abc news reporter tara palmieri has more. >> reporter: he told abc's george stephanopoulos -- >> the people of the united states of america, the people of the world don't believe what he's saying. >> reporter: the long-time lawyer and fixer sentenced to three years in prison over a smorgasbord of campaign finance crimes including payments to porn star and former playmate months be ever the 2016 election. cohen and prosecutors say trump directed him to make those payments, but cohen said he doesn't want to go down in history as a villain. >> you lied for him for a long time. >> more than ten years. >> why? >> out of loyalty. out of loyalty to him. >> reporter: cohen saying he knew at the time the hush money was improper. >> he was trying the hide what you were doing, correct? >> correct. >> and he knew it was wrong. >> of course. >> reporter: cohen claimed candidate trump was deeply involved with david pecker to buy and bury mcdougall's story about an alleged affair. trump denies the affair. >> he directed me to become involved in these matters including the one with mcdougal which wa

well, said palmieri, jane was wearing pajamas when police arrived.ut in the laundry room they found her jeans rolled up in a towel tucked between the washer and dryer. her top was lying there as well, inside out. it looked like they had been removed quickly, stashed away. when an officer tried to administer a gunshot residue kit to jane's hands, standard procedure in a shooting investigation -- >> when the officer doing the test began getting the test ready, she did go into the bathroom and either wash her hands or wipe her hands on a towel, one of the two. before coming back to the table and before the test was done. >> so odd things. anyway, police scoured the place, didn't see any murder weapon lying around. and they were about ready to take dave's body off to the morgue when some instinct told the lead detective to look here. he cracked open the doors of the grandfather clock in the dining room, looked down inside, and there it was. >> this is more than likely the murder weapon. >> a ruger six-shot revolver. surely no prowler would have dropped a

this is white house correspondent tara palmieri. >> this morning, new questions of the loyalty of the chief of staff. nick mulvaney, the office of management and budget abruptly appointed to the role friday night, but within hours of being named, this video of abc news suffering. >> and role model for my sons? absolutely not. >> the south carolina senator blasting trump days before the election. mulvaney said that the remarks were old news and made before he met mr. trump, and added that he likes and respects the president and believes in the president. mulvaney was made after a week-long search after the vice president's chief of staff nick a ayers and former new jersey governor chris christie backed up. >> how many people are you considering? >> five people, mostly well known. >> reporter: mulvaney is the third person to occupy the role of chief of staff in less than two years, and at the same time another sudden shake up, interior secretary ryan zinke is stepping down involving a complicated interest involving real estate in his home state, and pricey charter flights when his wife

tara palmieri with more from washington. >> president trump distancing himself from his longtime lawyerxer michael cohen, saying he never ordered the hush payments made to two women in the 2016 campaign. >> i never directed him to do anything wrong. whatever he did, he did on his own. he's a lawyer. a lawyer who represents a client is supposed to do the right thing. that's why you pay them a lot of money. >> cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for what a federal judge called a smorgasbord of financial and campaign finance crimes. including arranging hush payments made to porn star stormy daniels and playboy bunny karen mcdougal just months before the election at the direction, according to prosecutors, of then-candidate trump. >> when michael cohen pled guilty to something that's not a crime. >> trump even expressed doubt cohen repaid national enquirer parent company ami $150,000 for buying macdougal's story about an alleged affair with trump to bury it in a practice called catch and kill. trump denies he had an affair. >> i don't think they even paid any money to that tabloid.

and i just want to echo what both jen palmieri and ben rhodes have been saying today. that even though michael flynn and his team, they're delaying sentencing, he could have gotten maybe a maximum six months, but as we've seen throughout the day with these messages coming in from inside the courtroom, that things weren't going very well and what makes this so important is that we're talking about a person who was the national security adviser to the president of the united states involved in something that he should have known was illegal and did get himself into trouble. what it says, not only about his conduct but about this administration, and why the president has been so intent on heaping praise on him but not on someone else who has so-called flipped, but someone who is cooperating with federal investigators, that being michael cohen. and so the fact that he has cooperated so extensively with the government, i think it was ken delanian who said we still don't know the extent, the information he has given to the special prosecutor, which is an anvil over the head

jennifer palmieri is the author. where did you get the insight to write this book?le working on the clinton campaign i was hillary clinton's communications

jennifer palmieri of the author.by the way, book tv taped a longer interview with jennifer palmieri, you can watch that on our website at booktv.org. thank you. >> thank you, my pleasure. >> keep an eye out for more interviews from the national press club's book fair to air in the near future. you can also watch them and any of our programs in their entirety at booktv.org. type the authors name in the search bar at the top of the page. >> let's get started with today's event.thanks very much for joining us here at the heritage foundation on a day when the rain has condescended to hold off. i appreciate that. and i appreciate everyone joining us today. i want to give a special welcome to our audience on c-span's book tv. i daresay that our speaker today will be featured on and off on c-span for the next six months and in his case absolutely deservedly so. i want to start off by giving a slightly personal anecdote in introduction to our speaker today. many years ago, many many years ago now, i taught international rela

abc's tear palmieri has the details. >> reporter: the president blaming democrats for a tragedy at thethern border claiming without proof that it's their fault that two migrant children died in u.s. custody this month. the president tweeting any deaths of children or others at the border are strictly the fault of the democrats. the president claims that the two children wouldn't have died if he was granted money for a wall along the u.s./mexico border. his senior adviser kellyanne conway accusing the democrats of politicizing the crisis. >> i don't like some of the democrats using this as political pawns. >> isn't that exactly what the president did? >> the president does not want these children to come on the perilous journey to begin with. >> reporter: u.s. customs and border patrol telling martha raddatz they did everything they could to save the children. >> devastating for us on every level. our agents didveth could. sn thildren mafeptoms ine, with the government shutdown in its cond week, trump allies saying don't expect the president to back down from the border wall demand. >>

white house correspondent tara palmieri has the latest. >> reporter: the president in the heatemocrats proof for the deaths of two migrant children who died while in u.s. kanscustody. in the comments of the tweet since the tragedy he said that the democrats and the pathetic immigration policies making people believe to make the long trek to enter the country illegally, and if we had a wall, they would not try. homeland secretary kirstjen fth time. on the border for the felipe alonso was detained with his father before transferred to a facility in new mexico where he died. nielsen's visits were closed to the press bucks she said in a statement, the system is clearly overwhelmed and we must work to together to address this humanitarian crisis. many of the facilities are at capacity, and new filings obtained by the "arizona republic" paint a grim picture. >> i can give you the description of people huddled together in small rooms. that has to be fixed. >> reporter: on the ninth day of the government shutdown, the president is buckling down on the demand for a wall that he claims could hav

thanks to mimi, ben rhodes, kimberly atkins, jonathan capehart, jennifer palmieri, chuck rosenberg, ken delanian. this has been a special edition of "andrea mitchell reports." here is ali velshi and stephanie ruhle. >> the last hour has not gone the way we expected it to. thank you, andrea. good afternoon to all of you. i'm ali velshi. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle. it is tuesday, december 18th and we've got to begin with major breaking news. >> this was supposed to be judgment day for the president's former national security adviser michael flynn. moments ago, the sentencing was officially delayed for flynn by judge emmitt sullivan. >> retired three-star general pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his communications with the russian ambassador during the presidential transition. then in court today, flynn acknowledged that lying to the fbi was a crime and that he did not wish to challenge the circumstances under which he was interviewed. judge sullivan telling flynn, quote, you sold your country out. can i make a really quick point? >> yeah. >> remember, it was in the l

jennifer palmieri of the author.by the way, book tv taped a longer interview with jennifer palmieri, you can watch that on our website at booktv.org. thank you. >> thank you, my pleasure. >> keep an eye out for more interviews from the national press club's book fair to air in the near future. you can also watch them and any