we had that back and forth with rudy guilliani, no-go, and now he has teased that the deal is nearing the written questions submitted by the president. when it comes to the timing of this, do you see the clock ticking when it comes to the probe ending by the mid terms here? >> i don't know what mayor guilliani's television schedule or interview schedule is for today, so we might -- this may all be moot by the time the sun rises this morning. but i don't think that there's anyway this ends by the mid terms. i don't think there's any conceivable notion of that, partly because at this point in time we're nearing the point in the clock where the justice department guidelines would probably direct them to do nothing in terms of making an announcement of charges one way or the other. so i think we're definitely going past the mid terms. the other thing is there's already trials going on and there's plea bargains being reached. you know, some of those are probably not going to be resolved before the mid terms and who knows what someone might come out and say as part of those proceedings that

i don't know how much of this they actually take as real, but rudy guilliani says he's hanging his head in shame because the justice department has found crimes and decided to prosecute those crimes. let's listen to this. >> my head hangs in shame for the department that i gave 16 years of my life to, the department of justice as the third ranking official in the department of justice when i could proudly say it was a department of justice. the only thing that could be done now is as relentless an investigation of all of these people as they did to president trump. >> jill, your reaction to that? >> my reaction is that we have seen a march to the truth. we have seen cases build upon cases, and each person who has pled guilty has been from the trump team and has said, i committed crimes. one of them said in court under oath that he committed a crime at the direction of the president himself. you can't get any better than that. and the fact that all of these people have pled guilty shows how carefully mueller has proceeded and how he has developed the evidence. all you have to do is read

remember the predictions of rudy guilliani was insisting it be done by labor day.e's continuing to negotiate the parameters of his question with mueller and his team. the fact he is allowing him to use written answers because it is difficult to test the credibility of somebody when you have a written answer, but it does not say they won't be able to ask follow-up questions in person. they will have before them not just a script but the hard-and-fast statement of the president of the united states that they can test against. as you know, he is somebody who may be prone to falsehoods and lies, now you have a direct comparison point. it may actually inure to the benefit of mueller to say, fine, write down what you will say, we will test it verbally in person. >> so all of this is happening, jack, while we are learning more about what is happening behind the scenes thanks to bob woodward's new book. in it woodward reports, as he said, the president's then attorney, john dowd, held a mock interview with president trump to convince him not to testify in the russia invest

and even though rudy guilliani argues that this isn't something trump would have known about individuallypersonally, this is just a contribution to the inaugural committee that samuel patton is accused of or convicted of funneling money into the inaugural campaign. these are just more pieces of the puzzle , of the russia puzze that build a bigger picture about the circle of people involved. >> let's switch gears and talk about the story louis mentioned, part of the strategy of the president's legal defense team. guilliani saying to the new yorker they may try to suppress the findings of the mueller probe, try to exert some kind of executive privilege so it doesn't get published, doesn't get released. how likely is that to happen? is there a legal ground for something like that to happen? whose discretion will it be to ultimately say, you know what, overruled, it is getting released? >> mueller's required to submit his report to rosenstein. rosenstein apps you can imagine has that boss and that boss, of course, is president trump. so theoretically could the trump administration completely

now, it is true that rudy guilliani and sarah sanders have said they don't deal directly with donaldcidence all of these people turn out to be criminals. >> everybody stick around. there's more breaking news we are following. we are going live to the area where florence made landfall as we continue our coverage of the rain, the rescues, the damage and the flooding. much more right after this. and we may not know much about medicine, but we know a lot about drama. we also know that you can avoid drama by getting an annual check-up. so go, know, and take control of your health. it could save your life. cigna. together, all the way. >>> breaking tonight, florence is taking a heavier toll on the carolinas with at least five people now confirmed dead. the storm continues to pummel is cost. cnn's martin savidge is on wrightsville beach, north carolina. what is the situation there, martin? >> reporter: you know, basically, wolf, we have been in these kind of storm conditions now for well over 24 hours. even now 11 hours after the hurricane made landfall right in this area, it is not only th

his lawyer, rudy guilliani, issued a similar sounding statement. quote, once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with president trump or the trump campaign. the reason, the president did nothing wrong. for more on all of this i'm joined by ken delaney and at the federal courthouse where he has been all day, along with our new nbc legal analyst, glen kirshner in washington, d.c. is it accurate, what both sanders and guilliani are saying, this has nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with his campaign? do we even know what he has to offer robert mueller? >> we don't know, chris, but it is not accurate to say it has nothing to do with the president. the president is the subject of robert mueller's investigation into whether the trump campaign coordinated, conspired with the russian election interference. today it could be the most moment us day yet in the course of that investigation. it began when paul manafort walked into a courtroom in that courthouse behind me and uttered the words "i plead guilty."

the past, particularly after the firing of james comey, trump wanted to pick a loyalist like rudy guillianis forced to pick out wray. he wouldn't be able to replace him with the kind of person that offers him the protection he wants. >> rachel, this is not the first time it has been reported senior administration officials were thinking about the 25th amendment to the constitution to remove the president. omarosa suggested that there was discussion of that. a senior, unnamed official writing in "the new york times", that anonymous piece, suggested the same thing. it is not the first time we've heard of secret recordings of the president either. >> yeah. no, definitely not. the op-ed a few weeks ago totally turned washington upside down when people were talking about, yes, top officials saying the 25th amendment was something they talked about regularly. the difference here is we know who was talking about this. rod rosenstein specifically. he also not only talked about this but apparently suggested that maybe jeff sessions, the attorney general, would be on board. john kelly, who is now chi

you look at rudy guilliani's teat the same time after this happened yesterday. and you wonder what is going through his head and the president's head. what was the pardon dangled that we have heard about over the last months? >> paul manafort is not behaving like somebody who believes he will get a pardon from the president. he is behaving like he has the final years of his life, whether they're free or in jail, on the line, and somebody who may be concerned that a pardon by the president could be part of an obstruction of justice conspiracy. this is basically someone who folded in the final -- and glenn spoke to this. this is somebody who basically admitted to everything that robert mueller charged him with. he's not waiting for a pardon. he has changed his stance. the president has changed his stance towards manafort. he is no longer beating his chest about what a great guy manafort is. it turns out when you surround yourself with criminals as the president has, you know, you've got -- you've got a lot of exposure and the president is going to have to hope tha