joining us to talk about this, political analyst "new york times" white house correspondent maggie haberman. long time no see, maggie. >> it's been at least ten hours. >> the senate intelligence committee put out this finding which says their assessment is that russia meddled in the 2016 election under the direction of vladimir putin. they did it to hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. this is the assessment from the intelligence community we heard back on january 17. yet on july 3, 2018, the intelligence committee says yeah, this is the case and it flies in the face of what we hear from the president. >> remember, senator burr is a republican who leads this committee and there is nothing equivocal about this report. it doesn't do what the house version of this report does, this goes in a very different direction. it takes issue with two things the intelligence community did but nothing that would have impacted the outcome. the president has sort of mouthed acknowledgment that russia -- he said things like it could have been russia but it could have been a lot of people. a lot of peo

. >>> plus maggie haberman is here on why this was a new low. the worst week of trump's presidency. >>> one summit but two very different narratives. we're here with reactions to the news coverage. >>> first this prediction. when historians look back on the trump presidency they'll say this was the week that something changed. something really shifted in the conversations about the president. uncomfortable questions moved into the main stream in a big way. trump's odd behavior with vladimir putin is compelling so many people to ask what does putin have on trump? has trump been compromised? all of those people, those experts, those reporters, they are looking at the fact pattern and seeing something strange, even sinister. >> no rational president would act this way if he weren't being blackmailed on some level. >> you can't just dismiss the idea that putin has something on trump. >> i'm not a conspiracy theorist but his behavior is so bizarre and against the national interest that it certainly raises the possibility that something untoward is go

for maggie haberman's part, she cold the "daily beast" we don't talk about sourcing and wouldn't now but i lost the threat what the former mayor is talking about. yet in his third and final fox news interview yesterday. >> like a trilogy. >> giuliani rambled on and on without much follow jum at ought. just, wow, and backed off his flat-out denials senior trump aides discussed the russian's offer in an earlier meeting. >> there was another meeting that wasn't public yet, three days before according to the leak, he says there was a meeting with donald junior, with jared kushner, with paul manafort, with yates and possibly two others in which they, out of the presence of the president discussed the meeting with the russians. we checked with their lawyers. the ones we could check with which was four of the six. that meeting never, ever took place. it didn't happen. >> there's no second meeting here? >> it's highly unlikely. i always have to leave the option open as a lawyer. in case they come across something that startles us or feels some of the things we feel are important. >> what's h

told the daily beast that this included the paper's star maggie haberman. i think that is a good line from your colleague. why is rudy giuliani spinning the story of two meetings. >> i think -- >> i can't even admit occurred. >> one of the things he struggles with is the fact that there is so many fronts the president has to deal with. the cohen questions, the collusion questions and if you are going to be the lead spokesman for all of this, you need to be well versed in this. and to fight those questions at the same time. >> he has to spit out his story that he doesn't believe. >> the president is obviously incredibly frustrated with the investigation and giuliani is frustrated that he thought he could bring an end to this. >> what is the legal term, the courtroom term for a lawyer who confuses the jury? >> i don't know, rudy giuliani. we know robert mueller, is not going to indict him. he is going to write a report to congress. and then it will be up to politicians. rudy is making a political argument. and the significance that the president's real lawyer

. >> let's bring in cnn political analyst, "new york times" white house correspondent maggie haberman. maggie, you have one of the lead articles in the "times" explaining how the president came to sit in the white house yesterday and issue the explanation he did. spill. >> it was under disclosuuress. he got off that stage in helsinki, he said he didn't feel like he had done something wrong. he was surprised by the reaction. he spent a long flight home aboard air force one at times being fine, at times being snappish as the coverage was going as he put it to people quote/unquote so negative. by late morning yesterday he knew he had to do something and began the several hours long process of stephen miller, his speech writer, crafting a statement that got revised repeatedly, you could see the revisions by the president at the end. there were outside weighing in on this. people who called him on capitol hill, outside advisers within the white house, people said you have to address this but what they came up with was too clever by half. it satisfied basically no one and he has already sta

as maggie haberman reacted, "sounds like trump dictated it." cal, what's the reactioning in london to this? this came out about 6:00, 8:00 eastern time. how quickly did it reverberate? >> immediately. this was an insulting hit job on not just the prime minister but the entire country. here's the cover. some of those bullet points. >> show us again, cal. show us the cover again. >> here you go. >> i wanted to see it again. >> this is the scottish daily came out with this. i was just handed this by the desk. that's the reaction. here's some of the bullet points reading them in morning newspaper on "first look." some of the bullet points you were not able to mention, knows sla chuck poisoning, the death of as uk citizen will be no barrier in his meeting with putin. the prime minister should be boris johnson would do a better job. europe is losing. your culture. look around. the nhs, there are blood on the walls of the hospital in the nhs. worse than a war zone. talk of the town right now is how does the prime minister have a bilateral meeting with

and maggie haberman, and cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. an, maggie, it's, again, this odd situation where this is a story involving two people who are not known for their truth telling. >> right. i think it's interesting looking at that cascade of things, statements from rudy giuliani, who is the president's current lawyer. people who get around donald trump tend to take on his personality. this has been a habit that we have seen through the campaign. we have seen it through his career in business. i think when michael cohen was working for donald trump, he said things that were not true. i think you see rudy giuliani now saying things that are not true. giuliani told us of that tape of michael cohen and donald trump, that it was, quote/unquote, exculpatory. he described a series of events on this tape that did not quite play out once you heard the audio. and so i think that you are seeing giuliani try to pit trump's credibility against michael cohen's and suggest that trump will win. you can't -- there is a problem, and this was the issue

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you know, my colleague maggie haberman reported that when trump was told by the way, mr. president, this tape exists, his response was why would michael do that to me? so i mean, he feels betrayed by the existence of the tape. i think you heard from lanny davis' comments here that they feel as if they are being betrayed by the mischaracterization of the conversation, at least in their view. this isn't the relationship it once was. obviously michael cohen at one point said he would take a bullet for the president. we've heard plenty of indications that michael cohen feels that he -- if push comes to shove, he is not going take that bullet for the president. >> barbara mcquade, a neck-snapping change of subject to the manhattan madam. good folks like you who we've relied on to be of counsel to us on this broadcast have reminded us the folks who need to be nervous are the big names who have yet to be interviewed by team mueller. the name roger stone does come to mind here. we mentioned it earlier. is roger stone the one who needs to be worried? >> yeah, i think so. based on

don't think he realistically thinks that he sat at a typewriter and wrote all of his book. >> maggie haberman a wonderful independence day. >> same to you. >> celebrate. >>> up next, accused of ignoring allegations of sexual assault when he worked at a major university. how he is responding to the allegations next on "360" news. you always get the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed?m let's get someone to say it with a really low voice. carl? lowest price guaranteed. what about the world's lowest limbo stick? how low can you go? nice one, carl. hey i've got an idea. just say, badda book. badda boom. badda book. badda boom. nice. always the lowest price, guaranteed. book now at choicehotels.com it all started when donald trump tore thousands of immigrant children away from their parents. we the people challenged him in court and in the streets. then trump was forced to admit that his policy was wrong. and he caved. the court just ruled that trump must reunite every family he broke apart. (clock ticking rapidly) time is ticking. these children must see their parents again, and they're countin

i will only note that maggie haberman, who was here before said, not just russia, but don't lose sights, either. >> indeed. there's no doubt, there are several things from which the president would like to distract attention. those are certainly the two highest on the list, john. it is a distraction, john. i don't know if he didn't think the iran all-caps tweet was getting enough traction, as he was watching media coverage and went down this other road to see if it would get more traction by threatening the security clearances of the former officials, but what is totally clear is that after last week and the onslaught of criticism he got for the way in which he was dealing with and treating vladimir putin and the comments he made, that he is clearly looking for something else to sort of consume all of the media oxygen out there right now. so he's doing his best, as donald trump has done in the private sector, as a candidate, and as president, to really try to own and drive the narrative throughout the day. >> and let's be honest, david. sometimes we do fall prey to the latest shiny obj

or as maggie haberman suggested to us a short time ago, is this perhaps a distraction from the news about michael cohen, his personal attorney? in the tapes we now know exist of conversations between the two. >> there she is, aforementioned political analyst and white house correspondent for the new york times, maggie, great to have you. >> thanks for having me. >> so what took him so long to attempt to revoke these security clearances? president trump doesn't like people going on television like james clapper has, like john brennan has and criticizing what they see in terms of his complete lack of respect and denigration of the intel community. so they have criticized him publicly. so now it feels this is punitive. >> uh-huh. >> and retribution for that and that he might revoke their security clearance. what else is going on behind the scenes? >> this actually is what we were talking about before is what's a distraction versus him just popping off. this is actually a distraction. this is something that sarah sanders went to the podium, was reading from this. to the extent that this white

the president memobly in that interview with maggi haberman, about what the red line might be, crossing go into the family's finances. this is a guy, dare i say, probably more intimately than michael cohen, could know what those finances look like. and i think as you have reported, he did president trump's tax returns for many years. >> absolutely. i mean, what i suspect is that -- i mean, he's clearly very loyal. he's someone that donald trump trusts intimately. and the people who -- i mean, michael cohen being a recent contradiction to that. >> castoff. >> yes. generally, they stay loyal. and so i don't think we would say weisselberg would not tell the truth. but i think that what we would expect is that he would very much toe the line to what donald trump's story is. and his story is that michael cohen was a renegade. he did kind of all of this stuff on his own. we have been told weisselberg didn't know what the reimbursements were for, because cohen was trusted to make payments for the trump family on various matters so he just arranged for that stuff with a minimal amount of docume

. >>> joining us now mike schmidt who broke this story along with his colleague maggie haberman is at the table along with mimi rocca, former assistant attorney in southern drilkt of new york where everything is happening. jonathan lemire and former u.s. attorney joyce vance. lucky for us all are nbc analysts and contributors. take us through your reporting. >> basically mueller is looking at a lot of different things the president has done. and while most people think obstruction of justice is something that happens in private -- >> that's rudy's comment. >> correct. or people make threats against witnesses in a dark alley. the president's conduct here is public. his public statements about comey and sessions, and what was the president doing behind the scenes when that was going on. one of the examples we use is how trump asked comey to put out word that he was not under investigation. comey didn't really want to do that, and then the next day trump went out in an interview and raised questions about comey's job status. >> in an interview with maria bartiromo. what you're basically

a journalist pulls back from twitter doesn't seem like much of a story but the new york times maggie haberman. toxic as an intellectual dishonesty sexism just too high for her to engage with the platform and her eight hundred thousand followers looking we're looking at when twitter becomes just. and is being called the loneliest man in the world video of the last known survivor of an amazonian tribe killed by bombers has been captured after. living alone in the jungle. and. facing. online. with the news great to live on air and streaming online through you tube facebook live in a delta. the result calm and what's been called a restoration of calm seems to be holding so far between israel and hamas in gaza palestinian factions have agreed to return to come with israel after a day of violence along the border fence between gaza and israel a hamas spokesman says egypt and the un mediated that truce remember for palestinians at an israeli soldier were killed on friday on what was the seventeenth week in a row of protesters gathered along israel's along the border i should say against israel's occ

joining me now, maggie haberman who shares a byline on the breaking story today. there have been two explanations from the president's attorney, from giuliani today, since your story posted. what's his latest explanation for these conversations? and let's talk fast because the story might change again. >> so, we were given an initial explanation in which he indicated this was a separate payment, that this was a payment to mcdougal that was separate and apart from this arrangement mcdougal had with ami. he called back later to clarify that this was actually supposed -- on the tape, what they're discussing, is obtaining the rights to her story from ami. they are -- giuliani was strenuously denying that this should be construed as a reimbursementme reimbursement, although some i think would interpret it that way. he's adamant that it is not. i think that that has legal implications when it comes to the campaign finance piece of this. and in his telling of it, it was trump who said, let's do this properly and with a check. and it was michael cohen who either had sugge

maggie haberman said the president didn't leak it. so lanny davis, the attorney for cohen. kennedy judge jeanine: you say to someone from the press, here is my phone, i am not going to tape-record it and put it in my draw. he lies and records it. you want to know why rudy giuliani changed his opinion from he's a decent guy to this guy is a pathological liar. he tells chris komo i'm not taping it, then he tapes it. the questioned were looking at him for a long time. why did he keep this tough. this is a guy who would confess to singing the titanic to get out of the cross-hairs of the federal prosecutor. kennedy: loyalty is obviously very important to the president. here is a person he worked with for many many years and he thought this was his most of loyal and trusted. >> when somebody is in the cross-hairs of a federal prosecutor. when you are in their cross-hairs you will say anything. the fact that michael cohen has hadn't been charged with anything isn't the point. the feds say we have all these files, we know what you did. you give us something we won't charge or we'll

. >>> plus maggie haberman is here on why this was a new low.sidency. >>> one summit but two very different narratives. we're here with reactions to the news coverage. >>> first this prediction. when historians look back on the trump presidency they'll say this was

. >> the questioning by maggie haberman and that was not a know. sarah huckabee sanders would not rule out the possibility of letting russian officials question american citizens including most notably former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. she says she will get back to us. in helsinki, we heard putin suggest they would indict the russians if russia was allowed to question americans and president trump called it an interesting idea and said it wants to question one mike mcfaul and several americans as part of the investigation into bill broader for what the russians say are financial crimes. broader will remind you an out spoken critic to pass the act which imposed sanctions on russia for human rights violations. well today the state department spokesperson, heather was asked about all of it. >> i can't answer on behalf of the white house but the overall assertions that have come out because of the government are absurd. the fact they1 11 american citizens and the assertions they are making we do not stand by those atergss that the pushen

with me now maggie haberman and max boot. to get to what happened today in the uk in a moment. just in terms of the president trump summit, you know how the president operators. do you think he will actually confront putin? on indictments and russias efforts to under mine the election. we've talked about this before. for all his saying you're fired on television, he does not seem to like face-to-face confrontation hi, doesn't. it really depends on the sliding scale of the term "confrontation" here and how he'll do it. i could see him possibly saying something to putin. i could see him saying was that really you guys? no, okay. and then they move on. and we won't really know because there are not going to be aides in this agenda summit there are reasons why people are calling on him not to go forward with this. equally important to what he says in that meeting is what he says publicly, and the white house statement did nothing to acknowledge -- it doesn't say russia. it doesn't have any condemnation about what took place. pres

cnn political analyst maggie haberman says this would be a strategy on behalf of this president to manipulaten't think it is unrelated to what is going on with michael cohen's case. his former lawyer whose audio recordings of them talking as we reported on this on friday, and i've been told mickxed things about the president's reaction. i don't think he was pleased. i don't think this is a story that makes him comfortable. i think the collective mass of this is contributing to the tweet about iran. >> let's talk more about the president's distraction techniques. where do you want to start? >> okay. there's a lot i'm going to go quick. let's start with coincidences don't happen that much in politics. this is not a coincidence. let's go through a couple of tried and true donald trump distraction techniques. dates are important. september 23rd, 2017. this is his first tweet about nfl players kneeling. what else was happening on september 23rd? september 21st the special counsel asked for documents pertaining to the trump presidency and the firing of james comey as the fbi director and john mccai

maggie haberman and mike schmidt. the court allows us to respond without waiving any privilege. if we have to defend him, that's what we have to do. it's been very helpful because now we've been able to put out the whole transcript which contradicts several things that lenny davis says but he's almost as bad as cohen. he said he didn't intend to deceive when he did these recordings. what is it to take a phone, put it in a tour and say you're recording them. these are lies that can be contradicted by tape recordings. >>chris: i want to ask you something that may seem off-topic but it will become of relevance. about brett kavanaugh, he said the case that ordered nixon to turn over the tate, maybe nixon versus u.s. case was wrongly decided. in a 2009 article, he wrote this, like civil suits, criminal investigations take the president to focus away from his or her responsibilities to the people. a president concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as president. question, is judge cavanaugh right on the law? >> i've looked at the

with me now maggie haberman and max boot. st want to get to what happened today in the uk in a moment. just in terms of the president trump summit, you know how the president operators. do you think he will actually confront putin? we've talked about this before. for all his saying you're fired on television, he does not seem to like face-to-face confrontation hi, doesn't. it really depends on the sliding scale of the term "confrontation" here and how he'll do it. i could see him possibly saying something to putin. i could see him saying was that really you guys? no, okay. and then they move on. and we won't really know because there are not going to be aides in this agenda summit there equally important to what he says in that meeting is what he says publicly, and the white house statement did nothing to knowledge -- it doesn't say russia. it doesn't have any condemnation about what took place. president trump's go-to during the campaign and right after he was elected is do you think the u.s. is so innocent in this regard as

with me in studio, maggie haberman of "the new york times." jonathan martin, also of "the new york times." and cnn's abby phillip. four of the best reporters in the business at the table. yet, i'm going to start by asking you to read minds. on the way to this speech, to the veterans of foreign wars in kansas city, the president of the united states tweeted this. i'm very concerned that russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming election based on the fact that in president has been tougher on russia than me. they'll be pushing very hard for democrats. they definitely don't want trump. at least he's acknowledging russia is attacking our democracy and that's progress. but that would be kind, i think. where do we think this is coming from? >> i think it continues to be opposite day or opposite month at the white house. last week it was there's no reason why he would believe it was putin. then the next day it was no reason why he wouldn't believe it was putin. i think this is the president telling people to believe somethin

. >> i was talking to maggie haberman.king a pioint that th people who get around donald trump take on his personality. do you think that's what rudy giuliani has done? >> maybe. he is not just a casual friend or acquaintance who just met donald trump. they' they've known each other quite well for decades. if you think about the fact that giuliani's children, particularly his son andrew, is someone who got to know donald trump as a young kid and now andrew is working in the donald trump white house and actually gets along in a very personal way with the now president kind of explains a lot and tells you a lot. and yeah, rudy giuliani has kind of become a trump whisperer. he has kind of rare latitude to go out and say things that he believes that the president will be okay with. a lot of times he objectiokays conversations that he has with reporters or interviews that he does. but sometimes my sense in talking to him, he doesn't have to get that specific because he knows what the president wants, and what the president want

pre-meeting and as jonathan points out tonight, this "daily beast" story leads us to believe that maggie haberman of the "new york times" was calling around about a pre-meeting. you're not supposed to introduce a negative story into your client's life unless it's been your practice to go out and grab the bad stuff and try to take ownership of it, so when it does come us, it doesn't seem so bad. >> i think that's what they're doing. you know, it's sort of a central tenet of trial practice that you want to get the bad stuff out there first, right? we always say pull the sting. be the first one to let the jury know bad news and i think giuliani's trying to do that. i think he's doing it in a ham handed and confusing way, but again, the evidence is starting to pile up. they're now, i think, the new thing is now they're probably seeing -- they should be seeing the witness statements for the manafort witnesses. those statements have been turned over to manafort's attorneys now. no reason manafort's attorneys aren't sharing those with giuliani and trump's team, and so they've been reading, we all them t

maggie haberman tonight talked about -- this is what she called it. the culture of corrosive lying surrounding this story on both sides. does it get to you? you're writing down some of the these quotes that become the news of the day. >> i think as all reporters are doing right now, you're just trying to get to the truth and that is the hardest thing to do right now because there's so many people who are not honest brokers in this whole set of characters. all we can do is try to get to the truth of the matter and trust who you think should be trusted and has proved to be a trusted source for you. it is wearing but it is worth the wear and tear that it takes. >> all right, josh. next week begins the manafort trial unless we're looking at another delay. what stood out to you, if anything, if anyone on the witness list? >> well, it's going to be a cavalcade of people. you're going to see people that specialize in high end landscaping and half million dollars that manafort spent on that. >> habbar dashers. >> you're going to see people that specialize in

new york times" quoting from the report, guilliani said that journalists included magg included maggie haberman said he and jay sekulow spent a great deal of sunday trying to run the story down. he said he believes they managed to shut it down and kill the story. he speculated journalists found other reasons not to run the item. >> for her part, haberman told "the daily beast" they haven't run the story and have lost the thread of what guilliani was talking about. yesterday guilliani backed off his flatout denials that senior trump aides discussed the offer in an earlier meeting. >> there was another meeting that has been leaked but hasn't been public yet. >> okay. >> that was a meeting, an alleged meeting three days before according to cohen or according to the leak. he says there was a meeting with donald jr., with jared kushner, with paul manafort, with gates, possibly two others, in which they out of the presence of the president discussed the meeting with the russians. we checked with their lawyers, the ones we could check with, four of the six. that meeting never, ever took place. it didn

matt apuzzo, maggie haberman, michael schmidt reported today that michael cohen

that he was trying to at least inoculate against a potential "new york times" story, leading maggie haberman of "the new york times" to say, "i can't really follow this thread." it was hard to understand in his interview last night with the daily beast, what he was saying. >> even fox news, when he was interviewing him to try to do some cleanup, looked shocked. they are going on offense although you can look at it as defense. what they're worried about are the facts. because facts are really starting to come out. mueller, as we all know, has been so disciplined, so nothing has leaked out. now that you have cohen in the picture and lanny davis, and you have a trial starting which has gates as a cooperator, some of his information now has gone to manafort's attorneys and maybe manafort's attorneys are giving it over to trump's attorneys. there's a lot more that's starting to come out. what started out as, there were no meetings with the russians, there were no phone calls with the russians, there were no contacts with the russians, is just not viable anymore. so now they've gone to the next st

there was the maggie haberman piece in "the new york times" which discussed how the president got veryry when melania trump, the first lady's television on air force one was turned to cnn and not fox news. >> what can we say? >> and he ordered, apparently, in a series of e-mails, all the televisions on air force one to be on fox. so there was this statement put out by the first lady's office yesterday, the east wing, not a statement, but a comment to our kate bennett, and the statement was, the first lady will watch whatever she wants on tv. and i am always fascinated by what the first lady's office chooses to comment on and how they choose to comment on it. >> yeah, and this was not a subtle brushback pitch. this was, nobody puts baby in a corner. and i say free melania, folks, she should be able to watch cnn as much as she wants. but the sinister side of that story, president trump trying to control the environment of air force one, sort of hermetically seal it into an affirmation news bubble. that's a big part of the problem we're having in this country. >> i want to read the statem

i want to play candidate trump speaking to peter schmidt and maggie haberman, what's the date on this, michael? >> last july. >> so this is when he was president, july of last year, the famous "wish i hadn't hired jeff sessions." >> "if i knew he was going to recuse himself." >> it was a remarkable evening, i was at the aspen security conference with people from national security, people were saying jeff sessions was so humiliated he would have to quit right now, and of course he did not. let's play the tape. >> it must have been a very important -- must have been a very unimportant meeting because i never heard that. it sounded like a very unimportant meeting. >> so unimportant meeting, sound like an unimportant meeting. michael, that is synced up with what don junior said when he was testifying to the congressional committees. >> correct. there's a lot of folks under oath who say he did not know, don junior saying the president didn't know about it, other folks, i believe jared kushner testifying to the same thing. the president obviously maintaining that he knew nothing about it, i

. >> kristen welker, there's a new "new york times" maggie haberman/michael schmidt story that's justeen posted, we haven't had a minute to check this out but they've been in the forefront of a lot of the reporting, saying that mueller is looking at some of the president's statements regarding sessions and comey, and that would involve, i suppose, trying to wrap up a report on the obstruction aspects of this case. kristen? >> reporter: that's consistent with a lot of the reporting that i have done, andrea. so i wouldn't be surprised by that. we know that the special counsel has been focused on this idea of obstruction sort of at the forefront as opposed to the collusion piece of it right now as it relates to the president's campaign. to the broader question, is the president going to sit down and do this interview with special counsel robert mueller? i spoke with rudy giuliani, the president's attorney, a little while ago, who essentially said to me, look, we haven't made a decision about that, in part because there have been so many other issues that have cropped up, including of cou

maggie haberman and her colleagues had a bite of the story and he attacked them. that's a trumpian tell, not that the story is fake, but it struck a nerve, it's too true for donald trump. i want to ask you a question, though, about how much of this is public facing and how much of this is unknown to us. this case was referred to the southern district because bob mueller either viewed it outside his scope. could there be any other reason? >> no, i mean, sounds to me from everything i've read like he legitimately reviewed this as right now not having to do with the russia question. >> what might have bob mueller kept for himself when it comes to michael cohen? >> if michael cohen came in and talked to, did he have meetings -- did he have meetings with russians or does he know about them -- >> he did. he was working on the trump tower moscow. he e-mailed the public affairs person. >> that could easily go back over to the mueller camp. there might be sort of -- i think mueller did the right thing by sending sort of the bulk of it, if you will, what they had at the tim

much, but it's one of the reasons he rails about "the new york times" and then calls magg magg maggie haberman with his supreme court picks, we see him going with what the establishment wants him to do. >> maybe more so than anybody else. with gorsuch, by all indications, they said to him, this is the way to go. really, this is what we want. maybe this is a case where trump knows what he doesn't know. he's like, i don't understand the law. i don't understand what makes these people different or the same. they're telling me this is the way to go. i'll do it. he was clearly told that about brett kavanaugh. >> and let's look at what neil gorsuch has done in his year on the supreme court. what he has done is not vote with samuel alito all the time, not vote with john roberts all the time, but vote with clarence thomas all the time. he has turned out to be even more conservative than antonin scalia. he has been a home run for the evangelical base for the federalist society. if you don't think the federalist society knows what they're getting, just look at what they've got son faten so f. >> let's g

. >> maggie haberman of "the new york times" tweeted tonight that the president's interested mostly in candidates from harvard or yale. he's a yalie all the way, so that would be interesting. >> he's got one other characteristic too. that's he's a former clerk to justice kennedy. i do think we had the sense that there were in back channel suggestions to justice kennedy, and we'll talk about another one of his former clerks, might well replace him to give him a sense of continuity and his legacy was safe. >> the next name is highly interesting. among her biographical details, she's the mother of seven -- >> seven. >> and she got into quite a well publicized conversation about being a religious catholic with senator dianne feinstein. her name is amy coney barrett of indiana u.s. court of appeals seventh circuit. >> yes. she's a former professor at notre dame law school. the one thing about her is she doesn't have a ton of legal experience. she's deeply respected, well known, but you haven't seen her decide a lot of cases. >> only been on the bench a few months. >> exactly. she's a trump

this is in response to a question from maggie haberman.imir putin said he would exchange his investigators for our investigators, allowing mueller to go to russia to talk to those 13 russians if he could talk to some folks that he wants to talk to, that includes michael mcfaul and bill browder. take a look at sarah's response to maggie's question. >> russian authorities yesterday named several americans they want to question who they claim was involved in bill browder's, quote unquote, crimes in their terms, including former ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. does president trump support that idea? is he open to having u.s. officials questioned by rubssia? >> the president will meet with his team and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on that. >> give us some background on brouder. >> he renounced his american citizenship for tax purposes but he's the one who has led this impressive worldwide campaign to get the sanctions on so many high-ranking russian officials following the death of his lawyer in a prison at the behest o

i was speaking to maggie haberman. she said kaitlan's reporting that pruitt was pushing the president to fire jeff sessions and replace him with scott pruitt alongside with drew griffin's reporting about changing some calendars, that that was the straw, that this new reporting this week was enough to get the president and the people closest to him just tired of dealing with scott pruitt. >> well, i think kaitlan's reporting on that was very incisive, and probably had an impact on this question. i do think also that scott pruitt was sort of the clown prince of corruption in this administration. this was a guy who -- he acted like he was in some third-world kleptocracy and was trying to, you know, cash out as he possibly could the entire time. but he finally crossed the president's, you know, unspeakable line where it caused him more hassles than it was worth. and i find that, look, the defenses of scott pruitt in this town, in d.c., that lasted for months and months and months, oh, he's doing all these great things, you

barbara, as a former prosecutor, from what you read in that piece by michael and maggie haberman in "the new york times," how do you react to what rudy giuliani is demanding? >> i agree with michael's assessment that it seems that rudy giuliani is continuing to stall. he's constantly moving the goalposts. i think it's clear he's trying to stall. at some point robert mueller has to make a decision about how badly he wants this interview, and to what lengths he's willing to go to get it. although he might prefer a negotiated sit-down interview, it doesn't appear it's going to happen. so there are two options. he could serve a subpoena on the president and that likely will bring with it some litigation that could go to the supreme court. i think it's a strong argument for robert mueller, based on the u.s. v. nixon case where the supreme court unanimously held that president nixon had to turn over the tapes because a grand jury is entitled to every man's evidence, is the case law on that. or the other option is to simply forego an interview whatsoever. many cases are charged without ever

. >> but with this sort of dramatic question that maggie haberman -- thank goodness she asked that question and her follow-up question in which sarah sanders admitted it was part of the two-hour meeting with vladimir putin. republicans now have to respond to ambassador mcfaul and they have to respond. what happened in that two-hour meeting? we can't move on even after this clarification from president trump and an insert of a few letters. we can't move on until we know why russian state media is pushing out propaganda saying there were some commitments that were made by the u.s. government to the russian government. the republicans -- it is incumbent on them to get those answers and they cannot move on and say there was a clean up effort so i want to talk about something else. if they don't drag the translator in, they have to find the answers from the secretary of state. but they have to find the answers out not only from ambassador mcfaul, but what else was discuss ed in that meeting. it's frightening. >> jason, there are calls to bring up the translator. i don't know if there is any prec

>> my colleague, maggie haberman, who was on the story with us, was able to find out that when trump learned about this tape and the fact that his long-time trusted fixer had taped him, his response was how could michael have done this to me. so i do think -- >> he was surprised? >> yeah. i think the view here was that this was a trusted guy. you know, he was -- it's like being bit by your own pit bull, right? >> does he have no idea? i know he watches cable news. we know how michael cohen has been treated and how he felt about that. >> yeah, but think about it this way, right? this was in the middle of the campaign and trump is reacting to the fact that how could michael have taped me. >> okay. >> how could he have done this? >> well, there is a lot more to come on this. great reporting as always, matt apuzzo. peter alexander, who's going to be on the lawn for us, because the president will be out there in 15, 20 minutes. >> we'll let you know what he says. >> are you heading there? >> i'll be heading there but there's a lot to ask this president. what he talked about in private wit