and with me here at the table, sam nunberg and mimi roka. and now a legal analyst, mimi and sam, kicking it off with you. i have a question that i asked you earlier in the day, he is in cooperation with the southern district, how did the southern district's client do today in front of congress? >> i think he came across as very credible. these are the things that prosecutors look for. should we trust a witness, can we trust a witness. first he didn't go too far, and i look at something they said in his sentencing. they said exactly that about him. they say he tells us when he knows something and he doesn't try to implicate them in something he can't. if he were out to get trump to damage him by any means, if he were to make up stories about him, he would have said yeah, trump told me to lie to congress, but that is not what he said. he explained it as it happened. i knew that is what he needed know do. he did it the way he always communicates it. that's how people talk, they don't go give explicit instructions. i think we're over looking what

and former trump campaign adviser, sam nunberg. we've got a lot of folks and a lot of news. we'll tripe to get to all of it. kelly, first to you. with news that the special counsel's office is wrapping things up, it has now been reported widely by multiple news outlets, what is the white house doing in preparation for it? >> well, we can imagine a couple of things. that when you talk about the president's outside legal counsel, so not directly the white house, they have long said that they are preparing a counter report to argue the evidence as they see it, to be able to respond. that kind of thing. to be ready with their own sort of counterpunch. within the white house, there is, of course, a department within the white house council's office tasked with dealing with all matters that involve the office of the special counsel and the congressional investigations. so they would likely be preparing any necessary statements that relate to things that come out of this report. and then in terms of the press shop, there is, at this point, from talking to advisers here, no specific

on the other side, sam nunberg is here. he knows michael cohen and donald trump. he'll let us know ho thinks is lying. donald trump he'll let us know ho thinks is lying. webut some of us turn outhose dreams...... into action... the bookers. the doers. the 'hit that confirmation button and let's go!'- ers! because bookers know that the perfect place to stay... is right there for the booking. be a booker at booking.com the world's #1 choice for booking accommodations. but how do i know if i'm i'm getting a good deal? i tell truecar my zip and which car i want and truecar shows the range of prices people in my area actually paid for the same car so i know if i'm getting a great price. this is how car buying was always meant to be. this is truecar. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. >>> welcome back. i'm stephanie rhule. we are just a few minutes away from the start of michael cohen's public testimony be

joining me to discuss this, sam nunberg, former trump campaign adviser, and paul butler, former federalmsnbc legal analyst. let me go to you first, sam. in the middle of all of this, we don't know what he's going to testify to, manafort sentencing put off, roger stone may be silenced. will the president deal with any of this on tuesday at the state of the union? and what do you think is going through his head and around the circle advising him what all these legal clouds that are over him? >> the second part is a complicate part of what's going on in his head, but in terms of addressing this in the state of the union, i doubt it because he hasn't addressed it previously and he hasn't been nuanced on this investigation investigation at all. he just calls it a witch hunt which i think will do a d disservice to him when the facts come out. i don't think they will lead directly to the president but they're not going to be helpful, they're going to be problematic. these developments, if he looks at them honestly and they're not good, robert mueller systematically taken out or put people in j

passage in josh green's book on the rise of trump and steve bannon, quoting former campaign official sam nunberge origins of the wall, the whole idea of the wall. in reading from the book, quote, roger stone and i came up with the idea of the wall, and he we talked to steve bannon about it, according to nunberg. it was to make sure he, meaning donald trump talked about immigration meaning he talked about it during speeches. that he would remember to talk about immigration. so they came up with the idea of the wall. nothing more than a memory aid, according to him. now it's a national emergency, or will be tomorrow when the president signs the budget bill that's making its way through congress tonight right now. cnn's jim acosta joins us from the white house. what you hearing from your sources tonight, jim, on all this? >> anderson, this is shaping up to be a campaign promise emergency for the president, and i think we're going see some of this play out tomorrow. i talked to a white house official earlier this evening who said that the plan is now set for the president to either declare a nationa

bishop, sam nunberg i mentioned, here's what he's expecting from the mueller report.that the special counsel is not going to release something that shows a road map for the house to investigate a conspiracy to answer it as a political question. >> impeachment you mean? >> correct for articles of impeachment. >> what's your take? >> what i think is we have again as i said we have some highly trained professional law enforcement officials that are going to go through and they're going to look to see what criminal activity has taken place. i don't think you're going to have anyone who's looking to fully paint this as any type of political issue. what they're looking to do is see who actually violated law and to ensure that those individuals are held accountable. this is a nonpartisan issue. we should have democrats and republicans that are looking to protect this investigation and looking to see who actually violated law. >>, you know, there's another theory out there which is that mueller has been writing his report in plain sight this entire time. if that's the case, h