mostly from rudy giuliani. the question whether or not we're going to see the president testify, i think he says it remains an open question. it's an interesting it's back on the table because a few weeks ago rudy giuliani said it's off the table. they will not allow the president to be interviewed. now it seems they have changed their minds. they say we're talking about potentially having an interview here. i think that's what mueller is always said to wrap up his case. he said that the final piece of this would be the president himself speaking about to whatever parts of the investigations they would like to hear from the president about whether it's obstruction of justice or collusion. the big question is timing. if you get that before the elections, do you then mover forward and then risk being accused of politicizing so close to an election this issue. do you wait until after the elections. in general their own candidates weaknesses in generic polling and they are worried about elections. >> this is donald

that's what rudy giuliani said today. he wasn't arguing about that statement from michael cohen, who is alleging that president trump did know about that meeting before it occurred. rudy giuliani only said that he could state for the record that president trump did not attend that meeting with chose russian officials, which is not something that was in question in the first place. it was whether or not president trump knew about it, which is something that his aides and president trump himself have denied for months now, including that president trump said he just found out about it in july of 2017, a year after it happened. and donald trump jr. testified in front of lawmakers that his father did not know about it before. so it would be increasingly problematic. that is the question now, anderson. it is essentially the president's word versus michael cohen's. but the white house does not seem to be at all enthusiastic about taking questions about michael cohen, including president trump today, who has been tweeting about

rudy giuliani recognizes the biggest threat is not the legal action. we know that mueller is not going to indict the president. rudy giuliani recognizes that the biggest threat is the political action. the way american voters respond when they get whatever information mueller surfaces. rudy giuliani is trying to get in front of that. >> i want to remind how the white house keeps on changing its story. let's start on 2016 of november. home hicks said "there was no communication" and back in 2017 sanders, "to the best of our knowledge, there was no communication." and donald trump jr. denied any campaign related meetings and a month later he admitted a me meeting with the russians and a day later he admits that the campaign was discussed but no meaningful information was shared. september of last year, don jr. says i did not tell my dad about the meeting. today rudy giuliani says, president trump did not participate in the that meeting. put all of this together, where does it lead us? >> it is a remarkable evolution you are describing there, chris, and b

so i think rudy giuliani is playing word games there to a certain extent. you want to be technical, he's right, that there is no crime called collusion. >> dana, you spoke to giuliani earlier today after the interview on "new day." he tried to clarify some of his comments, right? >> yes. okay. i'm going try to explain this so people don't get even more confused. >> good luck. >> exactly. it is as clear as mud, and i don't think that's an accident. what giuliani talked about, one of the things he talked about with alisyn camerota this morning was the idea that there was this alleged second meeting or excuse me a meeting that happened a couple of days before the notorious trump tower meeting with don jr. and the russian attorney and so on and so forth where they talked about what they would discuss, like a premeeting, basically. so giuliani brought it up as if the meeting happened with alisyn camerota. it was not clear. i talked to him afterwards, and he said no, the reason i brought it up is because reporters came to me, meaning giuliani and to jay sekulow,

and jill, this issue of giuliani's public performance, the newly utterly incoherent rudy giuliani seems to me to make a certain sense if giuliani actually does have nothing better to say. if the evidence that he is aware of in this case gives him nothing else to say, it makes a certain sense that he talks as fast as he can, as if he went to that kellyanne conway school. >> i think the better answer for him ought to be him staying silent. if this is the best he can do, he is hurting his client. what he is saying really makes no sense. i read the transcript of that full interview, and it's almost impossible to understand what point he was even trying to make. and i think as a prosecutor or as a defense lawyer, you quickly learn that sometimes the facts are just completely against you and you're better off saying nothing. and in this case, that's what it is. but he also hasn't got the law on his side. when he's yelling that there is no crime, that also isn't true and this argument about whether the word is collusion or conspiracy or aiding or abetting is simply a question of terminology. s

rudy giuliani says. joining me by phone now, michael scm smith. >> what more can you tell us about the reporting here? >> this was the stuff that was seized by michael cohen's office. the feds went in and took stuff from his office. this is one of those things. michael helcohen did this secre two months before the election. they're discussing what would be a second payment to the model. the second payment that would ensure her silence going forward. this was after the nationa national -- this was another payment and a second payment. >> do you we know why michael cohen would be recording donald trump secretly. >> no, that's an interesting question. why would a lawyer be recording a conversation with someone. that could be seized. we know michael cohen had a history recording a lot of different conversations to a lot of different people but why on such a sensitive thing would he secretly do this. was he doing it as a way to have leverage on the president later or was he doing it in a way of protecting him

rudy giuliani, you heard him. team trump hasn't heard back from the special counsel in more than a week, he said, what, ten days? he said it's bad faith. why do you think it's been ten days. >> thank you, erin, for your question. let me first say that nobody is above the law. that's what watergate taught us. as a former prosecutor, defendants don't get to set preconditions. the president shouldn't be setting any preconditions. he should be going through that interview the same way other defendants or subjects go through interviews with prosecutors so if there is any bad faith it would be on the part of the president and his white house counsel. >> to the point of ten days and what that means. is that bad faith from mueller? we know it had been sort of every couple of days there was a new intrigue in the saga of the back and forth on the preconditions and mueller's response. do you agree that mueller is engaging in bad faith or giving up? do you see anything sinister in this? >> i think the preconditions that we've

do you think the president is being well served by rudy giuliani? , it depends on what the president wants. if he wants a pr strategy and not a legal strategy, i guess you could argue that mr. giuliani is executing on that. to put it kindly, mr. giuliani makes absolutely no sense, and as you point out, it is absolutely not a legal strategy. and by the way, katy, collusion is a crime. we just happen to call it something else. we call it conspiracy. but it is absolutely a crime. you know, you probably won't find the word bank heist in the criminal code, but bank robbery is a crime too, so i'm sort of perplexed that it's come down to s synonyms. if they don't know this is a legal strategy. >> let's talk about how rudy giuliani and the president is going after michael cohen saying that he's a liar, saying that he can't be trusted and is inethical. they're very clearly trying to undermine cohen's credibility. if cohen ends up being somebody who cooperates with robert mueller and we don't have any indication that he is doing that or somebody that cooperate

>> i see rudy giuliani reasoning here. he wouldn't call it hush money, but negotiating a confidenti confidentiality agreement with someone who has a claim with you is not illegal. unless the purpose of the payment is really political in nature and is not reported subsequent. and then you could have a crime. as i say, we need more to look at this. if i were now counsel to the president, is whether jewel yampb any, by publicly discussing this conversation as the agent of the president now, has waved the attorney-client privilege. and may in fact by that published statement make it very, very easy now for prosecutors to say, this is an admissible item of evidence and because the attorney-client privilege had been waived. >> let's quickly go around the table and we know how when the white house enter into damage control mode, we now have giuliani who's your legal front person, what is the president going to do about this? >> paul makes a point about whether or not what giuliani has now said opens the door to use of this tape.

he writes, did rudy giuliani really say on sunday shows that michael cohen should cooperate with prosecutorsthe truth? seriously? is that trump and giuliani's definition of truth? trump/giuliani next to the word truth equals oxymoron. joining us now is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney now an msnbc contributor. our panel still with us here. >>> barbara, let me start with you if i can very quickly. this certainly looks like a direct challenge to the president from michael cohen and his team. we read their language, but what should we read into this? what is the message they're trying to deliver to the white house and to rudy giuliani right now? >> really aggressive tactic by lanny davis, i think, to go after the president like that and rudy giuliani. but i think as chuck said earlier, what rudy giuliani is doing is pure theater. it's pure public relations. he says things like there is no evidence of any criminal activity between michael cohen and president trump. that's because the attorney/client privilege review is still going on. the southern district of new york does not yet have its

if you watch chris cuomo with rudy giuliani this evening, donald trump is now sucking rudy giuliani down into that vortex because rudy giuliani looked terrible doing everything he could to call michael cohen a liar. every single person who has a child knows that all human beings walking on this earth have lied at some point. cohen may be telling the truth. we got all these people whether it is cohen, rudy giuliani and everyone who's touched by donald trump is disgraced by him. >> you set up a sound bite that i want to play now. this is rudy giuliani describing donald trump. >> anybody can -- you can go back to ancient times where you can find people that you think you trust. i saw the president when he first found out that he had been taped and he was shocked. >> i believe that. >> he was not angry. >> he was not angry. he was disappointed like a father could be betrayed by his son. >> that's a dramatic language. is this a threat to cohen in effect to rudy giuliani saying he's going to pay the price? micha micha michael cohen is not worried of what rudy giuliani say on tv show as oppose

but the strategy with rudy giuliani, you know, he's baffling to me. is he his lawyer, a buddy, a policy guy, just someone who won't go away? every time he opens his mouth, to me he steps in it. he makes factual statements, legally preproceosterous claims does it in a half sinister way. it seems like he's freelancing, then it seems like he's speaking for the president. it is true that these kind of statements to cohen have a sinister tone. that's what they are intended to do. >> and again, we're hearing from michael cohen. they're taking this as a threat right now at this point. certain hi starting to sound like threats. >> i don't think rudy giuliani is functioning right now as an attorney to the president, he's functioning as a spokesman. he's the attack dog on cable news, taking the fight to the president's enemies, which may include michael cohen. that's his role and function. the sad part, is it's working. public confidence in the investigation is going down. he's chipping away at the credibility in the public's mind of this effort. >> i think the

because rudy giuliani did address that. and he suddenly says that trump, it wasn't that he didn't know the trump tower meeting took place. it's that trump wasn't there. we already knew that president trump was never at that trump tower meeting. the issue always that he absolutely had no knowledge of it. now rudy giuliani is looking at what cohen is saying is changing the president's story. rudy giuliani is saying there may be dozens of tape bus they all say call me back, meet me for coffee. is that what you're hearing? >> i'm hearing the tapes are still in the evidence that the federal investigators and prosecutors, they're still getting that evidence. just on friday the government got an additional 950 items of evidence released from the special master. those were items that michael cohen and she says cohen in the filing that michael cohen and his team determined to be or they asserted that were attorney/client privileged. she said of the 1600 items, 952 are going to investigators. i can tell you that when "the new york ti

in terms of what rudy giuliani is doing, we are seeing a couple of things. we are seeing giuliani and the president himself really ramp up their attacks against not only special counsel robert mueller, the president calling mueller out by name over the weekend, but giuliani increasingly trying to undercut michael cohen, the president's former attorney and fixer, calling into question the validity of that tape, suggesting it could have been doctored. of course, that tape in which we heard a conversation about between the president and cohen discussing a potential payout to karen mcdougal, and then, of course, you raised the point that he talked about a second planning meeting before the big meeting between don jr. and that kremlin-linked attorney. all of that at the forefront as we freep to ask the president a range of different questions now. this is going to be a traditional press conference, katy, it's our understanding in which reporters from each country get two questions. no guarantee we will be called on, but here they are announcing the president. i am

we have all the people whether it's cohen, allen who is just rudy giuliani. everyone. everyone who touched by donald trump is disgraced by him. >> you have set up a the sound bite i want to play. this is giuliani now describing michael cohen. >> that's part of the human condition. we make mistakes. people turn out to be disloyal. benedict around was disloyal to george washington. go back to ancient classical literature. you find people you think you trust. i saw the president when he found out he had been taped. and the president was completely shocked. >> i believe that. >> he wasn't angry. president trump can get angry. he was disappointed. like a father betrayed by his son. >> that is some dramatic language there. is this a threat to cohen in effect saying he's fwoing to pay a price? >> a threat. michael cohen is not worried about rudy giuliani. opposed to what federal prosecutors in new york are doing to his life. it's not a threat. and to hear rudy giuliani say that you can't make cases on a proven liar. i don't know where he's been proven to be a liar. until a mon

is being overconfident here given the fact that rudy giuliani said the president is devoted first and devoted to making trump happy. this is nothing different than a pr lawyer. the fact is they must be scared with what is happening with michael cohen, otherwise we wouldn't have seen the president be so outraged with the fbi raid. they have to be concerned. there's very little doubt about it. michael cohen has done too much work for the president. >> and to you, howard, very quickly, your thoughts? >> i think that's exactly right. i think rudy, alan dershowitz and lanny all have one thing in common, they try cases in the press a lot more than they try them in court. i think that's why lanny davis got taken on by michael cohen. michael cohen knows more about donald trump's business dealings more than anybody else except maybe the trump family. i think if cohen -- now, i think cohen is sending a signal saying, you better pardon me or else, but if cohen spills the beans, trump is going to jail, somebody with the last name of trump is going to jail. >> okay. well, that is a big statement r

rod rosenstein testified to the fact he saw no conflicts of interest and then you had rudy giuliani really trying to undercut michael cohen, the president's former personal attorney and personal fixer really. giuliani tried to argue that tape that was released by michael cohen in which you hear cohen and the president talking about a payout may have been doctored in some way shape or form. and really calling the very credibility of cohen into question saying that he's a liar and a scoundrel and all sorts of things. i think what you are starting to see is the president, some of his allies getting very concerned about the prospect of michael cohen. as we've reported, being poised to tell robert mueller in his own words that he believes president trump had prior knowledge of that meeting between don junior and that kremlin-linked attorney. last week, if you look at the total, we tried to get questions to the president 13 different times about that topic and related topics. he ignored all shouted questions. finally today we're going to have a chance to ask him some of the questions. you can se

and donald trump, despite what rudy giuliani said publicly, the tape contradicts mr. giuliani and the word "cash" is heard by everyone. >> now, the president's legal team disputes what is being said in this tape. they even provided us their own transcript, which we'll put up at some point. they say that the president said, do not pay with cash. check. and that he was advising cohen to do it all on the up and up because the president wanted to make sure that this was papered properly. >> i'm looking at mr. and mrs. donald trump, red america. listen to the tape. it doesn't say what you just heard. it says "cash," and it's mr. cohen who says, no, no, no, no. now, don't believe me. i'm a democrat. i'm a lawyer representing a client. believe your own ears, and when richard nixon had a tape that he couldn't dispute, the tape says what it says. and i put a tweet out and said, listen to the tapes. so everyone out there, listen to the tapes. whatever spin mr. giuliani is trying to invent, it says "cash," and michael cohen says, no, no, no. >> it says some things before it. in f

the jury decided to believe rudy giuliani's murderer. >> and rudy giuliani knows better, lawrence. he ran the u.s. attorneys office for the southern district of new york. he began his career as a mob prosecutor. he know what is the burdens of proof are. he knows what federal prosecutors need to do when they want to bring a case in front of a jury. he's not acting like a lawyer right now. he's out there to run interference for the president because there is a mounting fact pattern that doesn't look good for them on a number of fronts. they are now willing issues around financial problems, the way they structured payments to paramours of the president. they have issued around collusion. and i think rudy giuliani was brought in to try to discredit the media and discredit law enforcement that is trying to assess what has occurred with this president because it is getting very ugly. >> and congressman, also i would like you to consider everything we're analyzing here tonight as a former prosecutor yourself. and i'd just like to give you an open space here to react to this new report tha

i asked rudy giuliani about this tonight. i said the president could offer clarify if he sat down with mueller and talked about this 2016 meeting. i said would the president be willing to do so. he said the mueller team is not credible. they're democrats. he said mueller hasn't brought up this 2016 meeting as part of the possible questioning. it seems like rudy giuliani is hedging very mump whether the president would sit down and talk to this meeting. >> rebecca who is new. welcome. >> thank you. >> there's large community of folks out there waiting to see the president's tax returns. because a lot of people on the left regard things financial as kind of the original sin in donald trump land. is it unfair to say that weisselberg, the weisselberg news word of his subpoena is so big, would reverberate, we could learn it had a huge effect inside the trump white house. >> what we now is the subpoena is in the southern district. we don't know what prosecutors are seeking from him. we don't know what he's told them. he knows a gre

do you think rudy giuliani really believes the president's tweets are helpful?l, are they helpful? >> i think they are because it is the president speak to ing t, the people, without having to go through a third party where it can get distorted. also on obstruction which rudy has hit on in interviews, says that obstruction is something done to the department of justice. he told the president three times, you are not under investigation. the definition of obstruction is to impede an that the president and he has laid out in his tweets, he is calling out the injustice of the situation. so i think that the tweets are valuable. >> don, what's your take? >> i agree that they are very valuable to robert mueller. you got to go back to june 2017. none of this stuff exists in a vacuum. that was the day that sean spicer on the instruction of both the president and white house counsel came out and said that both twitter handles of the president @realdonald trump and @potus are official statements of the white house. therefore, everything that they say is on the record, par

it is about something rudy giuliani has started to say. in the days after the presidential election donald trump's advisers had a message about contacts between russians and members of the campaign team. in the ensuing months as numerous such communications were revealed the message changed. there was no collusion with russia's effort to disrupt the election. on monday president trump's lawyer rudy giuliani presented a third line of defense, even if mr. trump did collude with the russians he committed no crime. my client didn't do it. even if he did it it is not a crime. hacking is the crime. the president didn't hack. he didn't pay for the hacking he said on cnn. the article goes on. it is just a word choice, said a criminal law professor at georgetown. i'm sure nobody in the justice department has ever investigated collusion but they have investigated conspiracy. and rudy, she said of mr. trump's lawyer, knows better. for the record, the president has said collusion on twitter 94 times. giuliani has been giving interviews throughout the

fixer and friend michael cohen is sending a very clear signal to the president and his lawyer rudy giuliani according to sources. our political correspondent sarah murray with details. giuliani was interviewed and said he's not concerned of cohen flipping on the president and urged him to be truthful. when's the latest you're hearing? >> reporter: sourcing telling my colleague gloria borger saying the truth is not a friend of rudy giuliani or of president trump. they're trying to make it clear that cohen is not going to be the president's punching bag. he's no longer willing to take a bullet for the president. and if he is forthcoming about what happened, for instance in the trump tower meeting it could cause some headaches. now, as you pointed out, rudy giuliani said put everything on the table. here's what he told cnn over the weekend. >> there's no evidence of wrongdoing with president trump. so we're very comfortable. if he believes it's in his best interest to cooperate, god bless him. he should cooperate. i think he'll tell the truth as best he can give his recollection and if he does

yesterday rudy giuliani was asked on "new day" what are you talking about? and giuliani refuses to say. >> it's hard to know what the president is talking about but there have been stories mueller left the president's golf club and wanted a refund on his dues and the stories are that it was resolved amicably and that there were letters exchanged and that it was -- you know, it was not -- it was not a terrible thing and that it was -- it was resolved. i mean, it hardly seems to me to be a disqualifier. what the president is trying to do is to further get his base together about anything mueller might do. don't forget the context here. the context is that trump's lawyers have proposed sort of some kind of hybrid way in which perhaps they could hear from the president pre-inauguration versus post inauguration, maybe they can work something out. mueller has been like buddha. they have not heard a thing. he has been sitting there and they have not heard a thing back from him. rudy giuliani told dana bash that it's time for us to hear back from mueller so i think

rudy giuliani and lanny davis using the airways to snipe at each other. >> whatever spin rudy giuliani is trying to spin it says cash. why is giuliani dips marriaging michael cohen? because they fear him. >> i don't see how he has any credibility. which lie do you want to pick. the first lie, the second lie or the third lie? howie: joining us is guy benson. sara fischer, a media report for axios. and adrienne elrod. we'll drill down to the details in a minute. does this warrant the intensity of media coverage? guy: i think the president's trusted flipper and lawyer apparently flipping on him is a big story. him telling mueller something, is that a big story? we have to see evidence. if it's michael cohen making a claim about something he thinks mueller wants to hear now that he's in the cross-hairs and he has skin to save. cohen has always been loyal to trump so for him to say this about trump is important. howie: sara, the media loves this particular story because it's sex, lies, and audiotape. sara: the concept of betrayal is something that's always going to grip viewers. but could t

. >>> rudy giuliani's wild ride. multiple tv interviews today, three on fox news alone and tonight from the "new york times," the question, what are we witnessing? is he changing trump's defense on collusion, moving the goal post on the fly as we watch? >>> plus, paul manafort, the former trump campaign chairman faces the first trial of the mueller investigation all just hours from now. >>> and the president's threat to shut down the government. something you just don't hear when the same party controls the white house, house and senate as "the 11th hour" gets under way on a monday night. >>> good evening from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 557 of the trump administration, 99 days now until the mid term elections. and this might go down as the day we witnessed a change resulting in the new defense strategy. on the part of the trump team. it's about something rudolph giuliani has started to say, and tonight, mark at the "new york times" has put it this way. in the days after the 2016 presidential elec

trump attorney rudy giuliani says michael cohen is not credible and trump jr.'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 it is a step in the direction that mueller or the southern district of new yor

rudy giuliani says president trump never made that payment. no story about the alleged affair was ever published. the recording is less than two minutes long and cuts off before the conversation ends. >> did michael cohen betray you, mr. president? >> reporter: president trump ignoring reporters' questions. the revelations highlight tactics used by the president's lawyer to keep his personal life secret demonstrating the legal and political threat cohen may pose to the president. after cohen, who a year ago said he would take a bullet for mr. president trump, now says he puts family and country first. >> are you concerned michael cohen might flip? >> i did nothing wrong. you have to understand, this stuff would have come out a long time ago. i did nothing wrong. >> rudy giuliani's lawyer says the recording shows president trump did nothing wrong, but michael cohen's lawyer tells nbc news any attempt at spin cannot change what is on the tape. dara. >> peter alexander, thank you for that. everybody. let's bring in julie manchester, reporter for

—— rudy giuliani.'s lawyer released a statement saying there is an ongoing investigation, michael cohen is currently being investigated by the fbi, no charges have been brought against him, but he is being investigated for tax fraud. when the recording is heard, it will not hurt mr cohen, any attempt of spin cannot change what is on the tape. that leaves the question is, if it will not hurt mr cohen, at will it hurt somebody else? and secondly, what is on that tape? let's get some of the day's other news: the israeli army has launched a number of bombardments on what it describes as military targets across the gaza strip in responseto what it says was gunfire aimed at israeli troops. health officials in gaza say four palestinians have been killed in the latest violence. the new escalation of fighting comes as palestinians have been holding another friday of protests on the gaza side of the fence with israel. a man who became seriously ill after being exposed to the nerve agent, novichok, in the uk last

again, i got the -- this was my assessment of the interview, by the way very good interview with rudy giuliani. >> thank you. >> again, don't believe what you see and hear, this is the correct version, our version is the correct version. >> that's rudy's job. rudy is a very capable counsel. he has done well for the president on this story more often than not. and he's right to focus in on credibility. and he is exposed and vulnerable to his client's credibility. and the idea that the president has never lied about anything is demonstrably false. >> michael cohen has been lying all week, he says. >> he says he's been lying for years. he says that the tapes that they have -- remember, they have the tapes. privilege goes to the president, the attorney/client privilege. so they've been vetting everything that was seized from cohen. so rudy is hinting to having proof, because he might. >> okay. but he's been lying for years, he said? >> yes. >> what about the president saying they broke into my attorney's office, which they didn't, michael cohen will tell you they did not. he's a good man. so if he

the lying for years is what rudy giuliani now says about michael cohen. >> right. that's going to be a class -- that is a classic sort of defense strategy. whenever you have a cooperator, which he's not yet, but that's sort of the posture we're in who has damaging information about someone, the lawyers go after his credibility. and there is a couple of things. first of all, as you're sort of pointing out, donald trump is the one who picked michael cohen, right? he picked him as his lawyer and he picked him as his lawyer because he does underhanded things with and for donald trump is really sort of where this is going. and for him to now turn that around and say, well, he's lying about me, look, the government is going to be skeptical of michael cohen. if he cooperating with him, the government is not going to take it face value. that's not how it works. it is a process. and it is someone, especially like michael cohen who they know has been an underhanded lawyer who records clients and does things like that, that's exactly why he has valuable information. but they'

it was rudy giuliani six, seven weeks ago saying it would end in two weeks. clearly that's not happened and probably won't any time soon. that's something the president will contend with in the months ahead. >> it's true. look, i planned to have this conversation about whether or not the interview would or wouldn't happen, but it's really remarkable that michael cohen, who had said he would take a bullet for donald trump, who would do anything, allegedly paid off a porn star without trump knowing, to protect him is now going as far as he is going to taunt the president, and it's a really big change and a big moment in this whole drama. >> he would argue, of course, that he's responding to the taunts from rudy giuliani on behalf of the president. i mean, he would say why are they doing -- why are they doing this to me, the man who would have taken a bullet for the president of the united states? what have i ever done. >> exactly, but the taunting is happening. >> he knows what the feds see when they raided his office. he's in with both feet because he's well a

>> look, i can understand rudy giuliani being surprised and upset by this.t of fighting with shadows. and as a former fbi agent you can see how aggressive they may be on this. b but rudy had some good points. cohen has a credibility issue, and he does. don junior talked under oath about this the president talked about it. we haven't heard michael cohen talk about it. so no way for us to measure his credibility. and in terms of the phone call i would expect don junior and his dad are probably talking multiple times a day about lots of different things. so the first point is maybe cohen is telling the truth or maybe he's not telling the truth. but we are not in a position yet to be able to judge that. >> but here's how you would know, ross, if this part is true, that it was a meeting with more people than just don junior then candidate trump and cohen, now you've got something else for mueller to dig into. >> yeah. >> and my only suggestion was if cohen were to lie to mueller about this, then he finds out that i've got three other people, or how many other peo

rudy giuliani is on two cable news shows this morning. i know we see lanny davis almost every day this week. the goal, that's kind of anybody's now. i think the one thing that it exemplifies are truth and fact in this are kind of circumstantial. for rudy giuliani and kelly touched on this, he has said nice things about michael cohen. i think in may he was saying he was an honorable lawyer, this week saying he's been lying all his life. the president this morning tweeting something he tweeted back last year about donald trump, jr. now trying to throw shade and say why is michael colon changing his mind. it kind of reminds me of how when paul manafort was brought into the campaign initially people kind of talked about him as the experience being brought up to run the trump campaign. and then once he was in the white house began getting in trouble with mueller. became clear he was no longer helpful, in fact, hurting the trump brand. and that's when sean spicer came out saying well, he's not important and we don't have anything to do with him

rudy giuliani on the record in many interviews and the president in many tweets and elsewhere calling the mueller probe a witch hunt and successful at eroding public support. the concern the performance that president trump gave and was obviously widely panned gives the sort of view of many that there is something there, that there is a there there, more credence. and that gives the president -- special counsel maybe a bit more of a leg up. now, it all boils down to facts and the investigation and the nuts and bolts of what's in it and public opinion. the other thing that gloria and i learned is that this month's long negotiation between team mueller and team trump about a potential interview with the president robert mueller, it's nowhere right now. they have been negotiating, they have been talking about the parameters but the feeling up until at least today of the trump lawyers is that suddenly the mueller team doesn't feel a sense of urgency to get it done and the question is why? is he preparing a subpoena? are there other things that are coming? and they don't know the answer to

rudy giuliani continues to say these ridiculous things.t is a smear job that shouldn't work. >> jonathan, the senators who the president really wanted to see in his audience tonight at the white house were not there. they invited senators, invited all republican senators. suzanne collins, lisa murkowski did issued statements saying sorry, can't be there. they didn't say why they weren't there. but is that a sign of hope for people trying to block this? >> i think they're taking a wait and see attitude. they want to see whether something comes out. there are things that we don't know about brett kavanaugh. we don't know what he did in the bush administration when he had a lot of contact with president bush, what he recommended. way don't know what he did when on ken starr's staff. you know, i covered some of that at the time 20 years ago. and what i heard at the time don't have proof of this. is that brett kavanaugh was leaking. now unlike bob mueller, ken starr's staff routinely leaked details of that investigation. that's in violation of

and it is a far-reaching discussion with nbc news that rudy giuliani had. what is the rest, and is this a major change in the strategy for now? >> it certainly seems that way, richard. this is a shift to a more combative stance on the part of the president's team of lawyers who so far as we know have cooperated with the russia probe even as the president has attacked it. so president trump's attorney rudy giuliani, his outside attorney, as first reported by the new york times but also by kelly o'donnell is now laying down a marker. saying that special counsel robert mueller may need to meet certain conditions before the president would ever agree to an interview voluntarily relating to the russia investigation. so giuliani suggesting that mueller would have to demonstrate both that the president committed a crime and that his testimony is essential to the investigation. and here is the reason why. the president's legal team argues that all of the necessary information is contained in documents and testimony from witnesses that is already available to invest

did rudy giuliani really say that michael cohen should cooperate with prosecutors? seriously? th? trump and giuliani next to the word truth is an oxymoron. stay tuned. >> i'm shocked lawyers would sit there and say tell the truth. of course they are. rudy giuliani is confident he'll tell the truth. lahnee davis is not just a great lawyer, he's good at communication and media strategy, which is why we're talking about things today. >> exactly. he did his job. >> he's sending a tweet saying tell the truth. at the end, tell the truth, which is what everyone should do. >> i hope so. >> we can agree to that. i think there are plenty of people in the world of washington and lawyers again, it's good strategy. >> giuliani said he wants to see all the texts between the members of bob mueller's team. i'll bet a dinner that there will be bias like we saw where they're anti-trump personal views were extremely clear in text. is that fair or is that moving the goal post to ask for those texts? >> i think every time you go into public service at every level, local, state and federal, you have

i think that's something that is extremely perplexing to me and i'd also say that when rudy giuliani when i was a prosecutor, there were family members, other people -- very different than the president of the united states. it is not the same thing. >> quick break. >> rudy worked for ronald reagan. ronald reagan never called rudy saying go easy on this guy. he is close to me. that would be obstruction of justice if reagan did that just like it was when trump did that. >>> eight of the boys are out. what about the four remaining and the coach in the cave? tom foreman says why this might be the most dangerous mission yet. tom? >> if they can keep the water out, it looks like they can get the boys out but that is a ghug task. we'll take a look. [phone ringing] need a change of scenery? the kayak price forecast tool tells you whether to wait or book your flight now. so you can be confident you're getting the best price. giddyup! kayak. search one and done. if yor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough, it may be time for a change. ask

what do we know now from your latest conversations with rudy giuliani who now heads up the president's legal team? >> what rudy is saying is that mueller needs to come forward with evidence that the president committed a crime and that there is a reason that a counterintelligence investigation, an investigation of how russia meddled in the election, can now be one about obstruction. and if mueller can prove it to the president's lawyers, then they can move forward with an interview. the question really here is why is rudy saying this. negotiations have been going on for six months now between both sides. this is a new condition. and is this simply a stalling tactic to ensure that if mueller was going to write a report, it wouldn't be sent to congress until after the mid-terms. >> what's your sense of how bob mueller and his team are reacting to this extraordinary demand from rudy giuliani and his legal team, to have that information provided in advance of or as a condition of the interview? >> the question mueller will have now is whether to move forward with the subpoena, does he move