million acres of land. it is a story and a season we will stay on top of for you. and with that, that's our broadcast for this back-to-work tuesday night. my thanks to steve kornacki for minding the store and allowing me to slip away for a while. we of course thank you for being here with us. op behalf of all of my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. thanks for being with us tonight. it's good to have you here. the president's personal lawyer, his quote, unquote, fixer, his longtime confidant and right-hand man is now a convicted felon, having served just over one year of a three-year sentence for multiple felonies, including campaign finance violations and lying to congress. well, tonight for his first cable news interview on the occasion of the release of his new book, you should know that while i am here at our studios in new york city and michael cohen is also in new york city,

we are not physically together. he is under home confinement orders from the federal bureau of prisons and will remain so for the duration of his sentence. joining us now for the interview, i'm very pleased to say, is michael cohen, donald trump's onetime personal attorney and the author of this new book, which is already at the top of the charts. it's called "disloyal, a memoir." i read it cover to cover. i did not intend to, but i started at the beginning and didn't put it down till it was over. mr. cohen, thank you for agreeing to do this. i know you have a lot of choices. thank you for being here. >> thank you, rachel. thank you for having me. >> let me start by asking, how are you doing? you're back at home. you're under home confinement. you had a strange circumstance where you were out on furlough and put back in otisville and then a judge intervened so you're back at home. it's got to have been a real whipsaw.

>> yeah, this has been some ordeal. some people have said i'm the first political prisoner in my own country based upon failing to sign over my constitutional rights. and i really do have to thank the lawyer who did a brilliant job in the order to show kaus and judge hellerstein, whose opinion could not have been more accurate by calling the actions retaliatory. i mean the department of justice remanded me back to prison while i was sitting in a waiting room, expecting to get an answer as to why the first paragraph that they gave to me was so vie lative of anyone's first amendment rights. next thing i know there's three marshals standing hundred me. mr. cohen, stand up and face the wall. not only did they handcuff me, which was completely unnecessary anyway, i'm not a risk. i scored the lowest on possible, you know, numbers when it comes to the bop. but they shackled me as well. i mean this was really -- this was a rough experience.

>> wow. in terms of your life now and what your life is like under home confinement and releasing this book, i know there are multiple ongoing investigations that seem to have been triggered by or that intersect with the testimony that you've given, you know, investigations by the new york state attorney general and the manhattan district attorney, potentially some federal investigations out of the u.s. attorney's offices in eastern and southern districts in new york. and i know you can't talk about ongoing live investigations, but are you in an ongoing way working with any investigators or providing testimony or is that still part of your life, or is that something that's in the past? >> so you're right, it's -- i'm not -- i'm not permitted to discuss them other than to say that there are ongoing investigations into all of the actions that everybody has heard about for so long, including the supreme court case that now exists in order to obtain mr. trump and the trump organization's tax returns. >> you write in the book that

you didn't have access in detail to trump taxes, but we know that you had access to financial documents from the trump organization because you testified about it in great detail, in poet detail in front of congress in terms of basically what you described of as sort of tax fraud or insurance fraud, potentially bank fraud or efforts at that by the trump organization as the president routinely inflated or deflated the value of his assets depending on who was asking. if cy vance or other investigators do get access to the kind of financial records that you testified about, what do you expect? do you think that that is stuff that's all going to be beyond the statute of limitations? do you think that will be stuff that poses a threat to the president now? >> i think it poses a tremendous threat to the president, which is of course why he elected not to release his tax returns. other than that, again, they are

ongoing investigations, and it's probably best if i don't discuss any of the terms. >> i hear you. >> or any impressions that they've put before me. >> let me ask you about the campaign finance charges which you pled guilty to. the thing that i have never understood, and i have pursued this story as hard as i've pursued anything in the trump era, and nobody's been able to explain this to me. why were you the only one charged? you write in great detail about sort of coming up with this plan to cover up the payment, which was an illegal payment, with allen weisselberg. we've seen the checks that you provided to congress, including at least one signed by one of the president's sons. it's clear that the trump organization was used to sort of launder that repayment. it's clear that ami and david pecker were involved in strands of this scheme. why is michael cohen the only person who was charged? >> because they elected to make me into the scapegoat. i did what i did. i took responsibility for it,

but mr. trump, allen weisselberg -- you know, just to correct you for a second there, rachel. it wasn't just don junior's signature that was on some of the checks. the president's signature was on two of the checks. >> mm-hmm. >> at the very dwibeginning, wh i provided to congress as part of the open house testimony. why i'm the only one, it doesn't make sense as i stated. i was acting at the direction of and for the benefit of mr. trump, and how i became the -- i'm not the one who had the affair. he did. i'm not the -- i am the dummy who paid $130,000 to keep it quiet. but this was my conversation with mr. trump, with allen weisselberg, and others, and i did it in order to protect him. and i guess the thank-you that i got from my loyal boss was michael cohen should, as i once

said, take a bullet for him and lose everything, lose my freedom, my company, my law license, my family's happiness, everything. to me, i'm with you. i don't understand it. >> the president is at least, though, named as individual-1 by prosecutors, and you in your allocution made very clear what you just made here in terms of the fact that this was directed by him, for his benefit, and you were acting out his wishes, and so he's therefore the most culpable person. you make a point as almost the very last thing you say in the book, which i wanted to ask you about because i think it may relate to this. the president is named as individual-1. you went to prison for those felonies. he's clearly the person who directed the commission of those felonies. but you say at the very end of the book that the president and attorney general william barr ousted the u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york and tried to install effectively the president's golfing buddy as the new u.s. attorney there

because the president, in your view, wanted to arrange for himself to be indicted while he's still in office because that would give him the opportunity to pardon himself after he lost the election. i just wanted to make sure that i understand the point that you're making there, just ask you to elaborate on that a little bit because i'm not sure i understand. >> my theory is that if he loses, there's still the time between the election and the time that the next president would take office. and in during that time, my suspicion is that he will resign as president. he will allow mike pence to take over, and he will then go ahead and have mike pence pardon him, and it's a very -- let's just say it's a very nixon type of event, and it was probably discussed between roger stone and president trump at some point, that this is certainly one way to avoid any potential prison time. >> i suppose if he was going to do something like that, he could

arrange for the type of pardon that nixon in fact got, where nixon hadn't been charged with anything. it was a prospective pardon that he basically arranged from ford so as to make sure that he'd never be indicted after he left office. i suppose that same sort of arrangement could apply there even if he wasn't, in fact, charged. >> though we have to remember that it doesn't apply to state charges, nor does it apply to the charges that will be brought by cy vance's office. >> yeah. let me ask you, michael, about something that you describe in detail, which is also something that i sort of spent a long time chasing, which is this unusual story. this is page 249 of your book, chapter 12, which has got a lot of great stuff in it. and you talk about -- >> i'm glad you enjoyed it. >> i was like, ooh, 12, this is my jam. this is the part for me. so you write that the president effectively sort of flipped a house in palm beach. you describe it as an architectural nightmare, which i

found effective. but he made a profit on that in excess of $50 million. and what you write about in chapter 12 is that the president told you that although the person who bought that house from him for this $50 million-plus profit was a russian fertilizer billionaire, the president told you that he believed the actual money was putin's. quote, the oligarchs are just fronts for putin, trump told me. he puts them into wealth to invest his money. that's all they are doing, visiting putin's money. then you say in your words, trump was convinced the real buyer of that house was vladimir putin. was he speaking seriously and literally there? did he actually think that putin had arranged this $50 million windfall for him? >> well, i -- i don't know what he was thinking. i can only tell you, which i did in the book. i can recount the conversation. he believes that all of the russian oligarchs are basically pawns of vladimir putin. he controls all of them. i guess very much to the same

extent that mohammed bin salman had the ability within which to lock up all of his relatives and other members of the royal family for money, right? trump is keen on this power and whether it's mohammed bin salman, the kim jong-uns, the maduros. it's the power that he's so involved with and so in search of that this is exactly what he believes. he believes that putin controls all of russia and all of its wealth, and anything like the purchase of this home had to have been through or with the permission of vladimir putin. >> and he -- you elaborate on that idea some when you talk about what you think was trump's sort of orientation toward putin and russia during the campaign. you say, when trump lost the election -- he expected to lose the election, he wanted to do all he could to enable him to be

able to borrow money from people in putin's circle, and that meant sucking up to the russians. a lorge part of the posturing and praising toward putin was a way to keep the trump organization's options open with the russian leader. so he was explicit with you about this, or you were discerning this in terms of what you thought was behind his behavior? >> no. this is what's behind his behavior. donald trump, again, they're looking for -- to do a project in russia for many, many years, even prior to my joining the trump organization in 2007. he's fixated on the wealth of vladimir putin and all of the opportunities that come with it. you have to remember -- and i've said this many times, and i've said it under oath to the house and the senate as well as my open testimony. donald trump never thought he was going to win this election. he actually didn't want to win this election. this was supposed to be -- and it's how he started it -- the greatest political infomercial in the history of politics.

so if you take that line and you -- and you add to it the trump tower moscow project, you'll understand that this was a branding deal. that's all that the presidential campaign started out as. this was a branding opportunity in order to expand worldwide. >> the trump -- >> there's only one problem. there's only one problem. he won. >> oops. the way you described the trump tower moscow project is grander than i had previously understood. 120 floors. the free penthouse for putin. luxury condos. >> is that not a brilliant idea by the way? if you want to raise the price per square foot, you give to probably the richest man in the world and certainly the most powerful in russia the penthouse apartment. so what does that do to the square footage of everything

underneath it? it makes it enormously expensive because he'll tell all the other oligarchs buy it, or they'll just want to buy it on their own. so it's a brilliant move. it's just -- it's just not if you're running for president. >> when you communicated with the kremlin, i know you describe you had one long conversation after trying to sort of move this along by getting in touch directly with the russian government about the project. was that part of the idea for trump tower moscow conveyed to the russian government? did you talk to the kremlin about the prospect of giving president putin a free penthouse apartment? >> you know, i had a long conversation with the young lady who was an assistant. i don't remember all of the questions, and i don't remember how in depth regarding the project, and it was not the first and only conversation that i had with the kremlin. you know, one of the questions that was asked of me was how did you get the kremlin's number? and i said, i googled it.

and while we were sitting in the scif, they actually googled it, and, yeah, the kremlin's phone number comes up. and so i asked if i can speak with the secretary or the executive assistant for president putin. they asked me why. and the first time i wanted to invite him to trump tower to have a hamburger with mr. trump while they were here for unga, the united nations general aassembly. and he wasn't going to meet with obama. so i figured why not have the two of them meet? again, it was a publicity stunt that mr. trump had asked me to do for him. >> around the planning about that potential project, did you ever get to the point where financing for the project was discussed? were russian banks or russian -- no. >> russian state connected entities going to finance it? >> no. that was one of the problems. i had three very specific rules when i was looking at deals. the first is i had to determine that they either owned or

controlled a piece of property that the trump organization would be willing to build on. we never got past prong number one, so there was never discussion with anybody about the financing of this project. there was never a piece of property to put it on, so you didn't know how big the property could be, let alone, you know, how much it would cost. >> were trump properties, you know, condos and apartments and the like -- were those, to your knowledge, from your time at the trump organization, used for money laundering purposes by organized crime figures or by foreign nationals? did the trump organization do due diligence on that? there's been a lot of public reporting that some trump properties were quite effective as large-scale money laundering mechanisms. >> yeah, i'm not aware of any of that. i never -- i never saw that. i mean there was one allegation. i was the treasurer of several of the trump properties where i owned apartments in. that's really where i started.

i bought them as investments prior to working for trump. and like, for example, in the building that i live, which is a trump building, i think we had one russian family. and over at trump world tower, the same thing. there's a small percentage of the building that's russian. i think what they were probably referring to was trump toronto that had russian money behind it as well as trump soho that had russian money behind it. but to my knowledge, there was no money laundering scheme. >> let me ask you about something else that came as a total surprise to me in the book, something i didn't see coming and i'm not quite sure what to make of it. it's a little awkward because i am a cable news host and it's about cable news. but you write in some detail about a prime-time host at the fox news channel speaking by phone with the president. you say the call was on your cell phone and you put it on speaker so the president can have this conversation, but you're there and it's on your

phone. >> no, rachel. i just connected the two calls together. >> oh, i thought this one was on speaker on your phone. let me quote it. you quote the host saying, mr. trump, i can't come out publicly to endorse you at this time. it would destroy my credibility as it relates to you, but i want you to know i am today and have always been behind you. i speak to michael on a daily basis. anything he has asked me to do that benefits you, i have done. i know that every cable news network is different and journalism is viewed differently by different people, but that seems like a crazy thing for somebody in the news business to pledge to a political candidate. what was going on there? >> they were hundred him. they were -- look, mr. trump's ratings were through the roof during the campaign, and everybody wanted a piece of him. and so, you know, what do they do? they promised him the world. they pulled a trump on trump. whatever it is that he was looking for, whatever it is that he wanted, they were prepared to give it to him so long as they

could get an exclusive, that they could get a weekly interview, you know, that he would make phone calls in to them in order to discuss what he's doing and give them access behind the -- you know, the blue ropes. >> the other twist in this part of the book is that this fox host who called the president and sort of pledged this secret loyalty to him, this secret i'm behind you all the way although i can't say so publicly, this is also somebody with whom you had an ongoing relationship. he had confided into you about some legal matters and some business interests and also things that were going wrong in his marriage and worries about a divorce. i mean was that a factor here? was he saying this to the president in front of you is also giving you sort of assurances all these things that you know about me, don't worry, i'm going to be good. >> so let me tell you the story on this one. >> all right. >> without naming the name. i'm sure your viewers are smart, and i think they already figured out who it is.

he was as corey lewandowski would put it, he was in a time-out because there was allegations that he was really for ted cruz. and when mr. trump got word of this, he went apoplectic, and he basically refused to speak to him. he wanted nothing to do with him. he was incredibly, incredibly cruel to him the one time that they spoke, and it was my job to fix it. and i did that, at which point in time he explained that despite the fact that he happens to know ted cruz and he likes ted cruz, his loyalty was to donald trump. he is the one who he would want to see win in 2016, and anything that he can do behind the scenes to help, he would do it. and that was enough to convince mr. trump in order to take him out of the penalty box and to put him back in his good grace. >> and you don't think any of that dynamic had anything to do with your independent relationship with that host and you doing some basically

consulting and confidant sort of work with him? >> no. the confidant stuff had nothing to do with it. it was really his own need and desire as a host in order to ensure that mr. trump would come on his shows as well as having the access to the candidate who was rising in the polls, who was really the -- he was the media's sort of interest at the time not matter -- the guy would go for a rally. they would cover it beginning to end, and he wanted to be a part of it. it was for his personal needs as a talk show host. >> speaking of personal needs as a talk show host, this is now obviously becoming a slightly awkward conversation, but there's more of it ahead with michael cohen right after this. for america. it's 5g ultra wideband, and it's already available in parts of select cities.

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one of the other sort of unbelievable stories that -- not literally unbelievable. i believe you, but you write that the president personally

approved that insane story in the "national enquirer" that was basically that ted cruz's dad killed jfk or was involved with lee harvey oswald. you say that he personally approved and in fact president trump personally demanded that that photo of ted cruz's -- supposedly ted cruz's dad appear on the front page of the enquirer. do you know if senator cruz knows that donald trump approved that personally and made that happen personally? >> he does now. >> you also say that the "enquirer," one after another, did hit pieces on all of president trump's primary rivals. was the president involved in okaying all of those stories too? >> let me say this, and i want to be clear to you and the viewers and everybody. nothing happens without mr. trump's approval at the trump organization. to the same extent, nothing happens without president trump's approval. he micromanages everything, especially and including things

that he doesn't know anything about. >> but he was getting the "national enquirer" to run all of those stories one after another on all the other republican primary candidates? he was involved in all of those? >> sure. so as each -- as each candidate was moving up, let's say marco rubio. david pecker would reach out to me, and he would give me a list of things that he was intending to do in order to squash ted cruz's or marco rubio's rise. whoever was rising in the polls, that's who became the person that we needed to knock out of the race. with marco rubio, you may remember, there was photos of him in a swimming pool, that he had a drug problem, and all sorts of -- all sorts of other -- we'll call them salacious rulermors. and every time that they would be provided to me by david pecker, i would immediately take them into mr. trump's office. we would sit down.

we would talk about it. he would approve it, and then i would contact david. next thing you know, two days later on the front cover, marco rubio has a drug problem. >> that is a remarkable campaign contribution to the donald trump for president campaign. at least legally, you think that might have been seen that way. >> it could certainly be seen, and i hate to say there's other stations right now that are doing the same thing. they're becoming state-run television as well as newspapers that, you know, if donald trump sneezed, it's the greatest sneeze in the history of the world. and, you know, front-page news story, breaking news. >> let me ask you about another sort of surprise appearance in your book. it's the appearance of don mcgahn of all people, who of course has had a very unusual time in the spotlight as president trump's white house counsel and as somebody who is a fulsome cooperator with the mueller investigation even while

he was serving in the white house. you write about arranging for a portrait of president trump to be purchased at auction basically by a fake buyer. it was actually paid for out of funds from the trump foundation. that's part of what led the trump foundation to getting shut down by the new york attorney general. but you report, and i didn't know this before, that one of president trump's primary rivals also filed a complaint about this, reported this to the fec as a potential campaign finance violation and that don mcgahn, in his current role at the fec, is the one who quashed it? >> that's my understanding, yeah. it was don mcgahn who had the final vote, and that's where it got quashed. it was -- it was a very funny story. i hope you liked it. he was afraid. he was afraid that either no one would buy it or would go for just a few dollars, and i get called into the office as i did 50 times a day. you know, michael, you know, there's an auction going on in the hamptons.

so i'm like, oh, that's fabulous. you want me to go there and buy you something? yeah. it's a six-foot picture of me. i'm like, okay. you know, what are we going to do with it? he says, well, we have to get the highest price of anybody by a multiple. and so i know enough people who are significantly wealthy and friends also of mr. trump's, and i reached out to one in particular, who is a great guy. and sai he said, listen, i'm not hanging this in my apartment. i said, i don't think mr. trump wants you to, but he'll pay you back. why he took it from the foundation, that's simply because he's cheap. he didn't want it to come from his own money even though he believes the foundation money is his money as well. it was a ridiculous scenario in terms of even getting the money back. but we did, and he took it from the foundation, and that ended up resulting in the closure of the foundation based upon their

failure to follow the guidelines. >> with that not becoming something that advanced at the fec as a potential enforcement matter, do you think that don mcgahn's role at the fec in quashing that is part of the reason why he was given the white house counsel's job? was that a thank-you or a payback? >> is it any more the pay back the thank you by mark meadows becoming chief of staff or, you know, any of the other individuals who are now, you know, out there cheering the trump cheer, and at the end of the day, you know, he believes that this shows a sense of loyalty, and therefore he could bring them in. and it was very much the same -- it's the same thing. donald trump is an enigma, all right? it takes a while, which is what i tried to express in the book. by reading the stories and reading the statements that i make and putting it all together, you get a real, true understanding of what's going on inside of his head a little

better than just listening to the things that he says on television. >> of course another way to put that is watch what he does, not just what he says. michael cohen is my guest tonight. we will be right back with more after this. is>> tech: and you'lt when we're on our way. >> tech: just leave your keys on the dash and we'll replace your windshield with safe, no-contact service. >> tech: schedule at safelite.com. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ a lot of folks ask me why their dishwasher doesn't get everything clean. i tell them, it may be your detergent... that's why more dishwasher brands recommend cascade platinum... ...with the soaking, scrubbing and rinsing built right in. for sparkling-clean dishes, the first time. cascade platinum.

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you write a little bit about the president and his courting evangelical leaders to put together the kind of coalition he would need to win the nomination. and you state pretty emphatically that you think the president is pro-choice, that he's pro-abortion rights and that his anti-abortion -- >> no, no, no. i know that for a fact. >> how do you know that for a fact? >> because we've talked about it for years. he is -- he is -- he is not pro-life. he is pro-choice. >> do you know if he has ever either paid for abortions or demanded somebody get one? >> i never did that, and i was

never involved in any scenario like that with him. >> okay. i'm going to ask you about one other subject that is sensitive, but it's in the news, and it's one of the few things that's happened recently enough that your book isn't up to the minute up to date on it. otherwise the book is written right -- i mean i can tell you were editing right up until the very end. but there's this account of you and jerry and becki falwell where you described your legitimate with them and your warm friendship with them and how close to feel to them. but there's also a description that you helped them get a favor for their young daughter who wanted to get vip tickets to a justin bieber concert, and that was a great favor you were able to provide to them. and you knew that would come back to the benefit of mr. trump at some point in the future. and then you describe a problem that they had, that they came to you with, where there were nude photos effectively of mrs. falwell, and they were afraid they were going to become public. and you intervened to

essentially make sure that those didn't become public. the way you describe it, though, they were -- you describe them as having been -- jerry falwell told you that he and his wife were friendly with this young man who worked as a pool attendant in miami. since then in the last couple of weeks, the falwells have come out and said it was a sexual affair with this young man. and that puts a different cast as to whether or not he was blackmailing them. can you give us any insight into what happens there give the falwells have gone public with what happened on the other side of it? >> sure. so my story that i tell actually doesn't even involve this gentleman, granda, the one who's known as the pool boy. it actually dealt with a different gentleman by the name of fernandez, who was, to my knowledge, best friends or very close friends with granda. and that's how fernandez got a

hold of the photos. i never spoke to fernandez. i only dealt with his lawyer, which is something that is a theme throughout the entire book. they make it seem as though i threatened him or i threatened stormy daniels, or i threatened this one. i never threatened stormy daniels. i never spoke to stormy daniels. i've only spoken to her lawyer, keith davidson, and the same with fernandez. i never spoke to him. i spoke to his lawyer, and i said, what you're doing is tantamount to extortion, and if it doesn't stop, you're going to force the falwells to go to the fbi. they're going to have to report this. and then you're going to end up with a knock on the door and in serious trouble. so i want a commitment from you that if you have the photos, that they're going to be destroyed. and he agreed, and they allegedly were destroyed, and that's why they've never surfaced. >> and when you described that as a favor that you would eventually call in not for your own benefit but for the benefit of mr. trump and to his campaign, the implication there is the way you called in that favor, having helped out the

falwells in that way, is they paid it back by endorsing mr. trump at a really important time in the primaries. >> i didn't have to -- rachel, i didn't have to use that as a chit, so to speak, with the falwells. the falwells -- i spoke to them no less than two hours ago today. i spaek to them on a regular basis. they communicate with me while i was in prison, and they were the last person i saw before i s self-surrendered. so i didn't need to use that as a chit. all i needed to do was to ask them, and they would have done -- they would have done it anyway because i asked. >> there was no implication they'd be at risk in some way with your knowledge of those photos, that the endorsement may have been something that they felt that they had to do in order to protect themselves. >> no. no. >> now, on this point, i should mention that today reuters put this same question to jerry

falwell jr. he too denied that there was any quid pro quo, that there was any threat, implicit or otherwise, from michael cohen that led to his endorsement of trump during the 2016 primary. we've got more with michael cohen ahead, including what he says are the roots of president trump's deep disdain and disrespect for former president barack obama. that's ahead. , little things can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression

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i'm a delivery operations manager in san diego, california. we've had a ton of obstacles in finding ways to be more sustainable for a big company. we were one of the first stations to pilot a fleet of zero emissions electric vehicles. the amazon vans have a decal that says, "shipment zero." we're striving to deliver a package with zero emissions in to the air. i feel really proud of the impact that has on the environment. but we're always striving to be better. i love being outdoors, running in nature.

we have two daughters. i want to do everything i can to protect the environment to make sure they see the same beauty i've seen in nature. my goal is to lead projects that affect the world. i know that to be great requires hard work. there is something that you describe in terms of the president's mind-set that stuck with me in a way that i feel like it resonates as very true, and i don't -- i can't quite put my finger on how it works. and it's about the birtherism thing, about what you describe as his obsession with president obama and his sort of almost desperate need to undercut president obama in some way. and you said in the book that the president didn't necessarily actually believe that president obama was born in a foreign country, but he liked the effect that it had for him to advance

this theory. on page 114 of the book, you said he liked doing things like that. quote, the more divisive the better because it would arouse strong feelings for those who took his side. i think a lot of us have seen how he's tried to pit people against each other whenever he can. why does that redound to his advantage? how does that work in his favor? >> donald trump is like a cult leader, and he's very stalinistic in the fact that he repeats things over and over and over again with the theory that if you continuously say the same thing over and over, people will start to believe it, you know. and, you know, i talk about a lot of these sort of proclivities and the things that he thinks and how he thinks. if you look at just the books that have come out recently, mary trump's book, stephanie winston wolkoff's book, my book, it's kind of like the trifecta of truth. we all seem to be pointing to

the same thing. he is devoid of empathy. he doesn't care what he says. he doesn't care who gets hurt so long as he wins. and when he saw that his poll numbers and his popularity and the number of times that he's gracing the front cover of a newspaper is increasing, he just added onto it. all of a sudden he was sending people to hawaii to go check. that's a lie. he never sent anybody anywhere, right? he just said it, and everybody sort of bought into it. of course donald trump sent somebody. he's rich, right? who wouldn't send somebody if you want to prove your point? well, donald trump didn't do it because he didn't want to spend the money, and he didn't believe it. you know, his hatred for barack obama is plain and simple. he's black. he went to harvard law. he graduated the top of his class. he's, you know, incredibly articulate, and he's all the things that donald trump wants to be, right?

and he just can't handle it. so what do i do if you can't handle it and you're donald trump? you attack it, the psasame way attacks my credibility all of the time. all of a sudden i've become a convicted liar? who did i lie for? i lied at the benefit of and at the direction of donald j. trump. like your first question when we started, why am i the one who is taking all of the, you know, responsibility? i took my own responsibility, but now it's time for him and his sons and allen weisselberg and all of the other people that were involved, it's time for them to now face, you know, the consequences. it shouldn't just be me. >> when you say that you were directed to lie to congress by him, were there people who conveyed that message to you directly? are there people who were involved in basically getting you to lie to congress or telling you to lie to congress,

who should also be held accountable for that? >> well, all those names have already come out, so the answer to that is emphatically yes. they changed the document. it was all part of a joint defense agreement. you know, many of these recordings that you're going to hear on other stations have been given to that station and to the moderator by the trump organization and don junior and others. i mean look at the way that they behave. he behaves exactly the way that i described him. he's like a mob boss. if you cross him, you're going to get it, and he's going to inflict as much pain and as much damage as he possibly can. the problem is you can't -- you can't damage me anymore as i write in my prologue. you know, i'm broken broken. i mean to be away from my family for what? to lose my law license, my business, finances, my family's happiness, you know, what do you

think that you're going to do with your ridiculous tweets? and by the way, you know, in his tweet of today, as i pointed out, he doesn't even spell properly. you know,l-i-a-r. if you're going to call me something, at least have the decency to spell it right. >> over time, do you feel like his sentience has declined? what you're describe in terms of his spelling, the way he speaks, the way he sometimes has trouble with words. has that changed over time? is he the same person when he speaks now that you recognize in your time working with him all these years? >> he's not the same person that i knew going back years ago. he was always gruff. he was always a certain way. but the power that he now has has gone to his head. he wants to be an autocrat. he wants to be the president of this country for life.

he wants to be just like putin, just like kim jong-un, just like maduro. he wants to be just like mohammed bin salman. he craves this. he doesn't want to run for president, and that's why he says, well, what about 12 more years, 12 more years? he's not joking. understand donald trump doesn't have a sense of humor. he doesn't laugh. he doesn't tell jokes. he doesn't have a sense of humor. he means when he says it, and it's -- my book is intended to really open the eyes of the 38%, the base of his, that no matter what donald trump does, it's acceptable to them. and he doesn't care, and they don't care. and he wasn't joking again when he said that he can kill someone on fifth avenue and get away with it. he means it. >> okay. just ahead, i have one last question for michael cohen, which is about his corroboration of reporting about president trump that has reportedly put the white house in a bit of a panic for a solid week now.

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and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. otezla. hey college students - sundays away from your team are tough. hey bro, i got this. buckle up! let's take a ride...! follow me into nfl sunday ticket.tvu. here you'll catch every game, every sunday afternoon no matter where you live. even on your favorite devices. that deserves a hip-whip. don't call it that. college students - stream nfl sunday ticketlive

on your favorite devices with nflsundayticket.tvu for our exclusive student-only price. i feel like the one thing that has broken through a little bit, at least this year, about that empathy deficit that you're talking about is the reporting that started in "the atlantic" this week that's been backed up by a bunch of other news

organizations that he said terrible things about veterans ask particularly about people who have been wounded or killed in action for this country, that they're stupid and they're suckers and they're losers. can you corroborate any of that? has he talked about potential -- his avoiding service in vietnam or anything else about veterans or his potential for serving in ways that make sense to you? >> rachel, corroborate it? i said it 18 months ago before the house oversight committee. everything that you're seeing now is sort of a preview to this really horror film that we have going on now called the trump presidency. and to those that don't believe this, the sequel to it, 2020 horror, is going to be even worse than the 2016 one. i said it. he literally had his father go to a podiatrist to claim that he had bone spurs in his feet. he doesn't even remember which bone spur -- which foot he had the bone spur in.

that's impossible. i've had surgery. i had a bone spur in my left shoulder. if i was 110 years old, i'd still remember where the scar is. i'd still remember that i had it in my left shoulder. how do you forget something like that? i mean it's nonsensical. plus i was tasked by him -- and i talk about it -- in order to tamp down all of the media, all of the friends that i have in media, to tamp down the deferment because he did not want it to defract frtract from claims that he is pro-veteran and he is the veterans' hope for america and for them, and that's why they should all vote for him. >> mary trump said that it was sort of family lore that don junior would be disowned if he signed up for the military, that there was worry that he was going to sign up for the military and maybe he voiced that he was going to, and president trump told him he'd be cut out of his inheritance if he did so.

did you ever hear anything about that? >> i haven't heard on that one, but i can tell you -- and i talk about it quite frequently throughout the book -- the relationship between father and son is a very, very cutting relationship. it's -- at times it was very hard to even be in the room. trump used to say that he has the worst judgment of anyone that he's ever met, and i actually interceded on many occasions on behalf of don both in his personal life as well as his business life to protect him from his father's wrath. >> you also say that you sometimes felt like you were being treated like one of the trump children in the way that he was belittling you and the way he would try to cut your legs out from under you, essentially for his own amusement. >> for his amusement, and that's why i was able to accept it. i figured, you know, if he's capable of doing it to his children -- and that's not just don junior. that was ivanka and eric and tiffany. you know, he did the same to them. so i figured, well, at least i'm

in good company. >> michael cohen, it's a remarkable book. it's called "disloyal, a memoir, the true story of the former personal attorney to the president donald j. trump." i know you have every choice in the world in order where to go talk about this. >> like i said, all the guys at otisville, tony meatballs of the worlds, we all loved sitting there and watching you. we used to argue and fight over the children. msnbc, rachel maddow has to be on. >> well, i'm going to send all the meatballs rachel maddow show mugs just because you said that. >> those meatballs were great. then we had big dave the enforcer. nobody touched that television. >> thank you, michael. good luck to you. >> thank you, rachel. pleasure. >> michael cohen's new book, which is called "disloyal" is out as of today. we did reach out to the white house. they told us michael cohen's book is fiction, and that he lied to congress and has lost

all credibility. i would point out in response that that's exactly what michael cohen's book is all about, and the person he blames for his own demise and all of ours is his longtime boss, president trump. thanks for being with us tonight. "first look" is up next. joy reid and john heilemann are going to lead off our discussion with rachel's interview with michael cohen. we'll be joined later in that discussion by former federal prosecutor daniel goldman, who questioned michael cohen under oath for a couple of days when daniel goldman served as special counsel to the house intelligence committee. daniel goldman will analyze the legal aspects of what michael cohen had to say tonight and offer his assessment of michael cohen's credibility based on his own interactions with michael cohen as an under-oath witness. and later in the hour, we will be joined by former secretary of state john kerry, who is a decorated combat veteran of the vietnam war. we will