we heard rudy giuliani a little while ago. every time there's a conviction or a guilty plea, rudy giuliani says, oh, this isn't a guilty plea by the president, so it's nothing. well, there's a whole lot of nothing pleading guilty here to different charges that might not have happened had there not been a special prosecutor. >> well, as far as we can tell from this particular one, it's another shady lobbyist engaged in sleazy practices. >> so far we've seen -- >> before you go on to the next sentence, isn't it good that you are getting convictions of these, as you put it, slaeeazy lobbyists? >> yeah. my one caveat on that, is there is sort of an unfairness if you're getting people prosecuted only because they had some proximity to donald trump. and otherwise, if paul manafort hadn't run donald trump's campaign, would he be a free man today? that's my one asterisk on this but if you're guilty -- >> if the investigation hadn't been going on, they never would have known that he was breaking the law or the eight different laws that

first of all, what is rudy giuliani referring to?is something he may have learned during the joint -- because they have a joint defense agreement of some sort? >> the joint defense agreement has to be over at this point if he's cooperating. and congressman schiff correctly pointed out, you can't control what you have. manafort is on one side, he says one thing, on the other side he says something else. i didn't know how you can say the deal is limited. the deal as i understand it is that manafort will cooperate with anything that the special counsel asks about. there are no limits. this wasn't a deal that we're only going to talk about so-and-so, but we're not going to talk about trump or the trump tower meeting, obviously one of the first questions they're going to ask him, is did donald trump's son know about the subject of the meeting before it occurred in order to put pressure on donald trump jr. in order to put pressure on president trump. so, look, i understand why rudy giuliani, who's a good lawyer wants to put this in the mos

and that's what giuliani does.nd i think that if we're looking for somebody that would follow the letter of what a lawyer supposed to do, you don't have a client that is looking for that at all. he gives directions and runs and turns on the television and sees if you did it the way i told you. >> harry? >> yeah, pardon me, rev, for interrupting. don junior, we haven't heard from him in months and he's so oven dwrusly implicated. i think most likely what happened is he is a target. mueller said he was a target and his lawyer said he was going to take the 5th. and mueller is ready to indict him, but he understands when that happens, it's armageddon with the president and he'll do it as one of his last moves, prompting the sort of final c conflagration. >> thank you for that. after the break, president obama weighs in on op-ed gate as donald trump considers polygraphs for aides. when you start sleeping on a tempur-pedic, the difference you feel is night... and day. feel the difference at our labor day sales event, pur

and that's what giuliani does. and i think that if we're looking for somebody that would follow the letter of what a lawyer supposed to do, you don't have a client that is looking for that at all. he gives directions and runs and turns on the television and sees if you did it the way i told you. >> harry? >> yeah, pardon me, rev, for interrupting. don junior, we haven't heard from him in months and he's so oven dwrusly implicated. i think most likely what happened is he is a target. mueller said he was a target and his lawyer said he was going to take the 5th. and mueller is ready to indict him, but he understands when that happens, it's armageddon with the president and he'll do it as one of his last moves, prompting the sort of final conflagration. >> thank you for that. after the break, president obama weighs in on op-ed gate as donald trump considers polygraphs for aides. your mornings were made for better things than rheumatoid arthritis. before you and your rheumatologist move to another treatment, ask if xel

rudy giuliani has been consistently inconsistent. it's absolutely stunning but no longer surprising. as a former federal prosecutor i can tell you this, while the mueller team would like to speak with the president, in fact, they'd like to speak with everyone who involved in this investigation, they don't have to. often in federal investigations we don't get to talk to the target of the investigation. he's abroad or he won't speak with us or invokes his fifth amendment privilege not to speak with us. so you can finish an investigation without speaking to the president. if bob mueller decides he wants to push the issue, regardless of what mr. giuliani says, he simply issue ace grand jury subpoena and litigates that. i don't know what he's thinking because he won't talk. he's a professional and that's the way professionals conduct themselves. >> all right. so i'm asked to -- i'm allowed to ask our lawyer in this case, what do you think about the possibility of what you just mentioned, a subpoena, knowing mueller and his work as much as

rudy giuliani says that the plea deal has nothing to do with president trump. >> it turned out to be an irrelevant indictment where i think mueller has turned into the private prosecutor. what does it have todowith president trump? not a single thing. some guy donated to the inauguration? my goodness, there are about 500,000 people who donated. every time they get a speeding ticket, the specific prosecutor will do it. >> reporter: and patten has agreed to cooperate with mueller. evan perez, cnn, washington. >>> and still more questions and contradictions unfolding in the russian probe. in a court filing late friday, convicted former trump campaign adviser george papadopoulous contradicted jeff sessions' sworn testimony to congress. papadopoulous says in a march 2016 meeting, sessions and then candidate trump both apparently supported his proposal for a meeting with vladimir putin during the 2016 campaign. when sessions was asked about that meeting under oath, he said that he, quote, pushed back on the idea. papadopoulous' attorney requests that he be given probation instead of jail

giuliani who knows from being u.s.drug dealers and mobsters. >> no longer able to deny the payment in the face of the tape, rudy giuliani claimed the tape proved the president did nothing wrong. >> giuliani was saying they paid it by check not by cash. that doesn't matter. @doesn't matter whether it's paid directly by cohen handing bag of money to karen mcdougal or through ami. once it's paid it's paid. >> many critics saw the recordings as reminiscence of another presidency in crisis. >> there's a lot of parallel here. there are secretly recorded conversations. there's white house that is increasingly crushed under the weight of paranoia. is there going to be a tape as important in the trump russia probe. as there was in water gate. which helps ends nixons presidency. >> looking back at tastatements that nixon made he tried lt same tactics trump is using now. >> i have never heard or seen such outrageous, vicious reporting. >> the dishonest press. >> when you don't have the facts or the law on your side, which nixon d

our panel weighs in on rudy giuliani next. giuliani next.ere's nothing small about your business. with dell small business technology advisors, you get the one-on-one partnership to grow your business. the dell vostro 14 laptop. get up to 40% off on select pcs. call 877-buy-dell today. ( ♪ ) call 877-buy-dell today. your insurance rates a scratch so smallr you could fix it with a pen. how about using that pen to sign up for new insurance instead? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. ♪ >>> welcome back to "hardball." rudy giuliani was once known as america's mayor. america's mayor. but this year he took

rudy giuliani talked about this plea deal today. take a listen to this. >> nothing to do with the president, nothing to do with collusion, everything to do with a lobbyist who acted improperly who the president doesn't know. so far every indictment is unrelated to the president. we went through an entire manafort trial, and there wasn't a single mention of the president. >> this is related directly to the inauguration. >> not is the president. >> giuliani here saying this has nothing to do with the president. when you're listening to the point that ken made earlier, which is that we don't know why these men pay $50,000 to attend the inauguration. were they just paying to party it up with d.c. politicians or were they coming to try to get access to incoming administration so they could ultimately shape policy and have some kind of influence. how is it possible rudy giuliani makes that kind of statement when we don't know the answer to why these two men paid $50,000. >> ayman, first of all, the mayor is a pretty good lawyer. he's goin

but i think what giuliani is saying is maybe no.eded there can be no criminal charge against the president, he will certainly do some sort of report and he may well say -- and the president may well say, i'm not agreeing to disclose it. i don't see how there could be any real lawsuit about it. obviously someone members of congress, members of the public. >> members of the press. >> yeah, the press -- would sue to obtain access to this document, but it is not out of the question that it will remain secret at least for the foreseeable future. >> someone somewhere along the way might leak. it does happen occasionally. >> it does happen, but you know, not as much as we think. nothing has leaked from the mueller office, that's for sure. >> right. and if there's only a copy or two delivered to rosenstein, i don't know. counting on leaks is a long shot. >> that's an important distinction here. they're talking about challenging it as it gets to rosenstein before it goes to congress, if it were to go to congress. congress might not ever see

what was giuliani -- what was -- how defiant was giuliani?of topics cluing the "new york times" op-ed and pivoted to the latest negotiations. he couldn't have been clear. one thing about giuliani he's consistently inconsistent. and he changed his story a few different times. after i spoke to him he cleaned up his remarks. when i spoke to him, it was clearly an attempt to lay down another marker in these ongoing interview negotiations in which he said the president would not talk, he would not field questions written or in person about obstruction. moreover anything that happened after he took office, that he felt the mueller probe should be confined to the period before he was sworn in. he then went on to discuss how that they were fielding the offer from mueller about written questions about the russian collusion part of this. even then the goal post shifted from giuliani we said we'll perhaps be open to that but we won't talk about the idea of followup questions. and if there are any we're not sure we would permit them we should agree to th

rudy giuliani put out a statement from the president. he actually out two statements.e first one i want to . sh once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with president trump or the trump campaign, the on the president did nothing wrong and paul manafort will tell the truth. and the paul manafort will tell the truth was not included. you don't think thawas an accident? >> i don't think this was an accident. remember, someone who was hired really to work with the press and be this person who's is spokesperson for the legal team. so you have the idea they're very worried about what paul manafort might say, and paul manafort has this deal that he will talk about anything that the government said, so if he tells the truth, that cannot just go to obstruction of justice orthe russia collusion, but it goes to the fina ials. the faat the president and paul manafort had some sort of financial dealings that get them in trouble is almost a bigger story sometimes than the russian collusion. because i get a sense in talking to rudy giuliani they're

but i don't think he's counting off the days until september 7th, as giuliani fantasizes.gainst giuliani's hype and spin that mueller is dragging his feet. far from it. you know, most special counsel investigations don't result in any indictments. so far, year and a half, mueller has indicted 35 people, some of whom pled guilty. he got those eight felony convictions against paul manafort. he's got a long way to go. >> i'm curious, guy, what do you make of rudy giuliani initially sort of drawing this line in the sand for the start of september, now moving it, i think he said september 7th, seeming to back off how serious that would be if mueller didn't finish things up by then. what do you make of rudy giuliani's posture here? is it all from a public relations standpoint? is there a legal point to it? >> paul is 100% right, all it is is a defense lawyer posturing, trying to put pressure on the prosecutor. i'm sort of surprised about this, maybe he's doing it for the client and to make the client happy, that happens sometimes. but in terms of bob mueller, let me tell, we're

giuliani who knows from being u.s., the only people who use cash are drug dealers and mobsters. >> there's a lot of parallel here. there are secretly recorded conversations. there's white house that is increasingly crushed under the weight of paranoia. is there going to be a tape as important in the trump russia probe. as there was in water gate. which helps ends nixons presidency. >> looking back at statements that nixon made he tried lt same tactics trump is using now. >> i have never heard or seen such outrageous, vicious reporting. >> the dishonest press. >> when you don't have the facts or the law on your side, which nixon didn't. that's what you do. you attack the investigators and discredit the investigation so peep won't believe what's being put before them. >> the tape maybe just the beginning. >> it raises the specker he has a lot more on trump. and more that can be easily proven when you have the tapes you have the tapes. >>> coming up. >> that bomb shell plea deal means the man who used to fix donald trumps

have giuliani doing the crazy uncle routine. you've got nunes doing an inspector clouseau over here, and all of it is to just throw up a whole lot of dust so that nobody can keep track. >> nobody thinks this guy can get defeated for re-election. he's probably got 90% of his people in the district all behind trump, and there he's right in line with him. >> that's right. he's in a safe republican district. he's unlikely to be going anywhere. one piece of the nunes saga that's just especially eye popping is that he spent weeks and weeks sort of bashing the justice department for not turning over a certain stack of documents that he really wanted to see. and he said these documents were going to blow wide open the hillary clinton conspiracy that's were going on. absolutely essential that the american people saw knees these documents. and then when the doj finally acquiesced and turned over these documents, made them available to nunes, he didn't actually read them. he had his staff read them but he himself despite making a host of c

what i think giuliani is doing, though, is, and he's talked about this, is sowing doubt about robertller in the public so he's trying to maybe not even message to mueller or try to push him into a corner and withdraw that public support for the investigation. >> it's no secret that president trump has had some targets in the department of justice, you have attorney general jeff sessions, recently the past couple days taking aim at official bruce orr, whose focus is international and russian organized crime. the president threatening to revoke his security clearance because of his ties to the russia investigation. i understand you know him personally. >> i don't know him personally. bruce was one of the people who first interviewed me to join the department of justice back in the bush administration, and so i went into the fraud section, he worked in organized crime, but he is a career civil servant. he is also someone who is not political in any way. he preceded the bush administration, he was there then, he was there during obama and here during trump now and i think this threat of

i thought mayor giuliani and president trump said there's no collusion and guilty of nothing. why wouldn't you welcome the public release of the mueller report? >> fair question. it is on another topic related to the russia investigation, we have had this kind of running drama between giuliani and robert mueller's team as will he or won't he, will the president sit down with robert mueller for an interview? the president's lawyers have repeatedly come back with conditions underwhich they would do it. et cetera. do you think the president has any intention of sitting down with the special counsel? >> i have no earthly idea. he said he wants to and can't wait to and then he said he's worried about a perjury trap. this president has a lifelong habit of pathological lying. and i can understand why he would be nervous about testifying under oath before a special prosecutor. >> his lawyers might be nervous, too. thank you very much for joining us. >> my pleasure. >>> coming up next, there's more breaking news. president trump attacks "the new york times" article which revealed the r

it seems clear that rudy giuliani and his team were duped too. they did not see it coming. here counsel mya wiley. what do you make of rudy giuliani touting a joint defense agreement this past week which we know was happening at the very time paul manafort was in the meetings, not jointly defending trump but cutting a deal with his nemesis, bob mueller. >> i have so many questions about how rudy giuliani has been approaching this from the beginning. he's made so many mistakes in his representation of trump in public. whether it's unfortunate statements about how he has described transactions. he's been a mess. i wonder if they have a written agreement because it's standard operating procedure to write the agreement down. normally you would include provisions about how the agreement could be dissolved and it would be common practice to dissolve the agreement if you're going to start. if one party was going to start cooperating. was it written? was he relying on an informal and verbal agreement which every one would say you don't do? i don't know. it's impossible know. he sho

>> so having heard that from rudy giuliani and as i was saying earlier, what do you make of giuliani's comments? do you think that voters will look at this investigation differently if mueller doesn't meet the trump team's deadline? >> yeah. i think what giuliani is trying to do there is overstate what this rule says so that if there is any activity that occurs within the next 60 days he can point to it and say it's clearly politically motivated. but as joyce said, the policy is, number one, 60 days is not written anywhere. that is a word of mouth general term. and then the other thing is he says it relates to politically charged investigations. and that's not true either. it relates to individual elections as joyce pointed out. so the fact that trump himself is not on the ballot suggests to me that technically there is no violation whatsoever to making charges relating to the russia investigation. but to the extent that activity could have some impact on the midterm elections i think it is something that mueller will think about and discuss with his team. but if any charges come, you

rudy giuliani had given mueller an unofficial timeline. he said mueller needed to file his report, come to his conclusions by labor day, tomorrow, in order to not interfere with d.o.j. policy. does it look like mueller is ready to wrap things up? >> yeah. he had done that. i agree with kelly that rudy giuliani has not been a very effective advocate for trump. he had proffered this deadline. he is totally wrong. that is not the d.o.j. policy at all and not even a guideline. i think it doesn't look as though he will wrap it up. i think it back fires because it means over the next couple of months that the cries of wrap it up will be much harder for giuliani and trump to make. when that period is over, of course, the house either will or will have not flipped. that will really effect the probe in one way or another. the main point, giuliani's claim it was all wet from the start and was just his attempt to try to influence the public. >> thank you both for being with us. >> thanks. have a great night. >>> legal limbo on the texas/mexico border

giuliani may be right. that these cases have nothing to do with russian collusion, but have to tell you, the man they just brought on board as an overarching, cooperating witness, paul manafort he has everything to do with russian collusion. >> vocal about this and call this a big win and he also commented on the situation whether the president will pardon manafort. here's more of what he had to say. >> i think he was perhaps hoping for a pardon and then the question comes up, did the president act too late if he was going to pardon, he would have been much better off pardoning early rather than waiting until, so i don't think we're going to see any kind of pardon at this point. i think we'll see corporation and remains to be seen whether the corporation will help the u.s. attorney in the second district. it would backfire at this point because, number one, if he's given a pardon, then he can't take the fifth amendment. he has to be called anyway. he would be called in front of a grand jury. the pardon is o

what do you make of this latest reversal by rudy giuliani? >> completely ridiculous.back on one of the things bothering me the most. a lot of people saying legal training, people have been lawyers say i would never let my client go and talk to the -- that's absolutely true, if your client is a hopper on the corner. all right? if your client is some low-level petty criminal, of course you would never let him testify in front of an fbi -- right? fine. argue that your client deserves special treatment because he just happens to be the president of the united states and can't be indicted and shouldn't be subpoenaed and shouldn't even be charged. argue all that, it should be expected that the president of the united states is going to cooperate with an investigation. so they're trying to have it both ways. say the president is so special that he cannot be subpoenaed, but he's just like every other criminal defendant, in which case he should never talk to prosecutors. it's very annoying. the other thing about this back and forth about obstruction in particular, they seem to

>> well, i think it is a question, it's a little bit unclear what giuliani is talking about.narily, executive privilege is asserted against another branch. ultimately, they could try. that's going to be a question for our court to decide. now, they are unlikely to prevail the ordinary reasons why executive privilege would exist. doesn't necessarily apply here. it's overwhelmingly in the public interest. that said, if there is a report, and again we don't actually know there will be a report, but if rod rosenstein decides to refer that report to congress, i don't know anybody who worked with the united states congress who doesn't think that document would be leaked almost immediately. the notion they will be able to prevent this from coming to the public, i don't think that strategy is going to work. >> david, in the latest "washington post" abc news poll 63% of americans still support is the mueller investigation. 29% opposing. so more than 2-1 there. that was after there was some dips in robert mueller's public support, his approval rating dropping a bit. it seems to be goin

now, giuliani says the report will focus on three things, suspected collusion by members of the trumpional security adviser michael flynn as well as obstruction of justice allegations. cnn's sarah murray has more details. >> reporter: with little sign the russia probe is wrapping up, rudy giuliani is hatching a back-up plan. the president's lawyer telling cnn's dana bash the legal team is already halfway through preparing a report to rebut a number of possible findings from special counsel robert mueller. it's slated to include sections on everything from collusion with russia in the 2016 election to fired national security adviser michael flynn to obstruction of justice. the report, all part of giuliani's strategy to dull the blow of whatever mueller makes public. >> i'll be here with my version of the report and they'll have their version of the report and the american people, in that sense, are going to decide it. >> reporter: once adamant that mueller must wrap up his investigation well before the 2018 midterms. >> if it isn't over by september, then we have a very, very serious v

let's play for you a little bit of what giuliani told my colleague yesterday. >> you've said there's -- should be a september 1st deadline for mr. mueller to finish whatever he is to finish. what if he doesn't? >> rel september 7th would be the date. the justice department has a rule that you should stay out of politically charged investigations within 60 days of the election. i hope he respects that. >> or what? >> well, nothing. i mean, otherwise it just affects how people look at the legit ma legitimacy of his investigation. >> how does the trump team justify these attempts to discredit the nvinvestigation while this happens. you saw the poll showing a number of americans do agree with it and then we have this deadline that's going to probably come and go. >> i think they're using the customs and habits of the fbi and the justice department to say don't go forward, stop it. we have an election. now, obviously that hasn't always happened in the past. remember 2016 but i think what giuliani is trying to do is shape the public perception and do something about those numbers that you

seems to me rudy giuliani and the president's team is drawing a line. that happened in the campaign. stuff that didn't. >> exactly. robert mueller has signalled he wants to ask president trump about things after he was elected, which i think giuliani is holding on to. >> the firing of james comey, for example. >> exactly. it would lead to obstruction of justice charges, if that were to happen. what's interesting about this is the bets the white house is making and trump's legal team is making. according to sources close to them, they said, they don't have a strategy past the pr bullying tactic againstbetting he's not to go through a months long fight against president trump. i think all signs point, yeah. >> it feels they're saying the collusion charge, they're getting softer on that because it is not a criminal charge. obstruction truly is. >> frank, jump in here. then i have another question for you. >> i was going to say, there is another gift you get when you press the subpoena issue, which is, you may get a very strong glimpse of how the courts wil

and just based on that exchange he had with rudy giuliani calling him a baby even when rudy giuliani was the only one defending him that weekend when the "access hollywood" tape dropped, loyalty is only one way for the president. >> it's unfair and an inaccurate attack because babies can't do television interviews. we've never had a baby on this show because they don't speak, john. if they don't speak, they're not good for interviews. what about the question natasha raises, such an intriguing question, i saw you vigorously nodding your head as you are known to do on this set from time to time, natasha raises an intelligent, interesting question. why would you lie to your own lawyer? >> he resents the dependence. the same thing goes on with the baby thing and then he goes off and he gives his intent. he goes off and he says in an interview that, yes, i fired him because of the investigation. he makes the -- he gives his intent in a public proceeding under tape. and you might ask why. and there are the comparison to shakespeare. shakespeare has this quote, guilt spills itself for fear

giuliani has been engaged in the p.r.not a very effective one on behalf of the president. >> you worked with robert mueller so in your experience with that, you said on a tweet on friday the innocent, you said he will quote exonerate the innocent and hold the guilty accountable. what is your assessment how he handled this so far? >> i think he's handled it as well as anybody in his position could. zero leaks aggressively going after wrongdoers and i believe to my core he is an innocent man's best friend because if he finds no wrongdoing, he'll find a way to announce it from the rooftops but if he finds wrongdoing, watch out. >> all right. we'll see which one it is. thank you. as always for the perspective there. please stay around. >> trump the outsider was absent from john mccain's peopmemorial. how did this play out with his base? we'll talk about that. o the gre. ♪ can i get a connection? can i get can i get a connection? ♪ ♪ i can see it in my, see it in my reflection. ♪ ♪ ohhh can i get a connection? ♪ tryna find the

>> it's not just giuliani. i mean, you talk to many people in and around the president now.to john dowd, hindsight is 20/20. he did feel back when the mueller investigation started that he had a good relationship with mueller. that he got the sense from mueller explicitly and from mueller's deputies this would be -- that this would move faster if the trump white house complied. and boy, did they. it really was to be fair to the trump team, they gave the mueller team everything that they wanted and then some in terms of documents and interviews. and didn't invoke executive privilege, which they could have done. and yes, there is a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda going on and has been for some time, but that was the wrong approach because it has not ended quickly. it has dragged out, and it is potentially allowing the mueller team to go in directions they couldn't have otherwise gone. i will say that giuliani sent me a text saying that when he told the "times" he would have done things differently, which he said to me and others before, he wanted to emphasize that he didn't mea

what i find interesting is the timing of giuliani's statement.have kavanaugh's supreme court confirmation hearings happening right now. he just recently said or actually refused to answer whether or not he believes a sitting president could be subpoenaed. right after that, very closely to that statement, giuliani came out and said he was not going to answer these questions in writing. i find that to be quite interesting. we know kavanaugh is someone who could potentially be in the position on whether or not a sitting president can answer a subpoena or what have you. i find it incredibly aston astonishing, like everything with this administration. >> i appreciate you didn't go with unprecedented. you went with astonishing. papadopoulos, the first former trump campaign adviser arrested in the mueller investigation. sentencing today. he faces not a lot of time, up to six months. what do you see the judge giving him? >> i see the judge giving him six months. i think what so far out of all the branches of government, the judiciary has been the one to

we have heard from rudy giuliani. what indications do you have of how this changes the president's legal team strategy going forward? >> you know, it's a great question. it's interesting. rudy giuliani's statement echoed the same statement that sarah sanders the white house put out. we don't know for sure if this is a coordinated strategy. we should mention the outside legal team retracted the statement and reissued it. and the thing that they deleted the one line they deleted from the statement was this line that said and paul manafort will tell the truth. and you could see, paul manafort tells the truth and implicates donald trump, that creates a huge problem for the president's outside legal team. i think the fact that we have not heard from the president on this suggests that he really is grasping the gravity of this. i can tell you there have been a great many topics to include the death toll count the casualty count in puerto rico. a great many topics his advisers inside and outside the white house have cautione

betsy, i want to ask you about rudy giuliani. the two statements that he gave on this plea deal and the one that he took away, the line where he said that paul manafort will tell the truth. so why would he pull that? >> what we're hearing or what giuliani himself has said is that he and jay sekulow somehow got their wires crossed and there were technical difficulties as they were drafting these parallel statements and then subsequently giuliani had to withdraw this one line from the statement that he put out. that explanation may or may not be credible depending on your view of the credibility of rudy giuliani, but the important piece here is that it certainly appears the white house or the president's legal team took a big step back from essentially saying that they weren't worried about what information paul manafort might potentially be giving to mueller. that said though, they were certainly likely correct in that first statement when they said manafort would be telling the truth. when he is communicating with federal investi

you saw this in a statement put out by former new york city mayor rudy giuliani in terms of how they were able to walk back statements in which they said that manafort was going to tell the truth. he ended the day, now you have manafort, cohen, general flynn, all of whom have been saying, you know, in their own way that they're going to fully cooperate with bob mueller. >> those numbers are certainly rising. tessa, i want to go back to that tweet again. do you know of any -- that president trump is actively trying to shut down the investigation? >> that's something that trump has an idea that he's batted around for months. i think he can't be feeling good right now because, as his poll numbers are dropping, we're seeing mueller's approval ratings rise. from that tweet, you can see that he thinks or knows that that might be related. and he and his lawyer, rudy giuliani, have been waging a pr war, basically, against mueller's team for months. trying to undercut public confidence in the investigation before any final report comes out. now that he sees that manafort is cooperating and ha

it's the same one that giuliani employs every day. it is not actually a legal strategy.t he's talking about. >> no, it really isn't. it's all the president's men. sam patton, you're right, is a new name. but you dig a half inch and you all of a sudden get a second mention of names we have heard before. >> right. >> some of them david just mentioned. but it begins to tie together very closely. let's just talk about the inaugural committee. that's what trump put together with his biggest money men. names we have heard before like elliot and sam. rick gates runs the operation and they take in record amounts of money and don't seem to have spent it on very much at all. that's a whole problem. but in general, we are now zeroing in on the money people who are closest to trump. so that's big. >> guys, thanks very much for your company tonight. david, stick around because i have another comment to talk to get your analysis on after this break. >>> trade negotiations between the united states and canada have broken off after remarks by president trump emerged in a canadian newspa

what is giuliani telling you now?d months, that they seem to be happening in an expedited way and according to the trump team, rudy giuliani in particular, in good faith. those are my words, not his. that is the description that he gave. where are they right now? they are in conversations, as you know, we have been talking about the written proposals for months back and forth, sometimes taking weeks and weeks for the mueller team to get back to the trump team on. now they're having oral conversations by phone, including what they expect to happen today. what they are surrounding are talks about written questions to the president solely on the issue and the topic of alleged or potential collusion during the campaign for what giuliani called phase one. that's all they're going to talk about right now. not ruling out any kind of questioning for anything that happened since donald trump has been president. but they're going to put those discussions off until they get through the written questions that they hope to happen

by the way, neither husband rdo giuliani.e in a position to tell the special counsel is something that they know because they've had proffers from him. but we're not in a position to know that. you know, i do think a bunch of people are kind of getting ahead of their skis and assuming that manafort holds the keys to all the kingdoms. i don't know that and i'm not going to sit here and sort of pretend that. on the other hand, if you are bob mueller and you have prosecuted paul manafort very aggressively across two jurisdictions, two cases for more than a year now or almost a year now and you presumably are doing it because in addition to the egregious criminal conduct in question, you actually want to talk to him and you want him in a cooperative posture. and now he has him in a cooperative posture and that's presumably because the special counsel has questions that he thinks paul manafort is in a position to shed light on. so the fact that we have reached that point has to be significant. >> john, we don't know how significan

i thought of rudy giuliani then and rudy giuliani now and wondered what happened. >> well, it's going to be another week like that, and somewhere there's folks on the coast of north carolina who don't have much and may be about to lose it all. and it may take some empathy to get them through this. eugene robinson, lisa lerer, she of the new newsletter. did i mention that? thanks for coming in. and coming up for us, we'll get the latest tracking on hurricane florence when we continue. cancer ... it's very personal. each of us is different. and each cancer is different. how it reacts, how it evades and adapts. and how we attack it. that's why at cancer treatment centers of america, we use diagnostic tools that help us better understand what drives each person's cancer. this is what we mean by outsmarting cancer. and for some, it may uncover more effective treatment options. like christine bray. after battling ovarian cancer for several years, her test results revealed a potential treatment not considered previously a drug therapy that targeted her tumor. today, christine's metastatic ca

. >>> also ahead, rudy giuliani's special russia report. why he's having trouble with it and now he's hoping it will counteract the mueller findings. >>> plus, the so-called document massacre. donald trump refused to release nearly 100 pages of the white house record. and it's raising lots of questions on the eve of his supreme court hearings. >>> and lindsey graham denies he invited ivanka and jared to senator mccain's funeral. how did they get in? >>> here's what's happening. new today, a top democrat says special counsel robert mueller's team is close to making a case for obstruction of justice, adding that impeachment proceedings against president trump should go on the back burner. >> i think the most important thing that the democrats could do is to allow bob mueller to complete his work. i think bob mueller's report will ultimately determine whether or not there are going to be additional steps taken against the president. bob mueller is focusing on several things right now. obvious obviously, he's gone after individuals and he's gon

as for the president's team, rudy giuliani, weighed in on the latest conviction, what did he say? >> that's right. what rudy giuliani basically called attention to the fact that there is no mention of donald trump in this plea deal. take a listen to what he had to say. >> it turned out to be this irrelevant indictment where mueller has turned into the private prosecutor. what does it have to do with president trump? not a single thing. had nothing to do with collusion and some guy who donated to the inauguration? my goodness, 500,000 people donated to president trump. the prosecutor is going to do it. >> rudy giuliani can minimize this plea deal today but the fact is this is the first time we are seeing on paper that the prosecutors have been examining any foreign money that went into the trump's inauguration. we know from our previous reporting that there were witnesses who were asked of russian money, ukrainian money that made its way into the campaign and the inauguration. it is something we know and very much of the focus of mueller and his investigators. it is a matter of tim

in terms of what rudy giuliani is saying about this will have nothing to do with the campaign. this will have nothing to do with trump. i suppose he's suggesting none of this cooperation. is there any reason to think there's anything to what rudy giuliani is saying there? >> not really. maybe that's his point. the charges to which mr. manafort plead gld op their face have nothing to do with the president. that is a complete misreading of the situation that manafort is in and the plea agreement that he signed. the plea agreement requires him to testify truthfully against every one about anything. there are no limits. for mr. rudy giuliani to say he knows what that cooperation is going to look like and who it will implicate is just completely false. >> ken star said he doesn't think there would have been a deal unless there's strong assurance that manafort had something to offer them. let's listen to that. >> i would say this, it's very likely that paul manafort has indicated that he can provide very helpful information, useful information to get to the bottom of what bob mueller