they don't know what the feds in new york have. they don't know what michael cohen is willing to talk about and how loudly he's willing to sing, so to speak. it has them quite worried. there's a great deal of concern in the orbit and we'll see where it goes. >> all right, my thanks to phil rucker, frank, michael, joyce, eugene and ken. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> bearing, bearing, i'm happy. >> you have to have mike pompeo before they got all the great folks here. >> that's all good. that's all good. i'm just happy to be back. >> we missed you. >> i missed you, i missed everybody, so it's good to be back. >> welcome back. >> thank you. if it's wednesday, it's a summer grilling on the hill.

good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." you are looking live at capitol hill where the current secretary of state, mike pompeo, is being grilled from both sides of the aisle basically by the senate foreign relations committee. he is testifying for the first time since last week's, i don't know what you call it, but that summit. don't call it a summit, call it a meeting, but it was a pr disaster between president trump and vladimir putin. the incredible fallout from that meeting, summit, whatever, continues to escalate to the point where we're starting tonight's show with a question facing republicans that shows you just how far the party has moved under president trump. that question is would republicans rather win with putin's help or lose without it? it's a provocative question, we know. but so far in this hearing pompeo has been defiant and he claims this president has a clear-eyed view of the russian threat. >> i want you to know president trump has stated that he accepts our intelligence community's conclusion that russia meddled in the 2016 election. he has a complete and proper

understanding of what happened. i know. i briefed him on it for over a year. >> well, if the president has a complete and proper understanding of what happened in 2016, why has he gone to such great lengths to publicly downplay and at times dispute what happened in 2016? why does he keep trying to undermine the investigation into what happened in the 2016 election? also as democrats are point out, pompeo doesn't know for sure what happened in that private trump/putin meeting last week because no one does except two people. trump, putin and possibly the two translators. folks, it's hard for some to take pompeo's assurances that the president is fully comprehending the russian threat at face value. just consider what the president claimed yesterday. that putin is, quote, pushing very hard for democrats to win back congress. well, there's zero evidence to back that up and we haven't heard pompeo give us any. but there is evidence that president trump is, perhaps, laying the groundwork to help himself politically by

potentially claiming, one, that the midterms are somehow rigged if democrats win back the house and, two, that he's being framed by the russia investigation. and then there's russia. do you think they see that tweet about interfering with our democracy as a warning from president trump or an invitation? based on mueller's court filings, we know that the russians were actually eager to help when then candidate donald trump publicly asked them to help find hillary clinton's e-mails. you may laugh at that, but that was in that indictment. and the questions surrounding the trump/putin relationship have only intensified after last week's bizarre summit where mr. trump sided publicly with putin over his own department of justice. now, the president's team, including pompeo, have warned russia against attacking our democracy again. so a lot of people surrounding the president have been doing this, just not the president. some of the arguments we've heard from the president and his legal team suggest they might be trying to condition some of their supporters to believe that, one, maybe what russia did was no big deal, and two, that things would be so much worse under the democrats so maybe we should thank the russians.

which brings us back to this question for republicans. would they rather win with putin's help or lose without it? let's bring in tonight's panel. shane harris, danielle pletka, and cornell belcher. hello. >> hello. >> thank you for being my first panel back. shane, let me start with you. we're hearing pompeo. this is an interesting committee hearing because you're not getting tough questions from one side, pattycake questions from the other, you're getting some interesting tough questions from both sides of the aisle. >> absolutely. the thrust of those questions is what happened in that room with vladimir putin and donald trump at that meeting. i don't think mike pompeo can really say that he fully knows. dan coats remember last week told an audience in aspen he didn't know, so i'm not exactly sure why mike pompeo would know and why president trump would be a completely reliable narrator in this but that is deeply frustrating for a committee that is supposed to be exercising overnight of u.s./russia policy

and is already suspicious of this relationship. >> danielle, let me play for you an exchange between senator menendez and secretary pompeo. >> senator, i understand the game that you're playing. >> no, no, mr. secretary -- >> i do. i get it. >> with all due respect, i don't appreciate you characterizing my questions. my questions is to get to the truth. we don't know what the truth is. >> you do. >> and the only way we will know what the truth is, what transpired in those two hours in a highly amazing period of time to spend alone one-on-one is by understanding at least if you were briefed by the president what he told you. i don't think that's unfair to know, to understand what policies -- >> how is mr. pompeo doing? >> well, i think he's doing the best in a very difficult situation. look, it's the height of unprofessionalism for any president of the united states, no matter what his party is, not to have his staff in the room. not to sit there and correct him or report on him but to help him

understand what was said afterwards. what did putin really mean when he said that? what do you think he was implying when he asked that? >> just look at the north korean -- what they say the word denuclearization means and what we do. they think we're going to get rid of all of our nukes. by the way, all of them, globally. >> and maybe donald trump agreed to that. but i'll say this. there is an upside that people don't talk about enough to this, which is when the staff isn't in the room and the president doesn't actually know what was said, they don't do anything. they are not -- i'm completely serious. i was a staffer for a long time and people would run into my boss and say to me, i just saw the senator and he told me x. and i'd say that's wonderful. i'll need to hear that from him. and i never did. >> or he might say x. he knew it was y but he was having to tell the senator that it was x. >> exactly. >> by the way, just to show you this isn't just menendez, a

democrat, going after pompeo. here's bob corker who has had his own run-ins with this administration but the chair of the foreign relations committee. >> you come before a group of senators today who are filled with serious doubts about this white house and its conduct of american foreign policy. the administration tells us don't worry, be patient, there's a strategy here, but from where we sit, it appears that in a ready, fire, aim fashion, the white house is waking up every morning and making it up as they go. >> cornell, when i read corker's statement and then went -- opening statement, they released that early and then i looked. is this menendez's or corker's statement. >> corker is free now because he's apparently not running anymore so he's free to act like you would expect a senator to act. >> we have a new game show coming up about republicans running or retiring based on sound. >> our country was attacked and russia is a serious threat and americans are growing in their

concern about russia, particularly after this summit. so it's good to see senator corker acting -- putting a check on this. i wish that more republican senators would, because that's the only way to actually fix this problem. >> what do we make, though, of pompeo's defensiveness here? is this a performance for just to reassure president trump? he doesn't seem -- it's weird. he came in with a few prepared things. we'll never recognize crimea. okay. and he wrote down, and by the way, we in no uncertain terms i've briefed the president. but he doesn't want to placate the skepticism. >> he can't look frankly like kirstjen nielsen has looked. >> he looks almost appall jet ix. >> he better than any other cabinet secretary has managed that relationship with the president by not contradicting him, not embarrassing him, not

making him look out of the loop, really being there to back him up and then essentially present himself as the rational, sensible one in control and say let's talk about the policy and not the optics of the president. he's navigated that really skillfully, better than any of the others. >> i want to pick up on something the president tweeted yesterday and also show you an old tweet from july. i believe it was actually a tweet of an old tweet that he made. this is mckay coppins. trump just pivoted to aren't you glad russia helped us defeat hillary clinton? would there be any serious blowback from his base? >> no, there wouldn't be any blowback because the base of the party is now trump. the remnants of reagan are gone. this is donald trump's party. look at the internals and the polling. you have less than 20% of republicans now who think russia is the enemy. can you imagine that ten years ago where republicans and reagan were fighting against russians?

now you have more republicans who don't think that russia is the enemy, you have more democrats thinking russia is the enemy than republicans. >> you usually try to keep the snarky and cynicism to a minimum. are we being too cynical? >> i remember when mitt romney suggested russia was a genuine threat. this really has been an awakening for the democrats that they perceive russia as a genuine threat. >> will they still believe that when trump wins office? >> china will help the democrats because russia will help the russians. >> yes, the democrats are owned by the chinese. the republicans by the russians. what about us americans? >> well, we should be helping ourselves just a tad better. >> how did we get to a place, dani, where in less than two years the republican party is now defending a bailout,

supporting tariffs, okay with whatever this extramarital thing is. and look, i don't -- the michael cohen tape is more interesting because of what michael cohen -- we'll talk about that a little bit later. he did it in less than two years. in less than two years he flipped the republican base. >> i think he's freaked out the republican party in ways that we have not seen the party freak out in many, many decades. you guys are much better on the politics of this than i am. but -- >> you're a policy conservative. what has happened to you, right? you must be shell shocked. >> well, when i talk to republican politicos, they just seem lost. they seem untethered from what the base is. they don't know what the base is. they don't know how to talk to them. this is why as we've said only a thousand times on the show, this is why republicans in congress are so supine because they don't want to do the wrong thing and get voted out. they know there's a base out there for trump, but they just don't know who else is out there. >> what about the georgia governor. the guy who accidentally tells

the truth. the republican base will vote for the guy with the biggest truck, the biggest gun and the biggest trump supporter. that's exactly what happened. >> they feel that that guy was set up by the liberal media, by the elites. >> but the other guy was set up by conservative media elite of some sort. >> to the point about too whether they're being to cynical, will republicans react to the fact that russia helped donald trump get elected. many republicans do not believe that. he has been very successful in the rhetoric -- >> this is where i'm confused by his gas lighting. if he doesn't believe the russians meddled, then how are they going to meddle and help the democrats? . am i trying to create logic? >> there's a fundamental problem and we'll have to struggle with this, right? my guy, howard dean, said this a while back criticizing democrats. they're not necessarily voting for -- against their self interests, they're voting for their higher interests. when you look at what donald trump represents, sort of the big strong man against all the

sort of unknowns, the tribalism, a lot of other things, those other things are falling away and they're voting for what is their higher interests and a lot of that is built around fear. >> it got lost, but nikki haley trying to lecture people about just owning the libs is not a strategy. good for her. >> all in the same day. >> all right, guys, i've got to pause it here, stick around. i have a tremendous thing about rigging on the election that we will have it for later in the show, i promise. but up ahead, the latest on secretary pompeo's grilling on the hill. it's still going on right now. and what are the implications for americans' intelligence community? a great question from tim kaine to mike pompeo about this. we'll talk about it with leon panetta. are you ready to take your wifi to the next level?

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join the fight at alz.org/walk. welcome back. we are continuing to monitor secretary of state mike pompeo's testimony before the senate foreign relations committee. joining me now is someone who knows a little something about foreign policy and the intel community and it's leon panetta. he was defense secretary and cia director at different times under president obama. he was also previously a white house chief of staff, omb director, budget committee chairman, member of congress, served in a republican white house, democratic white house. any way, i'd run out of time if i keep doing the resume. nice to see you, sir. let me start with a basic question to educate us all. why do you have a security clearance still and what's the purpose of it? >> the former directors of the

cia retain a security clearance in the event that the director of the cia wants to call you, either back to washington or call you to brief you on what's going on and try to seek your advice. that's usually the purpose of having that kind of clearance. you know, when i was director, i called upon my former directors, actually brought them to meetings at langley and briefed them, had staff there brief them on sensitive issues and then kind of open it up to get their advice. >> how does that process work when you leave government? so you retain a clearance. do you check in? do you have to file a disclosure form once a year? do people need to know about your finances? what are the rules for sort of

ex-officios? >> you know, chuck, i don't know what the rules are other than -- >> i don't either, that's why i'm asking. i don't know. i guess what we're trying to find out, is the president's threat meaningful? >> well, obviously the president has, i would assume, the authority to actually revoke somebody's clearance if that's what he wants to do. obviously the way the rules are with regards to clearances, you usually don't lose a clearance unless you've abused it in some way, either revealing classified information or having some personal problems that could raise questions about whether you could retain classified information. but to just do it because you don't particularly like the comments that somebody is making with regards to your presidency, that's probably an abuse of that responsibility. >> and is it only the cia that

gets this? is it only the high level members of intel, or when do you stop keeping that clearance? deputy director, next level down, what is that? what is your understanding? >> i don't know all the rules as to who retains those security clearances or not. i do know that former directors of the cia have that clearance. >> let me move to this issue of trying to figure out what president trump and vladimir putin talked about in that two-hour meeting. you've seen a lot of back-and-forth. secretary pompeo seems to indicate he thinks he has a pretty good understanding. do you believe him? >> you know, i watched the testimony. i think mike pompeo did the best job he could under the circumstances. obviously he wasn't present at that meeting between putin and

trump. you know, it's obvious that -- you know, it's hard to really be able to understand just exactly what was discussed and what was agreed to. i think what you're seeing here is kind of a disconnect. it's a disconnect between mr. trump and the tweets and the discussions and the things he likes to do and what mike pompeo called u.s. policy, which is what he and jim mattis and i guess bolton to some extent all agree is u.s. policy. and that's much more consistent with what the united states has stood for. but there is this disconnect. and i think mike pompeo obviously had a difficult time responding to chairman corker's comments about why is there this disconnect with the president who says what he says and yet what you say about u.s. policy? and i don't think mike gave a very good answer on that one.

>> there was -- politico reported on something today called a special collection service at your former employer over in langley there, the cia, where obviously the u.s. government essentially has the ability to find out through perhaps taps of russian officials, orders that are sent around to who putin briefed and things like that, that actually the cia, that gina haspel might actually have a better idea right now what happened in that meeting than mike pompeo. is that how good your service -- the former -- this sort of special collection service is at the cia? >> well, there's not much question without going into classified information that there are -- >> i'm hoping to get you to lose your security clearance in this segment, sir. i'm teasing, yes. but go ahead and tell me about it. >> there's a lot of capabilities there.

and obviously there's no question in my mind that the russians probably did tape that conversation. whether the fins did it, whether other intelligence services did it, whether the cia had any capability there, whether nsa did, obviously we don't know the answer to that. but there's not much question in my mind, knowing the intelligence people and how they think, that somebody will -- has some kind of capability to know what went on in that room between president trump and president putin. >> and obviously without speculating, we don't know. but if it's something that's not what we're being told, that obviously would be explosive. let me ask you to comment on something a former -- it would be successor of yours said. john brennan said this at the helsinki press conference. donald trump's press conference performance in helsinki rises to

and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. it was nothing short of treasonous. not only were his comments imbesillic but he's wholly in the pockets of putin. i know you and john brennan don't use the same colorful language all the time. but do you agree with his sentiment there? >> you know, i'm careful, i guess as a lawyer, to use that kind of word without knowing whether or not you could prove that to be the case. and i have some question whether or not the president of the united states betrayed this country and deliberately tried to betray it. i think the bigger issue -- >> do you think that happened on the stage? did you feel like the president betrayed the country on that stage, sharing that stage with putin and saying what he said about the intel community? >> you know, i think the president made a comment. he then came back to this

country and tried to correct the comment that he made. i think it's just going to -- it's difficult to kind of nail down that kind of charge against the president of the united states. i think on the other hand the real issue is whether or not the president, as president of the united states, exercised his responsibility correctly as president in dealing with russia and in dealing with the issues that were involved in that discussion. i think that that is an area that can very well be questioned and has been questioned, not only by democratic senators but by republican senators. i think that's what we ought to focus on. >> what is -- what is the average intelligence officer who commutes to work every day, back and forth from langley to wherever they live in suburban virginia, what does it do to their morale? >> well, you don't like to hear

the president of the united states say that he trusts russia more than he trusts our own intelligence people when it comes to the issue of russian interference in our election. and when a president says that and you're an agent or an officer in the cia and you're out there putting your life on the line trying to gather intelligence on what our enemies are up to and you hear the president say that, there's no question it impacts on morale. at the same time, i know these people pretty well and they're going to continue to put their lives on the line. they're going to continue to do their job. but does it impact on their morale? you damn right it does. >> you've seen the "salt lake tribune" paper calling on jon huntsman to resign because of what happened in russia. some have called on dan coats to resign on principle. neither one of them have done it. jon huntsman gave a very thoughtful rebuttal, it was an

interesting rebuttal that he made. i think an interesting point/counterpoint. where do you sit on this issue. you've served on administrations where you disagree on policy. when do you think a public serve anxie -- servant should use its threat of resignation as a statement? >> chuck, i think you have to look at this particular administration and this particular president, who's obviously very erratic and unpredictable in the way he handles himself. and for me, frankly, i find some degree of comfort in having people like coats, huntsman, pompeo, mattis there to try to provide at least some guidance, some advice, some ability to try to protect this president from making a terrible decision with regards to this country.

so, yeah, i know there's going to be disagreements. every individual has to make up their own mind as to whether or not that line has been crossed in terms of their conscience. but i think in this situation, i would be a hell of a lot more comfortable having those people in their positions than not in their positions. >> leon panetta, a lot of formers, but you're always a walnut farmer to me. and i know that's always what you want to be known as. leon panetta, thank you, sir. always good to hear you come on and share your views. >> thanks, chuck. up ahead, lordy, there's a tape. the latest on former trump fixer michael cohen's salvo against the president. here's a clue. the real news has nothing to do with what's on the tape. hi, i'm joan lunden with a place for mom,

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with a game we're going to call running or retiring. here's how it works. i'll play a sound bite from a republican criticizing president trump. you try to guess whether that office holder is running for re-election or retiring. ready? first up, congressman ryan costello of pennsylvania. take a listen. >> i'm going to be the first person to tell you i have little kids and i don't want them to ask me what does stormy daniels do for a living. >> hmm, tough on president trump, tough on stormy daniels.

so what do you think, running or retiring? retiring, got it. okay. next up, here's congressman jeb henter ling of texas. in fact he called the money a bailout. >> and every single bailout ultimately is going to be borne by our children and our grandchildren. again, the answer is trade, not aid. so yes, this is a bailout. i'm opposed to it. >> so, conservative texas republican. running or retiring? you guessed it, retiring. moving on we have congressman charlie dent on whether president trump paid hush money to stormy daniels. >> i think there's certainly a role for congress. if a democratic president had done this, we'd be waving a bloody shirt right now. >> how about denlt, running or retiring?

actually resigning early in order to get out of here. beginning to sense a pattern? here's mark sanford of south carolina. >> i would argue that the president is at least partially to blame for demons that have been unleashed. >> i wouldn't be surprised if you missed that. sanford was running, but once he said a few critical things like that, well, he lost his primary and now he's not running. now, we don't mean to criticize those members of congress. at least they said something, which is more than you can say for their colleagues who are running for re-election. and what happened to mark sanford shows you just how perilous it is for republicans to say what they really think. but wouldn't it be nice to hear from them say in public what they say to reporters every day? , little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable

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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. welcome back. the man who once declared he'd take a bullet for president trump is now figuratively speaking firing one at him. michael cohen's lawyer gave cnn

a recording of a conversation about his then client, donald trump, about buying the rights to former playboy model's story, karen mcdougal, claiming a months-long affair. the tape shows that contrary to white house statements, president trump did in fact know about the proposed payoff two months before the election. even if he ultimately never made the payment, as his legal team says. cohen appears to tell mr. trump about his plans to set up a shell company to buy the story rights from the pusher. the publisher paid $150,000 for the story and the right to kill it. nbc news hasn't confirmed that the original recording wasn't edited or altered. here's a key part where cohen seems to refer to publisher head, david pecker. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, david, so that -- i'm going to do that right away. i've spoken to allen weisselberg about how to set the whole thing

up with -- >> so what are we going to do? >> with funding -- yes. >> president trump blasted cohen in a tweet this morning asking, quote, what kind of a lawyer would tape a client? so sad. some might ask why would somebody hire a lawyer like this? that's another question. joined now by mimi rocah, a former u.s. assistant attorney in the southern district of new york. mimi, i think that a lot of focus has been on what's on the tape when the more important aspect in all of this may be the fact that michael cohen chose to publicly disclose the tape. why is it more important in your mind and in frankly the minds of most legal analysts that just the action of cohen doing this is so meaningful, forget what the substance of the tape is? >> well, chuck, i think it signals in a sharp way what he's been signaling for the past couple of weeks, which is his

break in loyalty from trump. as you said at the beginning, everyone knows that he famously or infamously said he would take a bullet for donald trump. and it is that loyalty that needed to sort of be broken in order for him to psychologically really be able to come around and decide to cooperate. and i don't know if he's taken any actual steps to do that with prosecutors, but, you know, i think that doing something like this, trying to really expose trump in the way that he has really, you know, again, signals in blinking lights that he wants to cooperate. >> all right. >> yeah. >> but i'm curious, you as a prosecutor, a former prosecutor, wouldn't you feel more comfortable if michael cohen just called you up and said, hey, i want to talk. >> absolutely. >> what i don't get is why buy a billboard? because essentially what he did

is he bought a billboard and he went ahead and bought a billboard in times square to say, hey, give me a deal. why? why do this publicly? >> i agree. i don't think it's a good strategy, quite honestly. if he wants to cooperate, he should keep his mouth shut and go talk to the kwacooperators a not talk to the press and be on this pr campaign. but for whatever reason i view when he erased trump from his twitter, the trump organization, i view this as his public breakup. he literally needs to have a break with him. this is someone he looked up to and was very close to. this reminds me of almost every mafia case i did for about six years in the u.s. attorney's office. and i'm telling you, that the best -- >> the consigliary has to suddenly feel scorned? >> well, yes. i think trump did a lot here to sort of push cohen if he ends up in the arms of the government because he really didn't do himself any favors by sort of

sidelining him in the past couple of months. but the best cooperators in the organized crime world and elsewhere are the people who were the -- were the most loyal to their supervisors or bosses, because they know the secrets. and the whole point, as you pointed out, i mean the fact that trump is complaining now about cohen sort of underhandedly taping him, which it is underhanded and no legitimate lawyer would do that, but that's exactly why trump picked cohen as his lawyer. he didn't go out and get a real lawyer, he picked cohen because he would do that kind of dirty work. >> he was looking for a specific resume and specific willingness objective on that resume? >> exactly. >> not your normal -- what do they say about spurned lovers, right? they can be the most vicious, whatever this relationship is. let me ask you this. why shouldn't we interpret him

as begging for a pardon? why couldn't it be a flashing billboard for that? or is this his response of finding out he can't get one isn't -- get one? >> this is getting really deep in the mind of michael cohen. but mr. avenatti has been out there saying he does think this is cohen appealing for a pardon still. i don't think so because i think that there are so many things that he has said that are sort of irreversible at this point about trump. he's not just sending signals anymore, he's shouting from the mountaintops bad things about trump, things that are damaging or could be damaging to trump. so if he's looking for a pardon, for a man like trump, i don't think he's going to get it. >> very quickly, allen weisselberg, he is the lone guy from the fred trump era that has sort of stayed with donald trump the whole time. should he be getting his own lawyer? >> i would if i were him. the way his name comes up on

this recording, i think this recording is a -- not standing alone but is a good piece of evidence prosecutors could use, particularly with mr. cohen if he cooperates, against weisselberg and others in a conspiracy charge. >> all right. mimi rocah, thank you for providing your expertise. southern district of new york expertise very useful these days. thanks for coming on and sharing your views. up ahead, a red sign for republicans. the big blue wall that collapsed in 2016 may be on the way to being rebuilt. that's next. rodney -- mastermind of discounts like safe driver, paperless. the list goes on. how about a discount for long lists? gold. mara, you save our customers hundreds for switching almost effortlessly. it's a gift. and jamie. -present. -together we are unstoppable. so, what are we gonna do? ♪

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prevagen. healthier brain. better life. welcome back. in tonight's "meet the midterms" perhaps some buyer's remorse in two of the states that helped put donald trump in the white house, michigan and wisconsin. president trump beat hillary clinton 48-47 in michigan two years ago but in the latest nbc news/marist poll only 36% approve of the president's performance. looking ahead, 62% would like to give a new person a chance. just 28% think donald trump deserves to be re-elected. in wisconsin, with less than 50% of the vote, he won with 48%. according to our poll, 36% of registered wisconsin voters approve of the president's performance. 52% disapprove and an

overwhelming 63% of voters think someone else deserves a chance. 31% would like to see donald trump get a second term. the next presidential election is two years from now but this year's midterms are just three and a half months from now and when nearly two-thirds of voters say someone other than the republican president should be elected that, has to set off alarm bells for republicans hoping to not just maintain control of congress this cycle, but worried about all levels of power in 2020. we'll be right back with more "mtp daily" after the break. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

when mit rocked our world.ailed we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they took care of everything a to z. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that's a privilege. time now for the lid. the panel is back. shane harris, danielle pletka, cornell belcher. now, i want to get to the significance of cohen's actions, not with what's in there in a minute, but before i wanted to get this rigged election thing. maybe this is me coming back from my nine-daybreak, but i have a feeling this smells like something that's coming back, where he's suddenly saying the russians are colluding and all this stuff. the president loves to complain

about things that are rigged. in fact he's done it so many times we've got a scroll. this is what he has said has been rigged. the gop primaries, the gop delegates, the democratic primaries, the general election, the russia investigation, the clinton investigation, the rig. the election investigation. the clinton investigation. the federal court system. the polls. media is rigged. the federal economy. the emmys were rigged. and whatever the system is. the system is also rigged. he's now saying this. we're kind of laughing at it, but he's literally, if he's telling you no, the elevator didn't go down, it went up. >> and his base will eat it up. >> why? >> because they eat up everything he says. why do they believe anything he says. but they stick with him. so when democrats get -- >> they tell us in polls that they know he's bs-ing, that he doesn't mean half the stuff. >> they're still with him,

right? it's how -- it's hard to sit with a guy and say i'm with that guy, but he's a horrible liar. like, i like you, chuck, but i wouldn't come on your show if i thought you were a horrible liar. >> we had pollsters say it takes two terms for that. nixon got reelected, remember, danny. >> i do think this goes to a deeper problem. yes, of course, donald trump thinks everything where he's not going to win is something that's rigged. but at the same time, it does underscore that there's a mund fu -- fundamental discontent with people and their government and hair systems. they actually do believe they are rigged and not responsive. this is why we end up with so many third parties. >> you just conflated something. i agree, it's rigged versus responsive. that's the problem. we can't conflate -- i think people have conflated the word, meaning the lack of responsive, assuming the government is rigged. it may be it's so bureaucratic. >> that may be. if i look at what happened in

france, with a third party that no one had ever heard before came up and won the election. >> didn't just get do well, won or in italy, two new parties dominating the government, no one's heard of, no one's sure what they stand for. >> still figuring it out. >> unfortunately not in a good way. >> what people believe is that the existing political parties are perhaps too bureaucratic. it's jammer is bob is going to win. i'm sick of jim and bob. >> i think that both the two major parties have not reformed themselves to respond to this movement. neither party has. they're just trying to save their relevancy by winning elections still. >> that was donald trump's pitch when he ran, thest the party of trump, and not the republican party. >> there is no republican party. by the way, i think we're finding out there wasn't one before trump. it had already died. and trump took advantage. >> he took d-- exactly, he foun the carcass and reused it.

>> gross image. >> try a different metaphor next time. but he believes that many voters are as fed up and cynical as he is. he's being honest when he talks about the rigged nature of things. he has no problem demonstrating what he feels insecure about. everything that danny said on that scroll -- >> it's a personal projection. >> precisely. he doesn't mind showing that to you. that candor is what voters find appealing. he believes that fundamentally everyone is as angry about it as he is. that's where much of the enthusiasm of the base comes from. >> that's where he lives in that anger. >> the reintroduction of michael cohen back to the saga. when it's concentrated on russia, putin and mueller, it's bad for the white house. every time the story swerves into the seediness of michael cohen, stormy mcdaniels, karen -- donald trump is not handling the michael cohen

betrayal well. this is only the beginning of a twitter war. >> so he really has an opportunity here, just as you laid out, i mean, michael cohen has revealed himself to be a dishonest, bad, unethical lawyer, kind of a scum bag actually. >> for donald trump. a person that donald trump decided for ten years to -- >> i don't know michael cohen. so i don't know why donald trump chose him. although people choose lawyers for -- >> speculate. >> i won't speculate on this one. i'll say he could let this go and everybody would focus on -- he could let michael cohen self-imlate. it's donald trump who's never able to do that. >> michael cohen knows that. >> and that's -- so you think -- look, it was amazing to me how we're all putting michael cohen on a couch here a little bit. but he definitely -- he needed to publicly break from his -- >> yeah, i agree. the legal strategy seems unsound

and ill advised. i don't know what he's up to. >> it doesn't sound like he gave great advice to donald trump either. >> he has donald trump's number. had it for a long time. this feels like he's trying to psych him out. >> but this is the drip, drip, drip. it's beginning to have an impact. when you look at his -- this drip, drip, drip. >> doesn't help. >> yeah. >> all right, guys, thank you. up ahead, unicorns and rainbows. today, there are more sensors on our planet than people.

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in case you missed it, sean spicer is back in the news. he's got a spicy new account of his interesting time as white house press secretary. it's called "the briefing." but the language, not so sober. the book, spicer describes president trump as the sun on which all the planets orbited. he describes the commander in chief as the energizer bunny, which i suspect sean spicer might know something about. that's not all he described the president as, a unicorn, riding a unicorn, over a rainbow. and not just a unicorn, a unicorn riding a unicorn, doubles the kurin unicorniness

all. if you have one unicorn, how do you get two? never judge a pook by its cover. honestly, it would be a lot easier if you could. all right, that answered my question at least what do you do with the extra tusk or horn or antler. that's all for tonight. we'll be tomorrow with more "mtp daily." we begin tonight with the first time the american public has ever heard a recording of donald trump speaking when he thought no one was listening to his lawyer michael cohen. this tape is by donald trump's former lawyer, and it is of their private conversation, and it's about not normal planning or random stuff, just take in tonight what we're talking about, secret payments allegedly planned to be made to a former playboy model who claimed she had a relationship with then candidate trump. so let's break down exactly what we know and don't know. not everything on the tape is bad. for exampl