michael cohen was sentenced to three years in prison this week, but that did not the president's former fixer from speaking out and mow h -- now his cooperation could be a game changer. president trump says he never directed michael gocohen to do anything wrong. in october 2016, donald trump's campaign was hit with an october surprise. >> i've got to use some tic tacs just in case i start kissing her. you know, i'm automatically attracted to beautiful. i just start kissing they will. it's like a magnet. i don't even wait. >> two days after that,

candidate trump appeals with receivable of bill clinton's accuser 90 minutes before a presidential debate and the following week, michael cohen forms a shell company in delaware. that is the concern from which stormy daniels will be paid. on october 26th, the first republic bank informs cohen of a deposit. that comes from the trump organization e-mail. and the next day, michael cohen wires $130,000 to an attorney for stormy daniels. >> he directed me to make the payments. he directed me to become involved in these matters. >> i never directed him to do anything wrong. whatever he did, he did on his own. >> that sets the table for us. eddie joins me now, as well as julian tett, bill collins and mya wiley.

mya, let me start with you. we're looking at the hoistory, we're looking at the frame of mind of the president as all of this is happening. help us understand the import of what happened if in a federal courthouse this week in man hat cran. how does this change the story and the trajectory of this investigation? >> first of all, the story has been unfolding for months now. what we really have is confirmation by prosecutors that they believe michael cohen, that donald trump directed him to make those payments to women in order to advance his election, his campaign. and that is so important because it's not just now michael cohen's word, it's that prosecutors are saying they believe him and that they have corroborating evidence. and, of course, we know from ami, from george pecker that there is a pattern of paying off women because we also have karen mcdougall.

what that tells us is that the president was directly involved in crime, directly involved according to both michael cohenen, georcohen, pecker and given the pattern of behavior here, we have donald trump lying about knowing about the payments to stormy daniels. we have a -- we have conversation on audio, right, where cohen is actually saying to donald trump, we knew this before the sentencing where donald trump is saying what about paying cash? and he said no, no, i'm going to create a company. now, if you think you're doing something lawful, but why are you creating a shell company to then have your attorney make a personal loan to you that then is going to get booked as invoices for legal services to your company that you know are are not legal services to your

company that you run. the idea that we would have this fact pattern and donald trump saying my lawyer told me it was legal is a little bit of a stretch. >> that was a great explanation. bill, i'm going to go to you. michael cohen talking about his personal and mental incarceration that he's been in since he starred working for donald trump. mya saying a moment ago the prosecutors believe him. we have seen him on this sort of redemption tour over the last few months culminating in this sentencing saying he's changed his perspective on the man for whom he worked over many years. how is that going forward here, the degree to which you looked at michael cohen as a truth teller, as a truthful man? >> i think at some point in people's lives after they've done so much wrongdoing, they are seeking redemption in some way. i mean, michael cohen has had his come to jesus moment, in my mind. i mean, i had interactions with michael cohen before donald trump was a candidate. i wrote two pieces, one in

""vanity fair" and one in "the atlantic." and before donald trump would get on the phone with me, i had to deal with michael cohen. they are attached at the hip, okay? there's no question that they were attached at the hip at least for the years prior to him becoming a presidential candidate. so now for him to try to distance himself from michael cohen is, you know, fallacious, ridiculous, and i think with, you know, michael cohen deserves a lot of credit for trying to come forward, finally, in doing the right thing. it doesn't excuse what he's done in the past for donald trump, but it is pleasing to some fre. >> let me turn to the professor of religion here. we hear about the come to jesus moment. your reaction to what you saw this week? >> i think it's interesting. conversion experiences are always interesting experience ises, but especially when they seem to happen under coercion. >> in the crucible of the court. >> he got caught and then he came to jesus, with i suppose.

but then there's a standard narrative here. we saw it with omarosa .now we see it with cohen. i was somehow caught up in this cult of donald trump. we saw similar language with omarosa. now the scales have fallen from their eyes and they come to see the light. i don't buy that. what i buy is the fact that there's corroborating evidence to suggest that cohenen knowingly participated in illegal activity with donald trump. when he got caught, particularly around the moscow thing, that's when he started opening his mouth. the southern district of new york wanted him to open his mouth about some other things and he refused to do it and now he's doing thee years in federal prison. which issing interesting. crystal mason in texas for voter fraud is doing five years in federal prison. so it's interesting. >> a lot of people are pooh-poohing this, that this is a small campaign violation.

what does that say to you? >> for me, what i found fascinating is that bill and i spend a lot of our careers looking at business and complex shell structures. we're used to that. but what worries me right now is for everyone else looking at this case, what you've had is a drip, drip, drip of normalzation. and you've had this incredibly complicated saga which takes flow charts and diagrams to display what was going on. at this point, most people go we've been hearing this for months, it's too complicated. we're just going to look ahead. and i think that is fascinating because that is how in the past many business leaders have managed to create empires and stuff which didn't always do, you know, right things. but this problem of normalization, not just inside america, but on the world stage and the eye roll that you get these days when you talk about this stuff is going to be very hard to counter. >> to that point, you look at the filings that we've seen from bob mueller and his team, we had

one yesterday involving michael flynn, a response to the sentencing memo that he sent, there is a crystaline quality to what he put out. a lot of bob mueller's indictments and memoranda that even i who didn't go to law school is kind of find my way through. is that purposeful, that there is a risk that people can't understand what's going on. as a prosecutor, does one have to be cognizant of that, especially in a matter like this? >> i would say in any complex litigation, doesn't matter whether it's criminal or civil, attorneys are trying to tell the story. and they're trying to tell the story in a way that is accessible, including to the judge. because as we said, this isn't about intelligence. this is about complexity. and having a complex set of transactions over a long period of time tracking possibly multiple crimes, right. so remember that michael cohen. was pleading guilty to several crimes, tax fraud, bank

fraud. he literally lied about the value of the assets of his taxi business and then used those lies in valuation to convince a bank to give him $20 million in loans, which i think goes back to this point of normalizing. there's really a long history of fraudulent behavior on the part of michael cohen that is part of this story in order to refusing to come forward and tell the truth about criminal history and criminal -- that might lead to other people, to eddie's point. so i think what we're seeing here is the effort to make plain and as clear as possible, even to judges, it's really part of your job as an attorney. but i do think robert mueller is very conscious of the fact that while he may have a final report that gets turned over the to an attorney general, he's returning aer report to an attorney general who is appointed by donald trump whether or not that attorney general is nominated by the senate, we will confirm by

the senate, rather. but the point is that there is a public reckoning. he's very careful about, as all prosecutors are, what he puts in the public domain versus what he redacts and what he puts under seal. that tells us where where is he still investigating, where is he going to share as much information publicly as he can. i do think that's happening. >> from your perspective, was this nonpercesecution agreement more sizable than what we were expecting? >> look, i think david pecker knows a lot. this catch and kill concept, it's really ugly, right? it's not something that journalists at the "national enquirer" -- i mean, david pecker, he may be part of a company that owns the national inquires, but he has been a respectable magazine publisher for some time. he was partnered with john

kennedy jr. and george. so he knows better. obviously what he's doing and has done and has admitted to doing is completely reprehensible and i think he's going to be spilling a lot of guts here. >> we're going to pick up a few of these threads throughout the our. up next, a tense west wing prepares for the next shoe to drop in the mueller investigation. and speaking of shoes dropping, today marks ten years to the day since another shoe wasn't so much dropped as angrily thrown. glad we had that there in slow motion. can you believe it's been ten years since that moment?

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it's not just a job. it's a [ bleep ] adventure. >> mick mulvaney, now president trump's acting chief of staff. the announcement coming down in typical trump fashion. a tweet. i am pleased to announce that mick mulvaney, director of the office of management & budget will be acting chief of staff. he's the third man to hold the president under president trump, seemingly not his first choice after three others turned down the opportunity to have the job.

julian, let me start with you. tell us a bit about mick mulvaney and his aptitude for this job. he's been doing double duty at omc and the cfpd. i have a very big alphabet soup is here for us. >> here is the thing. he's one of the survivors around donald trump. there aren't many of them. he has managed to stay out of the headlines. he's managed to quietly get on with his job. he's kind enough to make sure he's only acting so he can quickly vanish without any great drama. but you have to realize at the end of the day, i don't think donald trump wants the chief of staff. you know, he he ran the trump organization basically like a tudor royal court with princelings around him all trying to kill each other. he was in charge and he basically kept the reigns. he doesn't want a chief of staff. he tried to pretend he was going to do the washington thing and knuckle down. but these days, he's

increasingly competent that he can run the white house like the trump organization with an acting chief of staff. >> i want to ask you about the intractability of this white house. the officials line is he's going to keep this omb title, but the bulk of his work will be focused o chief of staff duties. i think the opposite might be true, in light of what julian is saying. how much influence and power is he going to have, do you think? >> i don't think he's going to have much. he already has led the way to blowing up the budget. there's a sense i just heard someone earlier describe him as having impeccable conservative issues. and you wonder how that square that with the exploding deficits. look, i'm twrieg to figure on out why he took the job, right? it's the dumbest decision i can imagine anyone in washington, d.c. taking right now. so i suspect he's going to be cornered. donald trump will not listen the to him and he purposely put

acting there because he knew what was coming. >> i mentioned the means by which this announcement came out. i'm going to turn to twitter now. president trump tweeting this, secretary of the interior ryan zinke will be leaving the administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years. ryans has accomplished much during his tenure and i want to thank him for his service to the nation. bill, i'll turn to you. you're shaking your head in response to this. >> one step ahead of the sheriff, right? this guy, the sheriff has been on his tail. he's been weaving his way through the west. he's going to ride out with his tail between his legs. this is inevitable. anybody who gets close to donald trump inevitably loses their way and loses their often part of their morality. and it's very unpleasant the to watch. just one comment back on mick mulvaney -- >> as we await the next tweet. >> my sources tell me he is one of the few people to be

quote/unquote a truth teller to donald trump. when it kams to the omnibus bill last year, he was able to to go in and tell the president the $700 million they allocated to the military was ridiculous. for a time, trump believed him and said he was going change that but eventually caved. i don't know whether mulvaney is setting himself up for defeat here or some sort of terrible outcome. you has been traditionally one of the people who go in there and tell donald trump what very few others would do. now, i don't know whether donald trump wants to hear that, but mulvaney might be -- >> reiterating what we just learned here, ryan zinke, secretary of the interior is mow out accordsing to president trump on twitter. tra brings me to you, carrie, so much of this is out on twitter. and eem sure you've been looking at kelly annan conway's house's

arguments. a lot of people are relishing this whole thing about the dynamic of the conway family. >> it's a weird part of the reality show, i guess. why even bother having reporters? this guy puts out announce manies just like that. there's no organization to it. there's no secret we'll leak to the "new york times" or the wall street journal. this zinke thing can't be a surprised. i'm not a political person, but come on, 63 investigations? >> only. >> what's interesting is how information is now flowing in a way it wasn't and the press is reactive to it. so twitter essentially becomes the way this country is governed in a weird bay, if you think about it. and we'll see how that goes. >> it's a direct pipeline to the

american people unfiltered. >> it's a direct line to the people on twitter and the press. >> but it's 65 million followers. you saw this late last night that there were many people, all capital, that were vying for this. >> one way to blow up your holiday party is to have the president tweeting on a friday afternoon or evening. >> i just did a podcast and the issue is which one of them do you pay attention to? because there's so many of them. and that is the question as the press sort of becomes a creature of this tech medium and reacts and reacts and reacts instead of doing it beforehand. >> this is the key to it, it seems to me. it seems as if it's the formation of a tension, but it's the deformation of attention. which has this interesting implication for democratic dlibation. so there's a way in which you can pass what comes off as information off to the public

which, in that case, ooin it's designed in interesting sorts of ways to turn our attention elsewhere, to deformity our attention. and it seems to me to see the back of zinke's head is good. he's one of the top grifters in the whole thing. so it's good to see him going. >> we're going to go to the white house and speak to my colleagues there on the heels of this tweet announcing personnel changes. we'll continue to talk about that right here on msnbc.

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welcome back. the president of the united states has announced his secretary of t interior secretary, ryan zinke has left the state department. i'll read the tweet for you. secretary of the interior ryan zinke will be leaving the administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years. kelly oh do'donnell has more. this is something that was speculated to be in the works. what do you know of the

circumstances that led to this? >> this morning within, white house officials confirmed this had. this comes down to an issue of controversy. zinke has drawn a lot of criticism for his travel schedule using different aircraft, ethical claims, and zinke telling the president through the white house that his concerns of sort of battling these accusations are too great. that's his point of view. zinke has been one of the targets of controversy throughout his time in office and we had seen that there were some others in the trump orbit who had been criticized for their use of private aircraft or how they would use government aircraft. those kinds of things that end up costing taxpayers money. and in the case of of the former health and human services secretary, tom price, he left office many months ago. zinke held on, in part because he and the president had gotten

along well. he had a strong base of support as a former member of congress and someone with some knowledge in the interior area working, he said at times, about some of this travel that because of the secretary of an interior, you're overseeing the federal lands, you're traveling to places that don't necessarily match up easily on commercial flight schedules. but that criticism has been over-shadowed by just the mounting questions of how he has run the department. and so as we hit he this halfway point in the administration's first term, we, of course, did expect there would be changes and the president foreshadowed that there would be a handful of changes. but he had not spoken publicly about zinke as being one of those who might be out. but the sort of taking the temperature of washington, it was clear that because of the criticism, the office of inspector general reports sort of the cloud that had been around zinke who denies wrongdoing, but is stepping away, notifying the white house he plans to leave his position

and the president making it official on twitter. it gives you the sense that mow the president has another high profile space to fill. we just went through in the past 24 hours about the chief of staff position with general john kelly leaving by the end of the year and then sort of a public sweep stakes for who would be taking that position are where we saw prominent people who were under consideration including the former governor of new jersey, chief of staff nick ayers. now it will be mulvaney, but he's keeping the chief of staff title in an acting way, but hanging on to his current job as the director of the office of management and budget. we've seen the president have to fill a vacancy at the department of justice with the new nominee for attorney general. so the cabinet shake up continues. the hype sort of high placed positions around the president with the changes at the chief of staff level. on one hand, david, this is the kind of thing that is typical for some changes, but when you

look at the zinke case, questions of controversy and ethics made this more predictive than other things we've seen. >> instability has been the hallmark of the trump presidency. the president once touted himself as this. >> no, that's other people that do that. i don't. i'm very consistent. i'm a very stable genius. >> these days, political turmoil is not just rocking our capital. paris is burning as police brace for a fifth weekend of violence. in london, theresa may surviving a leadership test, but the uk's path to leaving the european union got more difficult this week. there will soon be a new chancellor in berlin. angela merkel plans to exit the world stage. she is not going to seek re-election. a bad day for what as far as politics for what we used the to call the west.

you'll never guess who cease a silver lining in all of this. here is former ambassador michael mcfall. >> the chaos has president trump has caused to the western democratic world not only within our own country, but within the alliance, within the eu, that is exactly what vladimir putin wants. >> julian, let me turn to you here first as you watch all of this happening. how much do you tie them together? >> i think they are completely tied together. what you're seeing really is two things happening. firstly, a growing recognition that the post world war ii era, the frameworks are crumbling. they're just not fit for purpose right now in a world where china is increasingly rising and where america's made it clear that they don't want to play that leadership role any wore. secondly, what you're seeing is an explosion of populism. since 2010, the proportion of

populist votes has done from 5% to 40%. there's only been one other time when that happened and that was back n 1930s. and it's really very striking. those figures come from a big study by a hedge fund, bridge water, and they were taken about a year, a year and a half ago. i think if you were to had look at the the vote today, it would be even higher. so the question people in the uk are asking is not just what's happening with brexit, but is the next leader going to be somebody like jeremy corbyn, very left wing, appealing to the populist vote. what is going to happen in france. increasingly, you're seeing the populist left and the right rising. even in germany, which used to be this stable boring bastion of, you know been sensibility, you're starting to see afd, a far right party, getting rising support. so everywhere, you have populism. and i was recently talking to the foreign policy lead who agree on one thing, we haven't

seen peak populism yet. because populism has exploded when the economy has been growing. we've gone from 5% to 40% from an economic boom. what is going to happen when they turn down? >> you read in the "wall street journal" that those who are nervous are executives of major banks. yes, we talk about liberal democracy, but it is the fundamental be neeth all neath that is in peril, as well. >> the one thing i love about listening to julian, her sense of human nature is so fascinatinging to me. the part of the job as a journalist is to absorb human initiate and reflect upon it. this has been a great time for economies in the west and all around the world. now we're starting to see china's economy slowing.

there are some people in this country who think that our economy, 3.5% gdp growth has been a sugar high and we're going to come off that and reality is going to set in. we have trillion dollar budget deficits. even eliminated, i think he might have said at one point we're talking about $21 million. we're in a very tenuous situation. i've written about trouble in the corporate bond market and i still think that is brewing. so i think we're going to see, as julian said, kind of more unrest, especially with what i call this high beta president who sees it every day. >> when you look at the dissolution, do you think that it's driving that? it's a consequence of it? >> yeah. let's blame google for everything. >> i'll allow you. >> no, it's been a march of

taking the brakes of everything. first it started in entertainment and media that everything was democrotized. but at the same time, everybody is screaming. so i think the question is, is there any way to bring it back together? is there any way to control it or are we going to be part of this cycle. >> but it's like everybody -- everything on that show now exists in cable news or exists on the internet or something like that. the question is do these tools, the whole idea was that everybody gotter their say have created a situation where everybody gets their say. it's a disaster. >> what we see that is interesting is that the yellow vest protests in france, they've been using facebook to organize. and i don't want to be very careful that we don't collapse. we used populism and collapse with what's going on on the left and what's going on on the

right. political science talks about the pop ewe limb in europe being a wave. it's not a wave. what happens is they're drawing on a reservoir of malcontent, nativism and racism that is driving policy. it's not just about economic problems, as it were. but the post world war ii consensus has not been good for those workers around the globe. this is pking against economies that destabilize. what we're seeing here is something, the desire to come back to the status quo. >> a lot of this tech is coming, but the stuff that's coming is

really disturbing. automation, ai, robotics. these jobs are not returning. what is interesting is we spent all this time at the circus of the white house. not covering these people, it's ridiculous. >> there's questions about jobs and nobody is talking about the substantive issues. >> i think cara makes a really great point there. i can't stress enough, we're seeing this explosion of anger. at a time when the economy has been growing well. and yes, there's been a lot of inequality. but the overall economy have been growing. and the question of what happens in the next down turn is so important because you could see either wsh, if you're being optimistic, and a reset of

political debate to have a proper conversation or you're going to see these essentially being used, you know, the phones to create more tribalism, more fragmentation and more frustration. >> she was 9 7% of the the philippines gets its information on facebook. the government there is using it to create discord. she got arrested. it's a really interesting dynamic between the tools of communication now and the governments that are abusing and using. >> let me ask you lastly, in the time we have left, apple made this announcement, they're going to double the plant down in austin. >> they're not making life -- in the united states. i'm sorry, donald trump, they're not going to do it. it's not going to happen. it doesn't make any sense in the supply chain. it's complex. but the question is, how can we create the next jobs, advanced

manufacturing and how can we train or population for these jobs. that's at the heart of it. >> we'll come back. i promise not more on that, but we will talk about ryan zinke more here as our coverage continues. junior achievement reaches young people all over the world to prepare them for the future of work. we go into classrooms and we teach entrepreneurial skills and leadership skills. when you actually create a business when you're in your teens, it raises your self-confidence. junior achievement is really unique because they inspire young people to think creatively. the citi foundation's pathways to progress initiative helped us reach kids in over 50 countries. citi has also loaned us their executives and their employees to help us deliver our programs. our youth are three times more likely to become entrepreneurs

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interior secretary. the president made that announcement. ryan zinke will be leaving the administration at the end of the year. ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and i want to thank him for service to our nation. behind me here on the wall, we have some of the faces, a marquis of those who have left this administration since its beginning now about with two years ago. let me turn to you first. ryan zinke you look at, dogged by scandal, numerous investigations. lawmakers were calling for his ouster for a long time and the president doggedly kept him in place. eventually he left despite the scandal ises about transportation and financial improprieties, housing in washington, d.c. contrast scott pruitt with ryan zinke in terms of what we're seeing in terms of of those who have been heading up those

agencies. >> i don't see any daylight between them and other members of the cabinet who are still there or president trump. president trump is the kind of guy who would, i believe, say he could shoot down fifth avenue and shoot somebody without any consequences. i think we're beginning to see an unfolding conspiracy, corruption, that goes to the top of the of trump behavior that people in new york who know trump and have covered trump and written about trump have known for a long time. and one of the things that i continue to wonder about is if new york had been the meets ya center of the country, knew donald trump best and were unable to convey to the rest of the american people what he was really like. and they're finding about it now, unfortunately it's two years in and we're suffering the consequences as a result of that. he says ryan zinke has accomplished so far? like what? other than opening up drilling

to an war, i'm not sure what he's accomplished. >> on that note, we talk about agencies that do dramatic things, who go about doing that in a way that's unchecked or unguarded. and i think you could put the interior department and all that's been accomplished into that camp. >> if you are looking for something great to read, michael lewis has a book about the inner workings of government agencies actually are are. but the point he makes very clearly, and it's so relevant now, is when government agencies don't work, when they're not overseeing nuclear risks, environmental risks, things like that, it starts to get very dangerous. i think the question future historians are going to be asking is how much of the safety culture began to degrade very quietly under the current administration and actually, frankly, before it, as well, while everyone was watching the soap opera and the reality tv

show of the white house. >> look, we can go back to steve bannonen's three buckets and one of those buckets was the deadministration of the state. part of what that involved was appointing people over these agencies who in some ways billion their careers on -- >> push against them. >> so you think about epa, you think about energy, you think about interior, you think of all of these places. so one of the things that it has been -- one of the darker currents of republicanism since the age of reagan is that government is bad .what we need to do is starve the beast. one of the ways you starve the beast is through incompetence or drifters. >> so muany investigations with so many people calling for the removal of the head of that agency. what does it say about back stops and the culture of washington today that all of that seems to go unheeded, that

that seems to make month difference? >> that donald trump's pledge on on the trump was to fill it. that's what he's done. he has made clear as a president that he has no ethics. he's used his office to make money. he's driven a lot of rf knew to mar-a-lago. remember the part early in the administration when the state department posted a mar-a-lago ad, basically? they had to pull it down because they recognized that crossed a line. we had kellyanne conway telling people they should buy ivanka trump's clothing. this is an administration that has built itself on self-dealing. and we don't understand that, i don't think we understand the administration. >> we're going to come back here in just a moment and look back at the john edwards defense. that's coming up. >> never liked him. i never trusted him.

i always thought he was a sleaze bag, frankly. a lot of people say and a lot of very good lawyers tell me that the government doesn't have a very good case. >> donald trump in 2012 calling edwards a sleaze bag for cheating on his wife and slamming the case against the former senator. john edwards eventually was acquitted of using funds to pay off his mistress.

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did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. >> i never directed him to do anything wrong. whatever he did, he did on his own. >> president trump and his defenders are trying to draw parallels to another case involving another politician, john edwards. the former senator was acquitted on one count and the jury hung on five others. john edwards indicted on six felony charges, four of them for collecting illegal campaign contributions. hundreds of thousands of dollars were funneled to his mistress covering her travel, housing and medical expenses. the defense said those payments were intended to keep an affair secret from edwards' family, not from voters. help us understand how well this argument works. you've seen it made by the president. you've seen it been made by rudy giuliani. does this hold water? >> i think you're elevating it to call it an argument. >> it's a tweet at this point.

>> it's not a viable legal argument. let's walk through a few -- we don't have enough time to go through all the reasons. let me give a few high points. first of all as was pointed out in a big piece, it's a matter of law that the judge said if you did this to advance your election, it would be a crime under campaign finance law. that's important because they're trying to argue it wasn't a crime. yes, it is. a judge said it is under the edwards case. not so helpful in that regard. secondly you did not have witnesses lining up saying not only did he direct me to make the payment, but it was to advance the election. so this is a key point. there were some payments made prior to the campaign. the payments were made directly related to supporting the birth -- there's some fact pattern that confused the jury.

so they hung. that's another thing that's important. >> you had a centenarian benefactor. >> she was 101 years old. she was frail. she didn't appear in the trial. in this case you have his lawyer fixer, and in the stormy daniels case and the karen mcdougal case you have pecker directly saying he knew we coordinated with the campaign, it was to advance the campaign. it's just game over. >> i want to ask about an argument that advanced in the op-ed. we will debate this for years. it does make it more or potentially makes it more than a crime. this is something that could have been and probably was pivotal in this campaign. >> absolutely. it goes to the heart of our democracy. one thing we have to wrap our minds around, and that is this. it could be the case that donald trump ascended to the presidency illegally. he committed a crime to become

president of the united states. if people are willing like orrin hatch and others to turn their face away from that fact, that means they're turning their backs on democracy as such. the stakes of this are really huge. when the story first dropped in the washington -- in the "wall street journal," i heard many people around this table say this story around stormy daniels could bring down this presidency. because they knew at the heart of it was the potential of a crime. not just immoral activity. part of what i think is at stake here, even with normalization, evened with the droning on and the boring nature of it all is democracy. folks who are so willing to play fast and loose with the politics of it are willing to play fast and loose with democracy. >> now to you. >> at the heart of american exceptionism has been a sense of the rule of law and the constitution. that's a bedrock of the democracy. it's the reason why america is

still standing on the world stage saying we believe and we believe in something different. that's been underpalestimined. >> thank you all for being here and leaving with the breaking news about ryan zinke. coming up, senator jeff murkley will join joy. that's coming up. our dad was in the hospital. because of smoking. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to.

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that does it for me. up tomorrow, a great group including paul butler. but "am joy" starts right now with joy reid. >> he knows the truth, i know the truth. others know the truth. here's the truth -- the people of the united states of america, the people of the world don't believe what he's saying. the man doesn't tell the truth. and it's sad that i should take responsibility for his dirty deeds. >> good morning. welcome to "am joy." we have lots to get to this morning including that alarming ruling on healthcare. stay tuned for that. first, thanks to the man you just heard, michael cohen, in court filings over the last few weeks donald trump is facing the worst few weeks of his presidency. in fact, the whole thing could be in peril. he has the spiraling scandals around himself, his businesses and his campaign to thank for it. those scandals are proceeding