he's at the booth school of university of chicago now. thank you for watching the show. "deadline white house with nicolle wallace" starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. michael cohen, the president's former fixer, behind closed doors at this hour. nearly seven hours into his first of three days of testimony on capitol hill. in which he's expected to raise the curtain in granular details on donald trump's alleged criminal conduct, racist views, and designs on a trump tower in moscow. ahead of his long anticipated public testimony tomorrow, cohen is today facing a grilling from the senate intel committee. that's where he lied in a prior appearance. that lie about the length of time donald trump spent trying to build trump tower moscow now under scrutiny as part of the constellation of lies told by the men closest to donald trump. "the new york times" reports today, "among the most explosive and potentially damning aspects of mr. cohen's testimony will be

providing evidence of potential criminal conduct since mr. trump became president." that's according to a person familiar with the plans. that potential conduct stems from reimbursements that were made to mr. cohen in 2017 for hush money payments he made to stormy daniels, a pornographic film access." as attacks come in from the white house and surrogates in congress, a few things to keep in mind, there is no one in trump world who served as a more perfect embodiment of donald trump's appetite for corruption and immorality than michael cohen. cohen was an extension of donald trump's id, an enabler of donald trump's most primal demands. cohen's resume with trump included covering up sex with porn stars, rigging political polls and inflating trump's wealth. only the truly unscrupulous will be quick to dismiss cohen's testimony this week as lies while he did lie to congress, it's an open question whether he's the architect of those

lies, or whether he was acting at the direction of others. and as to whether he's to be believed now. today, the only tool cohen has at his disposal to lessen his sentence is telling the truth, and it's worth noting that federal prosecutors now agree with and have somehow corroborated cohen's assertion that it was donald trump who directed that illegal hush money operation. and we don't know what we don't know in terms of what else they've been able to corroborate on the other threads of the multiple investigations into the president that cohen has assisted with. and that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. at the table, donny deutsch, "washington post" columnist and msnbc political analyst. eugene robinson, axios political reporter. alexi is back. and former federal prosecutor glen kushner rounds out our table in washington for the hour. aaron blake, steen your political reporter for the "washington post" is here.

donny, i have to start with you. so all the stories today laying out in pretty good detail what cohen plans to do and cohen plans to bring evidence, tangible evidence, obviously, aware that the attacks that are going to come to him are attacks about him being a liar. so cohen not really planning to count on his own credibility. cohen's going to bring evidence. is that going to be recordings, documents, to show that the president committed crimes while in office? >> he will have evidence about a lot of the things that he's talking about as far as visual aids, i'm going to call them. a little common sense first about trump -- about cohen whether we believe him about lying. the assertion as far as republicans, he lies. untruths were on behalf of donald trump in the interest of donald trump, whether it was trump tower, any of these things, a woman. these were not for michael cohen's benefit. the untruths were blind loyalty. the premise is you can never believe someone who's told an untruth ever, ever, ever again. i'm going to take everybody out

at this table. think we're pretty honest people. that doesn't apologize for what he did but there's no logic. that means anybody that's ever done anything wrong or that we can't believe, and particularly coming from the other side where we know we have a president that has lied 8,000 times. >> yeah, listen, here's the other thing, not all liars are the same in trump world. paul manafort and mike flynn were liars eligible for pardons at one point. if you're to believe that john dowd dangled pardons innen front of those witnesses. >> michael cohen, no pardon or ever want a pardon. what people are going to see tomorrow, nobody heard from michael cohen other than the few minutes he spent with stephanopoulos. nobody has seen what i have seen, some other people have seen, is a very apologetic, different man, who saw he was on the wrong road who right now, it's not about telling the truth to save himself. he's going to prison. so if anything, he's -- the only way he can get into trouble yesterday, today, and tomorrow, is basically lying. so he has no incentive. nobody's taking -- they're not

going to just say, okay, your prison sentence has gone away because you've told the truth, but they will add to this prison sentence if he lies. >> have you seen his public opening statement for tomorrow? >> i'm familiar with some of the things he's going to do and it's really compelling. i think because what you're going to see if you watch him, i'm not talking about his actual performance, if you listen and watch him, i think it's going to answer a lot. i was kind of very taken aback at a lot of what i kind of believe is going to be in there, and it's going to be aside from a lot of the crazy theater that happens in these things, at the end of the that three hours you're going to know -- forget about michael cohen, you're going to know a lot more about donald trump. >> donald trump, what we already know is, and there's so much focus on the mueller probe, donald trump is right now at this moment 405 and 29 seconds and unindicted co-conspirator accused of a felony by the southern district of new york for directing illegal hush money, essentially campaign finance violations. where does that put -- and that information, former fbi director

jim comey explained that once it shows up in a sentencing document, federal prosecutors have sponsored that information meaning they've either corroborated it, jump in if i get any of this wrong, or verified it. >> yeah, we're putting our reputation on the line, when we file something with the court saying here are the facts as we know them. so, you know, once we saw some of that in the michael cohen pleadings, that's why i think we can be comfortable that there is sufficient corroborating evidence that, in fact, donald trump was a co-conspirator, is a co-conspirator, in the campaign finance violation. >> so the best criminal situation donald trump is facing right now is that mueller finds nothing and he is only accused of a felony offense by the southern district of new york in that case? >> yeah, i guess i don't know if i would call that the best but -- >> the best scenario for him at the moment, right? >> given where we are now, that would seem to be the optimal situation, right? he also, i'm sure for not just legal reasons but political reasons, i think he should hope that michael cohen doesn't show

up tomorrow because what i want to hear is about donald trump. i want to hear him talk about -- take us inside the trump organization when nobody is looking. i want to hear how donald trump sounds. i want to see what he does. i want to -- i want to know some of the history of what i suspect is a lot of -- of, you know, crooked dealing that happened in there. i want to -- i would like, personally, to ask some questions about russians who bought huge, very expensive properties, trump properties and i would want to ask if the trump organization was not functioning as a great big washing machine for a lot of that money. >> money laundering. >> so i would want to pursue that. and, you know, in terms of michael cohen being a liar, you know, glenn can correct me if i'm wrong. i don't see how any jury would

ever convict any defendant unless they believe someone who at some point had lied because the people who know about crimes are criminals. they -- and they have lied and said they weren't criminals and then it was found out that they were, and then they told the truth. >> let me ask you, donny, if you know, so the crimes that we've been talking about, the crimes that now that the federal prosecutors have put their reputation behind, are crimes committed in advance of the election. that's what makes them campaign finance violations. do you know, as you sit here today, what the crimes are that donald trump has committed while in office? >> i don't know of the ones in office. i know of throughout the ten years, some rather nefarious activities. so i cannot pinpoint or michael has not shared with me -- of course, michael has been outside the sphere pretty much since he's been in office. i think that could be something that's connected to something that happened early on. no, i don't have that knowledge. >> aaron blake, can you jump in and knit together the known knowns and the known unknowns. the known knowns, the one s we'e

been talking about here today, that michael cohen has alleged in the southern district of new york, has corroborated and sponsored information that essentially names donald trump as an unindicted co-conspirator in advance of the election. but all the stories in your newspaper and "the new york times" and where alexi works, has indicated that cohen will implicate donald trump in crimes committed since he's been in office. any theories floating around your newsroom about what those crimes are? >> well, i think the conventional wisdom is hat this is going to refer in some way to the reimbursement payments that came out of the stormy daniels situation which while the hush money payment was before the election, the reimbursement is something that even rudy giuliani has said was happening over the course of 2017. those $35,000 monthly payments. and obviously, the other big one that we're wondering about is trump tower moscow and what michael cohen can shed some light on with that as far as how much trump knew about what he was doing. whether trump knew that he had actually reached out to the

kremlin in 2016 to seek help for this project. but i also think, you know, those in tings may be -- he may be restrained in certain ways in talking about those things because they are given -- they are matters that are currently under investigation. i think we're sbrurunderestimat what could come out of this hearing as far as things we hay not know anything about because they're not under investigation and because he might have some more latitude to talk about them. what about the trump organization? we know he is working with allen weisselberg when organizing these hush money payments. we don't know how much prosec e prosecutors are actually looking into the trump organization right now, so is he going to be a little bit more free to talk about things that happened there? i think there could be a whole lot of unknowns that are emerging from this that we're not even talking about right now. >> to that point, i just want to jump in, what people are forgetting is that the tlhree hours they're going to see him tomorrow are not the last you're gong to hear from michael cohen. that latitude to get into the trump organization, you know, not that he's going to feel more free to tell the truth when you're not sitting there, but there is little bit more of a

broadband to speak, so it's not going to end with those three hours. as far as that ten years in the trump organization, that's where all the bodies are buried. >> and everyone around the president says that it is these investigations out of the southern district of new york and we now know from reporting last week in "the new york times" and reporting overnight in "the wall street journal" that the president also attempted to obstruct those investigations by seeking to have his acting a.g. interfere with the recusals of the political appointee who oversees that office. what do you make of aaron's talking about, what donny describes, about the potential criminality that the president has engaged in while in office? >> while in office, i just hope michael cohen or his lawyers are not trying to oversell us on just how dramatic this information is going to be because it seems like michael cohen is this rich treasure chest that's going to be cracked open and we're going to see what donald trump has been about for a decade.

and i think, you know, it's going to be really ugly treasure. when you think about the business irregularities, the charitable organization irregulari irregularities, i'm being generous when i use that word. you know, michael cohen quite literally knows where the bodies are buried because for a decade, he's been traipsing around the woods with a shovel looking for soft ground for donald trump. perhaps not literally, but so, i think it's of interest. >> i talked about known unknowns. that's probably a known unknown. >> exactly, nicolle. it's of interest, okay. what sort of seeped into the presidency that -- >> everyone says you have no idea what's under the rock until you turn it over. cohen is really the first rock

that's going to be turned over that we can see. the prosecutors out of the southern district of new york have already had a good, long look. mueller's investigators have had a good, long look under the rock. what happens tomorrow is the public's first peek under the rock. >> yeah. it's certainly going to be a little bit messy but we even had an aide for the white house oversight committee tell us at axios, look, it might not be this blockbuster moment that everyone is hoping it to be. someone like jackie spier said he could be the john dean of the scandal. he's limited in what he can say and talked about the things we know president trump to be. i think the house intel committee and senate intel committee hearings today and thursday even though they're behind closed doors could be a little more fruitful than what we might see tomorrow simply because they're both looking into ties between trump's campaign in 20126 in the kremlin as well as any foreign entities, not just russia, have any sort of leverage over president trump, his family, business dealings. i think that even though we might not get it in realtime

could end up being revealing in the long run. >> the danger of it might be underwhelming tomorrow, things he's going to get into anecdotally about race, brutal racist comments, nefarious business practices, slimy things with women. guess what, we're on the table, 2016, november. i do think -- there's not going to be one perry mason moment. sleet that i don't know about. i think there's going to be many, many things that add up to a profile of a rather despicable human being. >> it's an incredible lowering of the bar, though, to say he's going to talk about the president being a racist. >> that's the -- >> women he had sex with and shady business deals but now there won't be -- >> no, to people, because they've been anest sized. by the way, we've heard these already. imagine barack obama, george w. bush, any of these people, that any one of these hundred things coming out, but the diabolical reality of trump is that is this overkill of heinous activity

that makes each and every one of them less pronounced. >> at the very least, that's okay, it speaks to the court of public opinion which we know president trump and those most loyal to him care about perhaps more than anything else. that said, i don't know if it will really, you know, get to the 37% of people who love him no matter what he does but at the very least, michael cohen has this rare and unique window inside trump's head and his personality unlike anyone else and tomorrow he's pulling back that curtain in a way that could turn out to be revealing for some, and for some who love him, maybe they just won't care. >> aaron blake, let me bring you back in on this. cohen will testify about whether or not anyone told him to lie. and if you look at -- i mean, i asked danny mccabe last week and governor chris christie a couple weeks before that, the innocent explanation about all these men telling lies about the same thing, their contacts with russia, is implausible even to that 35% because trump's voters may be blindly loyal, they're not stupid. how do all these men tell the same lie? cohen might be one of the first people with an incentive to tell

us that. here's nbc's reporting on this. "one source said cohen will address his motives for lying on behalf of trump and why he lied to congress about the trump tower moscow negotiations. a charge to which he pleaded guilty late last year. cohen will additionally discuss whether anyone told him to lie." >> i think if this was an explicit request from the president for michael cohen to lie about trump tower moscow, it would have been weird if he had not come out and said this sooner, especially given that we saw the buzzfeed report that has now been denied by the special come counsel's office. that's something michael cohen could have dealt with in real time and avoided a lot of this stuff rolling back on him. i think maybe even the bigger question here is, what did the president say about these hush money payments? the president has said that he did not instruct michael cohen to do anything illegal with these. he said that he trusted michael cohen as a lawyer to know how to

do these things in a legal way. but michael cohen has said that he knows that the president knew what he was doing was illegal. at the same time, he hasn't said how he knew that. what's the corroboration there? what is the evidence or what were the conversations that they had that led him to believe that the president actually knew that this was an action that was going to be taken that would be illegal? i think that's maybe one of the biggest questions we're going to see answered hopefully on wednesday. >> you got insight into that, don? >> well, ha he hasn't said a lof things. you to understand he's been working with the southern district and obviously working 70 hours with mueller. so to my earlier point, we haven't heard much from michael cohen. so as far as what he will and will be able to explain and/or corroborate or not, we'll find out tomorrow. >> i was also -- >> anything about his state of mind, though, and wellbeing? >> i'm going to tell you that's really fascinating about this guy that kind of blew me away. a few weeks ago -- he's exhausted. i saw him one day, i said, dude, you got to get some sleep.

i said, you have to take something. here's an amazing thing. he's never had a drink. he does not take a sleeping pill. he doesn't take any type of sedative. i'd be in the fetal position, self-medicating. talk about a bull, whether you like him or not. i was blown away. he's gone through these two years of hell of the wrath of the country and president on him. in no way, this blew me away, has taken a sleeping pill, taken a drunk. strong like bull. from a personal thing, he's exhausted. he wants to really set the record straight for himself, for his family. he tears up when he talks about his family. that's the only time he breaks. he feels that in many ways, and i think this will come out tomorrow, in the way he is paying the price and been hoodwinked by trump, he's kind of a symbol for a lot of this country and i think that's a big theme tomorrow. >> i know you know him. he's not completely sympathetic because he was a person who on cnn was bullying on behalf of donald trump -- >> 100%. >> i guess my question for you is, how far does the remorse go?

i mean, he obviously, he fears for the safety of his family. donald trump has threatened his wife and his father-in-law. i mean, what are sort of the real-world risks he's taking by -- because his lawyer, i know there's a debate among his lawyers and there's a recognition at the justice department that if he lies again, they're going to charge it. >> no. >> this is -- there's not unanimous agreement that this is a sound legal strategy for cohen. >> when he first volunteered, once he was subpoenaed by the senate, he can only take the fifth based on any of the other investigations that are currently on. so he kind of at that point -- but he wants to get the story straight. you know, look, you can't apologize and explain. he was the henchman for the dirtiest guy in the world and when you're in that light, when you're in that glow, we talked on this show about seduced by the whole aura of the celebrity and the excitement, you kind of start to lose your compass, and he did. very, very clearly. but i will tell you, and once again, i just -- i've watched this guy and this is a guy that has been broken and is contrite and wants to set the record

straight on behalf of him and for the country and he feels violated, for lack of a better word. it's like how did i get here? >> let me ask you one last question. andrew mcsaid sacabe said there way the difference the way witnesses are talking about trump and the way a mob family ultimately cracks. does cohen feel like he was -- >> when they charged the trump organization with reco, i think we're going to see what that was. when we come back, another bombshell stemming from the investigations out of the southern district of new york and the president's campaign to halt them. news today that the house judiciary committee may have evidence that the president asked his acting a.g. to interfere in the investigations stemming from michael cohen's testimony. also ahead, the president on the world stage. a high-stakes nuclear summit with north korea's dictator has white house aides nervous. you don't say. and bracing for rebuke from congress for the emergency declaration for his wall. all those stories coming up. when it comes to reducing the sugar in your family's diet,

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news that congress may have evidence that donald trump asked his acting attorney general to move a loyalist back into place to oversee the investigations out of the southern district of new york could further imperil the president around questions of obstruction of justice. "the wall street journal" reporting today, "the house judiciary committee believes it has evidence that president trump asked matthew whitaker at the time acting attorney general, whether manhattan u.s. attorney geoffrey burman could regain control of his office's investigation into mr. trump's former lawyer and his real estate business."

this comes on a day when "the new york times" offers another stunning detail on the amount of evidence in the hands of federal prosecutors. investigating whether donald trump intended to obstruct the investigations into him. "the new york times" writes in a profile about mueller deputy andrew goldstein, "as evidence built over two years, mr. goldstein functioned as a repository of conversations that mr. trump had with lawyers, advisers, and top law enforcement officials from early 2017 on. among mr. goldstein's jewels, according to mr. trump's lawyers, exhaustive notes taken by andy donaldson, mr. mcgahn's former chief of staff, which detailed in real time mr. trump's behavior in the west wing." so the question today, is the evidence of obstruction of justice so overwhelming that it will place even more pressure on the new attorney general to release the results of the obstruction of justice investigation to congress? everyone still here. we've been talking so much, really ad nauseam, about the

collusion investigation. we've had the manafort legal proceedings that have brought into focus how andrew wiseman and other mueller prosecutors see the kilimnik/manafort contacts essential to that. we haven't talked a lot about obstruction but to hear the white house counsel's chief of staff took notes and mueller's prosecutors have them to hear and to learn in the last week that donald trump also repeated the same behaviors, whether they amount to obstruction is a question you can answer better than me. the investigations, at every turn, he's tried to halt the people investigating him. >> yeah. we've seen obstruction in plain sight for so long now that we are numb to it. and now we -- >> who's numb? can i get some numbing gel? who's numb? >> i feel like -- >> i feel -- >> -- exposed, you know -- i'm very sensitive to this. >> who's numb? let me push back on a substantive level. the prosecutors in new york not known to go numb. >> you know, now it looks like

we might have, you know, acting attorney general whitaker going in and testifying before congress and lying about -- >> let -- >> go ahead. >> let me play that. >> please. please. >> that's another piece of it. aaron blake, you write about this. i want to play this just to bring our viewers back to this moment in time. this is mr. whitaker asked about whether he intervened in the southern district. let's watch. >> mr. whitaker, did the president lash out to you on or about december 8th, 20128, to discuss the case before the southern district of new york where he was identified as individual 1? >> no, congressman. >> did anyone on the president's behalf either inside the white house or outside the white house contact you to lash out or express dissatisfaction? >> did they contact me to lash out? >> yes. did they reach out to you in some way to express dissatisfaction? >> no. >> aaron bliake, i'm going to g out on a limb here. i'm going to guess. i'm going to freelance.

i think he's lying. what do you think? >> i think the question of whether it rises to level of perjury here. i'm glad you played that clip because when people asked this question over the last couple weeks they focused on another quote in the same hearing when he said the white house didn't ask for and provided no, quote/unquote, promises or commitments about it about the sdny investigation. that was actually in his opening statement, it seemed to be rather carefully parsed. i don't think there's a whole lot of problems for him there. i think that this exchange could be problematic to him for a couple reasons, though. one is that he is not just asked whether the president lashed out, which is what cnn reported at the time, that's a very subjective thing. you could argue that one person's lashing out is not another person's. but he is also asked in that exchange whether the president or anybody at the white house expressed dissatisfaction. it's, frankly, difficult to believe that the president would talk about getting geoffrey berman unrecused from the sdny

probe of michael cohen and basically floating it out there for no reason, not expressing any dissatisfaction about how the investigation is moving forward and in fact, the reporting on how trump handles these matters repeatedly points to him expressing some kind of dissatisfaction about these nonrecus nonrecusals, about these recusals, about how the investigations are moving forward so basically we're left to believe if matthew whitaker was being truthful there, that the president talked about getting geoffrey berman back in charge of this investigation, but he did not express dissatisfaction with the investigation as a whole. i think that's difficult to believe whether it's perjury is another question. >> there is no one on the planet earth who's unaware of how often and how sort of cantankerous donald trump was after jeff sessions recused himself from the russia probe. the muscle memory from donald trump's experience of recusal l is to hate them. is to lash out. to literally, the walls, if that's all that's around. the idea that he spent the entire remaining tenure of jeff

sessions' period as attorney general attacking him in the rose garden -- >> he chronicled -- >> -- in the residence. >> -- on twitter, 16 million followers on twitter. >> that geoff berman did the same thing is implausible. >> it's totally implausible. you talked about this whole sort of campaign of obstruction of justice in plain sight and it has been in plain sight. it's been on twitter, it's been in his public statements. it's been everywhere. >> since lester holt -- >> it's still real. just because -- >> fired comey to end the investigation -- >> i mean, you know, imagine had richard nixon done all this stuff, you know, would we not have considered that obstruction of justice? we considered it obstructions of justice when he orchestrated a cover-up. this is a cover-up in plain sight. >> nicolle, can i tell you what i saw on the tape there? when i meet a witness i spend an hour asking about nonthreatening topics to engage how the person looks when they're telling the

truth and there's no risk to them, then when i get to, well, you know, you saw the murder, right? all of a sudden, everything changes. you know what they say, i saw the murder? >> repeat the question. >> that's what i saw. they repeat the question. that's a tell. what we just saw whitaker do. >> here's another tell, i say this as a mother of a 7-year-old who's like did you eat the other hot dog? like, when he said lash out, he's like, lash out? in his brain, you're like, it depends on what the definition of lash out is. the white house has a whitaker problem. whether they're facing that problem in the crush of everything else, they're -- just watching it, it was clear that whitaker was at least holding on to unflattering and, again, i don't know if it's criminal, but unflattering evidence about donald trump's conduct while he was in that role. >> yeah, his entire demeanor throughout that hearing was defensive and like he was on defense and attacking everyone. but i think one thing is clear in that hearing, and what we're talking about now with whitaker, is that no matter how you get into trump's close orbit, if you get too close to him, you are either finding yourself now or

you will likely find yourself facing tough legal questions whether it's, you perjured yourself when testifying or you're going to face prison time like michael cohen and he's just latest example of that, to his point, is his own fault, but it's trump which is at the center of all this. >> trump is a common denominator. >> the million-dollar question of all this, let's take whitaker, let's say there is obstruction of justice, let's take the mueller stuff and there's obstruction there and there's a hint -- what's the finish line? we still have a senate that's got a two-thirds -- so even -- by the way, none of this is going to keep him from getting re-elected and if the democrats don't have the right candidate. so all over this odious material out there, but what, nicolle, what any of you guys, what would push the football over the goal line to get donald trump out of office? because otherwise it's all irrelevant. none of this stuff is going to stick come election time. >> i don't know the answer to that, but i want to ask you -- i think that's a question we'll be talking about every day until 2020. i think another question is if

he loses, does he leave? we're in such a post-normal sort of political moment. i think in terms of legal developments, i mean, i'm not numb because they come in such crushing volume. the other piece of information that profile, andrew goldstein, he came out of the southern district of new york where you worked and he prosecuted corruption, public corruption cases with a lot of restraint. it's just another sort of brick in the demise of donald trump's witch hunt case. do you know goldstein, by reputation? >> i was in the u.s. attorney's office in d.c.. >> okay. >> that's where i came up. working with bob mueller as my chief of homicide. i think one way oar r another, trump is going to get got. to donny's point, what that looks like, what's the timing of it, is it after he leaves office? the one thing that i keep making a pitch for is the olc memo saying you can't indict a sitting president, must be --

impeached in the house, the olc memo would say, tough luck america, he can't be indicted so we have to revisit the wisdom of what is nothing more than a policy memo. >> glenn, glaif us plenty to think about. you did, too. after the break, two leaders who crave the spotlight, state-run media and love their praise meet to discuss nukes. it's not a setup for a joke. it's a setup for tomorrow. we'll raise the curtain after the break. l raise the curtain a the break. i switched to miralax for my constipation. stimulant laxatives forcefully stimulate the nerves in your colon. miralax works with the water in your body to unblock your system naturally. and it doesn't cause bloating, cramping, gas, or sudden urgency. miralax. look for the pink cap.

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ed knows he could just have us deliver his prescriptions. but what's the fun in that? switch to cvs pharmacy. pg&e wants you to plan ahead by mapping out escape routes and preparing a go kit, in case you need to get out quickly. for more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge.com/safety. president trump and chairman kim arrived in hanoi, vietnam, for their second summit earlier to warm receptions and red carpets, but it's hard to think the president isn't the slightest bit distracted by what's happening back at home with his former fixer on capitol hill today. "the new york times" notes of the kim and cohen split screen, "the clashing narratives follow what has become a frustrating pattern for mr. trump in which some of his biggest moments on the international stage have been overtaken by events at

home. foreign trips mark critical moments for every president, but for a president in search of evidence to support his claims that he has strengthened the united states' position in the world, they have not always been the successes he hoped to portray" which means the stakes for this summit are even higher as nbc reports, "for a president facing both turmoil at home and pressure abroad, warn of his fail you to extract concessions at the last kim summit, or at least the appearance of failure may not be an option. everybody is back. these are always high stakes undertakings for a president but they're usually done -- actually, to be totally honest, they're usually precooked. there's usually no suspense. you walk into a bilat, a communication worked out with your cabinet. this president's cabinet has been leaking to the media, we're grateful for it, that they're really nervous about what's going to happen and they're squeezed out. the summit will be trump and kim and their translators.

what could go wrong? >> right. a lot. exactly. the stakes are so high this time around and can't flatter your way into a nuclear peace deal with north korea. is what we've seen so far in leaks and the way president trump handles himself, he loves to deal with strongmen by fl flattering them. he even said previously him and king jong-un fell in love. he changed his rhetoric not calling him rocket man. that's not going to get anything done. there's no one in government who is convinced either china or north cree korea are going to ce or do sweeping things president trump is going to say he wants them to do. >> no, they're not going to do it, but i've been sort of on the other side of this all along because i think it's fine. if he wants -- if he's going to meet with kim rather than have them snarl at each other, you know, little rocket man, you know, the great satan, that sort of thing. >> my button is bigger than your button. >> exactly. i would rather have them, you know, go to singapore, go to vietnam, have a meeting. hug it out. you know, and it's not going to

accomplish what the president said it's going to accomplish. even though he will claim it has. it's not going to convince kim to give up his nuclear weapons. he's not going to do that. i agree with the intelligence community. not going to do that. take concrete steps that could potentially make it seem safer to live with the existing north korean threat. not going to negotiate limits on the missiles or whatever that are -- >> why have the meeting, then? >> why have the meeting? because if they weren't having the meeting, they would be, you know, whose button is bigger and i think that's a more dangerous situation. so this is a holding ar ining at will wait for actual diplomacy. >> why having the meeting, they're two reality stars using each other. kim jong-un basically, 300 at -- he was driving a car. he's created this mythology as is trump. what trump is doing -- it's actually more dangerous.

your president -- kind of his big mistake was saying there were weapons of mass destruction or weren't. actually more dangerous to say there aren't when there are. which is kind of ironic. to gene's point, of course he's never going to give up the missiles. can call gadhafi, guess i can't call gadhafi about that. he owns a country. he's not ever committing harry cary. i would tell them not to give it up. trump gets their kabuki theater. comes away, things are better, we're buddies. it's a reality show on both sides. >> aaron blake, to me as a former staffer, it reveals the limits of john bolton's mike pompeo's power. they can only do so much. i think in their mind they probably have pence down doing the real diplomacy trying to get what they view as a bad and dangerous leader in venezuela and the fact, though, that this is how low the bar -- that this is viewed, and it sounds like

john bolton, mike pompeo, and yeugene have come to the same conclusion, who cares, let them sit in the room, play ping-pong. that they've come to that conclusion is such a staggering, a staggering public facing piece of evidence that they don't know what to do with the commander in chief. >> yeah, i think that only goes so far, though. it works right now while these are negotiations, while it doesn't look like the north koreans are ready to actually give in, it works up until the president decides that he wants to make a deal. what happens when the president thinks that what kim jong-un has told him is good enough? what happens when he starts talking about how he wants to relax sanctions, which is, by the way, something that mike pompeo has talked about in recent days and really relaxed the language a little bit. before, it was no sanctions relief unless they totally denuclearize and we can prove it. now it's, well, there could be some sanctions that are taken off the table. if you look at exactly how the rhetoric has changed on this, it's looking more and more like

they might view this as a situation in which they have to do something maybe incremental to save the president and his desire to come up with some sort of a deal and maybe win a nobel peace prize at some point. when you talk about pence, talk about bolton, talk about pompeo, their role in this is mostly to prevent a bad deal. at this point, they're going to do whatever they can to prevent that from happening. >> let me just follow up with you, aaron blake, i mean, we also -- i think everybody here is old enough to remember when the american president stood up and stood against human rights abuses. this is a leader who he keeps calling great and brave and on the cusp of creating, you know, north korea's version of boca on his beaches who murdered his brother. he's not just an autocrat, he's one of the most murderous leaders of a starved, desperate, poor, brutalized, terrorized, population.

and, i mean, the american presidents used to not sit down with people like that. they used to not go to summits where they both got the same red carpet rolled out. they used to not bring the american press corps to play homage to leaders, murderers like that. where are we? >> i'm glad you brought that up because i think this is a really undersold part of this whole negotiation. this is not just about denuclearization and how that's going to come to pass. this is not just about relaxing sanctions. this is something that is going to have to deal with the human rights record and if you look at what happened after the meeting in singapore several months back, the president was asked how much the two of them had talked about human rights in that meeting and he said they only talked about it briefly. i don't know how you can cut this deal without in some way addressing the human rights abuses that take place in north korea because i think even just setting aside the fact you don't want them to do these things, those things are impediments to their economic progress. the president signed a law in

2017 that discourages people from doing business with north korea because of those human rights issues. so he can talk all he wants about how north korea's this kind of rising economic star that's really going to take off once they agree to this deal, but actually making that the case and actually creating some stability in north korea that allows kim jong-un the latitude to sign onto a deal like this is something that's going to require real talk about human rights. >> there's one problem with that, there's no empathy. we have kids in cages in our own country. he's going to worry about human rights in other countries? >> the forced labor camps, the famines, everything that he's done, that has -- that was basically taken off the table in singapore when kim jong-un was effectively brought into the community of world leaders by donald trump. when the american president met with him on an equal level, he legitimized him in a very important way, and so now other world leaders have, you know, putin wants to meet with him. >> of course he does.

>> he's had a couple l meetings with xi. very public meetings as opposed to the way they used to do it. so he has kind of gotten what he wanted out of this deal. >> what a legacy. after the break, counting down the minutes to a huge moment in the house as democrats are set to remind donald trump that elections have consequences. the vote that will kick off the end game in the fight over donald trump's wall. next. 's wall. next fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard.

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resolution, it still puts republicans in both chambers in a bind. described in "the new york times" like this. "the house's vote on a declaration of disapproval will force republicans to choose between the congressional prerogative over federal spending the prerogative betwee spending in the constitution and a president determined to go around the legislative branch to secure funds for a border wall that congress refused to grand. if the resolution passes, they have 18 days to vote. 18 days of this. wow. they pledged to vote with the democrats meaning one more defection and the bill passes. one more republicans explained his vote. there is no honesty and now turning around and arguing with the overreach and it is acceptable for my party and not their party. i cannot justify providing more ways to bypass congress. as a conservative, i cannot

endorse a president that i know future left wing presidents will exploit to advance radical policies to exploit individual freedoms. agree with his worries or not, i'm not sure there is can anything more radical than donald trump's immigration policies. children in cams and a wall. talk about that which is imagined and projected on to the trump base. you have enough republican votes in question for a pretty serious legislative defeat here. >> there are a couple of interesting things about this. we know that the senate especially you should mcconnell's leadership and a bill he thinks the president will veto and they stall and lag and take their time. this is a privileged resolution to go on the record for president trump and go against his own party.

the other thing that tom tillis wrote about future left wing presidents, when i was in iowa and following different 2020 candidates, a couple of them were asked if you were elected president, what would you declare a national emergency on. a lot of things were not cutting through. this was. that was fascinating. >> i new question on all those questionnaires. what would you declare a national emergency on? >> politics aside, this is a huge deal. a giant huge deal. article one of the constitution said that congress decides how public money is spent, president. it doesn't say unless the president wants something that the congress won't fund. he asked for money and doesn't get it and declares an emergency to go anchd congress and get it. if that's okay, that's a huge deal. >> it's worse.

his party controlled congress and didn't pass legislation. i want to bring up something that happened since we have been on the air. i asked you whether michael cohen was afraid for himself or his family about the three days of testimony. it seems he has reason to be. this is a republican congressman whose name is matt gaetz. he said hey, michael cohen do your wife and father in law know about your girlfriends? maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. i wonder if she will be faithful while in prison. she is about to learn a lot:. i'm not sure that is criminal, but it's deplorable. >> i hate to dignify this, but this is a congressman. you are scum. to call into question this man's fidelity. i have never seen a better marriage in my life, but to

suggest his wife may not be faithful. who the hell do you think you are? you are a congressman. do your job. >> aaron blake? >> i thing raises a real question about was this just the congressman free lansing or somebody that maybe somebody whispered and said he needed to put out there. we have seen the president tweet within obstruction of justice when it comes to michael cohen's family before. matt gates is somebody who is somebody ambitious and willing to tow the republican line on a lot of these things and this is a specific charge that a lot of people heard that i haven't. i haven't heard of this before. certainly the fact that it comes out the day before michael cohen is delivering testimony in public on wednesday is hard to dismiss as a coincidence. this is really pretty evident

what he is trying to do and that is to rattle michael cohen. i don't know if donny can speak to this, but i wonder if they are keeping him off of social media over the last couple of days. this is something that can shake somebody. >> it will backfire on him because if he's loaded, i know the way he was affected by the father in law thing. calling his wife names. if you break it down to this, this congressmanship ashamed. >> i don't have evidence, the kind of which aaron blake is saying that the journalist will need before they tie a link between the president and what was tweeted, the threat. i have evidence as reported in the new york times on the obstruction of justice piece. this is about the that the same congressman played in attacking mueller. the president cheered on the lawmakers on twitter and interviews and in private urging

mr. gaetz on air force one in 2017 and subsequent phone calls to keep up the oversight work. he was hoping for fair treatment from mr. mueller after the congressman appeared on fox news. that did not preclude him from encouraging his scrutiny of the investigation. he has played trump's stooge before in earlier episodes. >> right. obviously continues to do that. it's fascinating that he would sort of go out with this by himself the day before the hearing. i don't know what he is auditioning for. is he hoping for a cabinet post? >> maybe auditioning for an indictment. it makes it a federal crime to threaten or attempt to threaten a witness to influence his testimony or cause him to withhold his testimony. i am just dangerous enough with the law and twitter to throw that out there.

this seems like text book attempt to tamper with a witness. >> at the very least, he earned himself an interview with investigators on this. this could be something he did of his own volition and maybe he will defend himself on it, but the president is immune from indictment according to that doj policy. that doesn't apply to members of congress. if he is getting himself in trouble, he is not as covered as the president is with these things. >> we're have been talking about numbness. i don't think you are numb or any of us is numb. we should not let it go that in the 4:00 hour today, a united states congressman tweeted this. hey michael cohen, do your wife and father in law know about your girlfriends? maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. i wonder if she will remain faithful while you are in prison. she is about to learn a lot. is this guy going to say i was hacked? the stench of this. >> i really want -- i challenge

the republican leaders, you can say michael cohen is a liar and whatever you want. you are hundred dollarses and wives and fathers and mothers and sisters. this is not our country. you have to stand up. >> this is the republican party at large under donald trump. he is setting a standard from the very top. >> we have to take the rage up. >> we can't be or not in congress. they are following him and doing what he does and he is setting an example every day and this is what we are in whether we like it or not. not to say i don't want it to change, but it's everything we have seen. >> she is putting out the schedules that shows he does nothing. did you get any feedback that shows he does nothing. >> people are happy. they say thank got he is not as involved as he might be. what kind of standard does that set or message does that set? i hate to bring up iowa, but

someone asked julian castro if he would take executive time as president and if he had the will or the work ethic and everyone was like if you are not golfing all the time, you will be fine. >> if you are seeing any cond n condemnation of the threat, who is going to testify before democrats and republicans. this seems to be a moment that transcends partisanship if i can be naive to say that. anyone criticizing this threat to michael cohen. >> i haven't gotten a chance to sift through the reactions, but i noticed there were many more responses to the tweet than retweets or favorites. this seems to be snag is going blow back on him. at the same time i would imagine gates knew what he was getting into when he tweeted this. this is in character for him. this is the game as we have been talking about he has been playing for a very long while. if there was one member of congress who you would expect to have sent that tweet out, he is the one i guess would have done

this. >> i wonder if you are nancy pelosi and a member of congress is attempting to intimidate or tamper with a witness the day before he testifies in public and the day he is testifying before a committee, maybe you would think this is contempt. >> and senzure him. >> "mtp daily" starts now. >> i cannot believe that tweet. what's your ending with is what we are starting with. >> unbelievable times. >> indeed. if it's tuesday, president trump is about to get a one, two punch from capitol hill. good evening. i'm chuck todd in washington and