>> jeffrey toobin is a real lawyer. there's lots of joint defense agreements out there all of the time. it happens every day. i wouldn't impugn a bad motive. >> usually not after you have a cooperating agreement with the prosecution. >> full screen, one of the president's tweets today, if we can, kirsten, reads in part, at least three major players are intimating that the angry mueller gang of dems -- that's not a gang of dems, but whatever. viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts and they will get relief. this is our joseph mccarthy era. presumably, the three major players he's referring to are paul manafort, who has been convicted of fraud, so convicted of lying. and then jerome corsi and roger stone, who are serial liars, i think it's fair to say, especially jerome corsi, has made a career of it. and he's going by their words and saying that mueller is pushing them to lie. the president is. >> that doesn't even make sense. what does that even mean? mueller is asking in an investigation for people to lie to him

jeffrey toobin -- >> i am happy.epressed or something? >> just overflowing with happiness. >> you are a carnival, a human carnival. >> you are. >> that's true. >> thank you very much. >> i am the freak show part of the carnival. >>> the president of the united states has been on the campaign trail with one clear goal. fear. we'll get a cnn reality check next. what makes this simple salad the best simple salad ever? great tasting, heart-healthy california walnuts. so simple, so good. get the recipes at walnuts.org. [ neighing ] [ neighing ] [ sigh ] it's bring your own phone, not pony. so i could've taken the bus? yeah. bring your phone. switch your carrier. save hundreds a year with xfinity mobile. call, click or visit a store today. midterms. president trump's closing argument loaded with claims that demand a reality check. cnn political analyst, john avalon, here with the facts. sir? >> to trump the mid-term elections are all about him which is why it's a little weird he is not focusing on his strong suit, jobs and

let's discuss this with our political analyst, david gregory, and nia-malika henderson, and jeffrey toobin. jeffrey -- >> yes, ma'am. >> he is saying everything is on the table with president trump all the time. do you think this is real and might actually happen? >> absolutely. absolutely. this is an incredibly inappropriate thing to say. whether it's actually an obstruction of justice or part of an impeachable offense, you know, that requires greater analysis and knowledge of the full facts but the fact that he is telling paul manafort in effect, hang in there, you don't have to cooperate and you don't have to worry about mueller because you may be getting a pardon is wildly, wildly inappropriate. >> s >> it is different, i will note it's different the way the president answered the question up until two days ago. >> that's not the way the post posed the question. >> well, could you say this is not something that we talked about at all, or he could say, yes, it's off the table. those are other options. >> you know what i love about what you just said? you know how he speaks and how he ob

we have with us jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, again, we will be getting more information here, clearly.have someone inside the courtroom. we will share that once we know the details of that reporting. but just on what we know now, he will say he misled congress. on when those discussions ended. he said january. now he says it goes all the way into june, a month before the republican convention when the president is the presumptive nominee. is it about abuse of the position? >> legal significance is you can't lie to congress. that's pretty straightforward. what it means for the president is a lot more complicated. i mean, you know, this is an investigation about whether donald trump was working with the russians to get himself elected. that's what this is about. that's what collusion means. and what the president has said over and over again is i have nothing to do with russia. here you have michael cohen saying apparently that there were discussions, negotiations, something. i mean, we'll see in court today. between the president and his -- between the president's representation, at lea

let's bring back in jeffrey toobin and brian stelter. been proud to call jim acosta a colleague and a friend. but just those words, all he said was let's get back to work. this is not about him. this is about press freedom, and he will go back to work today. >> and look, the criticism of acosta is always that he's too aggressive. he's a showboat. that's what you hear on fox news, that he grand stands. you saw jim acosta simply saying he wants to get back to work. there's a lot to cover at this white house. there's a lot to cover in the trump presidency. we need to have reporters on the front lawn covering these stories every day, including jim acosta. it's an important moment for press freedom because this entire case is a test of the rights that we have in america for coverage of the white house, for coverage of politicians. and even reporters in other states, covering state houses, who cover city councils, they're watching this, too, because a tone gets set from the top. the president's attacks on the press are endless, but today, the

we'll keep following what's happening at the g20 but get to our legal analyst jeffrey toobin. you've been by my side and jim's side through all of this. only five days. a reminder what's happens on this front. special counsel accused paul manafort of lying. the revelation that manafort's lawyer was secretly briefing the president's lawyers while manafort was allegedly lying to the special counsel. a draft court filing claimed that the president's confidant roger stone tried to get ahold of those hacked democratic e-mails by wikileaks, and just yesterday the president's former fixer and personal attorney said he lied to congress about business contacts with russia during the campaign. how much -- >> gosh! >> wow. right? >> why don't we just knock off early, poppy? >> jim took the day off and i came. it's been a busy week. >> exactly. >> how much in all seriousness does this move the ball forward for the mueller probe? >> this is a very significant moment, because -- think about three areas of the mueller investigation. what donald trump's position is on each one. yesterday we l

i will take care of you later. >> laura: dan. >> jeffrey toobin is an embarrassment. the fact that he's a legal analyst, he should get a refund from law school. i'm not sure if he's aware of the separation of powers but the presidential pardon is a constitutional power. the reason it was implemented was so the executive branch could have a check over what were perceived gross abuses of our system. a president can do that. having said that, joe is right. he nailed it. i'm sure that richard will try to make the case otherwise. there is no predicate crime. zero evidence of collusion, no less conspiracy to collude or any crime at all. if mueller was really doing his job, which he's not, he would be investigating the real russian collusion which is collusion between the hillary team and russians. there is real evidence of that. >> laura: richard, it came up tonight that they are upset about manafort's ukrainian business dealings. which i guess go back some years involving a lot of different people, including one russian oligarch that is so mad he is suing manafort for $10

we want to bring in cnn chief analyst, jeffrey toobin and michael smerconish and nia-malika henderson. i want to begin with you, nia, because this does not prove we need a border wall, in fact the border security worked. 39 were arrested and they are going to be deported. nobody breached the border. so shutting down the border worked and it proves, i think, we don't need a boarder wall because the migrants went out of their way to go to the tijuana entrance because the rest of the boarder was considered too hazardous and dangerous to watch so they went extra hundreds of miles to the port of entry in tijuana because they considered that the easiest. the system is working, but you know the politics better than us and so how will this play out over the next two weeks as we lead up to a government shut down? >> well, you see already that the president is using this incident at the border there to show what he thinks is this violent band of migrants who want to overtake the border there and want to throw rocks and who, at all cost, need to be kept out of the country. remember, he also esse

joining us is cnn legal analyst jeffrey toobin, a former federal prosecutor. also, rich lowery, paul begala. [ overlapping speakers ] >> rich, let me start out with you. is this, in your opinion, a big deal? >> yeah. i mean, you have to separate the ethics from the legal jeopardy potentially to the president. the ethics are horrible, there's no defense for it. it's gross, widely inappropriate. the whole deal, pursuing this business deal -- >> while running. >> in the capital of a foreign adversary of the united states, in any sort of real estate deal, even here in new york city, is going to immesh you in all sorts of political authorities and maybe not particularly seemly side deals and what not. so it's inappropriate, and not to have formed the public of this is appalling and it was a conflict of interest. but in terms of the legal jeopardy to the president, there's no indication that he directed cohen to lie. now, perhaps the beauty of michael cohen to donald trump is he never had to tell him to lie, because it's habit and his job was to lie for him. and at

over at cnn, jeffrey toobin says that because he dislikes kobach's views, kobach is, of course, a bigothere's part of it. >> kris has devoted his career to stopping black people and poor people from voting. that's been your goal for decades. >> that's an outrageous accusation. >> it's completely true. >> that is an absolutely outrageous accusation. so if you like photo i.d., you are trying to stop people of color from voting? >> absolutely. >> that is outrageous. >> tucker: kris kobach joins us tonight. kris, thanks a lot for coming on. is there an argument -- and we've done this topic a couple times, but i don't fully understand it. so the idea is what you've just said, if you are trying to make certain that people vote legally and ask for i.d., that's an act of bigotry. flesh out that argument, if you would. i don't understand it. >> the argument itself is a racist one. the argument is, somehow because of your skin color, you are lest likely to have in your wallett a photo i.d. or you are less likely to be able to go to a government office and get a free photo i.d. it's a ridiculous a

who better now to discuss what may be ahead with cnn legal analyst jeffrey toobin. this was huge news when it broke. >> well, it's enormous. ruth bader ginsburg is a historic figure in all of american law. even if she hadn't been on the supreme court, she's the premiere women's rights lawyer basically of the century, if not all time. >> at a time when few women were given the chance. >> absolutely. so many of the rights that we now take for granted, the equal rights that women have in the workplace, in terms of marriage, are due to the cases that she brought. in 1993, she was appointed to the supreme court. she is one of the four liberals on the supreme court with elena kagan, sonia sotomayor and stephen briar. if she left and gave donald trump another appointment, it would be six republicans, and the republican advantage, which is already in tact with the confirmation of brett kavanaugh, would be expanded. so it's enormously significant. >> she's made it very clear she had no intention -- prior to this accident, that she has no intention of stepping down any time s

attorney preet bharara and jeffrey toobin. what's the significance of this reporting? >> i would say two things. one the president has been lying about this to the public over and over again. about his knowledge, his involvement. >> probably lying to sarah sanders and hope hicks and anyone around him. >> correct. he's been lying about this as soon as the questions arose. the more complicated question is whether the president is implicated in a crime. because that rests on the question of does -- were these payments to these women campaign contributions, which of course were not reported and not handled in the appropriate way, he could be accused of campaign finance violations if he used these payments coordinated with, conspired with the american media and ami in violation of the campaign finance laws. that's a harder legal question. i don't know the answer to that. but the lying is quite clear. >> preet, is that the significance? a campaign finance violation, traditionally a monetary fine, correct? is that really a big deal? >> yeah, it can be. and it also can be a cr

joining me is cnn senior justice correspondent evan perez, chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin with mes cillizza. jeffrey, it really is -- >> be careful with cut and paste. that's the message here. >> there's one lesson today. it's funny, and so serious, and not funny at all. how is it possible this would happen? >> oh, having been an assistant u.s. attorney and knowing how harried they can get, you are sometimes dealing with similar legal arguments in different cases and you would cut and paste an argument from one brief that you made into another one. i mean, i'm not excusing it. it's a terrible blunder, but could i see how it happened? sure. >> geez louise. evan, does this mean charges are definitely coming or have already come against assange? do we know where we are right now? >> well, we don't know, but i think all signs point to the fact that there are existing charges, and that's how this mistake was made. i think just certainly as in the hours last night as we were trying to figure this out, it amerged that is the most likely thing that has happened here. but it's a very inter

joining us now, jeff mcintosh, jeffrey toobin. i want to start with the paul manafort news.fort had a path to a

jeffrey toobin joins us with more on where this could be headed. was it the ruling you were expecting? >> it was better than i expected and a very savvy and courageous move by the judge because -- he didn't turn this into a big press versus white house fight. he said to the white house, look, you do have the right to control the decorum, the discipline of briefings, but you have to do it in an orderly, fair way. you have to have procedures, you have to have rules that people can understand, and you have to have a person who is in charge of making those decisions. none of which the white house had. so he basically sent the case back to the white house and said acosta gets his press pass back immediately and make rules and then we will see where the case is. >> he punted on the first amendment, didn't decide on that per se yet, but made this preliminary judgment on the fifth amendment, due process, saying to the white house you have to put a process in place. >> and the white house, the president, sanders today said we're going to put procedures in p

joining us as we wait to see if the president makes any comments is jeffrey toobin, ashra rangappa -- sorry about that, democratic strategist paul begalla who doesn't read the national -- let me start out with you since i fumbled that so badly. is this in your opinion a big deal? >> yeah, but i think you have to separate the ethics from the legal jeopardy potentially to the president. the ethics are just horrible. there's no defense for it. it's gross, wildly inappropriate. >> are you saying the ethic of dangling a $50 million apartment or -- >> the whole deal, pursuing this business deal in the capital of a foreign adversary of the united states when any such real estate deal even here in new york city is going to emmesh you in any sorts of not particularly seemly side deals and whatnot. so it's completely inappropriate and not to have formnot informe the public of this -- there's no indication he directed cohen to lie. perhaps the beauty of michael cohen to donald trump is he never actually had to tell him to lie because it's his habit and his job to basically lie for him. and we'll

let me get jeffrey toobin to weigh in.it look to you like the president of the united states broke the law? >> well, i take a lot more cautious line than michael avenatti does. the argument that it is a crime is that the "national enquirer" knew that this money paid to both stormy daniels and the other woman were -- well, no. it's the money that went to the other woman, the playboy model, was a campaign contribution. that that was the -- that was the purpose of this money. and that donald trump conspired to make an illegal campaign contribution in the form of this $130,000. that is an argument that has not been made in successful criminal prosecutions so far. it's an unusual situation, so maybe it will be made. but i think it is a difficult criminal case to make that this was a campaign contribution, and donald trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to make this campaign contribution. it's not out of the question, but you would need to know a lot more facts, if, for example, there are tapes. if the president acknowledged o

. >> i want to bring in jeffrey toobin. give us your thoughts. as we've been saying, this is very potentially explosive. >> i'm sorry, wolf. you're breaking up. i didn't -- i didn't get that. i apologize. i -- >> can you hear me? >> you better go to someone else. i can't hear you. >> we'll fix your earpiece and get back to you. let me bring in laura. it's also explosive if the president would have gone forward with this order to launch of prosecution of hillary clinton and james comey. >> that's right. and you know, it's interesting. in the article, he appears to be saying to mcdone, dongahn, don' the towarded to do this. he's mixated that as head of the executive branch, of course, he can make this type of order. you but is that a good idea, is that the kind of norms we want to be establishing between the white house and the justice department? and, of course, you know, it still has shades of what we have seen from him, as maggi said. his public behavior, calling on twitter all of the time for jeff sessions to investigate comey and clinton repea

thank you so much, jeffrey toobin. one of the things, david chalian, that's going to be an interesting test is what happens with this incoming republican senate? what happens -- what will their reaction to this be? will there be enough, i guess, if they have a 55 vote seats, the question is will five of them, will six of them be willing to join with the democrats to take action to protect mueller? i don't know that that's actually needed. maybe the house can just hire him if mueller is fired, which hasn't happened. are there five or six republicans willing to buck president trump? i don't think so. >> i don't know. to your point earlier, you called this senate republican conference trumpier than before. so the numbers don't stack up that way. does a ben sass or a mitt romney all of a sudden come in and feel -- >> that's two. >> collins and murkowski. >> that's four. that's not six. >> they may not need six. we don't know how the total numbers are going to go. >> mcconnell has said let bob mueller finish his job. post e

. >> jeffrey toobin made a point that this document indicates there's more than just michael cohen'smony to back up his version of the story. there were emails, et cetera, robert mueller and his team, they're a team that crosses its ts and dots its i.'s. i want to go back to asha rangappa. the president will attack michael cohen's credibility, no question. cohen's answer to that is, listen, i lied before and now i want to make it right. this is my duty to family and country. he wants to be the john dean who nixon white house lawyer who then turned states evident and served prison time. he wants to be the john dean of the story, is that right? >> yea. the proof is in the pudding when mueller can use his information and if he continues to cooperate and mueller finds his information valuable, that's going to be what's telling. now, remember, cohen is the guy who knows where the bodies are buried metaphorically speaking, of course, and beyond this, just think about what he might be able to verify or not verify. cohen is mentioned in the steele dossier, he could, you know, dispute -- he c

. >> with me now, two former federal prosecutors jeffrey toobin. and ann milligram. jeff? is dead. is ivanka trump in legal trouble? >> i doubt it. most people realize that government officials do use their private e-mail occasionally. hillary clinton did it, too. it is not fundamentally a big deal. the news media made it a big deal. donald trump made it a big deal. but this is not a -- it's technically not within the rules, but everybody in government does it. this is the problem. this is why hillary clinton got a very raw deal. >> may not be illegal, but in terms of irony off the charts. >> oh, my god. it's just -- and i feel personal responsibility for this as well. i spent a lot of time here on cnn talking about hillary clinton's e-mails. and i think we talked about it too much. i think we made a bigger deal than it should have, but it fundamentally is not that big a deal. it's not that big a deal for ivanka and it shouldn't have been that big a deal for hillary. >> so ann, ivanka trump's attorney says she did occasionally use her private e-mail for business and says t

views from kansas secretary of state and republican candidate for governor, kris kobach, and jeffrey toobin. i spoke to both of them earlier today. jeff, the president doubling down on this, saying that he can move this by executive order. can he? >> no, he can't. he can't do it by executive order and he can't even do it by legislation. conservatives have been talking for decades about the need to follow the text of the constitution. justice scalia called him a texturlist. the text couldn't be more clear. if you're born in the united states, you're a citizen. regardless of who your parents are. it's a settled issue and it's not complicated. >> kris, text is all persons born or naturalized are subject to the jurisdictions thereof and are citizens in the state wherein they reside. where is that not correct? where does that not apply to aliens? >> the key is and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. as jeffrey knows, all words in the constitution have meaning. you can't read words out of the constitution. and so the question is what does and subject to the jurisdiction thereof mean? and if you

jeffrey toobin, how significant is this decision by this federal judge? >> reporter: well, there's also a significant decision that he's already made. i mean, the cnn lawyers have argued, as brian said, that every minute that jim acosta is denied access to his judob at t white house is a violation of the first amendment. what the judge has said is 24 hours doesn't matter. is that, you know, he's going to extend the ban on jim acosta for another 24 hours, so that in itself is a small victory for the white house. now, the judge may go the other way at 3:00 tomorrow and, you know, this day will largely be forgotten. but, you know, the argument made very clearly by ted boutros, the lawyer for cnn, you have to change this now. because the effect on the first amendment and the invitation violation is going on now. and at least as far as one day is concerned, the judge didn't buy it. >> we're going to get more information on this, all of the day's breaking news. everybody stand by. we'll be right back. you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do

former federal lawsuit jeffrey toobin and senior political correspondent at the hill. let's hear, jeffrey, what the president said about the mueller probe and what he is or is not willing to do. listen to this. >> we gave very, very complete answers to a lot of questions that i shouldn't have even been asked. and i think that should solve the problem. i hope it solves the problem. if it doesn't, you know, i'll be told and we'll make a decision at that time. but probably this is the end. i think we've wasted enough time on this witch hunt. and the answers probably are done. we're finished. >> no surprise. >> no surpris. although, you know, this has been the most extended negotiation over this interview. it's just preposter o preposter. remember, it was scheduled in january for camp david and it's almost thanksgiving. he has his open book take-home exam. he is not giving an interview. he is not discussing at all with mueller any actions he took while he was president. the only questions he's answering are about when he was candidate. mueller is not getting much out of thi

. >> i want to share what jeffrey toobin said on krp last night about what it could mean for president trump. >> if i were trump, i would be unnerved by the fact that mueller's office knows enough about the facts of this case to say you're lying. how do they know that? who told them? what documents do they have? >> do you believe mueller would have to have a real -- real evidence like tapes to blow up a plea deal? >> yes. this is a plea agreement. you agree to give up information. that means truthfully. that means everything. means you cannot omit. the benefit is to gain information on other people involved in the case. what is the most interesting is in the process of providing information to the judge, the government says, and i have the three-page report here. the government had a detailed sentence for the court. for manafort's crimes and lines including both after signing the plea agreement. this is an excellent way for mueller to back door this report about trump everybody's been waiting for. about the details about what manafort lied about. trump has submitted his answers. we als

. >> joining us now to discuss, we have jeffrey toobin and ian brennan. great to have all of you here for this conversation. jeffrey, let's start with the federal judge knocking down president trump's executive order. here's what the judge said about asylum seekers. the rule barring ir ring confl. whatever the scope of the president's authority, he may not re-write the immigration laws to impose a condition that congress has expressly forbidden. why does the president keep getting executive orders wrong? if he believes that the border is being over run, as he has convinced his supporters, and they do feel that way, why aren't there people around the president who can have an executive order written that passes mustard? >> one principal all presidents run up against is what is the scope of presidential authority, and it's not necessarily clear in every case. and they always want to push it as much as possible. here, you know, obviously immigration is a tremendous priority of his. he has not been able to persuade congress to change the immigration laws, so h

and jeffrey toobin, staff writer for the new yorker and chief legal analyst here at cnn. michael, so when warren berger says that, he was, in a sense, expressing the view of the long continuity of american law, which had felt that the second amendment did not confer an unequivocal right to bear arms to every individual. >> that's exactly right. he was reflecting the conventional wisdom of centuries. it was only a decade ago that the supreme court in the heller case said that there was an individual right reflected in the second amendment. those well-regulated militias, which are foreign to us, were actually quite important to the founders. they believed they were a bulwark against tyranny and they were worried that the big, strong new central government might crush the state military forces, but they were unlike anything we have now. every -- >> so to be clear, what you're saying is that that was meant to be a way for states to organize militias for themselves, so those militias could have arms, could be armed and that central government -- the federal government couldn't

taking a page out of the book from 2000, anybody who has forgotten should go back and reread jeffrey toobin's book. you can't say fraud and i wish he hadn't said unethical liberals. then it makes it so partisan when i think we should all be asking for a fair count. >> michael, stand by. i'm going to bring you back in a second. i want to get to another huge story. "the wall street journal" is now reporting federal prosecutors have evidence saying president trump may have played a central role in hush money payments both to porn star stormy daniels and playmate karen mcdougal, which means president trump may have violat violated campaign finance laws. first, you read this come h thi comprehensive piece. it's a perfect chronology of following the money. >> there was a 22-page indictment filed against cohen, we knew that donald trump, who had been a candidate for president had directed and been involved in these two payments, one to stormy daniels and another from ami, the parent company of the national enquirer to karen mcdougal. what this does is shed light on the depth for donald trump's invol

. >> we just heard some of the sound of what's going on on the other channels jeffrey toobin who is a legal analyst saying that the attempt to prosecute clinton and comey is worse than watergate, but let's get to the facts here. is this such a bombshell report this new york times? it never says that the presiden directed that they be prosecuted . it's not even clear what he said . the lawyer, white house counsel lawyer says that the president never ordered anyone to prosecute anyone. >> if you go back, judge and just watch h.president clinton' then candidate clinton i'm sorry , candidate hobbs rallies back in 2016, he said and i'm quoting from one of them i will ask to appoint a special prosecutor,ry we have to investigate hillary clinton and we have to investigate the investigation. those are his own words.co he saw, clinton he's talking about combing. this is from campaign promises that are stalled it included th senate so the new york times ha this bombshell that he ordered this, but he's been talking about a going back to his candidacy. the bottom line is the proposal goes nowhere

jeffrey toobin joins us with what is next. >> it was better than i expected and a very savvy and courageous move by the judge because -- procedures, you have to have rules that people can understand, and you to have a person who is in charge of making those decisions. none of which the white house had. so he basically sent the case back to the white house and said acosta gets his press pass back immediately and make rules and then we will see where the case it. >> he punted on the first amendment, but made this preliminary judgment on the fifth amendment, due process. saying white house, you have to put a process in place. and the white house, the president sarah sanders today said we're going to put procedures in place which i think is a good idea. will they use the procedures to try to pursue jim acosta again. my hope is they will simply say okay, these are the rules going forward, bygones are bygones. >> the judge made clear there is no first amendment right to access the white house. >> i think that is close to what he said in fairness to sarah sanders. he did say the white house can ma

you know, jeffrey toobin is with us as well. jeffrey, take a little bit into the big picture of what's going on right now. what does this tell us about, first of all, what the campaign thought about roger stone, his ties toss wikileaks, the clinton e-mail hack. as you know, the u.s. government alleged that the wikileaks got all those e-mails courtesy of russia. >> well, the big question at the heart of the mueller investigation is we know that the russian government through intermediaries made efforts to help donald trump win this election. that's beyond dispute at this point. the question is did anyone in the trump campaign know or assist, that is, collude with the russian government to assist trump win the election? that has the potential to be illegal. stone is the potential intermediary between wikileaks which got these hacked e-mails from the russians to the trump campaign. these -- these e-mails suggest there were certainly conversations going on about that wikileaks effort. it's suggestive but it's not proof of a crime yet

he told jeffrey toobin that his personal motto -- roger stone's personal motto is admit nothing, denynch counter attack. that's what we see him doing here. this is the way people go after cooperating witnesses when they're afraid. i've seen this dance a thousand times. before things go bad, corsi, stone, hand-in-hand, plotting, working with wikileaks. as soon as stone sees the writing on the wall, it's a tack corsi claimed the prosecutors are leaning on him. >> to underscore, if people are just tuning in, this jerome corsi is not a household name. roger stone has become one. it's like the hawks who have been circling roger stone. what kind of information could corsi give the mueller team that could lead them on a path toward roger? >> so stone in all the sort of assorted personalities around him are central to the link between wikileaks, publishing the e-mails and the campaign. and stone has made all sorts of noise about who is doing it, was it corsi, they're all pointing at each other. if corsi cooperates and comes in, he should be able to tell mueller exactly who the line of communi

joining us now, abby phillips and cnn political analyst, david gregory and jeffrey toobin. wikileaks has been at the center of so much since 2010 and has been. this has new relevance since the charging documents -- i want to read this again against the russian actors over the summer from robert mueller, he said russian agents worked through wikileaks. the conspirators used the guccifer 2.0 persona, and that's wikileaks. >> at one level this is about the whole issue of collusion in the campaign. did that the trump campaign work with, know about, coordinate with wikileaks to disclose all the e-mails to damage the clinton campaign? that's under aactive investigatn now and all the allegations involving roger stone. could it relate to a possible roger stone case in the mueller investigation? there's also a big legal issue involving wikileaks, which is is the receipt and distribution of classified documents a crime or is it journalism? think about how many distinguished journalist at cnn getting classified information and distributing it through the "washington post" or a book or

joining us now, jeff mcintosh, jeffrey toobin. i want to start with the paul manafort news. paul manafort had a path to a reduced jail sentence. he just said no i don't want to take that path. it raises all kinds of questions. does he have so much information that he can catch him in any lie? does paul manafort not care about going to jail for longer? or is he protecting a secret that's worth going to jail for longer? >> a lot of it is beneath the surface. and the biggest question that is unanswered is why. why would you lie when you have a cooperation agreement? that -- the whole point of cooperating is to get a lower sentence because you tell the truth to prosecutors. don't do a cooperation agreement if you are not going to tell the truth. that's why it is a very rare situation that we have seen now because people with cooperation agreements cooperates. but he didn't. the question is why. is he simply arrogant? is he simply a congenital liar? is he hoping for a pardon? is there something huge that he's protecting? all of those are possibilities. i don't know which one is t

jeffrey toobin, i want to start with you. this morning already the president weighed in on twitter and said yeah i was doing business during the campaign and i lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in russia. i call this a few good men defense, you are damn right i did, i was doing this. did he break a law? >> certainly not by conducting his real estate business. it is not illegal now or then, and the question is was he candidate with the other candidates during this period about what he was doing and how does that relate to the other parts of the investigation where there might be illegal activity. certainly the developments itself was not illegal. what he keeps saying is that everybody knew i was negotiating in moscow during the first half of 2016, obviously untrue. we all know what he did and didn't say, and he did not say he was negotiating with russia. that's important because this was the period when he was being so mysteriously kind to putin. why did they change the american platform to make it pro russia. it co

let talk about it and bring in "new york times" op-ed columnist, ana navarro and legal analyst jeffrey toobin. having chief scott there tell us what happened is helpful. new information, 42 people did cross the border, instantly arrested by border patrol agents and arrested, i assume sent back or jailed. this is a problem. he just spelled out exactly why they have their hands full and what's going on at the borders and so when you hear president trump say would it be very smart if mexico could stop the caravans long before they got to our southern border or originating countries would not let them form. it is a way they get certain people out of their country and dump them in the u.s. no longer. dems created this problem. no crossings. i'm not sure what the plan is but something has to happen. >> it is true that it would be better if these caravans didn't form and if our -- the immigration process were a lot more orderly. if your answer to all the problems is the wall, it doesn't seem that would address what went on yesterday. it seemed like the system worked pretty well yesterday. >> it did

want to bring in jeffrey toobin, former federal prosecutor, and cnn legal analyst, david gregory.to give you a moment to reflect on what we are seeing this morning, 12 people killed in a mass shooting. i said it many times this morning. the deadliest mass shooting in 12 days in the united states and that's the part that should stick with us. >> as journalist i think we need to find some new way to cover these shootings as part of a national pathology. i don't know the answer but i do believe that we need to dig deep into, as we have with racial questions in the past, perhaps we have had commissions, one thing and another, but what is this about that makes us somewhat unique that these events keep repeating themselves in the horrible fashion they do? again, i think there's a journalistic challenge but i don't know the answer to it. >> yeah, nobody does. we feel helpless. we just report on it over and over. >> i think there's a deeper story. i use the word national pathology. i don't know what that is. i think there is a journalistic task at hand as well as obviously a task for our

want to bring informer federal prosecutor, jeffrey toobin and our panel. >> do i need an id to answerhis question? you know, it's like -- you know, we sort of wear ourselves out. the crazy stuff that he says that is just so astonishing. i know you usually have servants that buy most of your food, but you know you don't have to -- you don't need an id to buy cereal. >> unless it has booze in it. >> that's the kind of cereal i like. >> yeah. >> the internal dynamics of the white house, i like to think about it, like, how does it affect the government? all the drama, it's kind of interesting. does the government function? what is bizarre is it does seem to have an impact on how the government functions? >> how so? >> the people in charge don't know who is going to be the homeland security secretary in the next couple of weeks. these people have serious jobs to do, but they are paralyzed because they don't know if they are going to be around. >> go ahead, david. >> i will tell you how it affects the government, when you have the defense secretary who has troops on the border, when you hav

joining me now, jeffrey toobin, and cnn analyst michael zeldin is here as well, serving as special assistant to robert mueller at the justice department. let's speak "the guardian" report, what does it mean if "the guardian" report is true? >> well it's the first step of potentially covering another avenue of collusion. i say potentially because there's a lot we don't know. what is collusion? collusion is the trump campaign and the russians working together to defeat hillary clinton. that's the claim. we know about the trump tower meeting which seems to have been planned this collusion, but turns into a bust. here, we know that the russians used the wikileaks to get very damaging material out about hillary clinton. and the democrats. what we have not seen proof of is that anyone affiliated with trump assisted, knew in advance, helped wikileaks do that. obviously, roger stone is under investigation. >> right. >> for doing that. here, a new possible avenue. what does paul manafort know, or do, to help wikileaks distribute this incriminating information. >> it was discussed, what did he ask, al

let's bring in jeffrey toobin. he said they're not very difficult questions. very easy.s taken him days and days and they've been going through this process for weeks and months. >> months, yes. as usual, the president is respond iing to what he's read. in the knews media. told "the washington post" that the process is complicated. that raise issues. the president i think correctly thought this the better spin to sp put on this was the whole thing was easy. i answered these questions, answered them. where the truth is in this beats the heck out of me. why he's saying what he's saying. >> because as jeffrey and jackie points out, yesterday, giuliani said these questions create more issues for us legally than others. some of these questions that mueller submitted. >> particularly when talking about obstruction of justice questions, which is why his lawyers are going through these are a fine tooth comb. they don't want the president to write something that will get him in further legal jeopardy. that's why they're not doing the questions face-to-face in part because the pre

. >> jeffrey toobin, thank you. >> 3:00 today. >> don't go anywhere.ere with brooke baldwin at 3:00 today. >> it's -- obviously, we have a rooting interest here. we're not trying to pretend otherwise. we're cnn, jim acosta is a colleague and a friend. >> to journalism in general. >> and what is your understanding of the role of journalism and it's clearly the white house is extraordinarily on the opposite side of that fundamental question. thank you very much. >> so have you seen the front of "the new york times" today? there's a fascinating investigative piece on how facebook handled the crisis over russian election interference when they knew about it and what they did in the wake. ahead. when did you see the sign? when i needed to create a better visitor experience. improve our workflow. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah! now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. yeah! now business is rolling in. whoa! presenting the iwhat's he doing? come on, let's check it out! nice. he's pretty good at t

jim acosta is traveling with the president as well as jeffrey toobin, dana bash, phil mudd. jim, start with you. tell us the significance. >> yeah. alisyn and john, this was a significant silence from the president when it comes to the russia investigation, comes to the bombshell revelation from michael cohen yesterday he pled guilty to lying to congress about the trump tower moscow project during the 2016 campaign. the president meeting here with enrique trudeau and pena nieto. and you saw during the event that wrapped up a few moments ago, the canadian prime minister challenged the president on the steel and aluminum seraphs imposed and canada but signed it anyway. also absent any mention how mexico would paper for the wall on the border with the u.s. and mexico. that also did not come up, but noticeably absent, as you said, any talk about the russia investigation. the president leaving it to his twitter feed this morning to deal with all that. as he said in tweets this morning, that his business dealings during the campaign were "very legal and very cool"'s he said he tal

. >> joining us now, frank bernie and jeffrey toobin and katherine. great to have you all. i think there have been rumors that president trump wanted, himself, to sit down with robert mueller. we heard from guiliani and lots of people that said they didn't think it was wise and wouldn't want to do that. >> that has been the expectation from that most of us that followed the case, that given the president's presideability tell the truth, that would be a bad idea. will mueller issue a grand jury subpoena or try to force the president -- >> but the written questions are suppose to circumvent that, right? >> there's a reason why grand juries operate they do and they don't operate with take-home exams but with a question and answer. it's something but well short of an interview. the president's lawyers have said he will not discuss anything related to acts he took while he was president, and the only thing he will do written questions about is the prepresidency collusion questions, and there will be no answers at all in writing or in person, and mueller wants to know about that

and jeffrey toobin. who wrote the book too close to call. what is up with florida?t's important to point out this is not a recount yet. they are counting the votes. and that's those are very different things. florida has had a terrible history in figuring out how to count its votes. they have terrible technology. it's not chad. it's not the punch card anymore. it's still a very inferior system. arizona and california which are still counting. are actually in a different situation. and actually are much more confident because they allow people to mail in ballots on election day. so the fact they haven't gotten all the votes in it's a flexion of them allowing people to vote. it's not a flaw in the system. you can't argue anything is wrong in arizona or california. florida is a mess. but it's there's no evidence as far as i can see there's actual fraud. >> we have seen this before. the president claiming election fraud. this is for races where he's not on the ballot. what kind of effect is this on the public faith and the integrity of elections and the which is obvious

. >>> joining me now former federal prosecutor jeffrey toobin, david gergen, john dean who served as richard nixon's white house counsel, also former federal prosecutor ann millgram. john how to phrase this question but how frigging stupid is this guy? >> very frigging stupid. to get a cooperation agreement and the chance for a lower sentence was very important to him. especially since he's 70 years old. to throw that away, to throw that benefit away by continuing to lie to the special counsel's office is incredibly reckless and self-defeating. now, in the filing today, manafort's lawyers said they disagree. >> he said he wasn't lying. >> he wasn't lying. but the fact that mueller's office blew this agreement up in this way suggests they must have a pretty good reason for thinking he's lying to them. >> john dean, if conventional wisdom is true and the collusion portion of the investigation is nearing an end, why would manafort mess up a federal plea deal? you obviously have some experience with this. does it make sense to you? >> it makes no sense. in fact, as alluded earlier, it's