mimi rocca, so the prosecution had to do two things today, right?y had to use rick gates as their star witness and show -- he's the guy telling them -- connecting all the dots. they also had to hope his credibility withstood cross examination. how has the prosecution done with their goal of keeping rick gates a valuable witness? >> i think they've done as well as the prosecution can do under these circumstances. whenever you have a cooperating witness who has committed crimes himself, admittedly lied to the government and who is there because he's a criminal who participated in crimes with the defendant, it's going to be bumpy. during cross examination many times i literally wanted to crawl under the table until it was over. you're just kind of holding your breath and hoping that you get through it with some bumps and bruises but no major crashes. it looks like so far that's what's happening. what you don't want on cross examination is for something to come out that you didn't know about. i have seen that happen. i have experienced that. so far it h

district of new york and distinguished fell in criminal justice at pace university's law school mimi rocca. they are both msnbc analysts. and steve schmidt, also an msnbc contributor. phil, starting with you, i think it's pretty clear now that rudy giuliani will tell us today that he is going to give an answer to robert mueller by the end of the day and then tomorrow say, oh, we're still negotiating, and then the day after that say, there is never going to be an interview, and the day after that we might have an interview a month from now. it feels like a game to keep himself in the news, to keep this issue in the news, but to push it back as far as he can and to never actually sit down with robert mueller unless the president is forced to by a subpoena. >> i think that might be right, katy. clearly, the lawyers do not want president trump sitting down with robert mueller because they are afraid he won't be able to tell the truth in the interview. i don't know why rudy giuliani would be concerned about a perjury trap if it were not top of mind that trump could so easily perjure himself. he

and with me here at the table mimi rocca, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. and flugdrank figliuzzi, former assistant director for counter intelligence. frank, i want to start with you and i want to get a scene center. the president is pushing out don mcgahn who just sat for 30 hours of testimony with robert mueller. don mcgahn, who was in the room or at least aware of all of these things regarding the firing of james comey, of mike flynn, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. don mcgahn, who was with him since june 2015, and the president says, no, i'm not worried. >> yeah, sounds good except it can't be true. you don't spend 30 hours being interviewed by the special counsel's office to simply shoot the breeze. this was the inside guy. this was the guy that tried to talk the president out of doing really stupid, possibly illegal things. what this provides to mueller is intention, intent to obstruct, why was it that he wanted the a.g. to recuse himself from the investigation? what was he thinking when he fired jim co

it is in fact -- >> that's why we have mimi rocca. >> it's generally not done. but he added a political twist here. because he said it's not appropriate for a prosecutor to malign someone who is not before them. this is an effort tonight anti-comey. to not shoot your mouth off and be political but to play this spriktly by the book. that's what the prosecutors were doing there, they were being restrained. >> the president has tweeted. "just landed in virginia. big crowd." you're seeing him walking down now. shelley moore capito. look forward to seeing the big crowd. and hashtag maga. it's going to be an epic night from the president we think. >> absolutely. there's no reason to believe if won't be based on how he's handled rallies in the past and especially considering everything everyone's talking about including on fox news which has a track record of not even address some of these types of -- >> i think they couldn't have avoided this -- like today fox couldn't do one of their oh, look, there is something else, there's a shiny metal object of medium being deni

and mimi rocca, an msnbc contributor. jill, i want to go on this issue with the white house counsel. we're seeing that the president is getting rid of his white house counsel at a time when the white house counsel's office is already dramatically understaffed, especially when you consider they are now consciously wrapping up for an impeachment battle. how does this compare to the way president nixon was represented both in the white house counsel's office at the time of your investigation and with private attorneys? >> he had very good private attorneys, and he had a full staff in the white house counsel's office. he fired john dean after the investigation was well under way in the house. but before the watergate prosecutor was appointed. so he got fired in april, john dean. and then cox was appointed in may. but he replaced the person, and there was a full staff. and so there was no problem with that. but his timing here seems to be something that mcgahn maybe is thinking was a setup that some of his enemies, his mcgahn'

. >> and we're joined now by phone by mimi rocca. she's a former federal prosecutor who worked in the southern district of new york, the office that is prosecuting michael cohen. and mimi, as to smoking guns, in the testimony in court today there came a point as is a standard point in these proceedings where the judge wanted to know from the prosecutor if the prosecutor really does have enough evidence to convict michael cohen on all of these counts. and so on the campaign violation counts in which the prosecutor also said these crimes were committed at the direction of the candidate, the prosecutor actually told the judge that this is the evidence that they have. records obtained from an april 9th, 2018 series of search warrants on mr. cohen's premises including hard copy documents, seized electronic devices, and then here is maybe the smoking gun. she said, "and audio recordings made by mr. cohen." so mimi, there the federal prosecutors today in court telling the judge that there are audio recordings made by mr. cohen that prove mr.

assist enattorney for the southern district of new york, mimi rocca. julia, first to you.now the judge has been talking to the court and he mentioned something about receiving threats. a u.s. marshal is taking him to and from the courthouse? >> that's right. we are waiting for a verdict. we did just get a little insight into the stakes for everyone involved in this trial. we saw a u.s. marshal with his jacket on go into the courtroom today. wasn't sure why he was there. we got some clarity on that where the judge said he is not going to unseal the names of these jurors because he, himself, has had security threats. that's why he has that u.s. marshal there for his own security. he said he was surprised by the public response to this. he didn't have any idea just how big this case would become. and so he wants to be able to protect the jurors by not unsealing their names. a coalition of media organizations had pressed for their names. he has decided not to unseal that. he also isn't going to unseal conversations he's had at the bench with the parties in which they have talk

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district attorney in the southern district of new york, mimi rocca.rview of so many of these people closely tied to president trump, which one of these myriad investigations, in your view, is potentially the most threatening to the president? there is one in the southern district of new york. there's the mueller probe. there's paul manafort and whether he may or may not potentially flip, obviously part of the mueller probe. what's your sense? >> kasie, it's a great question and, you know, i think really the honest answer is they're all threatening in different ways. the mueller investigation i think still poses the potential to reveal things that are so intensely criminal in nature. in other words, you know, this idea of conspiring with a foreign adversary, essentially, to throw the election. that really is unheard of. and if mueller can really tie trump to that directly, that would be devastating. and part of why that may seem sort of less of a threat right now is because mueller hasn't had the opportunity to speak -- prosecutors as i think we all kn