jonathan lemire, let's talk about another player in this. "the wall street journal's" depiction of one michael cohen, someone you're familiar with as well. quote, "people close to the white house say there was little contact between the two, cohen and trump, unlike other longstanding advisers to the president who wandered in and out of the white house in the early weeks. as 2017 passed, mr. cohen grew frustrated with his lack of access to the administration. in march, mr. cohen confided in friends he felt undervalued by mr. trump and questioned whether he should continue his work as a lawyer for the president, said a person familiar with the matter. what's the ring of truth to you, knowing the players here as you do, from this piece of journalism? >> i do think it's clear michael cohen felt left behind. this is someone who played an important but unofficial role in the campaign, had designs on a significant white house job. even told people around him he thought he could be chief of staff. instead he's blocked from the white house by reince

for more we're joined tonight by matthew nussbaum, white house reporter for politico, and jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press and an msnbc political analyst. man, matt, i just need to hear you out on this. what strikes you about this story and the white house saying that, you know, standard operating procedure? it can't be to enter an office like this and seize records. >> right. we're almost beyond parity here, and the saga of donald trump's run and his presidency have brought a lot of interesting and sort of eccentric characters into american life. but dr. bornstein does seem to sort of stand in his own category in all of this. of course it is not standard operating procedure to send a lawyer and bodyguard from your private organization to your personal physician's office shortly after 7:00 a.m., unannounced, to seize records and take pictures off the wall. the idea that that's somehow standard is beyond the pale. if there are any lessons to be drawn from this beyond just the bizarreness of it all, i think it is sort of the worthlessness of donald trump's loya

for more, i'm joined by nicholas kristof, jonathan lemire from the "associated press" and analyst and sue me terry former director for korea, japan at the national security council. jonathan, let me start with you. what is going on inside the white house to precipitate the cancellation and how active are the talks now in terms of getting this back on the schedule potentially? >> this is something that the president has really wanted despite some of his closest advisers urging caution 0 go ahead with this deal, even some suggesting by just agreeing to the summit in the first place, you've given kim jong-un an air of legitimacy he didn't have. they made efforts in recent days to make this thing happen in singapore in the middle of june. north korea suddenly disengaged in a lot of the talks setting off alarm bells in the white house and state department how seriously north korea was taking the possibility of the summit and would they be willing to give away what the president wants them to do. you heard today a little bit more optimistic from the president and from those around the white

jonathan lemire on set with us here. he's breaking the news that trump defense lawyer rudy giuliani telling him tonight that trump's, quote, legal team wants a briefing on the classified information shared with lawmakers and may take it to the justice department as part of an effort to scuttle the ongoing special counsel probe. giuliani telling the a.p., if the spying was inappropriate, that means we may have an entirely illegitimate investigation. again, rudy giuliani telling this to jon lemire, who is with us now. what more can you tell us? >> i spoke to the former mayor a couple hours ago, and he said this. that the white house, these two meetings, sort of unprecedented meetings yesterday in which, in the president's parlance, a spy who had contacts with the trump campaign to determine their relationship with any russian officials, that they want a similar briefing or some sort of readout that the lawmakers got yesterday. and that has certainly raised concerns that that would give him information that perhaps would im

jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press. and because we need a lawyer and a damn good one, barbara mcquade is back with us, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan. all are msnbc analysts. jonathan, since we dropped your name, we know rudy's feelings about trump. what are trump's feelings about rudy, do we think? >> at this moment, he does appreciate -- >> at 11:07 eastern -- >> ask me again at 11:09. at this moment he does appreciate that the president -- that the former mayor is sort of an attack dog in the media, that he is out there. he's grabbing headlines. he's defending him. >> that he is. >> he's defending him, and he's taking a much more aggressive tact than some of his other lawyers have done. that said, as our reporting indicates, he's also growing frustrated. we saw those video clips there. pretty muddled answers suggesting that the president couldn't be trusted to tell the truth about the russia probe if he sat down with mueller. suggesting there may be more women that michael cohen has paid of

jonathan lemire has the next question. >> senator, a question on actually on a different topic.w minutes ago the vice president in an interview with nbc on the mueller investigation says, quote, in the interest of the country, i think it is time to wrap it up. you're a member of the intelligence committee. this is right now of course this seems to be the highest ranking trump administration official to directly say this investigation needs to end. the president of course takes his shots, calls it a witch hunt, but now the vice president is actually saying that this investigation needs to end. we wanted to get your reaction. >> i would amendment that tweet or whatever it was to say in the interests of the country, this investigation needs to be completed so that the public knows exactly what happened or didn't happen. the worst thing for the administration would be if this investigation was prematurely terminated because then the questions would linger for years and they would certainly hover over the administration. if they didn't do anything wrong, if there wasn't any collusion

. >> jonathan lemire, a couple points here.th intimate knowledge of the president tells me he has extolled the virtues of propecia to friends for years. so it's not the taking of the medication he objects to apparently. keith schiller went into that office with the title head of oval office operations, something we were unfamiliar with, we watchers of the presidency. he's retired navy, retired nypd, and the body man, the bodyguard for donald trump, who made the move to washington, has since retired in florida. talk about the optics of any and all of this. >> that's right. well, on one hand, it is dr. bornstein is sort of the return of a beloved supporting character from an early season of the trump -- >> yeah. >> but there is a little bit more to that. first of all, this is yet another claim of -- this is another doctor who has made claims about the president's health that appear to be pretty discredited. it is outrageous to suggest that he is, as you indicated -- that donald trump is the healthiest person, unequivocally, the h

jonathan lemire. and eli stokols is an msnbc analyst. ken, you've been combing through all this testimony with your colleagues. what do you think has stood out? >> good afternoon, katy. the big thing that stood out is that donald trump jr. is locked into a story now. he's saying definitively that he never discussed this meeting with his father, either before or after, despite a call to a blocked number both before and after that democrats suspect was then candidate donald trump. and potentially robert mueller will get to find the answer to that question. but for right now donald trump jr. saying his dad had no prior knowledge of this meeting and only learned about it through the news media. i think the other pictures that's being filled in is just how brazen this was, just how directly donald trump jr. thought he was getting incriminating information from these russians about hillary clinton. according to one participant, he by gan t began the meeting saying simply, i understand you have some information for us. at another point when the

jonathan lemire.p next, michael caputo says that the special counsel still focused very much on collusion with russia. an after being interviewed he says the investigators know what they're aiming at and are deadly accurate. they apparently know more about the campaign than the people who worked in it know. this is "hardball" where the action is. whoever came up with the term "small business," never owned a business. there's nothing small about it. are your hours small? what about your reputation, is that small? when you own your own thing, it's huge. your partnerships, even bigger. with dell small business technology advisors you'll get the one-on-one partnership you need to grow your business. because the only one who decides how big your business can be, is you. the dell vostro 15 laptop, with 7th gen intel® core™ processors. jimmy's gotten used to his whole yup, he's gone noseblind. odors. he thinks it smells fine, but his mom smells this... luckily for all your hard-to-wash fabrics... ...there's

. >> jonathan lemire. that's nice and short. whouts reporter. gene robinson and former deputy assistant attorney harold levitt. i'm starting with you, it's your reporting. the first thing i thought was everyone talks about how much peril the comey firing could present to the president in the obstruction inquiry. it strikes me after reading your story it's his abuse of jeff sessions, his anger after his rekudsal and iz efforts to unrecuse himself that could pose the most danger to the president. >> this sort of reporting was borne out of the 49 questions because if you look at them, so many of them are dedicated to sessions in things beyond comey. you sort of look at other matters or other things. and if you look at the questions, there's one about did the president try and get sessions to reverse himself on the recusal decision. and we knew that the recusal decision was something of interest to mueller, but when you peel back and you look deeper, there is an event like this where the president is going to him and saying, look, you have recused y

jonathan lemire of the associated press and also msnbc political analyst. kim whalely is former assistant u.s. attorney and an nbc think contributor. let's go now this question of robert. the difference between the mueller operation which is very equality, very secretive, very disciplined, and the white house operation, the legal team led by giuliani, how would you compare the two? >> totally different worlds. you a prosecution team and mueller a federal team. they stay hidden behind public view. they want to work in a discreet way as they pursue different lines of inquiry. the president, you have someone who comes out of this culture scene in new york where he was in the tabloids all the time. he is complaining to his aides we're told business bihis confidantes about wanting to have the tv lawyers on television making a case to public, not just making a legal case. >> it seems like rudy giuliani is a character out of reality tv. almost like he is on "survivor" with trump on the same team together, the same crew. and i'm wondering, it doesn't seem like mr.

also at the table, white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire.egin with you. the president says you and stormy daniels are exercising extortionist tactics. how do you react? >> mr. president, you and your advisers and your lawyers need to bring it. bring it because you can continue to lie to the american people and we are not going to tolerate it, not today, not tonight, and any other day. this is an absolute disgrace what is going on here over the last few months and, by the way, if anything thinks donald trump wrote those tweets then they haven't been paying attention over the last couple years. i don't know the lawyer that wrote this but you can tell a lawyer wrote it because all you have to do is count the number of commas in the first tweet. whoever the lawyer is that wrote this, that lawyer is also a moron. >> he can't spell, either. >> because now he or she has subjected the president to yet another potential lawsuit for defamation for what they've done. they've also undercut a number of other claims that have gone on over the last few mon

jonathan lemire of the associated press has just spoken again with trump lawyer rudy giuliani. lemire writes, quote, any preparation with trump for a possible interview with federal investigators would likely be delayed until after this june 12 summit in singapore because, quote, i wouldn't want to take his concentration off something far, far more important. giuliani, who also suggested that special counsel robert mueller's team had indicated it would not attempt to indict trump, said he had hoped to resolve the question of a possible interview by may 17, the one-year anniversary of mueller's appointment, but that was no longer feasible. now that target date has gone by the boards. quote, the president would probably like the resolution of an interview, said giuliani to the a.p., but right now we're not there. this week we also learned more about mueller's interest in trump's longtime personal attorney, michael cohen of new york. the special counsel has questioned the pharmaceutical company novartis along with at&t about their payments to cohen, who sold himself as something o

jonathan lemire, and harry litman. i want to start with you, john. what stands is out to you when you see these stories and watch them unfold and watch these companies change their statement over and over again to more fulsomely admit what was going on and what you know of cohen, what you know of the president, what is the thing that is a big shining red light to you? >> more than anything, it is just that it is just question after question. each incremental development leads to three more questions. certainly remember, after the president was elected, there was great confusion in corporate america and people were looking for some insight into his state of mind, into what his agenda would be. i think -- it is certainly not unusual for people with access, people with insight into a chief executive's well being or politician's well being to offer their services. now mr. cohen did not register as a lobbyist, therefore that's one potential legal problem depending on how much work he did for these companies. he also has not suggested he had any ties to fo

. >>> joining me at the table associated press white house reporter jonathan lemire and political reporterk, the gang is all still here. phil, barbara and frank. let me start with you. it sounds like you ripped off hannity's monologue. >> the president and fox news continues. that's where he first previewed this. the interview in fox and friends last week, he's not going to be involved now, but that could change. again he sees to be going -- >> how could he not be involved? he literally threatens them every day. he didn't have kristen sze wray's back. he's involved now. >> at this point, other than -- >> that we know of. >> i think he's suggesting involve means firing some of people. it's not that far away, a few blocks. he could fire some people. this is all of a piece. the hires today also suggests the idea of a more aggressive tack. he sees people around him encouraging him to do this for a while, to hit back. they think this probe is an existential threat to his white house. and he is -- ty cobb was the one who encouraged him time after time, play nice, we'll cooperate, we'll get a fai

. >> and jonathan lemire, where you even have republicans, devin nunes, using his influence to exposehe russians. the difference between trumpists running organizations like that, and democrats, i think it's going to be quite different. >> republicans right now are giving trump and the trump organization a green light. people around the president, his outside network of very close, kitchen adviser who is want the democrats to run on impeachment, go for that. but they are terrified of that. the idea that the democrats could control one of the chambers and just bog down the next two years of investigations, bringing trump official after trump official to the hill with subpoenas we see the inside of the hearing room as a staple every day on the news. >> what's the most corrosive idea in u.s. politics today? the "washington post" eugene robinson says it's the idea that some americans are more real than others. he joyce us next to explain, "morning joe" will be right back. i feel a great deal of urgency... i think, keep going, and make a difference. at some point, we are going to be able t

we also have "washington post" reporter for the associated press and boston red sox fan jonathan lemireseeing mike pompeo, new secretary of state of testifying there on capitol hill, i am struck by -- despite all of the concerns that we all have about the violations of constitutional norms that if you look at who is running the pentagon in secretary mattis and you look at who is running state with mike pompeo and you look at who is running the cia, and, yes, a lot of people are concerned about gina haspel past but you talk to john brennan, you talk to john kerry, you talk to professionals in both parties they will tell you that the agency is in good hands. you look at those people, you will see donald trump put together a grade a foreign policy team. >> it's early in secretary povrppovrmike pompeo's tenure. he's doing some things to restore the state department. one thing that took off as he's been bashing the intelligence community, the personnel who were working these agencies, they have not themselves split. the way in which the cia united around gina haspel put aside and the country