michael cohen. that's brent blakely's job out in los angeles. lanny davis was brought in for no purpose other than to effectively put a spin on the facts and the evidence and to be michael cohen's mouthpiece, if you will. and i have a lot of respect for lanny, but that's what he is in this context. on television and otherwise. lanny davis was brought in, people are asking, well, why would they release the tape and what is the strategy. it's clear as day to me. the strategy is for lanny to try to reset the narrative around michael cohen. and one of the ways to do that is to be the provider of information, to provide this tape to cnn tonight, get it out there, and put a spin on it. and that's exactly what he's trying to do. >> but michael, just quickly, how does that help michael cohen with the real problem that he has, which is with the fbi, which is with federal prosecutors in manhattan? federal prosecutors in manhattan don't care a word about what lanny davis has to say. >> well, they don't care about what lanny davis has to say but what they might care ul

michael davies was unimpressed by that giant chessboard, querying why...er agreed: tuesday's 0utside source coincided with what, for many, was the highlight of the week, that rare occasion when the england football team won a penalty shoot out in the knockout stage of the world cup.

michael davies was unimpressed by that giant chessboard, querying why... lisette baker agreed: tuesday's outside source coincided with what, for many, was the highlight of the week, that rare occasion when the england football team won a penalty shoot out in the knockout stage of the world cup. the programme, shown on the news channel and internationally on bbc world news, is broadcast not from a studio like this one, but on a balcony upstairs overlooking the main bbc newsroom. and, as the match against colombia reached its tense denouement, that posed something of a challenge for presenter ross atkins. err, morning commute, the work—out, coffee. something's happened! colombia have missed, so, if england score, they are going through. i'm going to persevere, i'll do my best here, as thomas smith from nme was pointing out, i think i mightjust abandon this and talk about the football, because it's quite hard to get on with the story while so much commotion is going on. we're now in a situation where, if england score this goal, which i would love to show you

michael cohen knows a lot right now. what lanny davis said on behalf of michael cohen in the last hour here on cnn about how he's a changed man and how he's evolving. bottom line right now is michael cohen is in a lot of trouble. he has a lot of investigations against him right now. in the end, donald trump is not going to be the one he's taking a bullet for, he's taking a bullet for his wife and children as any normal person. >> you don't think he's seen the light, max? >> it's hard to know what the heck is going on there, but what's obvious from this is michael cohen has gone renegade, essentially. he's not being a good soldier anymore. he's not being the guy, as was just suggested, that's going to take the fall for donald trump. he's going to look out for number one himself, and that could spell very big trouble for donald trump, because it's obvious that michael cohen knows a heck of a lot about donald trump's private business dealings that donald trump has strived so hard to keep secret by not releasing his tax returns, not releasin

davis got himself a new client. donald trump's long-time personal attorney michael cohen. davis told "the new york times" about his new gig this afternoon. and today, happened to be the deadline for parties in the cohen case to finish up their review of the materials federal agents seized from cohen's home, office and hotel room in april. federal prosecutors have gotten 1.3 million documents and records from that raid, and now, they'll get the last of them. what happens once prosecutors have all of cohen's seized materials is anybody's guess. cohen has not yet been charged with anything, but if he is going to start cooperating with prosecutors against donald trump, maybe a lawyer who has defended a president under impeachment, as well as several authoritarian deke tar toys is just the guy he needs. and cohen isn't the only one adding lawyers today. the number of lawyers that fb s agents working on robert mueller's investigation is growing. quote, special counsel robert mueller is tapping additional justice department with the 2016 election continues to expand. as mueller pu

superintendent matthews >> so we'll have the director of policy and planning charter schools, michael davis read this into the record. >> thank you, dr. matthews. the proposed action is that san francisco unified school district board of education approve a material revision to the 2350i6b keys charter school charter and five keys indepentant charter school petitions to add some santa clara county sites that will be operated in conjunction and cooperation with the santa clara county sheriff's office. so according to charter school law, if a charter school is going to add additional sites, those sites must be listed in the petition, and to list those in the petition, you have to do what's called a material revision. so to do a material revision, we had to also review the current charter school petitions, which were renewed by this board in january of 2016, most recently, to make sure that everything is up to date. so after doing that, we have asked that the five keys charter school make three basic changes to the charter petitions for five keys charter school and five keys independance high

on lanny davis and it reads, clinton fixer engineers michael cohen's turn against trump. n, known as a former clinton ally, and representing clinton. more in hurting president trump than helping michael cohen? >> lanny davis as an attorney does have to follow certainly all the rules of professional responsibility in advocating for his client in this case michael cohen. what you've seen this week is obviously, very media savvy. he went to cnn. he released the tape in large part, or excuse me. he did not release the tape. actually put ot a statement tuesday night saying it was not the cohen camp that released the tape that perhaps could have been the trump folks that put it out, but from his perspective, what he's trying to do, obviously he's not a trump fan. he's saying to the american people. looked directly into the camera, made a direct appeal saying, listen to the tape. you have donald trump, the same day saying, don't believe what you hear. i think that in this context, lanny davis is simply trying to be a good american. because at the bottom, the bottom line is, that

>> what motivates michael cohen is a parlor game here lanny davis said michael cohen is not angling fornot what this is about. we haven't heard from michael cohen directly. it would seem leasing unilaterally the audio released by lanny davis might not endear him to prosecutors. might upset the prosecutors. >> might upset the prosecutors and might upset although you could argue have the other effect to a president in a position to pardon or not. >> you're reporting the government seized more than 100 recordings cohen made of his conversations. at this point, do you have any sense of what might or might not be on them or how significant they might be? i believe you said there were others with mr. trump. >> our understanding is there are other recordings with mr. trump and michael cohen but they're not substantive. they may be brief conversations and don't point to a specific drama like the tape cnn broadcast lanny davis released. other of the 100, many of them, apparently, are michael cohen conversations with reporters. lanny davis explained to us yesterday michael habitually taped his co

we got a statement tonight from lanny davis, lawyer for michael cohen who told us i have to wonder why the trump people would put that out. it was not from us. that's mr. davis' statement. take it for what it's worth. if he's right and this was the trump people, the trump side, mr. trump's lawyers putting this out, presumably because they want to get ahead of the story, obviously the story doesn't look good for the president. they would want to get ahead of this. there's been a lot of discussion tonight as to whether or not the president's lawyers might have done that to undermine the ability of mr. cohen to provide this information to prosecutors in a way that might be of benefit to mr. cohen in negotiation with them in terms of his own legal liability but also oh they could use it for their ongoing investigations and related investigations. what do you make of those factors? >> so a couple thoughts. let's assume for the purposes of my answer,al, that mr. cohen is cooperating. they've made the decision he is going to tell prosecutors what he knows and he's going to do that honestly. w

. >>> michael cohen's new lawyer, long time clinton ally lanny davis speaking in an interview about howt is handling the mueller investigation. saying he has pushed the reset button and it's a new michael cohen with a new attitude about speaking his mind. and referring to an interview earlier with abc news in which cohen said he'd be more loyal to his family than the president, he said this. >> he said at the very end of the interview with mr. stephanopoulous, he took these contrary positions to mr. trump who he previously said he would take a bullet for, a comment i don't believe he would say today. and the reason he said is i will not be a punching bag as part of somebody else's defense strategy. >> lanny davis strikes at the trump legal team on behalf of michael cohen. it sounds like he's trying to keep the federal government happy. here he is again. >> no question that bob mueller is a silent submarine, no leaks, focused on the facts. this man, mr. mueller, is widely respected for his integrity and nothing rudy giuliani says is going to affect his search for the facts. >> daniel gol

michael davies was unimpressed by that giant chessboard, querying why...ot out in the knockout stage of the world cup. the programme, shown on the news channel and internationally on bbc world news, is broadcast not from a studio like this one, but on a balcony upstairs overlooking the main bbc newsroom. and, as the match against colombia reached its tense denouement, that posed something of a challenge for presenter ross atkins. err, morning commute, the workout, soul coffee. all... something's happened! colombia have missed, so, if england score, they are going through. i'm going to persevere, i'll do my best here, as thomas smith from nme was pointing out... i think i might just abandon this and talk about the football, because it's quite hard to get on with the story while so much commotion is going on. we're now in a situation where, if england score this goal, which i would love to show you, but we don't have the rights, they are through! and i think that means england are through. 0k. so, colombia are out, england are through! general pandemonium, a

so to bring lanny davis into michael cohen's inner circle, inn inn inner sanctum. if you care about donald trump, you ought to be worried. lanny davis is a political player, a spinmeister who's written books on how to spin, who has an agenda here which is to avenge hillary clinton. so if it ever comes to his advice to cohen on what to do, you can't separate his loyalty, his fierce loyalty to the clintons and wanting to set things straight after the 2016 election with what he's going to be doing with michael cohen. >> you use the word loyalty, david, you know, to put a little bit of a kendrick lamar test on it. >> you go. >> can you think of anyone who is more loyal over more years to the clintons publicly and privately than lanny davis? >> nobody. i remember going back to the '90s when they had the whole senate investigation into clinton campaign fund raising. lanny would come out every day and spin the media, spin the reporters there, like myself, covering this, and he would say the most ridiculous, ludicrous things that no one would buy. but he was out there doing

michael cohen went into doesn't's offidoesn'nald trump's office, they had a number of issues to discuss regarding the campaign. lanny davisot say anything -- or cannot speak to the ethical problems that arise with michael cohen recording his client. but those close to michael cohen have told me that this is just what he did. he made it a habit to record all of the meetings he had for record-taking purposes, for note-taking purposes, and to a degree, to cover his own behind, when he needed to. this speaks to the way things were done in the trump organization, andrea. there is also folks out there in the trump world who will say donald trump recorded conversations as well. it clearly was a bit of a sleazy office atmosphere, where people were not trusting of one another. the second part of the question, what are they saying regarding the tapes themselves, rudy giuliani is coming out and arguing that donald trump is saying "cash" -- or saying "check" and michael cohen is saying "cash" and there's argument about the words "cash" and "check." lanny davis will say that is immaterial to this case, it's immaterial to what is impor

we have seen teases here from michael cohen, lanny davis releasing that tape, memobly on tuesday night. we listened to it in real-time as it was played out on cable news. we've heard it subsequently. what's your sense here of what michael cohen's thinking, his frame of mind here as we approach a new week? >> well, it's true that cohen is in the hot seat, right? he's facing federal charges connected with his business dealings in new york. so he may have reasons to want to make nice with prosecutors, want to offer prosecutors something tantalizing. that doesn't necessarily mean that what he has to offer isn't legitimate. and that's a big question. what all does he have to offer. what else is on those tapes? what might he know? and if anybody knows -- if president trump did something wrong related to collusion, we don't know that yet. but if that's the case, cohen would be somebody who would know that. he has worked for the president for years and was very close to him. so this is a real problem for the president. >> chris dickey, i want to turn to you. i'm not going to ask you about mich

he should have been inviting michael cohen to the white house a long time ago. >> cohen retaining daviss he's looking for a tough lawyer willing to take on trump. you were probably known as the number one person in that category. would you ever consider representing michael cohen in anyway, and have you ever discussed it with him? >> well, i'm not going to get into discussing what i may have not discussed with michael cohen. and i'm not going to speculate -- i'm not going to say no as it relates to potentially representing michael cohen. >> you would not rule out representing your civil adversary in the other proceeding, you would not rule out trying to represent michael cohen in this matter? >> if he were prepared to do the right thing and come clean and basically turn state's evidence, i would absolutely consider it in an effort to disclose information and bring the truth to american people. >> prior to this television interview, is he aware of your willingness to do that? >> i'm not going to answer that question. >> does that mean it's likely yes, because if it were no you could say

now, davis says cohen is not seeking a pardon, and you don't buy that. michael, i got to walk through a few things. a, give you credit because you said there's not one tape, there's tapes. you were right. but a week ago, didn't you go out to dinner with michael cohen? they said you ran into him in a restaurant. i have to tell you, we got 14,000 restaurants in new york city. i personally don't buy that you just ran into one another. and i think you said that you could actually see yourself working with cohen at some point. so let's get through the noise and tell us what's really going on here. >> well, stephanie, i happened to run into michael cohen at 61st and 3rd. i decided last minute to go to that restaurant. i was with a friend of mine. i walked into the restaurant. i was seated. my friend said to me, you're not going to believe who's here. >> of all the gin joints. >> i'm sorry? >> i'm sorry, continue. you ran into michael cohen. >> i ran into michael cohen by happenstance. you know, stephanie, that was not the first communication i'd had related to potenti

michael cohen did not have a representative who got involved in the gamesmanship and now does. whatever you think of lanny davis, his motivations why he's doing this, he's back and he, like michael avenatti is a skilled practitioner of the dark arts and the garish arts of media lawyering. so the president now, we now are in that place and we had this back in the clinton administration, had it at other times. we now have rudy giuliani and michael avenatti, lanny davis, all engaged in all of it, i don't have a problem with any of it, but all of them have obscure mot va motivations not telling precisely the truth, jesting on their client's behalf and taking us into a new legal carnival kind of element of this story that is going to raise, we'll see a lot of stories like this that are going to come out in dribs and drabs and the interpretive prisms put on, stark conflict and you won't know what to believe until we get into a court if we ever do. >> and rudy giuliani has obviously been doing that on the president's behalf. to a certain extent, michael cohen at a disadvantage. >> for sure. >> betsy woodruff, trying t

world's most reliable narrator when it comes to the content of the recordings that michael cohen made before lanny davis and michael cohen's legal team released the recording that came out last week. giuliani characterized it as being exculpatory to the president, showing the president was completely above rapproch and didn't do anything wrong. but it turned out that wasn't an accurate reflection of what the tape actually said. there are some debates about the tape, parts of it are hard to understand, there are people talking over each other, but i think we can all agree that the tape didn't make the president look completely above board. so the fact that giuliani is going on these sunday shows and saying these remaining tapes are all good news for the president are something we shouldn't take at face value. we should wait and see if the audiotapes actually emerge. >> let's hear giuliani discussing his present state of mind after the cohen allegations. >> first of all, the president feels disappointed. i think the anger is over. we've assured him in a very strange way this is a very good development for

talk about who lanny davis is and what he could potentially do with somebody like michael cohen. >> lannyvis is a real expert, steve. and navigating the washington scandal culture and the media political culture. he has done that going back to bill clinton and his impeachment scandal and more recently with others and has shown he doesn't necessarily have ideological rigidity that keeps him from working with folks on the other side or clients that may not fit with what one might consider a traditional democratic capital d sensibility. he is currently lobbying for a check defense contractor and in that capacity he is invited steve bannon, the former white house adviser to debate at a forum sponsored by this contractor and interestingly, steve bannon when he was in the white house and trying to advise donald trump on how to navigate the then unfolding mueller probe, he reached out to lanny davis to pick his brain about it. lanny davis is a recognized expert and who has shown a willingness to work with people who are not necessarily on his partisan team. >> i think it's an interesting questio

davis is. and what he could potentially do with somebody like michael cohen. >> yeah. lanny davis is an expert, steve, in navigating the washington scandal culture and the washington media political culture. he has done that effectively going back to bill clinton and his impeachment scandal. and with other clients. and he doesn't necessarily have ideological rigidity. might consider a democratic capital d sensibility. he has invited steve bannon the former trump white house adviser to debate. steve bannon when he was in the white house and trying to advise donald trump on how to navigate the then unfolding mueller probe, he reached out to lanny davis to pick his brain about it. so a recognized expert in this. and one showing a willingness to work. >> michael cohen has been under taking in public recently, the abc news interview, changing his profile. public image strantegy. do you read lanny davis is somebody who can navigate the court of public opinion or court of law? >> both. lanny davis is someone like rudy giuliani who can go on full attack dog mode. he can be the

it seems that michael cohen is trying to, as he has said, i won't be the villain in this story and lanny davis is not only a lawyer, but he also runs a pr firm. and michael cohen already has a fine lawyer to handle the legal matters, and adding lanny davis in this seems like an effort to win over court of opinion. maybe it adds to his value or credibility as a cooperator. but at any rate, he does seem to be signaling a severance with donald trump and that probably bodes well for anyone who is hoping that michael cohen will cooperate against him. >> thank you. >> and up next, more on today's top story, scott pruitt out of the epa. plus, president trump is doubling down on his demands. will congress be forced to act on this latest immigration move. you are watching "hardball." y t. i need an insulin that fits my schedule. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ (announcer) tresiba® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. don't use tresiba® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. don't share needles or insulin pens. don

look how lanny davis, michael cohen's lawyer is characterizing it. he's the one that brought up john edwards in an interview with katy tur. he said it was a payment made to squelch coming up in his campaign. a willful failure to disclose a campaign contribution is a felony punishable by five years in prison. the prosecutor going to make that case against the president the of the united states? i don't know. it seems like they were willing to make it against a former senator john edwards, it's a big issue. >> phil rucker, i want to know if the state of mind that the president displayed on the day of the cohen raid where he described the raid of his former lawyer's offices and homes as an attack on the nation is still the current white house position. was the raid on michael cohen's offices and homan attack on the country? >> well, that's what the president thought at the time, but since then there's been a real rupture in the relationship. and what's so important, i think, about this audiotape coming out and the performance of lanny davis, michael coh

lanny davis is a representative of -- the lawyer now representing michael cohen. i spoke to lanny davis within the last ten minutes. he declined to comment about our reporting last night about what michael cohen is willing to tell robert mueller and today declined to comment in response to the president's comments. a little context about this as the president is attacking cohen's alleged story here. the bottom line is you'll remember as it relates to this case, there have been multiple reports, including those from nbc, that question the president's credibility on this story specifically as it relates to that statement that was dictated, we are told, by the president from air force one in response to "the new york times" questions about don junior and this meeting. you'll remember initially there were a lot of corrections made, but initially it was said that it was simply about russian adoption. ultimately donald trump jr. put out the e-mail exchanges that showed that he had been promised dirt on hillary clinton. a couple other details to update you on from the whi

top >> reporter: michael cohen's lawyer davis gave the tape to cnn. cohen secretly recorded the conversation two months before the 2016 election. >> reporter: some are wondering if cohen was speaking about david a long-time ally of the president and chairman of american media, which owns the "national enquirer," ex- playmate karen mcdougal claiming she began a nearly year-long affair with mr. trump in 2006. just a few months before the election, the company purchased her story but "never" published it. >> there is no way the president is going to be talking about setting up a corporation and using cash unless you're a complete idiot and the president is not an idiot. >> reporter: the president's current lawyer, rudy giuliani, said on fox news, the tape speaks for itself. >> cohen says that we need financing. and the president said, wait a second, what? financing?! then he has to explain it. the president did not know about this before this conversation. >> reporter: the white house has previously denied the affair. chris martinez, cbs news. >> a depar

. >> michael cohen's attorney davis lays down the gauntlet as his client goes to war. ump attorney rudy giuliani says michael cohen is not credible and trump jr.'s attorney dismissed the report as false. here with more is msnbc legal analy analyst. good morning. >> good morning. >> this looks like a amped up defense while discrediting the president. what's your take on how this will work and could this backfire on cohen? >> it's interesting because these developments challenge some of my basic assumptions. first it's very reasonably possible that coenh is going to cooperate or already has cooperated. it's also a strong possibility that mueller's team or the southern district of new york would not want a cooperating witness leaking information or putting information out there. so it seems one of our assumptions may be wrong. but if this strategy is part of the cohen team's plan to minimize or improve cohen's image, it's not all that helpful, because it shows cohen complicit in all these activities. it doesn't make him a -- an unappetizing cooperating witness per se, but

davis also said, quote, michael cohen deserves to tell his side of the story subject, of course, to the advice of counsel. with me for more is former u.s. attorney joyce vance, now an msnbc legal analyst, and nancy cooke, the white house reporter for politico. joyce, let's start with you. what does it mean robert mueller is expanding his team but he's going to the u.s. justice department for career lawyers. is that relevant? >> it's interesting. part of it may be resources. he's getting ready to launch the manafort trial, and he may feel the need to bring more bodies onboard to manage all the pieces of the investigation. it could also signal he's thinking about spinning off pieces of the case or there are matters that aren't so central to the trump-russia campaign relationship. and one of the details is that mueller is tapping investigators in pittsburgh. and that's interesting because pittsburgh is a venue where they've gone in the past for the chinese hacking case, and this could signal prominence for cyber crime and hacking. >> last week the testimony of rosenstein in that congressio

davis denies that it is. michael cohen has not said nilg overt about looking for a pardon.are skeptical and they say maybe they're trying to signal to president trump, if you want to stop this, this release of tapes and protect yourself from cohen's information, which he's signalling he has a lot of information, maybe that puts him in play for a pardon. but so far both sides are denying. giuliani is denying he's considering it, the president, and cohen denies he's playing for t. >> if you get a pardon, you still have to testify, right, mimi, if you get a pardon? >> yes. >> pardoning him really doesn't protect -- >> and he still has the new york ag's office to worry about. it's not a smart play for him. >> robert costa, thank you for spending time with us. we debunk the articles of impeachment against attorney general rod rosenstein. those spearheading the license debunked conspiracy theories and political attacks. stay with us. that's nextment . you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally disc

david axelrod, lanny davis working with michael cohen, i didn't see that one coming rchgs n -- >> no eginning to look more and more like the barroom scene from "star wars" over there. you don't hire lanny davis as a lawyer. he's a lawyer like rudy giuliani is a lawyer in this whole episode. he is there for one of two reasons. one is to appear on television and mix it up on tv on behalf of cohen. the over the and i think more likely more reason he hired him is he's been for the last few days increasingly sending smoke signals to the white house that if they don't come to his rescue, he is going to flip on them. that was the subtext of the george interview. he just in the last few days removed references to trump from his social media profiles. and now this lanny davis hire c is provocative as davis has been an out spoken critic of trump. all of this seems to me a way of rattling the cage over at the white house. >> you worked for barack obama. you know that lanny davis is a tough advocate for whoever he's working for. >> no doubt. >> it seemed that the president hasn't ruled out pardon

for the record, michael cohen's lawyer lanny davis told cnn news it had not been edited. >> michael cohen has turned a corner in his life and he is now dedicated to telling the truth to everyone. this is about truth versus lying and ultimately donald trump is going to be done in by the truth. >> okay. joining me now is one of the reporters trying to make sense. national investigative reporter for the washington post. carol, i have a hard time tracking what we do and don't know about this. >> what we know about this recorded conversation which by the way michael cohen surreptitiously recorded with an iphone. what we know is they are talking in the first week of september. two months before the election. and talking about embarrassing information that our friend, david pecker has. of course david pecker is the ceo of ami, the publisher of the "national enquirer." and has damaging information that might come out before the election. and cohen is proposing to the president, then, the gop nominee that they buy the rights from david pecker just to be on the safe side. just to have this material

michael cohen. there's now a twitter spat between giuliani and lannie davis, michael cohen's new lawyer, who was onet clinton's lawyers during the kenneth starrinvestigation. here's what lanny davis tweeted. did rudy giuliani really say on sunday shows that michael cohen should cooperate with prosecutors and tell the truth? seriously? is that trump and giuliani definition of truth? trump/giuliani next to the word truth equals oxymoron. stay tuned, the truth matters. they're getting very aggressive and very over the top, lanny davis coming out and getting into a battle with giuliani on twitter. michael cohen very publicly saying that he believes in the fbi, taking donald trump off his twitter bio, making these overtures and telling certain reporters some things and other reporters other things, that he wants to cooperate. it seems very over the top to me. what is the strategy? >> well, so there's two strategies, i think, going on with michael cohen. one is as far as we know he's retained guy petrello but he has not filed a notice of appearance, which is a formal sign that he's been retained. but as f

. >>> new insight into michael cope's decision to hire lanni davis as he faces prosecutors.cs having worked as special counsel to president clinton when he was being investigated for possible campaign finance violations. joining me for "vanity fair" abigail tracy, whose article is "tell it early, tell it all, tell it yourself: can the clinton defense save michael cohen?" always good to see you. let's get into it. i know you've speaken a lot with lanni davis. explain the clinton defense strategy. >> the idea, tell it early, tell it all, tell it yourself. the idea is to preempt bad news by being truthful about wrongdoing you may have committed and getting ahead of the news cycle, something we haven't seen the trump white house do at all. that's why it's interesting that michael cohen tapped him to be his new lawyer. what i would expect moving forward is that we maybe start to see michael cohen tell his side of the story a bit more. especially with davis on board. >> davis says he deserves to tell his side of the story. should the president be concerned? >> i think so. i think

>> what would be the significance in your view of broig a high profile lawyer like lanny davis if you're michaelth lanny davis and another lawyer, a very effective guy petrillo, he now has better defense attorneys than donald trump. he is like more ethical and skilled version of rudolph giuliani. as you indicated, he can go into full attack dog mode for his client. he is also known as a deal maker. so if he is looking to make a deal with mueller, then lanny davis is the perfect guy to do that. and do you expect it helps in the case with michael avenatti who has been pretty aggressive against cohen in the public media? >> they both have very good media skills. but at the end of the day, what will impress him, michael cohen ran trump's businesses along with ivanka and don jr. almost certainly the will be a question of the improprieties. >> does it make it in your view more likely? there has been this question of why michael cohen has resisted, turning on trump and helping out the mueller investigation. does it make to you more likely that he will now do it? >> we're hearing, i think, different int

in response michael cohen's lawyer lanny davis did this. strategy of donald trump, rudy giuliani is flawed just as trump's false twitter statement made against michael cohen this morning. ruddy claims. michael cohen taped a conversation with then candidate trump prior to the 2016 election regarding an alleged payment made to karen mcdougal. back in march the former "playboy" model into with anderson cooper about an affair she claims she had with president trump. >> i did what i did. i'm not proud of it. i feel terrible about it. but i'm a new woman, new creation and i'm standing up for miss. >> complicating all this, the fact the president says he was unaware he was being recorded. a correspondent for washington, d.c., one of the first to report on the president not knowing the call was recorded, also covering the white house for nbc news, national security inside for us. casey rogers, white house correspondent spending the week near the president. >>> knowing the existence of this tape, speculation because of it there might be more than one

michael do that to me? so he feels betrayed by the existence hof tape i think you heard from davis's comments here that they feel as if they are being betrayed by the mischaracterization of the conversation, at least in their view. his isn't the it relationship it 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's not going to ache that bullet for the president. >> barbara mcquaid, a change of subject to the manhattan madam. a good folks like you who we've relied on to be of counsel to us on this broadcast have reminded us the folks that need be nervous are the big names that have yet oo be interviewed by team mueller. the name rogerer stone does come to mind here. we mentioned it earlier. is rogerer stone the one who needs to be worried? >> yeah, i think so. based on the reporting about the man hat madam the reason that it appears robert mueller's interested is she's work would roger stone as a web designer. i think it's a fair assessment that the person identified in

what i'm trying to figure out, what the strategy is they trying to pursue here from the lanny davis and michael cohen. >> lot of people surprised lanny davis has been so public about this and sharing potential evidence. the strategy, you have to ask lanny davis about that. >> maybe we will one day. that would be great. thank you. for reaction from the white house, we go to peter doocy. how is the white house ponding to all of this today? >> reporter: everything cohen related gets forwarded to the president's outside legal team which does include reject reasonable. they'r-- rudy guiliani.reports h new cohen revelations are not. however, the president did want to get on the board about this today. he went on twitter and wrote this, arrived back in washington last night from a very emotional reopening of a major u.s. steel plant in granite city, illinois only to be greeted with the ridiculous news that robert mueller and gang 13 angry democrats obviously kept find collusion. only collusion with russia was with the democrats now they're looking at my tweets along with 53 million other people. the r

michael cohen's taping of his client is not illegal but it's clearly unethical, and if lanny davis thinksomehow this is exculpatory and it shows that michael cohen is somehow the vic thirm, i thivi victim here, ilt's going to backfire on him. this isn't going to be a rorschach test, this recording, as someone said earlier. trump detractors are going to hear what they want to hear. you'll hear this cut played a thousand different ways and you'll hear what you want to hear in the tape. >> at the end of the day, dave, do you believe that the president was aware that his lawyer was setting up a corporation to buy back a bunch of assets from the parent company that he worked? >> chris, i listened to this tape for the first time about 15 minutes ago on this show. it was pretty garbled. i can't tell you what i believe at this point because i can't int intelligbly hear what he said. >> i need to make up a company for info regarding our friend david so that -- i'm going to do that right away. >> give it to me. >> i've spoken to alan weissenberg about how to set the whole thing up with funding -- y

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 the reporting about the manhattan madam, the reason it appears that robert mueller's interested in her is she has a close relationship with roger stone. she has worked with