>> chairman cummings said in the letter announcing the hearing this is a discussion ongoing with robert mueller. there will be more to come. >> garrett, thank you for your great reporting on this. that wraps up this busy, breaking news hour for me. there's president trump. he's on the texas border. i will see you right back here tomorrow 1:00 p.m. eastern, 3:00 p.m. eastern. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in the new york. we will get to donald trump's crisis and trip to the border they didn't want to take in a minute. but breaking news this hour, donald trump's terrible week just got worse. his one-time fixer and personal lawyer michael cohen will testify in public before the house oversight committee on february 7th. that's four weeks from today. remember, michael cohen is the man who claims donald trump directed an illegal hush money scheme in the months before the election to pay off women he had relationships with. and if you need to be reminded of just what michael cohen means

to the president, here's how he described the raid on cohen's office that put in motion what is largely thought to represent the single gravest legal threat to the president. >> frankly a real disgrace. it's an tack on our country in a true sense. it's an attack on what we all stand for. >> in a statement just in the last hour, cohen promised his candor saying, quote -- >> he knows the truth. i know the truth. others know the truth. and here is the truth, the people of the united states of america, 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. >> wow. joining us from "the washington post" national reporter carol leonnig and former u.s. attorney and deputy assistant general harry litman. with us at the table jonathan lanier, white house reporter for associated press, nick cant sory, "the new york times" political recorder and "the washington post" columnist and associated editor eugene robinson. let me start with you, nick, and read a little bit of your papers. the story out in the last hour. mr. cohen's decision to appear before the house oversight and reform committee february 7th sets the stage for a blockbuster public hearing that threatens to further damage the president's image and could clarify the depth of his legal woes. mr. cohen, congress singulary to mr. trump when he was a real estate developer and presidential candidate, as well as informant as president was privy to the machinations of mr. trump's inner circle and key moments under scrutiny by both special counsel robert s. mueller and federal prosecutors in new york. >> to speak in the president's language, it's going to be huge

this year. it's going to have blockbuster rating because everyone wants to hear what cohen has to say in public. it's important in a global way because the things he has been telling have been told all to the special counsel in private. some aspects have gotten out in the press but there's a lot more the prosecutors know that we don't. this could be a stage for him to spill his guts. the second one is we have one violation, campaign finance violation, that if we know not all of the facts on, most of the facts on. i think if the house is seriously considering impeachment in the long run, this sets the stage for an airing of those facts on the house side for them to have a discussion about those violations. >> carol, you were booked because of some blockbuster reporting of your own overnight about a strategy this white house plans to deploy, the added -- lawyers they've added to help them do it. and your story is laced with

references to how this is going to be the biggest fight over executive privilege since watergate. a parallel i can't help but think about and because it's trump, it's not quite as elegant, but john dean, is this going to be michael cohen's john dean moment? >> yes and no. remember, john dean was actually signed the white house and michael cohen was not. >> i said it wasn't as elegant. >> no, no, but i take your reference and actually, i want to go back to something you said at the very beginning, nicolle, which is this idea it is so unsettling to the president to have michael cohen anywhere on a stage or starting with the moment his apartment and his business and his office were raided back in 2018, that raid so upset -- forgive me, it so upset the president that he called it a disgrace against the country. but then later when he found out that michael was actually cooperating, then he really started to sweat and i can only

imagine what he's going through right now learning this news while he's down in texas, that, again, a man who stood beside him while he made a lot of schemes and while he concocted a lot of stories, many of which were lies, is going to share that on national television. and back to something nick said, which is are we going to learn about what he told special counsel robert mueller is michael going to talk about trump tower moscow and the details we don't yet know from mueller's pleadings about just what was promised by the russian government back in 2016. >> harry, there's so much there, i'm going to ask you to pick up on the threads both nick and carol pulled on. one is the question at the heart of the mueller probe. was there collusion with the russians? are there financial ties between russians and donald trump? and the question that's really at the forefront even since the new year, is the president

functioning? is he in receipt of some sort of back channel from putin, and is he ticking off things that putin wants from an american president? >> yeah, and these are the questions that really are giving heart attacks to the white house at this very second. cohen speaks to at least three big topics, though campaign finance, i think we know the facts of fairly well. but all kinds of misdeeds in the business years leading up to the candidacy and then the trump tower moscow are going to be for many of us revelations. and it may not be exactly cohen's john dean moment but i think it's the country's john dean moment or jeb mcgruder moment, the sort of theater here is exactly what the republican congress has denied for the last couple of years, tvivid picture of a former loyal soldier to trump on tv telling all, and

having that very vivid television moment of back and forth, and that will be only the first of several to come. >> with michael cohen set to testify before congress, president trump is never going to reopen the government. it's not just what cohen could present, this is the beginning. this is a new reality for donald trump. democrats control the house. michael cohen will be the first of many. he possesses perhaps a lot more damaging information than others but it will be witness after witness after witness, not just efforts about collusion or campaign finance but other matters that connect to this president, his business, the administration, the inauguration, all of these fronts where he's vulnerable, where those in the white house are facing pressure. and this is sort of, of course, another moment in the short term where the optics of what the president wanted today have now been obscured. >> kind of wanted. >> sure. it was not a trip he necessarily wanted but people around him

did. they felt this was after ceding the spotlight to the dems for a long time, and we can argue if it's been successful or not, a lot of people say no, it hasn't been, he's using the trappings of the oval. we have the oval office address, here we are on air force one, down on the border highlighting the crisis, put that word in quotes perhaps, but he's trying to make his case. that's not what's happening. once again the shadow of russia and all of these probes hovering overhead. >> eugene, the president was just asked about this down at the border and said he doesn't worry about it. but we've talked about the russian connections carol has laid out what cohen could testify to about the building of trump tower moscow. but there's also the low-tech crime that's may have been committed here. he has been implicated by michael cohen, those implications now sponsored by southern district of new york, that he committed campaign finance violations, felony crimes. >> right, felony crimes. okay, so aside from trump tower moscow meeting and aside from

the hush money payments, mr. cohen, what else should this committee know? so when he's asked that question, donald trump knows what the answers will be. nobody else in the white house has a clue, right? the white house counsel's office, they have no idea. the com shop has no idea. but donald trump knows and i suspect that it will be a rather long answer. there's ten years worth of stuff, and i'm sure a lot of it is shady stuff that michael cohen can tell that committee about and other committees about, that he seems eager to just spill his guts. and so president trump said he's not worried, that his tell. he's like totally worried. r. >> and that's a great point. to add to that, the cohen part of this is something the white house had trouble preparing for because they don't feel the president has been fully forthcoming about what cohen

knows and what happened. >> it was my understanding he had not really come clean. but let me just -- we also heard in the last couple of minutes that chairman cummings, nice ring to it, chairman cummings said he won't step on mueller's toes. so i think you're right to point to these areas of interest. they're going to push on the crimes that have already been investigated, prosecuted and sentenced. >> exactly. but if he knows something about the trump tower moscow meeting, for example, there might be areas mueller doesn't want him to get into. >> or you go in closed session. >> exactly, you go in closed session and talk about that. but i think there's lots of stuff michael cohen can talk about that we haven't heard, that the american public hasn't heard, that donald trump knows about and his kids probably know about and the accountant, by the way, who it will be interesting to see if gets called as well. >> harry, let me ask you to pick up this thread of what could be presented in an open session of congress that might be really

devastating in terms of shaping public opinion around the fact that donald trump made illegal hush money payments to swing the election in his favor? i think so much we talk about is how the mueller probe could lead to his impeachment, how the mueller report could put in motion hearings but the very public, the most loyal lieutenant, how donald trump directed a scheme with hush money with the intention of keeping it from voters and you have the cooperation of former al michael berg, former coo and head of the "national enquirer," now cooperating with federal prosecutors, if all of this is revealed in a public hearing, what does it sound like? >> it sounds like a god awful mess for the president. and the biggest point is that cohen will be speaking to, the real sort of headline excerpts that will come up on the news

will be when he says not only did i do this, but, yes, trump knew. yes, trump knew that. yes, i checked in with the president there. yes, it was all orchestrated by him. it's the except to which trump was really on top of it and did it for the reason of trying to safeguard the election. one quick point, cohen is appearing voluntarily and that makes a big difference in a number of ways. if wiseleburg or pecker or others are in a subpoena battle, it might be a long time until you actually see them follow up. but cohen himself will give enough to really bring home trump's specific role. >> carol, i want to read you just a couple of things to bring everybody back to what was in the sentencing memo from the southern district of new york. cohen said trump directed campaign finance relations, quote, in particular and as cohen himself has now admitted with respect to both payments he acted in coordination with and

at the direction of individual one. and from thinks plea deal with robert mueller, cohen discussed the status in progress of the moscow project with individual one, a clear reference to trump, on more than the three occasions cohen claimed to the committee and he briefed family members of individual one within the company about the project. these are -- it's my understanding that not only is this what he knows, this is what he lied about. could the committee try to pull out why he lied and who directed him to do so? >> absolutely they can ask him all sorts of questions. chairman cummings as ranking member is pretty good at getting a witness to show all, and it will be interesting to see what michael is willing to tell, but also what mueller allows him to. on the payments issue, i think what's really interesting there -- and you have started to bore into it, is how much did trump tell him what he should and shouldn't say? and how much did trump, who's a

known micro manager as we see in the presidency and as we have heard about him as an entrepreneur, how much did donald trump sort of craft the scheme? i think i'm most interested personally in the moscow trump tower issue because much of that is redacted. we don't know what the russian government was promising. we know that michael says it was slated to make trump tower -- forgive me, trump organization and the president hundreds of millions of dollars. hundreds of millions of dollars? what trump licensing arrangement has ever made hundreds of millions of dollars? i would like to know how michael knew that and whether candidate/president trump knew that too. >> this is a low tech, nonlegal question but what is the degree of freak-out right now at the white house? >> right now most of the white

house is currently at the border in texas. >> where trump didn't want to be anyway. >> yes. the president, we heard what he had to say. but people around him have been nervous about this. this is not totally unexpected. they knew cohen has been for months now waving his arms around saying i will testify, i will testify, i want to come clean. smchb that is an effort to get his sentence reduced but some of it is an effort to clear his conscious. they knew he was coming and this is something they're greatly concerned about. they know it's not just the beginning of what could be a month or two years long from the white house but cohen himself as a confidante of the president recently still -- even though he's faded from headlines the last two weeks after the sentencing, other things have overtaken him, he still poses the greatest threat to this president. >> and there's an actual hearing date that concentrates the mind. >> you're right. the government will still be shut down or shut down again. let me ask you something, you and your colleagues have reported basically 99.998% of

the legal strategy has been a pull relations strategy, smear robert mueller, get hannity to call in the crime family. it seems that the cohen testimony on february 7th, the gravest damage it can do is create cracks in the trump base in terms of public opinion. to have them here frar from a m his way to jail who spent his life serving donald trump and his family and businesses was trying to help him make hundreds of millions of dollars in a real estate project, to see that on live tv on roadblock coverage perhaps for days, detailing how donald trump -- let me again read what donald trump is accused to have alleged to have done, cohen himself has admitted with respects to payments he acted in coordination with and with the direction of individual one. to explain that and say how donald trump directed a finance scam in the weeks before the election with the intent of tainting the election seems the

public damage may represent as grave as a threat of the legal threats. >> i have the same thought toxt read that in the mueller finding, to read that in the abstract language of he direc d directed, he ordered, he caused this to happen, that's one thing. but to hear cohen describe the orders he used, the conversation he had, perhaps some phrases exactly as he said them or had the president describe his relationship with stormy daniels, there's so much he can say about what came out of the president's mouth that's going to potentially have so much more impact than just seeing them written in a filing. >> and it's possible there are more recordings. >> absolutely. we know there are more recordings. we don't know they're all pertinent. we don't know what's on them. but it's quite possible and even if they are not, there's cohen's recollection as nick said of conversations, of settings, of phraseology, everything. it makes it so much more real.

>> certainly cohen might not be the most credible witness. we know he's lied. part of the charges he faced are the lies he told agents to prosecutors, we know the white house, rudy giuliani isn't even charged, we will paint him as such. to have a voice and describe him, even if it's not a clearcut, suddenly the entire trump base will turn against him, but it will plant seeds of doubt. there were people out there who will say wait a minute, i believe this more than i used to. that will be damaging for the president. >> harry, let me ask you to focus this back on something we haven't talked about since the new year and that's the legal threat to the president. i remember there was some reporting about the statute of limitations and how the president if he committed crimes may only be insulated by the statute of limitations, he may only be in office long enough to be charged by the southern district of new york. if things take a turn for the worse, what is the legal exposure? >> on the campaign finance reform he's looking to be indicted january 21, 2020.

the statute will not have run by then. and there are other crimes, by the way, if they are charged as conspiracies and there's even a single overt act that -- including covering up that occurs within a five-year period before he leaves office, then he's also subject to being indicted, presumably with a new administration and southern district of new york acting very aggressively. so the election could very well be for his liberty, assuming he's still in office at that point. >> i imagine he will stay totally calm and cool through that. when we come back, the president loses more republicans on the shutdown fight as the trip to the white house fails to turn the tide in his favor. another day, another trump-russian connection for the house to investigate. and stop me if you heard this one before, the president is probably undermining another west wing aide.

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we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. wanted to be president is now wrapping up a trip he never wanted to take to solve a crisis that really doesn't exist on behalf of voters for the most part doesn't support his solution. welcome to thursday. with the list of republicans feeli feeling emboldened to part with this president growing, donald trump took his hat to the southern border today. >> they say a wall is medieval.

so is a wheel. a wheel is older than a wall. i looked and every single car out there, even the real expensive ones that the secret service uses -- and believe me, they are expensive -- i said do they all have wheels? yes. oh, i thought it was medieval. the wheel is older than the wall, you know that? and there are some things that work. you know what? a real works and a wall works. nothing like a wall. the government is shut down because democrats will not fund border security. >> i'm not even sure that is accurate medieval history but we will check for you. this came after nearly a dozen house republicans broke with the president on the shutdown, voting to reopen parts of the government ahead of tax season. trump amplifies the possibility of declaring a national emergency at the southern border. the reality checks on the lack of political will for his wall are now coming in waves. politico polled office of 17 senate and house members who represent texas, new mexico,

arizona and california about trump's $5.7 billion border barrier request, only two, ted cruz and martha mcsally said they supported it. and this -- quite frankly think the folks in washington, d.c. are out of touch about what's going on at the border of the they come down and do a photo-op or patrol boat or helicopter, the democrats point the finger at republicans, republicans point the fingers at democrats and then they leave, they leave us with the problem. it's just a total circus. it is indeed. on day 20 of the second longest government shutdown in history, a shutdown that proves the essential argument of donald trump's candidacy was a lie, that he can run things as a success. businessman might, a tweet from "the washington post" carol leonnig puts is it best -- i think that america is actually engulfed by its second civil war now, putin deputy rogozin. the russian oligarch is more

right than wrong and it's exactly what putin wanted. joining our conversation, from the border in texas and former democratic congresswoman donna edwards joins us. jacob, you have unbelievable reporting about how a little low tech saw, not medieval at all, cut a big hole through the wall? >> yeah, i think if you didn't follow this closely, a lot of people might be surprised by this but i don't find it surprising at all. so much of what the president says goes on down here is not based in reality and his preference for a steel barrier has been shown, according to exclusive photo nbc news has obtained is vulnerable to being sawed open with a saw you can buy at home depot. this is what's at the prototype location. he all eight tested. can you see with your own eyes. in fact, can you see right through it with your own eyes, nicole. this is still the one the president is abdicating for a wall as basically a

one-size-fits-all solution, desfid despite what everybody else around him, including at the round table that i found a nuanced conversation about drugs coming to the port of echttry. he pointed to 117 kilos of meth on the tail and 4 kilos of heroin. guess what, they didn't come through areas where there weren't border walls, even this kind, but ports of entry. yet again, another steel slat in the lack of reality in the trump border wall world. >> donna edwards, there are so many things he does that are simply cartoonish and offensive because of the way they debase the office he holds. this is different than that. there are people being harmed, there are people being hurt that are federal employees who will go without a paycheck soon. talk about the human consequences of this president. >> you know, we've talked about the 800,000 federal workers who tomorrow won't get a paycheck and won't be able to pay their mortgages and meet their obligations, but there are all of those people who rely on the

federal workforce, the contractors and in communities, a federal building might be the only hub of employment in an entire town, and so that means every small business in that town depends on a federal workforce and to just dismiss it and say, well, work out a deal with your landlords or pick up some extra business, it really is a reflection that you don't understand the lives that people live, who have relatively small incomes, are supporting their families and a missed paycheck is about all of those responsibilities. and people who otherwise get up every day and want to go and do a good job, and so i think for the president and for republicans to be grandstanding with the president on this when they have an opportunity to open the government today and to stop the harm are simply, you know, sort of varying behind this president on a very ill-fated

mission that's going to harm the rest of the american public. >> that's a great point. i think what donald trump doesn't understand is the federal government is revealed now too, he thinks there are a bunch of people in d.c. who voted for hillary but there are federal employees coast to coast, whom bunch of trump voters who live not only the d.c. area but coast to coast are harmed. it would have served him well at the beginning of this ill-fated adventure as donna just said to understand exactly who he's harming >> a lack of understanding but also lack of empathy. once again we've seen this president be unable to relate to people having a hard time. he mentioned not a word about these workers who are as of tomorrow aren't going to draw a paycheck. he didn't mention it all in his oval office address. there are no federal workers facing unpaid bills and rising debts who are not getting a paycheck because the government is shut down over this border wall. he said himself in this off-the-record lunch with

network anchors the other day, this trip is not one he wanted to take. he felt he was pushed into it by aides to talk about the crisis and such. there's a growing sense in the white house they're really boxed in here. the democrats have no incentive to deal. no incentive to give him money for this wall. so it's not a done deal yet, there's certainly momentum growing behind the deal of declaring a national emergency but even then, the president will face pushback. they're expressing doubt whether that's an appropriate presidential power. this morning representative from oklahoma here on "morning joe," we asked him about it, and he said it would not be okay and he's a staunch trump supporter on most issues. this is not necessarily the easy way out people in the white house hope it is. >> donna -- i'm sorry, go ahead. >> it is hard to predict anything that's a bridge too far for republicans at this point. he's crossed red line after red line.

the kind of constitutional government they say they believe in. they seem to go to the core of that but we will see. >> john heilemann on the show yesterday this this is a move towards autocracy. they're up for election every two years, so the big flashing i think it was yellow 48 hours ago, it's flashing red now, is the voters are not with him. the president's poll numbers are getting worse on the shutdown and numbers for the wall getting lower and anger about the shutdown is getting higher. people have been talking an off-ramp is imminent. do you think an off-ramp is on the minds of the president? >> look, in recent history we've seen the party that is perceived as take the government hostage for an unpopular demand is the party that loses. right now that is president trump. i think even his own people

understand the whole country is hostage to his pride and they do want to weigh out. what's weird about this whole thing is that democrats are not against walls or border security or fences, they're already borders and walls and fences on the border. they don't want to give him his wall and what he wants is his wall, same thing. he wants to pretend there's a problem he to solve and they have 0 figure out a way to back towards each other to talk about the sail thing in different language. >> jacob, i saved you for last to pull all of these threads for me. this talk of a national emergency for the border at a moment of time when border crossings are at a decades-long low, a normal white house would tout that as an accomplishment, this one is trying to lie about its own accomplishments and create a problem where one does not exist, what is the ground truth? >> you make a point about the off-ramp and what the president

is taking as well if he wants to end this, he could see the realities as they are and not come down for a photo-op as we see on the banner, because that's really what this is. you know the one place he's not going to take a look at why he's down here? ursz la border patrol processing station where half the children he separated from their families is located around the corner where he spent most of the day today. if he wanted to understand where the drugs are actually coming from, he can go out there and do it. can he ask a couple of questions that put him more on an intellectu intellectual par with people he's negotiating with about the need for a wall, where it's necessary, what type of infrastructure, what type of technology. the border patrol meets down here. they're talking about additional skriening mechanisms at ports of entry but the president doesn't hear it. he's like a horse in a race with blinders who's just looking forward at the detriment of the american people, 800,000 of whom are sitting at home or

furloughed or whatever because he wants more of this when that's not everything necessary. >> jacob, do the folks that you talk to on the border in and out of the government in those towns believe the border is a national emergency that justifies donald trump declaring one? >> not one that happened without trump making it happen. president trump has manufactured, you and i have talked about many times, a crisis of his own making. fist separate children and then metering of the people through the desert. you saw two horrific deaths of young children that didn't have to hp. to happen. the crises are ones president trump controlled himself. people know that. they see it every day. >> jacob, thank you for all of the reporting you do down there and spending time with us, we're grateful. after the break, with 33 trump associates indicted, charged or heading to jail in the investigation, what's the hail mary legal strategy? clam up. new reporting on the white house

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grateful do you know paul manafort was sharing polling data from your campaign with the russians? >> no, i knew nothing about it. nothing about it. >> there's one thing i have learned from all of the smart people that come on this show and talk about the trump/russia connection, it's follow the money. today another no occlusion from the president rings hollow as he's under scrutiny again, adding to the intriguing remarks from the business associate of manafort and close ally of putin of the today they're demanding answers from treasury secretary steve mnuchin and why the white house suddenly moved to lift sanctions against his companies. mnuchin arrived on capitol hill

just this hour to testify behind closed doors. among the question he's likely to face, how much influence did the white house and trump personally exert on the decision to cut manafort's old house? carol, i believe it's your reporting that manafort had committed to or offered briefings about the campaign to him. talk about that and tie it to today's investigation or effort to understand why sanctions against his companies were lifted. >> you know, nicolle, a lot of times in this story, and my colleagues and i at "the washington post" marvel at it, all of these puzzle pieces you forgot about from april 2017 or september 2018 or just a note you took that you didn't even put in the paper, it all starts to come together. and the team at "the washington post" has done some amazing reporting about manafort and

about oleg and their connection. i think there are three things important quickly. the first one is the redactions the other day manafort's lawyers inadvertently shared with all of us in the public. remember, there's this claim polling data was shared and it was believed it was shared with garaposca. now back to 2014 where in an e-mail he's telling one of his russian-based lieutenants that if he needs private briefings on the trump campaign, we can accommodate him. he says that in squljuly 2016, o weeks before donald trump becomes the republican nominee for president. what in the world exactly is manafort doing offering a russian oligarch, considered the soft power of vladimir putin, private briefings on trump's

campaign? well, perhaps it was related to the polling data, perhaps it was related to something else. but what we absolutely know now is he felt strongly that there was a way he could get paid by helping darr posh ka. what was he getting out of it? special private briefings, special inside information? it's really, really curious. >> curious at best. harry litman, it's clear why manafort is in so much trouble. i guess awaiting sentencing or pardon, i guess, depending how you skin that cat. what exposure does trump have? it would seem if i go back to the questions robert mueller has for donald trump, he wanted to know specifically what he knew about things like the platform change at the republican convention. he wanted to understand if any information was being fed back to the president around these incidents, curious as carol described them between his campaign chairman, who having worked on presidential campaigns, that is the most

powerful person on a campaign, your campaign chairman offering briefings to a russian. i never met a russian, i have worked on a lot of presidential campaigns, never talked to a russian, met a russian or briefed a russian. it's weird. ? it's weird and also everyone's focused on the wall the last few news cycles, there's been several stories that have really opened up, concrete relationships between the russian government and the trump campaign. you have this one about the polling data. you have the revelation that the attorney in the trump tower meeting in june is actually working for the government. you know that kilimnik and manafort are talking a ukraine peace plan. i agree with everything carol said and i also add manafort owed what was a big debt at the time he was somewhat desperate to kind of work off. it still seems crazy to me or a

little bit puzzling that this would be so valuable, the polling data, and i just wonder if at the end of the day, it turns out the polling dwrat is something to be employed by the russians in their efforts to help trump get elected, as in sort of their sophisticated targeting voters with social media back in the states. in any event you have a picture of the russian government and the trump campaign as sort of full on intertwined partners and manafort's at the center of it. for trump, he has to try to hope the firewall stops at manafort and he makes it seem like manafort is just freelancing. >> what are the chances are for that famous or infamous micro manager? >> i actually think there should be caution around this finding here. it's not clear based on the language we saw in that document, if we're looking at an

adjunct to russian collusion or more self-doling with paul manafort. he was in debt to this guy. he was looking for ways to make him whole. to draw an analogy, campaigns of on do special briefings for big donors and big wigs, they share polling data -- >> for governors. >> paul manafort had the right set of equities and campaign manager, he owed a bunch of money to a strong man in russia. we have to be open with the possibility what he was trying to do is service his client a different way. remember, this is a guy who was about to be under sanctions, the obama administration was gearing up and working on putting him under sanction, and he had a lot riding on who ended up in the white house. >> only $10 million, give me this polling data? >> talking about "the new york times" reporting, i just want to clarify, we know the part that was badly redacted, from that we learned that paul manafort handed polling data to a russian

operative. we know that what carol has reported is true, he offered darr pav skoe it but we don't know he was the oligarch handed it. >> if it was offered. it depends what you mean by polling data especially. if it's a set of crosses from who states at one point in time, that's not a basis to build a big interference. >> but they would have been in possession of all of the data -- >> you have to know more exactly what's being offered there and how valuable it was. >> to point out servicing a client is one thing but is there real delay much service to have polling data on the american election? i don't know -- i agree with you, certainly had an interest in it, but that just seems weird to me. i just want to point out one thing, the trump campaign's data czar was jared kushner. >> try to set up a back channel with russia. >> tried to set up a back channel with russia. i would be curious to ask him if

he was aware some of the data was being shared. >> does an interview with me, that will be the first question. >> can we invite him now? >> you're invited. call us. carol, i want to give you the last word. we invited you because of your blockbuster reporting about the white house strategy to start excerpting executive privilege, which in layman's terms means clamming up. talk about that. >> i would be happy to. i want to side with nick for a moment and also say i want to be open to the possibility that everybody on this campaign was just trying to profit one way or another. that's very possible. and it's very possible that was manafort's goal and certainly the backdrop of some of those e-mails. so i'm with you on that, nick. finally, on the privilege story that i wrote today, you know, i just think it's two things at once. this white house knows that they've got two battles, two battleships coming their way steaming forward very quickly. and they have beefed up, hired a

ton of attorneys, gotten ready for those two battles. one is trying to keep the mueller report from sharing things with the house that they believe should remain secret. namely the president's private, confidential conversations with white house counsel done mcgann and other senior advisers. it's not clear the mueller report will have that information in it but the white house counsel wants to make sure that it never gets to the house. and the second battle is really what we've been talking about the early part of the hour, which is chairman cummings and chairman adler and chairman schiff and what that wall of investigations is going to be like for donald trump for the next several months. and how do we keep things that we believe, meaning the white house counsel believes, are sacred from getting in their hands? >> my prediction, none of you are taking any vacations any time soon. harry leonnig and carol, thank you for spending time with us, we're grateful. when we come back, breaking news

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what is going to put him in jail and destroy everything that he has built is a 30 year criminal enterprise. michael cohen for man anyone else could bring the trump empire down. cohen is now set to testify publicly in a few weeks. >> we welcome this testimony before the continue and we're lad that he is continuing to operate. my understanding from his

council is that he wants to tell his story, but those questions are still in council. he has testified before our committee before and that testimony was not fully forth coming. he septembered responsibility for that. >> don, let me ask you, he admitted to lying, so that committee as some karmic value, but it is also potentially explosive. >> that's true and it could shed light on the testimony of others as to whether or not they lied and what michael cohen's role was in offering up testimony that may have been used similarly by those individualed. i'm thinking donald trump junior

and some others. i think there is an opportunity to really coordinate between the oversight and reform committee and the intelligence committee and possibly with the judiciary committee as well. to figure out what they want and when in coordination with the special council. >> what do you think the grasp on this new reality is. i have a sense that don mcgann understood very well what the real legal and existential threats there were. he understood that he had a job to do and there was a investigation for russia as well. what is your sense for the people that remain today who trump doesn't think very much of. >> i think they're still coming to grips with the reality. they brought in more attorneys,

that is a recognition that that is a new era for this white house and they have to get ready for that. the president has largely surrounded himself with people that will tell him no. he is largely enabled by yesmen. when he had a job interview. after mul vainy agreed to take it. >> he was like the last person in the bar. it wasn't like an interview, right? and the president said don't tell me no often. that is just one moment but it is emblem matic of the problem the west wing. >> right, so they can plan their response to these committees and

construct these e llaborate pla, and he will join them up. he will just blow it up, that is what he does. >> the trump family organization was not built for the highway, it was built for the back streets, it is just not meant for this level nap is why it is so hard. >> that is the best articulation of why it is all crumbling. >> i think what the president will face is multiple committeeing and chairman that will not be playing around. this is really serious. and it is not clear to me that the president bringing on multiple more attorneys is what will help him here. the president is willing to blow all of that out.

he will go out in front of a microphone any minute to sabotage all of it. so he has a decade of it, and i think that members in the public are going to learn a lot. >> it would seem to that if cries were committed, executive privilege is going to appear like the cover up. >> and i think the other thing with mooirkle cohen is that we always heard a discussion of individual a, individual a. he will be sitting in front of a committee and we may hear him articulate when, where, and by whom, and we know that the president is involvemented in every aspect of his business and

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my thanks to our guests, i'm nicole wallace, and time for "mtp daily." >> can you use your emergency powers to stop congressional hearings. >> it is donald trump, but he will try and they will add it on to the end of the impeachment hearings. >> we will see. it is thursday and people may want to stay at the border. >> good evening,