donald trump today sought to put his base on a war footing against the men and women investigating russian interference in the 2016 election. and for donald trump, the issue of stripping security clearances from critics of his foreign policy comes down to the reaction of the crowd. here's the president this morning and the response of his unprecedented action of retaliating against a critic by depriving former cia director john brennan of his security clearance. >> i've gotten tremendous response from having done that because security clearance is very important to me, very, very important. and i've had a tremendous response for having done that. if anything, i'm giving him a bigger voice. many people don't even know who he is, and now he has the bigger voice and that's okay with me because i like taking on voices like that. i've never respected him. i've never had a lot of respect --

>> i'm waiting for him to ask for a cut of his income. proving that an attack on one is an attack on all, members of the u.s. intelligence community including 13 former intel chiefs, most of whom have served under democratic and republican presidents rebuked trump's broadside against brennan in a rare statement. writing, quote, we have never before seen the approval or removal of political clearances as was done in this case. beyond that this action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials. as individuals who have cherished and helped preserve the right of americans to free speech, even when that right has been used to criticize us, that signal is inappropriate and deeply regrettable. in explaining the swell of concern about donald trump's conduct from former officials of all political persuasions, one of the signatories told me today, quote, you simply can't do this. the intelligence community doesn't function like this. speaking today to a source familiar with then candidate trump's early interactions with the intelligence community, i'm told that donald trump while

eager to charm some of his briefers, was always skeptical of intelligence officials and viewed the entire community, even during the campaign, as putting its finger on the scale for the clintons. clearly nothing about becoming president has changed any of that and none of his advisors, not john bolton, not cia director gina haspel, secretary of state and former cia director pompeo have been able to or willing to dull the razor sharp edges of trump's animosity for the intelligence agencies that protect american national security. quite a stunning indictment of those men and women and their lack of influence. here to help us sift through the day's fireworks, some of our favorite reporters and friends. joining us from "the washington post" white house reporter ashley parke eer joyce vance, da edwards, and with us at the table is john heilemann is back and tim o'brien, executive editor for bloomberg opinion and author of the book "trump nation."

ashley, let me start with you. the intelligence community is usually reluctant to wade into domestic politics viewing their voice as something to preserve for times of war or grave national security crises. i'm told that they view the trump presidency, the encroachment into the intelligence community and their work, the disdain that he showed for their work product, and sort of the obliteration of norms as dire, as dire enough to warrant their participation. >> well, it's a striking group, a strikingly bipartisan group of former intel officials who signed that letter and striking the fact that they were willing to take the president on so publicly. and i think one thing that's interesting there is you see a disconnect between these members who are willing to speak out and lend their voice, which as you pointed out is something they don't ordinarily do because they view this as just such a matter of national importance, compared to the president himself who

sort of enjoys the power of being able to strip away security clearances and views this in a way as just another fight where he can elevate brennan to just another villain and go mano a mano against one person. so the stakes for these two sides seem quite different. >> john, i want to talk about a few of the names on the list because they had -- i don't actually know the party registration of anybody -- >> did you just call me john? >> heilemann. >> jesus, that's so weird. i was like looking around, who is on a remote named john. that can't be me. >> it's friday in august. my 6-year-old is here. >> how do i know your child is here? i can hear liam over there. we've got tootsie rolls, tgif. that's how we're rolling today. >> george bennett, critically important figure of george w. bush administration, porter goss, cia director under bush, hayden under bush, petraeus, one of the most significant and

important generals on the battle field in iraq architect of the counterinsurgency strategy there, and gates who served as secretary of defense for george w. bush and president obama. not a lot of people from the resistance on that list, not a one. so he's now at war with people who have -- who had -- i haven't tested it lately -- a sizeable impact on the republican presidency, the last one before his, as well as people with a lot of credibility inside the circles of sort of vanquished republicans who used to have a say over the direction of their party. >> he's always been at war with them. the difference is it was not open war and they hadn't been fighting back. he's been attacking them as a class, sometimes individually, for many, many months. as you point out, suspicion of people in this world go back to before he became president. by the time he was president-elect he was attacking this group. now he has gone so far with the brennan decision, although i would say it's like the straw on the camel's back.

the brennan decision triggered this. these people have been upset, troubled, concerned about the future of the country. most of them privately think trump is not fit for office. republican and democrat alike. >> some of them publicly. >> some of them have publicly said that. all of them have been kind of trying to hold their fire because unlike brennan, who very early decided that he is concerned about the future of the country as such that he had to speak out and break with the normal protocol for intelligence officials, high intelligence officials and start to take a public posture, many of these others really do not want to be on the public political stage, but they have felt the accumulation of slights, fears, and this was the thing that triggered them to come out. i don't know what effect it will have if it has any effect. but helsinki was a marker, important marker. this is the next stage in what looks like among respectable responsible people who care about the national security and understand the national security and intelligence needs of the country, his support now, donald

trump's, has utterly collapsed and collapsed in full public view. >> joyce, this is two things. this is using the granting and removing of security clearances as a political weapon. they are only supposed to be removed for national security risk if someone has leaked classified information. so to me the striking things about that letter are, one, pointing out a new norm that has been busted. but the other is what we said at the top, getting his base on a war footing against not just the mueller probe, but against the entire national security apparatus so that whatever is learned about russia's role in the 2016 election is brought down a notch in credibility. what does that look like to the men and women investigating this president? >> so, i think it will do nothing other than cause them to stiffen their resolve and continue to do their jobs in the best tradition of the justice department, to ignore the noise, to ignore the people on the outside who try to influence your work, and to proceed just

based on the facts and the law. and they'll do that. i don't have any doubt, but one of the real problems, one of the real issues with this presidency is the way he continues to demonize those people and will cast doubt in the public's mind over whether justice department employees will continue to act that way as they always have, looking just at the facts and the law. demonizing the intelligence community and the justice department is a long-term trump strategy so when ultimately facts come out in the direction we're now heading to indicate that his campaign, if not he personally engaged in collusion, he'll be able to say to his base and i think in his mind perhaps to the american people, look, it's those bad guys in the intelligence community and at the justice department. they're not fair. they've always had it in for me. john brennan was their ring leader. you can discount their conclusions about russian interference and my campaign's conspiracy, in essence, to defraud the united states.

>> joyce, let me stay with you and show you what the president said to illustrate your point just this morning. >> mr. mueller is highly conflicted. in fact, comey is like his best friend. i could go into conflict after conflict. but sadly, mr. mueller is conflicted. but let him write his report. we did nothing. there's no collusion. but if he's doing an honest report, he'd write it on the other side. >> he'd write it on the other side. i believe that jeff sessions was asked under oath about investigating the other side about having a special counsel investigate the other side. i believe the question was posed by jim jordan of all people, and he said that there is not enough there. so his own attorney general had to knock that down. but talk about that. and if you could also speak to jeremy bash's point this morning, he said in axios, my concern this morning is that trump will strip the clearances of bob mueller and the investigative team.

they obviously need access to classified information to conduct the mother of all counterintelligence investigations. >> and that's the real risk. trump continues to test the water to see just how far he can go. he's been busting norms from the get-go and we always like to say on this show that there's no bottom, and there really hasn't been with this administration. but there has to be a bottom. and when the president starts removing tools that law enforcement and intelligence professionals need to do their jobs, that has to be a bottom where people with the ability to control this president need to stand up and take notice. people in the senate, people on the hill and the republican leadership should be beating a path to the oval office to tell the president that he simply can't do this. they have let him get away with an awful lot and senator burr even came up with a justification for stripping john brennan of his security clearance. but the president is clearly on a path to do everything that he can to undercut the mueller investigation. at some point republicans have

to step in and say, you can't do this. >> ashley parker, we also have the bridge here between stripping a former intelligence chief of his clearance and what jeremy bash warns, of stripping mueller. it's an individual named bruce ohr. he's been targeted by presidential tweets, a justice department official. can you flesh out your understanding of the president's strategy in targieting this justice department official and talk about how they're trying to normalize the practice and then hone their targets? >> i think that's exactly it. you said normalize the practice. it is sort of the president on a lot of issues, not just this, does sort of test just how far he can go, what can he say, what can he tweet, what can he do and is there ever a red line from his base of support, from the public, and even from lawmakers in congress. and oftentimes the answer is no.

he can sort of do what he wants, and so i think that is part of that, getting a sense of how far he can go. one thing about bruce ohr that's interesting is we started hearing his name a couple weeks ago largely from conservatives on the hill and sort of in conservative echo chambers like fox news and talk radio and i was sort of personally waiting to see when would president trump actually mention his name, which i believe he first did in a tweet and comments today. and elevate him. that's something the president likes to do. oftentimes he takes causes brought to him by his allies and he's able to shine a spotlight on them, create a villain out of them and go much further than anyone else would be able to go against these people or on these issues. >> and let's stay right here, tim o'brien. this is part of the media run state, so much for state-run media. this is the president talking about this justice department official. this could be the test case to make the leap from stripping away clearances from former national security officials to

stripping away clearances from sitting justice department officials. watch the president on this employee today. >> i think bruce ohr is a disgrace. i suspect i'll be taking it away very quickly. i think that bruce ohr is a disgrace with his wife, nellie. for him to be in the justice department and to be doing what he did, that is a disgrace. that is disqualifying for mueller. >> doesn't work for mueller, he works at the justice department. it's reminiscent of his attacks on former acting fbi director andy mccabe and his wife who ran for political office. we should point out the other people targeted for removing their clearances are andy mccabe, jim comey and sally yates. i actually don't think any of them have clearances anymore. just talk about the tactic. >> it's not a new one. donald trump is 72 years old. he's been doing this kind of stuff for about 50 years, you know. in new york he went after regulators and local politicians who got in the way of his business. when he went into atlantic city and the fbi was looking at

possible organized crime ties there, he went after the fbi. this is not new behavior. and i think one of the long-term obscenities that is going to come out of this administration is this free-wheeling tarring of individuals who don't have the same kind of power the president has. and then this undermining of institutional credibility. you know, just in the last week he's famously called the media the enemies of the state. he's labeled the russian investigation a witch hunt. last week he referred to fact checkers. fact checkers as bad people, right. >> facts are bad for him. >> right, because the facts are bad for him. and the common thread uniting all of these attacks are these various institutions that play a role in our society to check power or question our powers used. the media, law enforcement and the intelligence community. and he is not somebody who likes to be checked. and i think one of the long-term impacts of trumpism is this, you know, injudicious and autocratic assault on things that are

non-partisan and nonideological. >> donna edwards, he's also being investigated for very specific crimes associated with this conduct. we have ashley's conduct in dwt the washington post" that reminds us today of the federal statute that prohibits retaliating against witnesses, which james comey, andy mccabe and sally yates all are. to the statute is whoever knowingly with the intent to retaliate takes any action harmful to any person including interference with the lawful employment or livelihood shall be find under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years or both. so he's also under investigation pie someone who i'm told is simply investigating crimes and deciding whether or not to charge and prosecute them. that's the mueller investigators. >> well, i mean, the president has actually shown no reluctance at all to continuing to add to the number of things that the special counsel can investigate. and what's really shocking here,

maybe not so shocking, is that we've heard virtually crickets from the congressional republicans. and instead we've heard more voices this time than at any other time actually agreeing with the president of the united states. and i think what disturbs me most in this is that, first of all, you have all of these intelligence officials coming out in a way that they never have before, and some of whom just don't really -- don't ever really speak on the record, and that is not enough to signal to congressional republicans that they have to put a stop to this president. you know, speaker paul ryan i think is shameful. he said it was trolling, now we know it's not trolling. the ball is in his court to stand up and put a check on this president, but i think we'll be waiting for many, many days for that. >> days? >> months.

>> how about forever? >> yeah, forever. >> i think forever, too. >> i do want to say one last thing about the group, we come back to the very top here, which is about general mcraven who, you know, 37 years in the u.s. navy, ran u.s. special operations command, jsoc, seal team 6, seal team 3. one of the most distinguished heroes in the last half century of the american military. donald trump said he didn't know him, never heard of him. and i raise it not because i'm surprised by his ignorance because i'm not surprised ever by donald trump being stupid. just as a political matter, the troops, the base, like -- if you were in the united states military right now and the commander in chief doesn't know who general mcraven was, what would you think if you were serving our country and that was what the president of the united states was saying? i don't know who the guy was who killed osama bin lauden. >> i think that's the cross for this white house, obviously matters of national security don't get through to him.

matters of decorum don't get through to him. matters of national security and preserving our ability to protect ourselves don't get through to him. maybe protecting your base is a way in. ashley parker thank you for starting us off and spending time with us today. after the break, is donald trump prepping for another pardon? the president sounding awfully sympathetic this morning for the plight of paul manafort. could a pardon me next? brand-new reporting suggests michael cohen had a change of heart about that hush money payment to a porn star after the "access hollywood" tape came out. now, could that timing spell trouble for the president? and donald trump should plan a return trip to france for the bastille day parade because his great big giant military parade is officially off. all those stories coming up. hi! how was your day? it was good. it was long. let's fix it. play "connection" by onerepublic. (beep) ♪these days, my waves get lost in the ocean♪ ♪seven billion swimmers man ♪i'm going through the motions

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i think the whole manafort trial is very sad. when you look at what's going on there, i think it's a very sad day for our country. he worked for me for a very short period of time, but you know what? he happens to be a very good person and i think it's very sad what they've done to paul manafort. >> i hope they have cable in jail. trump yet again blasting his own justice department. saying his former campaign chairman is not to blame. in fact, he's just a victim. this comes as we're awaiting a verdict in the manafort trial. the jury is asked to finish up the second day of deliberations by the end of the hour because one of the members of the jury has an event he or she would like to attend tonight. former assistant u.s. attorney daniel goldman joins us from outside the courthouse in virginia. take us through the day's

highlights. >> there are very few, nicolle. we surprisingly have not heard anything from the jury other than their request to go home at 5:00 p.m. today which came at about 2:40 when they sent a note asking to go at 5:00 instead of the usual 5:30. based on what we saw from the jury note at the end of the day which listed four questions, it does seem like they are very meticulously and carefully going through all 18 charges against paul manafort. and this is complicated law. the judge did not send the law back to the jury. he just sent a recording of him reading the law to them for nearly two hours, that they are supposed to sift through, i guess. it is a very unusual practice of this judge. but it does make it harder for them to figure out what the law is. and if they are going to be diligent about it, as they appear to be, it's not surprising that they're taking their time. >> joyce, let me ask you about this president, his penchant for

pardoning people he views as wrongfully somehow prutd. -- prosecuted. scooter libby, who pleaded guilty to perjury and obstruction, this is what he said about mr. libby. i don't know mr. libby, but for years i have heard that he's been treated unfairly. others that he pardoned, he was treated unfairly by our government. another, he wanted to take a couple of pictures an they put him in jail. i think these were all people that pleaded guilty, admitted to committing crimes. he has such a soft spot. what do you think he's doing with the pardons and is his appetite for pardoning potential witnesses or other people convicted of crimes associated to the mueller probe, does that pique anyone's interest? i know there was some reporting earlier in the year that john dowd dangling pardons in front of mike flynn and manafort had come up in some of mueller's questioning. >> i don't think the president has a soft spot for people like scooter libby who he's pardoned. i think instead he's engaged in a campaign strategically designed to communicate to some of his former friends like paul

manafort, like cohen, and in essence dangle pardons on twitter. it's been a really just i think in many ways very distressing process to watch. when the president says that paul manafort, who is on trial, who is accused of having committed serious crimes, he says he is a good man. i think he's getting a bad deal. if you're paul manafort and you hear about that and we all know paul manafort's heard about that, it's difficult to read that as anything other than a message to manafort, hold on, don't cut a deal with the government while the jury is out, which defendants sometimes do. a defendant who sees how bad the evidence is, then goes to the prosecutors and says, okay, i'm ready to plead guilty now. the president is in essence saying, don't do that. help is on the way. i can pardon you in the future. and even more, who knows if this is intentional or not, but a serious consequence is this jury isn't sequestered. if some juror should get wind of

what the president has said about paul manafort, it has great risk of prejudicing the jury. the president's conduct is reprehensible. he should be told to stay out of the criminal process and it may be that ultimately mueller and his investigators will do that, because although the president legally can issue pardons, and they have the force of law, there is nothing that says that those pardons can't be viewed by investigators if they're issued with a bad or wrongful motive, that they can't be viewed as part of an ongoing course of obstruction. >> daniel goldman, i want to ask you. i know there is a crush of media there covering that trial and we're grateful you're there covering it for us. but i want to ask you about some reporting that piqued my interest today. this from "the new york times." meet the special counsel team, they don't even disclose share shake shack orders. i wouldn't either. greg andre looks like any other guest at the westin hotel, in flip-flops and white notre dame t-shirt waiting for a delivery from shake shack. it would be unremarkable save

his role as the lead prosecutor for robert mueller in the trial of paul manafort. mueller's spokesman who is no comment replies become a running dark joke among the washington press corps would not even confirm mr. andre's order from shake shack. talk about how locked down, how locked up the mueller probe is, even during their first trial. >> absolutely. and we even got word from the press officer for the special counsel, peter carr, that not only would no prosecutor or bob mueller not be speaking after this trial, but they likely would not be issuing a statement or press release which is very common for prosecutors' offices after the conclusion of trials. they are taking the vow of silence to a new level, but you can also start to see the wear and tear of this trial on them. right before we were read the jury note a couple hours ago, you could look at the prosecutor's face and greg

andres had his hand, he sort of had this look, his head down, and just great stress and agony. and you can see that this is -- >> i look like that between -- i look like that in all the breaks. i'm sure you're right, i'm sure he's stressed. i'm sorry, i cut you off. >> no, but, you know, they've stayed out of, you know, the path of the media. behind me you can see everybody here on the plaza. meanwhile, paul manafort's lawyers are sitting in the hotel bar across the street from the courthouse hanging out during the day while the jury is deliberating and walking back and forth in front of all the media, making comments after every single note. so it's a very different attitude from the two sides here. >> i think i'd be drinking, too. daniel goldman, thank you for being there for us. we're grateful to have you today and all week. >> my pleasure. after the break, the president and his not so super powers. new reporting on donald trump's favorite, most favorite presidential power plays. the employee of the year, anna.

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donald trump who has a so far unexplained affinity for dictators seems to crave two things more than anything else, power and acclaim. he wants to be able to do what he wants and have people cheer for him while he does it. exhibit a, this latest report from jonathan swan in axios which says, quote, four sources close to trump tell axios that the revocation of former cia director john brennan's clearance belongs in the same categories of president's love of the pardon power. and the signing of executive orders. it's a power that is uniquely and solely his and matches his idea of how the presidency ought to be. pure power and instant gratification. he should see hamilton. while stripping brennan's security clearance may have scratched trump's itch for power, it's a bad day for the president on the recognition front. that military parade he wanted it's now canceled. here's what he tweeted about that this morning. the local politicians who run washington poorly, know a

windfall when they see it. when asked to give us a price to hold a great celebratory military parade they wanted a number so ridiculously high that i cancelled it. never let someone hold you up. i will instead attend the big parade already scheduled at andrews air force base on a different date and go to paris for their parade celebrating the end of the war on november 11th. i'm sure he had to google that. maybe we'll do something next year in d.c. when the cost comes down. i'm not reading any more -- oh, this is good. now we can buy more jet fighters. joining the table the 5th day this week, the rev al sharpton. this would be loony if it wasn't so scary. seriously, the whole idea -- i hate calling him unamerican because i think that's usually beyond the line. but it is not an understanding of the american government to only like -- the reason there are so few presidential powers that you can -- levers you can pull unilaterally is by design. the fact that he likes them the

most sort of betrays the point of what the presidency was supposed to be. >> and what the military is for. he acts like we're playing with toy soldiers. >> right. >> or something to that regard. but when you're dealing with someone whose mentality is that all the parades in manhattan up and down 5th avenue were in honor of him because that's where the trump tower is -- >> because that's where he rented or built? >> that's right. so he probably would think of anything, because he's just thinking parade. we're talking about the military. we're talking about what we're showing the world. and he acts like this is some outing or something that we're doing that does not in any way take in the serious signal of what a parade ought to be. and the money. he's actually arguing with the mayor of washington, d.c., about the money. i thought the republicans were the people that didn't want to spend the money and increase the debt. so i mean, the whole world is turned upside down with donald trump.

>> and he wants to go to paris. he's going to own the libs by going to paris. he's revealed himself as a rich guy. >> he has all these imaginary friends that's been down in paris, and now he's going to paris. but he told us about a friend who he can't find the name of that has talked about paris as embarrassing. >> i like when o'brien is here, he brings the bloomberg words like civiritic. i like that word. got to go back earlier i messed up when i called mcraven an admiral. calm down, twitter. i got that wrong. here's the president who doesn't know one of the most decorated and successful military figures of the last 50 years wanting to throw a parade to honor our military. does that not make you think it was what it was about all along? it's about the greater glory of donald trump. he likes a bunch of big guns. >> if he can have one, i can have one. >> he wants a bunch of people

strutting in front of him and the parade stand. it's a little game of thrones, like having a jousting match. >> saluting to him. >> it's classic authoritarian behavior like juan up on the balcony of the casa rosad alooking down at the strutting military forces who are under my command. that's what this is all about. more power to whoever -- whoever the real story is for why this guy canceled, whoever pulled the strings, put the price tag, whatever they did to get this shut down, more power to them. you're the hero of the week. >> this is silly and we can laugh about it because he probably did like the pictures of a parade. he went to bastille day and liked what he saw. but there is a serious point here i think about the ability to act unilaterally. it flows from the conversation we had in the last block about pardons. it flows from this idea that not only does he not want to work with congress. forget about congress. he doesn't coordinate with his own staff. he stripped brennan's clearances without calling the director of the cia or the dni.

there is this unilateralism in him that has nothing to do with not working with the other branch of government and everything to do with simply sitting there with the clicker in his hand and his device in the other and tweeting and pardoning and executive ordering his way through his presidency. >> well, it's true. and i mean, he doesn't hide that. i mean, he has said on a number of occasions that he would like to have that kind of unilateral authority that he's witnessed in autocratic societies. he wants that in the united states. and he's acting that way in the limited way that he can, whether it's through -- around dangling pardons or security clearances or trying to order the military to have a parade. i actually thought the best response to the president was from mayor muriel bowser who clapped right back and said, don't blame it on d.c., we've already spent $21.6 million on your parades because -- in trump's america.

you know, we've had that. you're showing it on the screen. i think, you know, we really do need to challenge this president over and over again and i know it gets tedious because otherwise he will power grab and we've seen that too many times. >> joyce, let me ask you, taking this conversation from the glib to really the gravely serious for this president who is under investigation. lawrence tribe tweeted, the classic way to commit high crime or misdemeanor is to abuse, to use for an illegitimate purpose like obstructing justice or punishing critics unilateral presidential power like the power to deny access to information or to dangle a pardon. again, tying this into the last conversation. does this affinity for, this appetite for, this ease -- i worked for a president -- presidential pardons were done at the very end of the presidency and they were so -- it was really one of the most sober deliberations. i mean, he decided not to pardon one of his most senior aides, scooter libby.

there were people inside his white house very close to him who disagreed with him. but to see this president so flip about pardoning people he never met, never heard of, over cases and crimes he knows nothing about. >> it's just a textbook case of abuse of power. and it seems to be what this president thrives on. you can imagine being president of the united states and all the capacity that you would have to act and to influence and better people's lives, and this is a president who enjoys pardoning, who enjoys stripping security clearances, who wants to have a parade to his glory, as opposed to doing the real work of government. you know, there's a saying in the justice department, you can go fast alone or far together. and this is a president who likes to go fast, doesn't really want to think about the consequences, but the hard work of bringing in stakeholders seems to be beyond him. >> all right. when we come back, new details on a payment to a porn star and why sudden silence from michael cohen should worry president donald trump.

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it's all in the timing. a new report out from the "wall street journal" suggests the infamous "access hollywood" tape may have been what spurred trump's former fixer, michael cohen, to pay off stormy daniels. from that report, quote, michael cohen initially balked at the idea of buying the silence of a former film star who said she had sex with donald trump, but he did an about face after a video of mr. trump talking about groping women became public in october. for investigators who are looking for evidence that the payment was intended to help the campaign, quote, mr. cohen's apparent change of heart on buying miss clifford's silence after the "access hollywood" tape surfaced and nearly capsized mr. trump's campaign could make the link. the panel is still here. let me play chuck rosenberg on the mysterious silence of

michael cohen. michael cohen is suddenly quiet. is he acting this week like a potentially cooperating witness? >> you bet he is. he's situated differently of course because he might end up being a defendant rather than just a witness. >> right. >> but right, the silence you hear from him is deafening and the reason you're hearing silence i think is because he's cooperating. he was asked that same thing. tell us the truth and don't talk to anyone else. and guess what? he's not talking to anyone else. i think it's a very good guess. >> joyce, do you agree? >> a good rule of thumb is to always agree with chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney, former chief of staff at the fbi, former head of dea. chuck is dead on the money here. cohen has gone from volatile public presence to radio silence and that is a sign loud and clear that he is cooperating or approaching cooperation with prosecutors in the southern district of new york. >> you're nodding. >> yeah, i think, of course, he's cooperating because he has

no cards left to play. it looks like there's overwhelming evidence on him suggesting bank fraud and tax fraud. i think when they first leaked, started leaking tapes, i think they were sending signals to trump that he should pay attention to him. and now he's gone silent and i do think he's cooperating. i don't think his value to prosecutors is on campaign finance violations. i don't think that's a real threat to the president. he does have knowledge, however, about the machinations in trump tower in june of 2016 in that famous meeting when a group of russians came with compromising information on hillary clinton. and that has always been portrayed as an accidental meeting. don junior didn't know what it was about. we now know from more information that's come from michael cohen that there was some choreography about it. there was planning in advance. john brennan sort of comes back to close the loop here because remember in early last year in congressional testimony, he said sometimes people go down a path

where they break the law, and they don't even know they're doing it until it's too late. >> right, the witting and unwitting accomplices. >> that speaks to don junior. and i think in the last month or so, you really see trump starting to connect dots that he's been too dense to connect before, which is that his son is in trouble. >> let me ask you about cohen. we don't have to answer the question around this table about what cohen knows because donald trump answered it for us. on the day of the raid when he assembled his national security team he described the raid on cohen's home and offices as an attack on the nation. donald trump tells us everything we need to know about how much damage michael cohen can do to the trump family. >> everything about donald trump's reaction to -- we know that when -- trump -- people laugh when you say trump really started to go off the rails on x day because you could argue -- >> it started off the rails. >> for a long time. in the arc of this history when it's written, there was a definitely a phase change of trump's tone, temperament, his level of lunacy and rage --

>> and angst. >> all those things are all tied up together. the moment the cohen raid happened signalled that's going to be a new chapter. we're probably in a book that has like four or five parts. that would be a new part of the book that will lead into the period when the walls started to close in on trump. and i think everything about his behavior since then has signalled how concerned he is about cohen. we've seen a million examples that illustrate his degree of anxiety about it. again, i think it's not just -- tim has pointed to a couple of very particular things. i continue to say that what is clear mueller is looking at if there is criminal conspiracy between the trump campaign, even including or not including donald trump and russia, it is a thing that has deep roots. it is not a thing that started two years ago, 18 months ago. it's a thing that stretches back potentially decades. there is plenty literature on this tying trump to money laundering and the russian mob which is actually the state in russia. and in particular, in the period

when michael cohen was trump's brand ambassador and business -- international business development chief running around the globe, including to russia a lot. cohen has specific things in the specific time frame we care about. he also has an enormous amount of context about the financial business intermingling of donald trump and dirty russian money. and if you're bob mueller and the southern district, if you're anybody that cares about donald trump and russia, michael cone knows a lot. >> let me get to you, rev. >> i think that, you know, when i had breakfast with cohen at his request three, four weeks ago, i think he was sending the signal then almost adds his last thing. look, i'm standing with the country. he tells me i'm going to do what's right for my family, knowing he was going to go public. i think he was saying then to trump and them, you better cut me a deal now because i'm getting ready to go. because that's one of the last times we've heard anything from cohen is when he did

stephanopoulous, boom. the thing i'd be concerned about if i was trump is that they would not be making a deal with him, assuming they are and it looks like they are, if he was not giving them something to make a deal about. >> right. you have to have something of value, correct. >> they already said to him what you're giving us is not worthy of making a deal. and they would have moved ahead and prosecuted him. >> right. >> they've not indicted him. we're not hearing a leak of an indictment coming. all signs look toward the footsteps are walking through the white house, mr. trump. >> the last step before witness protection is a visit with reverend al. >> there you have it, i'm going to write that down. joyce vance, thank you for spending time with us this hour. when we come back, kellyanne conway is calling it kind of weird. wait until you hear what she's talking about. you might disagree. welcome!

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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. >> they can't begin or finishing his name five times, it is affecting people on the news now who fancy themselves security experts. >> that was council to the president, kelly ann conway, why the people want to talk about the president. want is a strong word. the most interesting thing, the

washington postreport about her marriage that was out this week in the post. this is from the piece. she works for trump. here at the conways, it is a house divided. she is trump, the woman who carried him over the finish line. he is the president's critics and wished he never introduced trump to his wife in the first place. >> i disagree, i don't live in my parents home or time zone. i can't imagine this fight in this marriage it is stun to me. they invited the washington post in. this was a planned piece they collaborated with the washington post. a story they wanted to tell, i'm guessing. >> they are angry, it was told. at least she is. i feel like i am on an episode of "can this marriage be saved? yes, it is. you spend time looking at

kelly-anne conway. george trolling the president. melania trump, trolling the president. it seems there is nothing in this white house that is really off limits that is part of their creation and their fault it is not because we are asking for it. >> nothing in the report to suggest there is anything awry in kelly-anne and george's marriage. they disagree about trump. >> allow me to the be most cynical person in the room. you r. kelly anne and george conway. you are contemplating your future, at some point, there will be not a donald trump presidency, you may want to leave the white house. how would i maximize my net worth. james, mary, that worked well

for those guys. gosh, they are both friends of mine. she is conservative, he is liberal. they have made an industry out of their oddness of their marriage. she hated bill clinton, he loved bill clinton, those guys, i will be cynical enough to say, it is plausible, the story they invited was the first launch of the cable show they want to host, where they go after each other six years from now. >> the older i guess, the less i know about marriage and politics. >> she goes on this tirade about george, and says, it was off the record, right? knowing that that was not going to be off the record. the reporter said, we didn't establish that. >> she is an experienced press person. clearly, they had it all where they wanted to do this. >> sneaking in our last break, don't go anywhere.

it is time to broadcast my threat to broadcast commercials. thank you for putting up with us. i am nicole wallace. we will see you back here for deadline white house. we are having a big news night. we have been prepping for two days. we have a special guest, former cia director, john bren an, he is the first in what the president has threatened will be a long line of senior law enforcement and intelligence officials who security clearances the president plans to revoke all on his list so far, are people who might be in a position to conceivably testify about what they observed