huawei as a bargaining chip in trade talks. the dow was much higher in the day but there are still a lot of market worries. thanks for watching. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace" starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. where we are juggling dramatic new developments in the investigations out of the southern district of new york. it appears the probe into a possible conspiracy to defraud voters by paying women to keep quiet about sexual relationships with donald trump could be broader than the prosecution of the president's former fixer michael cohen. cohen was sentenced to three years in jail today in part for his role in carrying out a hush money scheme. he claims it was directed by the president. a judge side with the new york prosecutors who argued cohen committed campaign finance crimes with the intention of influencing the outcome of the

election. they said in doing so, cohen eroded faith in the election process but the other surprising development out of the southern district of new york today, we learned that american media, the company that publishes the national enquirer and is run by the president's longtime friend david pecker reached a nonprosecution agreement. that agreement is in connection with ami's role in making a $150,000 payment to a woman who alleged a relationship with trump. ami admitted that it made that payment to suppress the woman's story. in concert with the president's campaign. seemingly confirming that defrauding voters, not protecting the president from embarrassment as rudy giuliani once suggested, was the intention of that payment from trump through cohen and american media to the woman. the u.s. attorney's office in a statement saying, quote, assuming ami's continued compliance with the agreement, the office has agreed not to prosecute ami for its role in that payment.

the agreement also acknowledges, among other things, ami's acceptance of responsibility, its substantial and important assistance in this investigation and its agreement to provide cooperation in the future and implement specific improvements to its internal compliance to prevent future violations of the federal campaign finance laws. a close trump ally telling me today the entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hi e hinges on the testimony two of men. pecker and weisselberg, both cooperating witnesses. weisselberg is the chief financial officer for trump organization who was allegedly in the center of the hush money operation. he was reportedly granted immunity in exchange for his testimony. and we have a window into the president's reliance on david pecker and evidence in the form of the president's own voice of how he worked through cohen and weisselberger to pay pecker. here he is on tape secretly recorded by michael cohen discussing the payment to one

woman. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend david so that i am going to do that right away. i've -- and i've spoken to allen weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with fund -- >> [ inaudible ]. >> yes. and it's all -- all the stuff because here you -- >> [ inaudible ]. >> i'm all over that. and i spoke to allen about it. when it comes time for the financing, which will be -- >> lyncisten, what financing. >> i'll pay with cash. >> no, no, no. i've got -- >> that's trump saying maybe he gets hit by a bus or enters into a nonprosecution agreement with the sdny. here to help us break down all of the day's development, frank figliuzzi, matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice

department. at the table, john heilemann, co-host of showtime's "the circus" and emily jane fox, vanity fair's senior reporter. she was inside the courtroom for cohen's hearing today. tim o'brien, executive editor for bloomberg opinion and donny deutsch is in the house. frank figliuzzi, the significance of the nonprosecution agreement for ami. and i know you have a history there. take us through what you think this means. >> so now we have michael cohen agreeing that a crime was committed in paying these women and the way it was structured. we have ami, as a company, saying, yeah, don't prosecute us. we admit it. we got it. we're going to cooperate. we have the southern district of new york saying this was a crime directed by the president, the only person not saying, yeah, you got me, it was a crime is the president. and if he continues to take that stance, he's going to be found

to be very wrong. the sentence today handed down to cohen sent a message to everyone. and to people like weisselberg and to jerome corsi and to roger stone. partial cooperation only helps you partially. and full cooperation is your best bet. and i am sure that sentence is resonate with people. it, obviously, has resonated already with david pecker at ami. i am keyed in on the phrase future cooperation in this agreement and what that means from the long history of relationship between ami, david pecker and trump and the trump family. how far back does this cooperation go? what does david pecker know, and when will he be sharing it? >> let me press you on some of this specific language in that agreement. they seem to undermine rudy giuliani's assertion that the cohen hush money scheme was all

about protecting donald trump from his wife melania or embarrassment, assuming he's capable of that. it turns out the agreement now in the words of jim comey sponsored by the career prosecutors in the office of the southern district of new york, they are now sponsoring the debunking of that claim. that the push money was for anything other than influencing the outcome of the 2016 election. do i have that right? >> yeah. this is about election and campaign violations. this isn't about, gosh, i hope my wife doesn't find this out. and they've got the evidence that defends their decision to move forward with this prosecution. there are crimes committed here. and they are saying, nicolle, let's keep focussing on this. they are saying it was directed by the president. you are going to hear the president repeatedly issue a defense of, my lawyer did it. i didn't know what he was talking about.

but the tapes are there, and we're only getting a glimpse of what's on tape from michael cohen and the sdny would not have gone forward with this prosecution unless they understood the president was engaged in this crime. >> how would the prosecutors put together a case, and why would a trump ally think that the impeachment of this president hinges on the testimony of david pecker and allen weisselberg? >> so you are asking -- if i hear you correctly, you are asking why giuliani is taking this position? >> the assessment is that if the president is going to be -- if a report is made, impeachment hear,s commence that the testimony of allen weisselberg and david pecker who could speak to whether or not this was a trump directed conspiracy will be essential and central to testifying in his role. we heard some of the evidence on the tape we played but just explain how an investigator and

a prosecutor puts that case together. what does it look like? >> it's all about the money and the money man and who is the accountant, who is the cpa here? and that's the guy you want to talk to. and they're talking to him. and he's cooperating. and if he fully cooperates, it opens the pandora's box of all of the finances necessary to structure this crime. the setting up of corporations. the bank -- the flow of money from bank to bank and understand every time you tell a bank that this is a real corporation we've set up, we need this bank account in this name, you've committed an offense. and now you are laundering money. weisselberg is critical to this case and now you have the other end of the transaction in david pecker and ami saying, yes, this was our understanding, what the money was for. yes, we understood this was to not publish this, and we understood it was not coming directly from mr. trump and his

signature on the check nor michael cohen and his signature but from acme corporation which we understood to be representing trump and we know it's a fabricated company. when you put those pieces together, you've got your guilty conviction. >> this feels like a frying pan on the side of the head bombshell. the two people that could take down this presidented ed iand t get him impeached but prosecuted for years to come, are two close friends, two close allies. not the mueller witch hunt or deeply conflicted eed alan weis but his two buddies. >> two longtime allies of president trump. michael cohen is a complicated witness. he's a convicted felon convicted on multiple accounts, some of which have nothing to do with president trump's and some which are connected to him. that's not true about pecker or

weisselberg. they aren't as complicated a witness as michael cohen would be. so when you look at the legal jeopardy the president is now in, you can see the prosecutors at the southern district building a deliberate case where you now have two significant cooperating witnesses. we have another witness who has been into the grand jury, allen weisselberg, and liability for the trump organization which, of course, reimbursed michael cohen for this payment. seems to have been a fraudulent act and also an illegal corporate contribution when they did that. you have an executive still unnamed at he company that authorized that payment that can't be the president itself because it was after the inauguration. it would most likely be one of his sons. who has their own legal jeopardy. you see them putting together this case. the question is, what comes next? the department of justice policy isn't that they won't indict a sitting president but that inherent in that policy is there has to be some other mechanism for accountability. at the end of this investigation you either see an indictment of executives at the company or the

organization itself that lays out the case against the president as an unindicted co-conspirator or another potential report to congress, maybe in conjunction with what mueller may be doing. maybe separately. >> heilemann, the irony here of donald trump's obsession -- obsession with making clear to everybody that he was manly enough to win all by himself. he didn't need vlad or the russians. he couldn't win without david pecker covering up his sexual relationships with porn stars and playmates. >> well, right. look, i think the reality is one of the great political puzzles of the 2016 president election was how was the donald trump the most -- the least godly presidential candidate any of us have ever covered in a republican or democratic administration. how he became the darling of the evangelical christian right. anyone who followed donald trump's career who understood the bragadocio, the boastfulness

he made for years in the salons of manhattan about the kinds of women he spent time with outside of his marriage thought, my god, this is just one of the great -- one of the great ironies ever. and we also have heard for years that david pecker has a safe. what's in the snaif what's in the safe is not just material related to karen mcdougal or to stormy daniels but related to lots of other women that would have been difficult for him. with david pecker cooperate, not only is it possible this will lead to indictable, impeachable offenses but also it could blow open the core of what donald trump's political standing has been in the republican party which is that a lot of people have been willing to look past some of these sins because they didn't know the whole of the sins. when the whole of the sins become opened up, that pandora's box is opened up. the kind of problems donald trump faces may extend considerably beyond the realm of

the legal but into the realm of his image with the people who are the core of the trump base. >> you've covered donald trump for a long time. i think we look at trump tells. the daily tweets about no collusion. the daily attacks against robert mueller for running a witch hunt. i don't even know what the analogue is to the cover-ups. is it no sex? is it witch hunt? which is -- what is the refrain of innocence? and if we haven't heard it yet, does it look like donald trump knows that he's bleeped? >> i think it definitely looks like he knows he's bleeped. he's cornered and spent a year and a half pointing to the mueller investigation on a routine basis, nonstop, as being a witch hunt. any time he starts tweeting at the investigation or investigators, it's usually when there's a big shoe about to drop. he knows in advance that something is about to hit the fan. we have known since august allen weisselberg had an immunity deal with the southern district.

and it's significant because allen weisselberg was also fred trump's accountant. he's been with the trump administration since 1974. he does -- he handles donald trump's personal income tax returns. he helped donald trump structure almost every llc they used to make payments or park debts. that's the stuff these guys are looking at. there's a very real possibility that mueller could wind up his investigation in a tidy kind of collusion and obstruction vain and hand off a lot of financial fraud and other stuff to the southern district and other regional or local prosecutors who are going to continue doing this for well after trump's presiden presidency, in theory. these are developments that are going to bleed into the trump organization for quite a long time. it's going to get to his children. it's going to get to other people in that organization. and people are going to start flipping that trump never thought would flip before. >> the word blood is important.

what's interesting, we've been focusing rightly so on russia, on the payments to these women. let me say this as a guy who spent most of his career in business in new york, real estate business, fashion business. donald trump in the interest of real estate developers which is a bit of a slang, was known as the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the food chain. i've heard story after story. this is a criminal guy. you have to do a dotted line to leticia jones, attorney general of new york who came out and said we're just starting with this foundation, with the organization. russia and stormy daniels, the least of his problems. to your point, what is going to put him in jail eventually, what is going to destroy everything he's ever bit and his children is a 30-year dishonest criminal enterprise. that is what -- one thing will take him out of the presidency. the other thing will ruin him forever. on top of him, the political incentive for every u.s. attorney in new york or virginia in order to do it is this woman showed up and tried to do what

50 years of women have been trying to do. who we, what we stand for. there's a moral imperative. >> the rule of law. >> what we are about. what our grandfathers died for. democracy. he is the first guy in our lifetime that tried to undo that and he's going to pay for that the rest of his life as a pick apart his criminal enterprise. this is the very, very beginning of the story. >> wow. a friend of the president's said to me at the time that cohen first became a household name that cohen is the one that is going to undo the trump presidency. it won't be, with all due respect, this source's opinion, it won't be the mueller's probe. he's done enough damage among his hard-core base to at least have a question mark around that. but cohen is easy to understand. it's payoffs to women. it's hush money. and it was run incompetently and illegally and michael cohen, as a result, going to jail today. >> today in court was actually very emotional courtroom.

there were three full rows in court filled with his family. his parents were there. his children were there. his wife was there. his siblings. his cousins. a whole group of friends, and it felt more like a funeral than a court scene because there were so many people close to him there sobbing, crying, wishing well wishes to him. and i don't know that it's true that cohen could independently bring him down, but i think that what we already know about what cohen shared with the mueller investigative team is enough to at least ding him and significantly impact where the investigation is heading. we don't know what he told investigators in the southern district of new york. we also know that he talked to people in the attorney general's office, and we learned in court today he's going to continue to cooperate even if he goes -- even when he goes to prison in march. so what cohen knows is going to continue to come out in investigations going forward. >> you were there. let me read and you both know him. you covered him. let me read some of that

emotional testimony. i'm going to just go through all of this. i've been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the fateful day that i accepted the offer to work for a famous real estate mogul whose business acumen i truly admired. in fact, i know now that there is little to be admired. i want to be clear. i blame myself for the conduct which has brought me tehere tod and it was my own weakness and blind loyalty that led me to choose a path of darkness over light. >> he said it's like a cult. you get in there and wherever you pull up, there's people waiting and they're cheering. you get out of your car. and he goes, i got caught up in a cult. i'm not deferring my blame for what i did for myself, but how it was an interesting way he said it different today in the way he was blinded. i want to say one thing on a personal note to michael. look, michael was guilty of these things. he's going to pay for his crimes.

his biggest crime was still going to work for trump. he's a good man that did some bad things. i say this knowing him personally, knowing his children and people at home can say, shut up, he's a criminal. he's still, in my mind, a decent man who got caught up in this, and he's going to pay for it now. >> let me ask you because donny called it a cult. jim comey called it a mob family. what do you see? >> well, there's close similarities between a coult an a mob family. if you studied cults you understand the focus is on one person. his beliefs that he issues from his value system and that you look at the ability to get out of that cult unscathed and we're seeing that you don't get out of the trump cult unscathed. and the other thing is you put aside your own values and value system and supplant that with the leader's system. and we're seeing that with everyone that surrounds trump, whether you call him a copo or

cult leader, there are aspects of both in those who follow him and those around him. they'll pay dearly for it. the question is, eventually in all cults, the leader himself takes a hit and goes down and i think we're watching that happen in increasingly faster motion. >> i think the point -- it's really true. there's a similarity between a cult and a gang and you know, especially inning this city. i was at a restaurant in manhattan, a nice restaurant, where -- >> cults and gangs? >> not a chuck e. cheese? >> i know you're familiar with food you can eat with your fingers. this is where you use utensils. and the guy said jokingly, do you want the michael cohen table? that was the table he used to eat at for years and years until the raid. and he's not been back since then. and at that moment i had this image of "goodfellas."

ray liota and the table in the front of the restaurant. and that moment when ray says, from the time i was a young boy, i wanted to be a gangster. and this kind of cult of gangsterism and the kind of glamour of it in the city and desuctions of it and the things michael cohen is talking about. the cult of trump and criminal enterprise in new york city is veriy y y iseductive thing. none of it forgives the crime. >> trump is seduced by that. >> he's a low-rent, two-bit version of that. it's seductive. none of it excuses the behavior. it's all illegal and immoral. he should go to jail. but it's happened to more than one person who started out as a decent human being in new york city. >> we're only hitting pause. when we come back, the cohen connection. we'll take you through the many,

many connections between team trump and his fixer. also another trump associate prepares for his sentencing hearing. mike flynn's lawyers claim he got tricked into lying. we'll bring you the latest reporting. stay with us. voice-command navigation with waze wifi wireless charging 104 cubic feet of cargo room and seating for 8. now that's a sleigh. ford expedition. built for the holidays. and for a limited time, get zero percent financing plus twelve hundred and fifty dollars ford credit bonus cash on ford expedition.

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...well almost anything. leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man, and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch hunt. i've been saying it for a long time. it's frankly a real disgrace.

it's an attack on our country in a true sense. it's an attack on what we all stand for. so when i saw this and when i heard it, i heard it like you did. i said that is really now in a whole new level of unfairness. >> it's been eight months since that attack on our nation. the search of michael cohen's home and office. and now here we are. he's going to prison. and we're left wondering what's next for the president. last night before cohen's sentencing, trump spoke to reuters about both issues. cohen is right in the middle of. the payoffs to women and dealings with russia. michael cohen is a lawyer. i assumed he would know what he's doing. it wasn't a campaign contribution. if it were, it's only civil. even if it's only civil there was no violation based on what we did. wow. asked about prosecutors' asse assertions that a number of people who worked with him met or had business dealings with russians. he said the stuff you're talking about is peanut stuff.

trump's remarks are particularly jarring when you put them up against what he and the team have said in the past. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? why did michael cohen make it? >> you'd have to ask michael cohen. michael is my attorney, and you'll have to ask michael. >> the agreement with michael cohen, as far as i know is a longstanding agreement that michael cohen takes care of situations like this. then gets paid for them, sometimes. gets paid for them. sometimes it's reimbursed in another way. depends if it's business or personal. >> it's not campaign money. no campaign finance violation. >> so they funneled it through a law firm? >> funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it. >> oh, i didn't know -- >> he did, yeah. >> oh, i didn't know that. matt, john, elliott, tim and john are still here. we put that together. the evolution of a lie that may

get donald trump impeached. >> look, there are two things about that that are striking. one is how often they lie. the beginning, middle and end. and they shift the goal post and have. first it's that the president didn't know anything about it. then it's that the president maybe knew something about it but it wasn't a crime. then when you get to the fact it was a crime they minimize the severity of the crime and said these crimes aren't important. you've heard them talk about all the process crimes the people around him have committed. the disturbing thing is that -- i don't think this works with most of the american public. but you have seen it work with some republican senators. if we're thinking about the ultimate judge and jury, it's probably impeachment, republican senators. you saw republican senators come back this week after the justice department accused the president of having directed a crime and saying, orrin hatch and others minimizing it saying it's the democrats out to get him and i

don't care. it's remarkable to see long-term senior members of his party debase themselves in the same way you see rudy giuliani do regularly on television. >> i agree, matt miller, but "the new york times" reported over the weekend that at least some in the justice department who have been briefed on the sdny cases are looking at sol which you probably know better than me is the statute of limitations. does that mean somewhere in the trump-run government someone is looking at having the president holding him accountable for crimes he committed them. >> they are thinking about what their options are. it's obvious the prosecutor in the southern district of new york believe the president committed a crime. if he weren't the sitting president they'd be getting ready to indict him or he'd admit to guilt and probably try to get away without a jail sentence. it was committed in 2016. there's a five-year statute of limitations meaning if he's not re-elected in 2021, when he leaves office, he could be indicted. the problem with just if you are the justice department prosecutors for lying on that,

you're relying on him not being re-elected which is something outside your control. if he gets re-elected, there's no accountability because the statute of limitations will expire before he leaves in 2024. that's why it comes back to the justice department is going to have to decide at some point how to make this information public and how to put it in the hands of the congress which ultimately, if there's no indictment on the table, is the only mechanism for accountability for a sitting president. >> if congress looks at it, if we come to that, here's what cohen witnessed. payments to women, potential business deals with russia. that was the substance of the final guilty plea from cohen. and if they turn over the rock and look underneath all the business and all the way that business was done at trump org, michael cohen is the key to all of that. >> i thought it was interesting that the judge today pointed out, i think she referred to it -- he referred to it as a smorgasbord of crimes.

tax fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance fraud. but the biggest thing that leapt out was michael cohen lied to congress. in citing that he said that kind of behavior tears at the fabric of the country and gave michael cohen three years. and that was the crime that he singled out in that whole array of things. that has got to make other people in the trump orbit very nervous who may have -- >> who? >> like donald trump jr. and possibly jared kushner. donald trump jr. we already have members of the house intelligence committee and the senate judiciary committee say they're going back to revisit donald trump jr.'s testimony to them about two deals that trump was involved in in russia. the initial cohen deal involving trump tower moscow and an earlier deal that preceded that. so donald trump jr. is now exposed to possible felony charge for lying to congress, and you have a very charged up judiciary that is sick of the

trump team constantly undermining the rule of law and slagging the credibility of law enforcement officials who now are going to put evidence in front of the public. >> what does it mean that federal problems, the mueller probe and judge here in new york cited the crime of lying to congress. a whole bunch of people, much wider universe than just jared. steve bannon was before congress. rinse priebus. a bunch of these folks went up to congress and it is a known/unknown whether they were truthful. >> the message sent today was a couple of things. there's an understanding now that when you lie to congress, you are lying to the american people. you are lying to the folks we elected to represent us, number one. it's serious. number two, you are right. the list of people who went before congress in various committees and hearings and may have been directed to say what they said, may have had their material prepped, edited,

suggested to them and we're seeing -- we're seeing evidence of that in the filings we've already had. we've had manafort, right? accused by mueller of -- excuse me, cohen, of saying you prepped this. you circulated it to others, right? who are those others? who was it that sent this? and mcgahn, don mcgahn has been interviewed numerous times by the special counsel. he would have been in the middle of that kind of thing and prepping witnesses. if everyone who has testified is sitting there today going, holy cow, that could be me. >> i want to read one more piece from -- did you want to say something? >> cohen was sentenced to two months for lying to congress. three years for the other eight charges. and the judge did make a big point about him lying to congress but made a very big point about his activity influencing the election. so while there are a lot of people who may be potentially lied to congress, there are a lot of people who are also being interviewed about how they influenced the election. >> and that's the russia and the hush money.

>> exactly. >> i want to read another excerpt from cohen. recently, the president tweeted a statement calling me weak. and he was correct, us about for a much different reason than he was implying. it was because time and time again i felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and moral compass. my weakness can be characterized as blind loyalty to donald trump and i was weak for not having the strength to question and refuse his demands. a skeptic would say, too little, too late. obviously, he's going to jail. you know him. what do you hear when you hear that? >> he committed these crimes. he was an adult. he had full view into the kind of man he was working for and the kind of activities he was, himself, voluntarily engaging in. he had the ability to quit in the 12 years he work forward the trump organization. but there's nothing like staring down going to prison for several years. it gives you a perspective and an ability to look back. he hasn't been working much for

the past eight months and you have the time to be self-reflective about the things you've done, the ways in which you want to change your life and this is someone who very clearly understands what he did wrong. he plead guilty to it nine times and he said it in front of a full courtroom today. >> frank, we've been talking about there are still things to come when you go back to pecker, there will be more investigations. obviously, michael has a federal sentence. no leeway. he's going to serve most of that time. could they come back to him and say we're now investigating this trump monaco thing. what do you have on that and start to slice things off or does this stay as an isolated island? >> no, absolutely, donny, he is completely capable of reducing his sentence even after he's behind bars. and i've seen it happen over and over again. they will come back to him. they will ask him questions. and he may get sick and tired of living in an orange jump suit in confinement, and he may decide

he's going to fully cooperate and reduce his sentence. i actually think that's quite likely. >> emily jane fox, thank you for being at the white house and covering it and for being here today. lawyers for michael flynn suggesting the fbi oej aagents interviewed him tricked him. one of those agents happens to be a favorite punching bag of the president. is mike flynn hoping this new tactic opens the door for a possible presidential parpardon? we'll have that question, next. packaging for restaurants. and we've grown substantially. so i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. that's right, $36,000. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. my unlimited 2% cash back is more than just a perk, it's our healthcare. can i say it? what's in your wallet? at booking.com, we can't guarantee

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as michael cohen heads to jail, another trump adviser awaits his sentence for lying to the fbi. lawyers for former trump national security adviser mike flynn are asking for zero jailtime for flynn but there's still no explanation for why he lied about his contacts with sergei kislyak. flynn's lawyers accusing the fbi of tricking flynn into lying.

"the new york times" reports, quote, even in accepting blame, mr. flynn portrayed himself as a victim of fbi tactics to trap him. his lawyers highlighted details from the interview that played into an unfounded theory that mr. flynn's demeanor during questioning was potential evidence he did not lie to investigators. their emphasis on the fbi's conduct during the interview aligns with mr. trump's dim view of federal law enforcement. joining our conversation from "the new york times," mike schmidt. and karine jean-pierre, senior adviser to moveon.org. take us through what you're reporting based on this filing from flynn's lawyers last night. >> so the filing came right after the government had said itself that it was asking for probation. so it was sort of stuck out at us that his lawyers went this far because flynn basically has the government on his side. he doesn't need to go any further than that. but they did. they really tried to portray flynn as being taken advantage of. that he wasn't really sure what

was going on around him. that he had not been told by the fbi agents that if he made false statements he could get into trouble. they made it seem like it was much more of an inform at meeting than an interview. and it does play into conservative theorys about the investigation. conservatives have long said, including the president's lawyers, john dowd, the president's former lawyer used to say that flynn never lied to the fbi. i don't know why he took a plea agreement. this doesn't make any sense. it's long been this argument that they made that he didn't lie. and that he was simply forced into this because they were pressuring him, putting pressure on his son. they wanted to prosecute his son. and that he really did nothing wrong. and by putting the hint of this in the plea agreement it helps feed that narrative. >> plain cold fact is he lied and pleaded guilty for it. do we have any insight as to why the original sin? why lie about conversations with the russian ambassador when in his official capacity he had

every reason and right to talk to him? >> so one of the central questions in the entire trump presidency, if not the russia investigation itself, is what was the reason that flynn did not tell the truth to the fbi? why did he lie to the fbi? was he simply being absent-minded? was he overwhelmed by the fact there were four days into the administration, he was national security adviser, or something more nefarious going on? we still don't have an answer to that. here we are nearly two years after flynn has been interviewed. nearly a year after flynn plead guilty. we still do not know why he didn't tell the truth. and that interaction flynn had with the fbi turned out to be hugely crucial in the story because the president then asked comey a few weeks later to end the fbi's investigation into michael flynn. and when that is disclosed, robert mueller was appointed special counsel. >> it wasn't a lie or slip of the tongue. it was a lie repeated, i

believe, from the podium by sean spicer. it was an accidental lie. and i worked in a white house. i don't know there's any post more important or consequential than the national security adviser. if he's so absent minded he can't remember whether or not he's telling the truth to the fbi, he shouldn't be weighing in on iran or north korea. >> this is someone who rose to the highest level of the military who worked in the government who should know what -- that you shouldn't lie to the fbi or the fbi isn't going to trick him. he wasn't a campaign flunky or political operative. >> kind of became a campaign flunky. led the "lock her up" chants. >> but his background of decades was in the government and in the military. it's a peculiar direction they're going. because as michael was saying, the government was on his side. they were asking for practically no time at all. so i don't have the answers to what he's trying to do, but it is peculiar. >> two questions for you.

his lawyer's name, pete strzok. and andy mccabe. one, what is going on and just pull back the lens. who is mike flynn? the russia story? >> that's a super important story. one thing you have to ask mike schmidt points to a central question in this narrative. there's another bigger question which is this question, who is michael flynn? who he is, is a guy who i think if you look at the totality of his career was an extraordinarily honored, decorated military figure who rose to great heights in the government and then went off the rails. >> yeah. >> and if you look at the behavior that took place after he left, after he was asked to leave the government, he basically got dirty. and he went a little crazy. and he ends up in donald trump's orbit and becomes this person who spends more time with donald trump at his side than any other person in the course of 2016. he's the person the kids decide is the one who keeps dad calm. so he's out on the campaign trail talking with trump

constantly. throughout the year. talking to him about god knows what. >> vp candidate. >> someone who rose to that level. >> he's the guy. every campaign has someone like this, as you know. the person who -- if someone says the body guy, sometimes it's the senior figure. >> lieberman would have been mccain's. >> could have. a super senior person. the guy who plays cards with the candidate. keeps the candidate calm and secure. that guy knows a lot about the candidate. he hears all the candidate's stories. he hears a lot of the dirty stuff about the candidate. the candidate's aspirations. whether they're idealistic or not. and around autocrats, around russia, they have a lot to talk about. so when you get to the point where michael flynn is spending -- is visiting the mueller people 19 times, he's not talking about just this lie. he's talking about, i think, a lot broader set of conversations with donald trump about a lot of things he knows about the

family, about the business dealings, about things trump told him over weeks and months in the campaign. so i don't know what the playing of the card here means, although there is a suggestion, i think, that they are trying to get -- they may be trying to play for a pardon. he's been recommended to get no jailtime. he'd rather get the pardon and not be a convicted felon going forward. he'd be playing some of these right wing media cards to make a play for trump even though he's not the recommendation of no prison time. i can imagine although it's a little too clever by half but the bigger questions remain. 19 visits of with robert mueller where they thought he cooperated fully. substantially is the term of art. he had a lot to say and apparently he said it all. >> matt miller, we don't talk that much about pence. but mike flynn was not on any of the candidate lists for the jobs of national security adviser, secretary of state, secretary of defense, when chris christie ran the transition. chris christie was fired and

mike flynn was appointed national security adviser. he had that job during the transition when back door was suggested. a back-door channel to russia by jared kushner. and other contacts took place and ultimately he lies to the fbi about some of those conversations a couple days into his tenure in the white house. what do you make of the fact that 19 interviews took place. we still don't know why he told the lie. what shoes might drop, and who is nervous? >> the first thing i can guarantee you in minute one of interview one of 19 interviews for 62 hours, the first question would have been, why did you tell this lie to the fbi? who are you trying to protect? is it a conversation you had with the president? is it a conversation with jared kushner? if you go back and look at the timing of these conversations with the russian ambassador it was while the president and members of the senior team were in mar-a-lago. flynn wasn't. flynn was in washington. he was on the photocone with hi deputy k.t. mcfarland who was clearing all these conversations

and what they were going to do with jared kushner, the president and maybe others. when you look at who might have jeopardy, it's all of the people in on that initial decision to have these conversations with sergey kislyak. did any of them know that mike flynn was going to lie? there was this other question about obstruction of justice. flynn was able to stay on his job for several weeks after the government -- after the white house knew that he lied because sally yates came and warned them. what was happening during that time period? it's the same time period when the president went to jim comey and asked him to back off the mike flynn investigation. so all of these questions about the initial lie and then the moves to obstruct the investigation in its very early stage. months before bob mueller was appointed. i think anyone involved with any of those threads has to be worried about what mike flynn was telling in those hours and hours of interviews. >> mike schmidt, the last word on this. any sense from covering the white house and covering all of the interactions on both prongs, the collusion and obstruction front, that anybody, questions about obstructing the

investigation, that anyone sort of did a gulp or had a moment when they read that news that 19 interviews went down. all the hours matt miller described. that's a whole lot of time spent and the government happy with him. recommending no jailtime and saying he provided substantial assistance. >> yeah, look, i mean, you can't look at that and not wonder what really went on in those sessions. what was it that flynn gave up? that also is another one of these huge unanswered questions of the entire story. what is it that flynn gave up? what did flynn tell mueller about? because there was a lot that went on during the transition. it was not just the contacts with the russians. contacts with other countries around lobbying that was going on at the u.n. and maybe when flynn, you know, is finally sentenced, we'll get more clarity on what he really gave up. >> mike miller, frank figliuzzi and mike schmidt. up next, the most unwanted man in america. i just got my cashback match,

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by a long mile the best thing in the news pick is the column at "the new york times." he writes he's forever fixated on how wanted he is. this is the president. my crowds, my ratings but what's more striking is how unwanted he is. that's not merely a function of crests and dips every president encounters. it's not really about popularity at all. it's about how he behaves and the predictable harvest. he refls in his talent for repullion. how many people he attacks, he styles this as boldness. how many people he offends, he pretties this up as authenticity. how many people he sends into exile. his administration doesn't have -- this is what they call themselves. they call themselves the campaign refugees. that's the group of people that were fired during the campaign. the white house crowd is a similar club. >> toxic trump syndrome for the rest of their lives.

it's ironic. in trump's net worth statement he put in there $3 billion of worth just on name. the name is worth 3 million. irony is the very thing that he's traded on. he's built this. he's now repelled. repelled to the point that it's being taken off of buildings. repelled if he walked into restaurants in 65% of this country, people would stand up and move. repellent to the point, such a stad story, in delaware there's a family named trump and the little boy they changed his name because he was being bullied at school. the saddest example of how that name that has gone from aspiration that you could even attempt to say is worth billions of dollars is now both as a person and a name repellant and tocks zblik yeah. >> you know, i think of this whole chief of staff. i worked in the obama administration the first two years and i was on the campaign and i remember all of us who worked on the campaign, we were hoping that we could get into

the administration. it was such an honor to be asked to work in the administration and now the way that he has just debased the white house and the administration that people just don't want to be there. they don't want to -- he can't even get people on the d list to come and work for him. and he's made the chief of staff gig, which is supposed to be the best job in washington, d.c., something that you work yourself towards if you are a political operative and you've been doing it for a long time, is now the worst job in this trump administration. so that's -- to me that's incredibly sad. it's unfortunately bad for the american people as well. >> he wasn't even tarred. gary cohen got up unscathed. he was the number two guy at goldman. he was gary cohen who was next to trump and has that stature for the rest of his life. >> exactly. >> the thing we have to remember is the president has an endless appetite and ability to endure this kind of erosion. he's content to see everyone

else around him lose their reputations or their sense of well-being. he could be with us for a very long time while we watch this chaos unravel. the white house unravel, public dialogues. trump is not somebody who easily goes away. >> i don't know. i'm just sitting over here thinking about which of you i would choose as my chief of staff. >> i'd take coreen. >> i'd take him because he'd keep me out of jail. >> how does anyone take that job after a 36 year political consultant says no thanks. >> it's not so much that. i don't know how anybody takes the job not understanding what the end game is going to look like. 2019 is going to be hell on earth for donald trump and anybody next to him. come in and face the inability to get anything done. you won't be able to advance any kind of positive agenda and you'll be in the middle of this

hell scape. you'll probably be asked to obstruct justice so you'll have to lawyer up. >> lawyer up and have legal bills. >> you'd have to be nuts to take this job. >> best summary all day. we'll sneak in the last break. we'll be right back. up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it. the meeting of the executive finance committee is now in session. and... adjourned. business loans for eligible card members

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speed thanks. that does it for the hour. hi, chuck. four seconds. not so late. >> that's not bad. i'll take it. >> it's been worse. >> ahhh. mr. packer in the news. >> there's a meme of saying pecker -- i tried to get through the whole show without saying his name. >> i know. i know. it's like you do wonder who wrote the character names because you couldn't have made -- carl hyacin. >> who wrote the play. today it's pecker news. it's crazy. >> thank you, nicole. now i'm going to hurry up and get you off the air if you're in trouble. if it's wednesday it's a