he has to testify and when it is a republican president, you know he doesn't. >> and there is a pretty black and white answer. president-ele president clinton was subpoenaed, richard nixon was subpoenaed. so if the question is can a president be subpoenaed, the answer is yes. >> and plus we have to take into account in rudy's defense his season tickets are right next to the yankee dugout prior to the

net being established. he took a foul ball. that's clearly what it is. >> coming up, it was the "new york times" who confirmed details of michael after a natty's story about the firm tied to a russian oligarch making payments to michael cohen. now the treasury department's inspector general wants to know how they got cohen's banking information. we'll talk to one of the writers behind the story. it took guts to start my business. but as it grew bigger and bigger, it took a whole lot more. that's why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. everything.

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from his own personal drama to the business of running the country, there is some new reporting on how the president is guiding guiding his attention. but first bill karins with a look at some storms. >> we've had a great stretch of perfect weather and now it will end this afternoon with thunderstorms that will clean the air for all the pollen sufferers, but it will cause problems at the airports. this line of storms is over pennsylvania. it will weaken as it approaches new york and philadelphia. it is later this afternoon we get round two. 28 million people at risk of

severe storms. wind damage is a big threat and we could get large hail. and later tonight in nebraska. so let's time it out here in the northeast. this is at noon today. those are the dying showers. by the time we get to 3:00 to 4:00, you see new storms popping up, central pennsylvania, central new york and the poconos. so through about 5:00 p.m., a cluster of storms near d.c. down to richmond, some of those could have strong gusty winds. storms in and around new york city up through the hudson valley. so the evening ride home could be slow. and by 8:00 p.m., a couple renegade showers still lingering. boston, hartford, most of the storms will be over with for you too. so again not widespread destruction, but could be isolated downpours and gusty strong winds. fine in the southeast. by the time we head to the weekend, we'll track a new storm across the northern portion of the country. and unfortunately the possibility of heavy rain saturday and lingering into sunday.

new york city, pittsburgh, chicago, detroit. doesn't look like the best for outdoors for mom. hopefully that will change. new york city, we're looking at those storm timings. showers around noon and then threat of thunderstorms right around 5:00 p.m. you're watching "morning joe." ♪ this is a jungle gym... and a baseball diamond... ...a mythical castle

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led california's fight ofor clean, renewable energy.or he cleaned up pollution at the port of l.a. and created more good-paying jobs. antonio villaraigosa for governor. with pg&e in the sierras. and i'm an arborist since the onset of the drought, more than 129 million trees have died in california. pg&e prunes and removes over a million trees every year to ensure that hazardous trees can't impact power lines. and since the onset of the drought we've doubled our efforts. i grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly it's heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. what guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer

and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future. because antonio villaraigosa millions got it done.healthcare he defended women's healthcare, banned military-style assault weapons, banned workplace discrimination, and more. antonio for governor. our administration has been fully cooperating with the special counsel. >> do you think his investigation is a hoax? >> and we'll continue to. what i think is that it's been about a year since this investigation began. our administration has provided over a million documents. we've fully cooperated in it. and in the interests of the country, i think it is time to wrap it up. and i would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work

to completion. >> as you know, i have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material. i believe that i have provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. i believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. one year of watergate is enough. >> i can't even -- >> seriously -- well, you know, it's what i was saying. and i got to say, peggy, notice, it is so much easier than writing new material if you want to just lift material from what richard nixon said. it matches up identically. nixon and pence. we provided the documents.

nixon and pence. it has been a year. time to move on. nixon and pence, you know, let's get on to the business of running america. the same exact argument. and as i always say when you bring this up, this was nine months before nixon resigned and even eight months before the discovery of the tapes that would eventually bring him down. >> yeah. you know, it was -- it seemed to me as i was watching that clip, within less than a year, i didn't realize it was nine months, the american people would begin to desert president nixon. his polls started going down. and the reason was in the end that they didn't think the watergate investigation, quote/unquote, was the thing impeding progress. they began to think richard nixon was the thing that was

impeding progress. do you know what i mean? >> yeah. >> he lost his -- i don't know if when he said those words he had a feeling that was coming. look, the argument this has been going on for a year and we ought to end it will have a certain power especially with those already supportive of the president. you have to wonder how long that argument will have real force. but i also have a sense, i can't remember, joe, how exactly watergate played out in terms of time off the top of my head. but the american people will start to lose a little fervor about a special investigation after a year. maybe that is why they all come forward after a year and say it's already been a year. but look, there is an extent to which the mueller probe being on the news every night, you know,

going forward one inch each day, it will sound to a lot of people like a drone. do you know what i mean? just a droning endless story. so i understand the impatience while at the same time it is very obvious that the mueller investigation is a large comprehensive and serious historical piece of work and it's going to have to go -- take its time to go forward. >> well, like all investigations like the water gate investigation, and again nixon saying one year of watergate is enough, was again i think six, seven months before butterfield revealed the existence of a taping system. and watergate had completely captured america's attention throughout the summer of '73. now, in my household, we were

nixon people. my dad thought nixon was being framed by the press, by the democrats. but as it went on further and further by the end my father actually became indignant. as much as he loved nixon, he became indignant that a man would sully the office of the presidency in the way that richard nixon did. and so that is why i have far more patience with people who still support donald trump because i saw my dad go through this and eventually the evidence became so overwhelming that even he was shocked and insulted that richard nixon would sully the office of the presidency that way. >> i think one of the aspects here that is very different between watergate and the russia investigation, if that is still the correct word, is that you know, richard nixon was surrounded by professionals. they were political professionals. they were well educated.

they were sophisticated men and women. they had gone up through government. they were tough people. sometimes very colorful people like chuck colson and my friend pat buchanan. with the trump thing, there is this constant discovery of these are unsophisticated people, this is the gang that couldn't shoot straight, this is a sort of greedy mob that doesn't even know how to do it. somebody said earlier today you got to see the difference between crime and slime. you know. and maybe they got confused between the lines there. but they are not a similar crew. >> so we'll continue this conversation. by the way, we talked about earlier the monica lewinsky tweet. willie, town and country apologized. >> yeah, just to remind people, monica lewinsky said please don't invite me to an event about social change and then after i've accepted uninvite me because bill clinton decided to

attend. it is 2018. that was monica lewinsky's post. that was town and country magazine, they have now apologized in a simple statement that appears in a tweet they just put out that reads, we apologize to nice play win ski an lewinsky and regret the way the situation was handled. >> i like that.win ski lewinsky and regret the way the situation was handled. >> i like that. joining us now, jim rutenbergel and brian bennett. both are reporting on the michael cohen story. jim, we'll start with you. >> well, we have the continuing unspooling story of michael cohen and it turns out that essential consultants llc which we first knew about in relation to the stormy daniels case is the hottest public affairs shock in washington with expertise in telecom regulations, with expertise in south korean aerospace matters, health care, you name it.

so all by one man michael cohen. so pretty impressive array of clients for him. >> no, it is. and i think that the question is exactly what -- i mean, i think that there is a lot of questions about why these companies would pay michael cohen given what we've learned about michael cohen anything to get information on donald trump unless, brian, he is just -- they are buying access from him. i mean is that what we're ultimately looking at? >> that is exactly the question here. and what these revelations do, they open up a whole you new front for donald trump. it is a separate front from the russia investigation. it is questions of whether there was a pay to play operation going through this company set up by the president's personal lawyer. and the michael cohen case is in the southern district of new york and those prosecutors are known for being like a dog with a bone. once they get their teeth into something, they aren't going to

let it go. and so what you have here is a case that is taking on a life of its own and is separate from the mueller investigation. and even if mueller as vice president pence asked shuts down his investigation or mueller is fired, this other case in the michael cohen will probably continue to live on. and the fact that it could touch into questions of whether the president knew about payments going to his personal lawyer from information communefortunee there was business in front of the administration, that a will continue to be a question even if the mueller investigation wraps up. >> and those questions were asked in the white house briefing room yesterday of sarah sanders and she said again and again you'll have to ask outside counsel, this has nothing to do with the white house. does that hold up based on your reporting, do we know anything yet about whether or not some of those payments involved the president of the united states? >> no, and that reporting will continue. and more to the point, more importantly for this administration, for the president and for mr. cohen,

there are federal investigators all over this with subpoena power. so we'll find out about that. obviously if michael cohen wants to set up a public affairs front, he is free do so. what strikes me is that these companies didn't pay michael cohen's law firm, they paid a central consultant l lcht c which is a shell company created in delaware toward the end of the campaign.l lcht c which is a shell company created in delaware toward the end of the campaign.lcht c which is a shell company created in delaware toward the end of the campaign. c which is a shell company created in delaware toward the end of the campaign.c which is a shell company created in delaware toward the end of the campaign. >> so a lot of shadiness around it. >> brian, we know that michael cohen -- people have told me that campaign officials, transition officials suggested that they didn't know that this was going on, that they didn't know cohen was establishing this sort of lobbying shop. they also acknowledge company men had o cohen had one-on-one face time with the candidate at the time that they were not privy to. so in terms of your reporting, what are you hearing in terms of what sort of knowledge or visibility the president may have on this with michael cohen and what sort of legal

ramifications could cohen face if he -- he is not registered as a lobbyist. is there is a suggestion that he could be in murky water here particularly since some of these clients were international clients? >> i spoke with rudy giuliani yesterday and he described a phone call he had with the president on tuesday night around 8:30. he and jay sekulow got on the phone with president trump and described the wire transfers that michael avenatti had made public. and the president told giuliani i don't know anything about it. so the president has told his personal lawyers that he doesn't know about essential consultants or the payments being made. and rudy giuliani said he dismissed the issue and said it has nothing to do with us. he felt that if it was related to the president, that mueller would have held on to it in his investigation and not referred it out. obviously the president's legal counsel believes that the cohen case was referred from 3450muels

office. and giuliani felt that this was prosecutors chasing rainbows. and so the president and his legal counsel deny that there is any knowledge the president had about payments being made to essential consulting about these fortune 500 companies making payments to michael cohen to try to influence the president. and we'll have to see what the record shows. >> all right. incredible conversations this morning. we'll be reading your reporting in the "new york times." and your piece is in the new issue of "time." ahead, one of the last people you would expect to see on our set. that is next.

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looks like he hooked it. we'll do anything... takes after his grandad. seriously anything, to help you invest for the future. ally. do it right. oh, yeah, boom. >> mika, trying to figure out who's the last person we would have. like vladimir putin? >> almost. >> cryptic tease. >> maybe paris hilton? milton berle? he may be dead, but you wouldn't expect milton berle. >> it's definitely not milton. >> who is it? >> tapper. >> who is it? >> tapper. >> no way. >> tapper's here. jake tapper. >> we don't have to go into him. it's nobody's business. >> i'm glad you said it because i was thinking. >> it's nobody's business. >> do not get -- >> you've become one of us.

>> wow. >> i just meant -- >> exactly. >> what did you think? >> no, i'm just -- >> mika, let me take it from here. >> okay. >> hey, joe. >> okay. and by the way, kids, do not google milton berle at home. so -- >> i didn't raise milton berle, by the way, i didn't bring him up. just for the record. >> you raise something. we'll get to that rathlater. just some breaking news, and then get to your extraordinary book. look at this. >> it's been about a year since this investigation began. >> one year of watergate is enough. >> our administration has been fully cooperating. >> i have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material. >> our administration's provided over 1 million documents. >> i believe i've provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations. >> in the interest of the

country, i think it's time to wrap it up. >> i believe the time has come. >> i would very respectfully encourage. >> that investigation. >> -- bring their work -- >> -- to an end. >> wow. >> well done. >> why write original material when nixon can write it for you? so mike pence obviously making news this morning. taking on the role of spiro agnew. >> i don't mean to do a shameless plug right into the book. >> go ahead. >> the book takes place in 1954. >> right. >> they say history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. and whether it is mccarthyism or the defenses that you just heard from nixon and vice president pence. there's a lot of rhyming. there's a lot of rhyming. you know, when it's the saturday night massacre versus firing james comey. there are a lot of themes that keep playing out every few decades in this country.

by the way, that was a very smooth plug for your book and also that whole history rhymes thing. we usually hear that from meacham and then we have to hear about shea's rebellion so we're glad it's you. this book is an update i think of one of my favorite movies, "mr. smith goes to washington." but unlike frank kappa, this is a lot more clear eyed, a lot tougher work at washington than '54 and the parallels to 2018 pretty frightening. >> the main character, charlie martyr, is a young idealistic republican congressman, eisenhower republican. comes to congress with his very strong wife margaret. he wants to do good. i've seen this. i'm sure everybody here has seen this. good people coming to washington, trying to do good. then bit by bit, they compromise in order to achieve what they want. the next thing you know, after taking one foot into the swamp and another foot into the swamp,

they don't know how to get out and they've lost their way. and then the other thing of course is i couldn't read about the mccarthy era, you can't read about it without hearing echoes today to president trump. obviously mccarthy and trump are very different people. mccarthyism and trumpism, very different. but the idea of a major political figure who as part of his strategy, his political strategy, tells lies and smears people gratuitously, that's something that washington didn't know how to deal with in the '50s and it's something that washington doesn't know how to deal with today. and on the set here among people who have been smeared, it's just something that resonates and one of the things that's interesting is that back then people in the '50s, there were people that had moral clarity, like senator margaret shea smith, great republican senator, out of maine. a lot of people who enabled this stuff and just tried to, like, steer away from it not get tied up in it. at the end of the day, their

legacies don't survive that era very well. >> in the early days, jon meacham and i were talking about this last night at different events, she was called chase and the six dwarfs because there was only seven in total who would sponsor against mccarthy. we've never seen anything like it. it's unprecedented. in fact, with one central figure in roy cohen, you can go from roy cohen representing mccarthy, representing donald trump, in a style, a street fighter style, a counter punch or whatever the white house likes to call it. what specific connection do you see in the way they like to conduct themselves? >> just lies and smears. the idea that they would be better at doing their jobs and more effective if they just didn't do that. if they just stuck to the truth. there were communists in the government in the 1950s. it's just that j edgar hoover was finding them.

mccathy wasn't. mccarthy was just half hazardly smearing people. >> one of the great things about this book is it recognizes a largely unrecognized decade in the american history, the 1950s truly important decade that gets glossed over. one thing, when you read the book, you look at today's headlines, it's pretty similar in the sense that we sit here every morning, joe especially, a member of the republican party, form malley. what happens, where is no one standing up to protest what's going on out of the oval office? where are they? are they clueless? without courage? and you have dwight eisenhower, you know, president of the united states, republican, said very little about joe mccathy. >> there's a great book by david nichols called ike versus mccarthy that he makes the argument that eisenhower the whole time was setting a trap

for mccarthy. so you can make that argument. joe mccarthy is a character in the book. roy cohn, and that debate, are we becoming that which we loathe, that which we oppose, is one that played out in the '50s and we're going through it again. >> all right. hey, jake, we -- unfortunately, the mike pence news shortened this segment a bit. i tell you what we'd like to do, a little bit of housekeeping. we're already over. it's not the first time, won't be the last time, we apologize, but we'd love to do a post-tape with you right after this, put it up online or maybe put it up on tomorrow's show. thank you so much. we greatly appreciate it. thank you, guys, for watching us. the book is hellfire's club, jake tapper. >> stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika, thanks, joe. hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning, we've got a