♪ the president's former fixer pleads guilty on a charge of lying to congress about a plan for a trump tower in moscow. michael cohen says he mislead lawmakers because he wanted to be consistent with what trump was saying during the 2016 campaign. >> this news comes as president trump is in argentina for the g20 summit. here is a live look from buenos aires where we expect president trump to meet with the president of the argentine republic. ♪

good morning. it's friday, november 30th. we begin with the special counsel counsel. robert mueller's probe brought a charge that says donald trump was attempting to do business directly with the kremlin during the height of the 2016 campaign. michael cohen, former executive vice president of the trump organization and the personal attorney to trump during his first year in office pleaded guilty of a single count of making false statements to congress about the scope of a project to build a trump tower in moscow. the charging document says cohen discussed the status of the project with individual one on more than three occasions. cohen claimed to the senate intelligence committee and he briefed family members of individual one within the company about that project. congress admitted he agreed to travel to russia in connection with the moscow project and took

steps in contemplation of trump's possible travel to russia. cohen admitted he had gotten a response from the russian government when seeking assistance with the project including a top aide of putin and that talks with putin actually extended until june of 2018. a new claim emerged yesterday outside of those court hearings of an extraordinary offer. the trump organization was allegedly discussing to build its luxury condo tower in moscow. trump business associate and convicted felon felix sader says he and cohen discussed offering offering vladimir putin a $50 million penthouse in that building.

sader tells nbc news that the project was his own idea. quote, as soon as the russian stuff broke, it was like, well, this deal is over. it is not clear whether president trump knew of the intention to give away the penthouse. a spokeswoman for his business said of the tower project, like many real estate companies, the trump organization has explored opportunities in major markets all over the world, including russian. nothing materialized. rudy giuliani is criticizing the timing of michael cohen's new guilty plea. in a statement yesterday he said, it is hardly coincidental that the special counsel once again files a charge just as the president is meeting with world leaders at the g20 summit in argentina. in may of 2017, a senior white house advisor was named a person

of interest in the russia probe, right before president trump made his first ever foreign trip. at last year's g20 summit, the "new york times" was reporting on don junior's involvement in the infamous 2016 trump tower meeting. paul manafort, rick gates and george pop apadopoulopapadopoul. mueller indicted 12 russian military officials for the 2016 e-mail hacking. president trump's legal team says michael cohen's new account of the hotel project in moscow essentially matches what the president told the special counsel. prosecutors had sought to question president trump for months before he agreed to provide written answers for some questions. he gave those answers to the special counsel last week.

rudy giuliani tells the "new york times," quote, the president said there was a proposal. it was discussed with cohen. there was a non-binding letter of intent and it didn't go beyond that. giuliani says prosecutors did not raise certain details a that michael cohen now says he mislead congress about, including how long the hotel project stayed alive and that the president did not volunteer those details. a white house staffer says the fear in trump world is that mueller may have laid a perjury trap for the president. mu mueller waited until after trump submitted written answers under oath to the special counsel before revealing the evidence prosecutors had gathered to secure cohen's plea. >> danny cevallos. what a busy day. >> what a busy week. >> let's pick up on that point about the perjury trap. the fact that michael cohen provided this guilty plea

changing his course, if you will, after robert mueller got the written answers from president trump, how significant is that? is the trump world concerned or should they be concerned that if what michael cohen has told robert mueller does not match up with what the president wrote down, he could be in serious trouble? >> he should be very concerned. i think more attention is going to be paid to the written answers in the coming weeks. i don't think the timing is zaenan accident. even if the questions were broadly based to when did this end, when did this begin, you can almost see where michael cohen's guilty plea could conflict with some of the president's answers, even if we don't know yet what those answers are. >> the president is up and tweeting, guys. ahead of his meeting with the argentine president, here's what

he's tweeting about. here it goes. oh, i get it, i'm a very good developer, happily living my life, when i see our country going in the wrong direction, to put it mildly, against all odds i decide to run for president and continue to run my business very legal and very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail. lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in russia, put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn't do the project. witch hunt. however, at the time the president and his associated looked at this deal in moscow, he was the leading contender for the republican nomination. he was winning multiple republican primaries while claiming to have no business in russia. speak to that, danny. when all this comes out, this timeline, how important, how critical is it? >> were donald trump's business interests both legal and cool, is the question that we're going to ask ourselves over the next

several weeks. i think the significance of yesterday's plea is multifold. it's that you now have a real connection between trump's family and the russian government through someone like michael cohen, who i've been saying for some time now may be the key. if this is a downfall to the trump administration, it lies with michael cohen, because michael cohen has already pleaded in the southern district of new york several months ago to committing crimes and essentially naming the president as a coconspirator. now the same man is pleading guilty again and for the first time cooperating with the mueller team and for the first time being offered something to the extent of a cooperation agreement. >> i think the significance here is that he is in contact with russian government officials to try to get this project done. it's not that he was doing business in the private sector in rush rusrussia.

>> stay where you are. >> i'm not going anywhere. after learning that michael cohen lied to congress, the senate intelligence and judiciary committees are combing through other witness testimony for possible misleading or untruthful statements. the top democrat in the intel committee, senator mark warner, says the committee has already made multiple criminal referrals to mueller but refused to name names. congressman eric swalwell says the democrats will be prosecuting more lies when the democrats take control in congress. >> i say that because buried beneath the committee at the house intelligence committee are pages of lies from witnesses who testified. their transcripts sit there right now not being able to go to bob mueller despite democratic efforts to try to release them to bob mueller because devin nunes and the republicans each time have voted against them.

in a new congress, those are going right to the special counsel and i expect more indictments. >> president trump is in argentina for the g20 summit. late last night he tweeted out, quote, arrived in argentina with a very busy two days planned, important meetings scheduled throughout. our great country is extremely well represented, will be pickup truck t-- productive. the president tweeted out during his flight to argentina that he was cancelling the meeting with vladimir putin due to the aggression aimed at ukraine. >> richard engel thanks for joining us long distance here. the time has been freed up on saturday morning for the president, right? what about today, what's on the agenda? what do we expect overall out of this trip? >> reporter: today is the heart of the g20.

president trump arrived late last night. we are two hours ahead of eastern time. it's just past 7:00 in the morning here in buenos aires. his day will begin with something of a formality, a working breakfast with his host the argentine president. not expected to be contentious. the argentine president also comes from a wealthy business construction family. in fact, the two have plaid gye golf together. after that, other world leaders will be arriving this morning. then there's the famous photo op where they all stand together and take the iconic g20 moment. then a working lunch. then there are two scheduled bilateral meetings today, one with shinzo abe of japan. and then a sitdown one on one with angela merkel. that relationship, as you know,

has been quite contentious in the past with president trump being very critical of the european union and angela merkel personally. >> let's talk about the big elephant in the world, which is the fact he's not meeting with vladimir putin on the day after a bombshell of a development involving russia. i know you spent a lot of time there. what is the significance of the news that we heard yesterday come out of michael cohen, the mueller investigation and the shadow that is casting on this president's trip to argentina? >> reporter: let's see if he really doesn't meet with vladimir putin. the whole point of bringing all these leaders together is that there are serendipitous count r encounters, there are group dinners. there's a cultural event tonight. will they have a few minutes to speak to each other on the sidelines of this meeting? it's very possible. they're not going to have the scheduled one on one, hour-long

sitdown they were supposed to have like the one he will be having today with shinzo abe and angela merkel, the one he'll be having tomorrow with president xi of china. but will they have a few minutes to exchange ideas, sit next to each other at a table? i think it will get a lot of attention if they do. it is still possible. >> okay. thank you, richard. still ahead after confusion and backlash, the department of veterans affairs reverses course, saying that it will repay veterans who were shortchanged. plus, how president trump is working to distance himself from michael cohen. we're going to play you some of his latest comments. and we're watching for the president right now.

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will be meeting with the president of the argentine republic. that will be happening any moment. when that does start, we'll bring it to you live. after a day of pressure from congress, the department of veterans affairs announced it will retroactively pay veterans the money they are owed under the forever g.i. bill. the news comes amid a report on wednesday that unveiled that they said they would not pay veterans whose checks were less than usual. members of congress on both side of the aisle questioned paul lawrence, who oversees the veterans administration yesterday. he said veterans checks would be made whole, but also expressed uncertainty whether it would be worthwhile to make the repayments by 2020.

nbc news has previously reported that the loss of correct housing and education stipends for affected veterans has pushed them into desperate financial straits over the last few months. alexander acosta is out of the running for attorney general. two people say it follows that stunning miami herald investigation about the sweetheart deal then federal prosecutor acosta brokered for jeffrey epstein, a well wealthy financier who was accused of sexual assaulting teenage girls. deal allowed epstein to spend just 13 months in county jail when prosecutors had enough evidence to put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

tim scott has come out against the controversial pick to become the u.s. district judge. thomas -- scott's opposition followed jeff frak, who refuses to support any of trump's judicial nominees until a vote is taken on the bill to protect the special counsel robert mueller and the investigation. the final straw for scott, the senate's only black republican appeared to be a 1991 department of justice memo that named far as the primary coordinator of an effort to intimidate black voters. time to get a check on weather. nbc bill karins, weekend weather. what do we have? >> in krcalifornia we did get se of those mud and debris flows. we didn't have any fatalities or

hear of any stories of homes surrounded by mud. there are a lot of travelers who saw this. again, the rain is over with for the most part. we're done with our flood threat. happy to report none of those burn areas, nothing horrendous happened with those mud and debris flows. that storm that was in california yesterday now switching through the intermountain west with some snow. later it heads to the plains. this is going to be a serious situation. 16 million at risk of seeing thunderstorms and severe weather. if we're going to get tornados, shreveport, texarkana, that's the area of greatest concern. tonight over night those storms roll through montgomery and mobile and florida and georgia. the timing of it 4:00 p.m. the storms form just east of dallas. here's the time of concern. 7:00 p.m. supercell thunderstorms here.

these nighttime event this is time of year, the sunsets so early and you get a little less lead time because the storm chasers can't really tell you if they're confirmed or not. it will be a dangerous night. >> california is not getting a lucky break this week, between the fires and the rain. >> it's tough times for sure. still ahead, kevin durant does it again, but would it be enough to top the raptors? and the cowboys with perhaps the upset of the year in the nfl. oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (vo) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. oh! under seven? (vo) and you may lose weight. in the same one-year study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. oh! up to 12 pounds? (vo) a two-year study showed that ozempic® does not increase

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crispy on the outside. (upbeat drumming) the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps. time now for sports. we begin in the nfl with the saints looking to extend their ten-game winning streak against the cowboys on thursday night football. to arlington, where the cowboys shut out drew brees and the high powered new orleans offense until the third quarter. needing only one touchdown in the game, a 16-yard pass to ezekiel elliott sandwiched by a pair of field goals in the first half, the saints finally get on the board with a three-point kick. after the break closed the quarter with a 30-yard touchdown pass. the cowboys hang onto win this one 13-10, the fourth straight victory for dallas keeps them atop the nfc east. turning to the nba and what could be a preview of this year's final between the warriors and the raptors.

kevin durant making up for the absence of the injured steph curry with a game high 51 points for the warriors including tying bucket with less than ten seconds in regulation. it sends the game into o.t. f but the raptors prevail. 37 points scored by kawhi leonard. when a 9-year-old and aspiring baller riley morrison could only find curry 5 sneakers listed in the boys' section, she took her concerns straight to the warriors star herself with a letter saying girls want to rock the curry 5s too. steph curry wrote back saying he'd spent the last two days talking to under armour about the issue, which is now being corrected. he sent her a pair of sneakers and said she'd be the first kid to get the curry 6's and invited

her to celebrate internal women's day with him in oakland. under armour now lists the curry 5 in the girl's section. such a good story. >> she took the initiative to write to steph curry. >> and he responded immediately. he's got two daughters. he gets it. very cool. still ahead, president trump is expected to meet with the pt president of the argentine republican any minute now. with my bladder leakage, the products i've tried just didn't fit right. they were too loose. it's getting in the way of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types,

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>> everybody, of course we're waiting for the president to speak. speaking in spanish there, president mauricio macri of argentina. we do know they are having a bilateral breakfast. we're keeping a close eye on this because we want to see if the president takes any questions, makes any comments around this breakfast meeting with the argentine president. we are going to stay on top of this and as soon as things get into english, we're going to bring you there. you know that he is there for the g20 summit in argentina. a bit earlier this morning he was up and tweeting, arrived in argentina with a very busy two days planned, important meetings

scheduled throughout. on the president's agenda are meetings with several world leaders. that would include china's xi jinping. prior to departing the president addressed the status of his scheduled meeting with vice president set to take place less than one week after russia fired upon, rammed and seized three ukrainian vessels and took roughly two dozen sailors into custody. >> are you going to meet with putin? >> i probably will be meeting with president putin. we haven't terminated that meeting. i was thinking about it. they'd like to have it. i think it's a very good time to have the meeting. i'm getting a full report on the plane as to what happened with respect to that and that will determine what i'm going to be doing. let's go back to argentina and listen into mauricio macri addressing the crowd there. we do have the translation. >> thank you, donald, for being

here. >> i think i understood you better in your language than i did on this. i want to just say i've been friends with mauricio for a long time, many years. people wouldn't know that. he was a very young man, very handsome man. we knew each other very well. i actually did business with his family, with his father. he's a friend of mine. i purchased the west side railroad yards. that was a great job, a successful job, a very big job, one of the largest jobs in manhattan. that was in my civilian days, so i always had fond memories. little did i know that his son would become a president. and little did you know i was going to become president. so we've known each other a long while. we're going to be talking about lots of good things for argentina, for united states, including trade, including military purchases and other

things. but we have a lot to talk about, a little bit of old times, about 95% business, i would say. it's a great honor to be with you. you're my friend long time, great family and you're doing a fantastic job. congratulations. thank you. >> so you were just watching president trump there alongside the president of the argentine republic mauricio macri. the president keeping his message on point in the sense he was saying they are going to talk about business, trade, military purchases. obviously praising the argentine president, thanks him for his hospitality. this is an opportunity for the president to plug a little business and real estate in new york. >> journalists will also have an opportunity to fire some

questions at the president. certainly we'll be following that as well. but now we have this. all of this comes on the backdrop of michael cohen's guilty plea yesterday. president trump working now to distance himself further from his long time fixer before departing for the g 20 summit. he was also the defending his bids to land business in russia. watch this. >> if cohen is such a bum, why did you hire him, have him on your payroll for 12 years and have him do so much of your dirty work? >> because a long time ago he did me a favor. a long time ago he did me a favor. he was convicted of various things unrelated to us. he was given a fairly long jail sentence and he's a weak person. by being weak, unlike other people that you watch, he's a weak person and what he's trying to do is get a reduced sentence. >> i run for president. that doesn't mean i'm not

allowed to do business. i was doing a lot of different things when i was running. there would be nothing wrong if i did do it. i was running my business while i was campaigning. there was a good chance that i wouldn't have won, in which case i would have gone back into the business. why should i lose lots of opportunities? even if he was right, it doesn't matter, because i was allowed to do whatever i wanted during the campaign. >> all right. so the president's stance of there would be nothing wrong with possible business deals with russia is a far cry from his stance during the campaign and early days of his presidency. watch this. >> i mean, i have nothing to do with russia. i don't have any jobs in russia. i'm all over the world, but we're not involved in russia. i have no relationship to russia. i don't deal there. i have no businesses, i have no loans from russia. i don't have any deals in russia. i have nothing to do with russia. i have no investments in russia, none whatsoever. i have no dealings with russia.

i have no deals in russia. i have no deals that could happen in russia, because we've stayed away. what do i know about the russians? what do i know about the russians? then they said, he borrows money from them. i don't borrow money from the russians. i promise you, i don't have any deals with russia. i had miss universe there a couple of years ago. other than that, no. i have nothing to do. >> while spending yesterday denying there was anything wrong with a potential deal in russia, president trump also took time to deny actually doing a deal. >> i didn't do the project. i decided not to do the project, so i didn't do it. so we're not talking about doing a project. we're talking about not doing a project. that was a project that we didn't do. i didn't do. i decided ultimately not to do it. this was a deal that didn't happen. that was no deal. it was an option that i decided not to do. we had a position to possibly do

a deal to build a building of some kind in moscow. i decided not to do it. >> so in light of his new guilty plea, top democrats are calling on michael cohen to return to capitol hill and answer some more questions. future house intelligence committee chair adam schiff told reporters yesterday that he wants to bring cohen back before the committee to testify once again. >> obviously this is very significant plea and statement. it means that when the president was representing during the campaign that he had no business interests in russia, that that wasn't true. this underscores the importance of bringing mr. cohen back before our committee. >> when you have somebody who has lied before on the witness stand, how difficult is it to take any subsequent testimony and say, okay, we know he's telling the truth? it's got to be hard. where's the truth versus lie meter? >> you've hit on the dilemma that confronts every prosecutor

who makes the difficult decision to cooperate a witness. because in doing so, defense attorneys like me will surely point out to the jury that the government got hand in hand with the delve. th -- devil. they made a deal with someone who has admitted to being a criminal. the formula that prosecutors have to apply throughout the cooperation process is, they realize there's an acceptable amount of lack of credibility and lying we can take from this person, but if yaw continue to do so and they become someone who's so incredible that we can't use them anymore, prosecutors have to constantly balance that. you saw that with paul manafort. they made that decision. at some point manafort's lies got to the level where they said we can't take manafort's lies anymore. >> at the time when michael cohen was initially lying, was that in the time where he thought maybe the president would pardon me?

so that might have given him an incentive or at least he felt somewhat protected in doing so, right? >> i think you're saying that when he gave those answers to congress, did he believe he was insulated because if it ever came back to haunt him, that he would be pardoned? >> right. >> i think you may be onto something. i've looked at the language of the statements that he made. there was almost some irrational overconfidence in the words he used. instead of we ultimately decided not to travel the russia, he used words like i never considered traveling to russia. he didn't need to be that extreme. it's those words that came back to haunt him. the sense that i get from his statements many months ago were that he had an overconfidence that was irrational, especially if he knew what he was saying was false. and maybe that's related to the belief that he was always insulated. >> or the belief he was lying to

congress and congress was not going to be able to find out the truth whereas robert mueller was able to find the truth and compel him to plead guilty. at the end of the day, congress would not find out he was lying to them had it not been for robert mueller, right? >> lest you think or anyone think that lying to congress is only a crime if it's under oath, michael cohen has demonstrated there is a separate statute section 1001, the false statement statute, that mueller is very fond of. he's used it liberally. it criminalizes lying to congress or any executive branch body. this is not where they said did you eat a turkey sandwich or a bu burrito for lunch?

something insubstantial. these lies were material and serious. outgoing republican speaker of the house paul ryan says that he does not support the u.s. ending military backing for the deadly war in yemen. on wednesday the senate voted in a bipartisan manner to advance a resolution that would end all u.s. involvement in that war. yesterday speaker ryan said that he doesn't support that measure, saying that the u.s. should consider other options, mainly sanctions as those are a smarter tool to express moral clarity. the saudi led coalition's offensive has left thousands dead and brought yemen to the brink of a humanitarian disaster. rod rosenstein speaks out following the president's suggestion that he should be in jail for treason. what the deputy attorney general is saying about that.

bill karins is going to be back with another check of your weekend forecast. - [narrator] meet the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps. it's the best of pressure cooking and air frying all in one so in as little as 30 minutes it will be crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, and on your table. the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps. on the outside, juicy on the i am all about living joyfully. the united explorer card hooks me up.

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above the floor, it comes with a built in shark handheld. one dock, two sharks. the shark ion robot cleaning system. former fbi director james comey has taken his fight with house republicans over their demands for him to testify to court. lawyers for comey asked a judge yesterday to overturn a subpoena demanding he testify before the house judiciary and oversight committees next week. comey is also asking the judge to postpone the testimony until that request can be ruled on. the republican-led committee subpoenaed the former fbi director earlier this month in a bid to get him to answer questions about the agency's actions and decisions during the 2016 presidential election. comey said he'd be willing to testify, but is demanding that it be in a public hearing and not behind closed doors. his lawyers say that his testimony in such a secretive setting would be subject to selective leaking by members of

the judiciary committee. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein is laughing after what might be a stressful week. the president retweeted an image with his perceived enemies with the words, when do the trials for treason begin. with rosenstein as one of the people depicted inside that prison cell. when asked during an interview with the new york post why do you think he belongs behind bars, president trump responded, he should have never picked a special counsel. during his speech on cyber crime at georgetown law school yesterday, rosenstein made light of his situation. >> just because people are quick to criticize you does not mean you're doing the wrong thing. take it from me. going to get a check on your weather now. he should know, right? >> he has a sense of humor. >> you would have to. you know who else in the know? mr. bill karins on what's going

to happen with the weather. >> it's getting into the busy season for these weekends. the holiday parties are starting in a lot of areas. we have dangerous weather and a big storm to track too. 16 million people at risk. i mentioned the threat of tornados after dark tonight texarkana to tel aviv poshrevep southern half of arkansas. new orleans to mobile and sweeping through southern alabama, georgia and the panhandle of florida. then the cold side of this storm. we're ending our snowstorm in the mountains of california today. as the storm develops, we have another snowstorm heading for nebraska and south dakota and iowa and southern minnesota. this is the same spot hit by that blizzard earlier this week. this is going to be a serious storm. this ping and ligk and red is u foot of snow in nebraska and

portions of south dakota and the southern half of minnesota. as far as the weekend forecast goes, today the travel weather not bad in areas of the east, still kind of cool. by the time we get to saturday, that's when the rain will slide to the east. look for d.c. as we go through the middle of the day. a lot of the rain in the northeast will be over with early sunday. >> the way you talk about the mountain snow in california, mammoth 19 inches since yesterday. >> time to wax the snowboards. >> i'm not that cool. >> thanks bill. still ahead, two high profile celebrities land in hot water with the federal government over their dealings with crypto currency. plus global markets are keeping a close watch on the g 20 as an ongoing trade war hangs over the president and combine's xi jinping.

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welcome back. all eyes are on president trump and the president of china xi jinping at the g20 summit in argentina. markets around the world are cautious as investors hope the meeting will ease escalating trade tensions between the two nations. >> good morning. a lot of people saying they're not entirely sure how they're going to position around this weekend. it's also not entirely clear what direction president trump is going to take in his conversations with his chinese

counterpart on saturday night. just before he left buenos aires yesterday afternoon, he essentially said he may strike a deal, he may not. he's quite happy with the current situation. that's because of course these tariffs on all these chinese january 1st, you'll get another set of tariffs imposed on $200 billion worth of chinese goods. the chinese analysts i've been speaking to say they're mott necessarily going to worry about the short-term. they're playing along. xi jinping is currently president for life, essentially, so something to watch there. >> a lot of story lines unfolding today in argentine ma. the s.e.c. say they settled charges against boxer floyd mayweather and d.j.khalid of crypto currency fraud.

crypto currencies are considered securities by the s.e.c., right? >> yeah. there's been a lot of questions about that over the last few years. but you're right, they essentially were being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the s.e.c. with, and the s.e.c. has fined them $767,500 because they didn't disclose the fact that the icos, those are initial coin offerings they were promoting were paying them to do so. a lot of sleb advertises have been doing this. it's the failure to disclose that is a concern to the regulators. that is essentially something that anywhere else would be seriously frowned upon. >> a gray line there. all right. wilhelm, always great to have you with us. >> still trying to wrap my head sh around how crypto currencies work. >> i'm so glad you admitted that. it's sketchy. i can't figure this stuff out. coming up, we have jonathan swan with a look at this morning's one big thing.

coming up on "morning joe," president trump's former fixer reaches a new plea deal with the special counsel. we have much more on michael cohen's new charge of lying over the potential trump tower/moscow deal. what his steps may signal in the next step in the russia probe. plus, president trump meets with the world leaders at the g20 summit. we'll have the latest live from argentina and lay out whether trump's america first policy will isolate those abroad. - [narrator] meet the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps. it's the best of pressure cooking and air frying all in one. with tendercrisp technology, food will be juicy on the inside, crispy on the outside. (upbeat drumming) the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps.

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as promised, jioining us frm washington, jonathan swan with ax axios. what have you got from axios this morning? >> we're focussing on the fact that president trump is now individual one. until now, the special counsel's narrative has been focused on the characters around president trump. yesterday, he has publicly put president trump in the center of this and we now have a profit

motive for what has, until now, been an unexplained affinity with russia and reluctant to criticize vladimir putin. >> so what is michael cohen's plea mean for president trump in terms of his potential connections to russia? he's making the argument that, you know what? i was a private citizen. this is normal business. it was in case i didn't win the presidency. but is that really going to hold up, do you think? >> no, because the entire purpose of the probe is to figure out whether there was any collusion between the trump campaign and russia. and the trump campaign, he was candidate trump. that fits under his definition of a private citizen. we now know from michael cohen's deal plea, which rudy giuliani has not contradicted, that the trump organization was looking at a moscow/trump tower deal as late as june 2016. it's a really stunning fact just to put that out there and really consider it because you had a

presidential candidate who was conceiving of foreign policy positions, who was projecting positions about russia, all the while he's private business was pursuing a potentially very lucrative deal that may have even involved, and we can talk about this in a little bit, vladimir putin getting a sweetheart deal. >> yeah. so this was a big deal. this plea deal with cohen. so what happens next? what's coming down the line here and what does this tell us about the next phase? >> well, what we learned from yesterday's -- from reading those ten pages was just how much corroborating material mueller has amassed. we know that he's got extensive phone records based on the fact that he reported a 0-minute phone call between cohen and moscow. he's got extensive e-mail records. and he just keeps clasping these people in trump's orbit lying. the reason he's catching them is because he has so much more documentation than we realize.

now, until recently, trump's camp -- and i'm using that term broadly -- have been operating under the hope or perhaps assumption that trump are will probably be okay because he doesn't use e-mail and he doesn't text. they don't have a lot of corroborating material, but there's all this other human intelligence that mueller has been gathering and, frankly, rudy giuliani, when i speak to him, when other reporters speak to him, he projects this breezy confidence. but there's so much he doesn't have visibility into. >> so what are the white house sources telling you about the mood of the president in the wake of the cohen and paul manafort developments this week? if we got any glimpse of it in air force one, he was tweeting about it, he seemed to have canceled some of his meetings in argentina. so he's weighing in on it. >> he's frused by it, but it's not like when he's sitting around the white house he sort of says, you know, i'm worried that they're going to catch me

in perjury. it's the same, the private rants are the same as the public rants. it's a witch-hunt, it's fake, so you don't actually glean anything from talking to the people who are around him. and certainly when you talk to his lawyers, it's obviously just bravado and, you know, breezy confidence. >> yeah. at the end of the day, his twitter feed is perhaps the best insight -- >> i don't know what the mood reporting is particularly useful to anyone, to be honest with you. >> but you talk about human intelligence. i'm like, well, you've got the president speaking in his own twitter feed, so lots to look at there. jonathan swan, good to see you. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> i know we'll see you on "morning joe" the in just a bit. that does it for us on this friday morning. just a quick note, yasmin will be back here making her return to "morning joe" this monday at 5:00 a.m. eastern. after a few months away following the birth of her son. congratulations to her.

a big thank to alex witt and hallie jackson for helping us out. we appreciate it. with that being said, "morning joe" starts right now. >> i didn't do the project. i decided nod to do the project. so i didn't do it. so we're not talking about doing a project. we're talking about not doing a project. that was a project that we didn't do. i didn't do. i decided ultimately not to do it. this was a deal that didn't happen. that was no deal. it was an option that i decided not to do. we had a position to possibly do a deal to build a building of some kind in moscow. i decided not to do it. >> the president's former fixer pleased guilty on a charge of lie to go congress about a plan for a trump tower in moscow. the president yesterday denying he did any deal in russia, but also saying there would be nothing wrong with pursuing overseas business as a candidate