washington lawyers john dowd and ty cobb. at issue, growing tensions between these two men and white house counsel don mcgahn over how much to share with special counsel bob mueller. ty cobb complained to dowd at the steakhouse, quote, the white house counsel's office is being very conservative with this stuff. mr. cobb told mr. dowd. our view is we're not hiding anything. referring to mr. mcgahn, he added, he's got a couple documents locked in a safe. joining us now, one of the reporters who shared the byline on that story, ken vogel of "the new york times" who just happened to be lunching next to the president's lawyers. and here at the table with me, nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson, eli stokel and bill crystal, founder and editor of the weekly standard and john heilemann, national affairs analyst. ken, tell me first of all, just take me through this scoop, first of all, and how you proceeded. did you keep eating and shush whichever source you were wining and dining in a swanky steakhouse. >> i don't

there's ty cobb right there.ough this e-mail exchange, ty cobb asked the journalist are you on drugs and then criticized the press of being, quote, rabid about the entire story. the reporter joins me now. so natasha, walk us through what happened. you had already established ty cobb as a source and you were having a conversation about just trying to flush out this draft letter. and the investigation, and then what happened? >> right, so essentially what happened, i wrote an article about how don mcgone's role in this, essentially recommending trump not send this letter directly to fbi director james comey would potentially hurt donald trump if it came to the point where mcgann would be required to come before a federal grand jury and testify. the reason he decided to block trump from sending that letter. then the lawyer wrote ty cobb wrote me an e-mail saying he made interesting points, he said there was little or no push back to this letter and that trump actually wrote the letter right after lit ening to james

i want to put a couple key quotes from that conversation attributable to the white house lawyer ty cobbo the viewers have a better sense of what you overheard. you heard cobb saying, basically, the white house counsel's office is being very conservative with this stuff. our view is we're not hiding anything. he referenced white house lawyer don mcgahn, white house counsel, describing mcgahn spy and added mcgahn has a couple documents locked in a safe. so, for simplicity here, break down this competition. what do we have on each side. one cited supporting more cooperation and one with real reservations. how does this break? >> yeah, peter, they're substantive issues and then stylistic and personal issues. the substantive issues have to do with the ability of the white house and the office of the president to assert prif, presidential privilege, when it comes to revealing documents or revealing considerations. and in this debate, don mcgahn, the white house counsel, is urging more caution in turning over documents because he's concerned that turning over documents erroring on the side of

allergytry new xyzal®.ou have symptoms like these ti cobb, ty cobb,ti cobb, ty co, so be wise all takenew xyzal®. . >>> breaking news. we have a brand new forecast on a brand new storm just out from the national hurricane center. hurricane maria is what we're talking about now, and it's strengthening fast and taking aim at the very same islands that were just devastated by hurricane irma two weeks ago. cnn meteorologist chad myers joining me now. almost couldn't believe it when i knew that we needed to talk about this. folks on the islands are barely getting back on their feet. some of them not even close to getting back on their feet and what are they looking at? >> and the people that were in barbuda, they moved to antigua or other islands because their island was uninhabitable and now they're getting hit by the next storm in places that they evacuate to. here we go, 120 miles per hour, category 3 hurricane headed to the u.s. virgin islands from here. right over dominica today. this is the area that's going to get hit the hardest and right over puerto rico. category 3 likely even cat

ty cobb's logic seems good. >> yeah.s interesting because he's basically saying, i have no fear about what is going to come to this investigation. and just open up the books and let's get this done and push through it. that's a significant point for all of us to look at. he's saying let's be open with the mueller team. i think where it gets complicated is everybody's interests along the way. are they in it for trump or to protect themselves over the long run. >> arguably let's say this represents 100% of the information that needs to be looked at. if you are the fbi and assuming there's stuff on this page if you are the fbi, you're robert mueller, do you not have the ability to get everything on this page? aren't we going to get to ty cobb's point where everything robert mueller needs, he's going to get. >> if he senses he's not going to get it he's going to pursue another route. what's interesting is the different strategies about how much to fight this. and if you remember in the beginning, it was to fight everything.

ty cobb is easily recognizable but john dowd isn't. so i sent the photo to the new york times and said who is this guy who appears to be part of the legal team. >> and they said that's john dowd, the president's outside lead attorney. and i thought my goodness, i'm getting a glimpse of what's happening on the legal team in real time. >> by the way, congratulations, these guys like dowd, donald trump's also right, donald trump's always innocent, wonderful, blah, blah, blah, classic lawyer. the idea he didn't have to be bugged -- i want to get back to heidi. but what happened when trump heard his two lawyers were not bugged, nobody wiretapped them, he sat next to them and listened to them. he must say where have you been going to law school? what are you doing? what did he say when he found out about your reporting. >> we don't know about trump. we know that john kelly and don mcgahn were upset. they basically read them the riot act saying you can't talk about this information in the public context. the concern being not just tipping the

ty cobb on the right, but he is helping from inside the white house.cobb there on the right raising questions about the chief white house counsel, don mcgan and whether he was turning over enough documents to robert mueller. you see don on the left, robert mueller on the right. they have to be careful about turning over too much information to mueller because that could have an impact on the institution of the presidency of the executive branch long-term in terms of executive power, but what ty cobb and others are privately saying is they want to turn over as much e-mails and other documents to robert mueller as possible because they simply do not believe an obstruction of justice charge can be brought against this president, and so ty cobb and others in the president's legal team i'm told believe that the sooner they can get this information to robert mueller, paul manafort, general flynn, others may be facing legal jeopardy, but they simply don't think the president will face anything like that. so they want to turn over as much as possible, martha.

the special counsel, ty cobb, as well as mcgahn both represent the office of the president. the only one who really has attorney-client privilege is dowd. so he is the one that apparently is asking for more to be withheld, as is. >> mcgahn. >> ty cobb and mcgahn is the one who is withholding. so it's a very interesting set of conflicts there given who their client is. >> so i mean, that's interesting, john, and jeff, this is right, then. ty cobb represents the presidency. >> he works for the government. >> so president trump doesn't have the same kind of attorney-client privilege with him. >> that's right. actually, one of the unresolved questions is what kind of attorney-client privilege government lawyers have with their clients within the government. it's quite clear that john dowd, who is an oud lawyer, has an attorney-client privilege with donald trump, the human being. but how much can be protected in conversations within the government between don mcgahn and the president, between ty cobb and the president, among those lawyers who work for the government, that's a com

ty cobb saying put everything out there for scrutiny and don mcgahn thinking otherwise. >> what we're seeing here is the problem when you have too many lawyers in one room. and you have them from different time periods, with different roles. mcgahn has a host of different things to deal with inside the white house. on any given day. and when trump is your borss, yu have most than any other white house counsel. at the same time, people coming

all we know is there is a potential debate about that. >> as you explain in the piece, ty cobb is moref the school of thought let's just turn it all over and get this thing over with more quickly which is in contrast to what don mcgahn says. there's also a line in the piece, ken, where you hear talk of, of course, fears or tensions within the white house and so some people are worried that some people may be miked for bob mueller. why? >> yeah. i mean, well, if you think about it, brooke, you have a number of lawyers who are working ostensibly on the same side, that is, they're working for trump, trump's associates, the office of the president in as they handle this mueller probe. that said, they're competing imperatives here. it's not necessarily in jared kushner's interest for paul manafort to present information and vice versa. >> so you have people who serve different roles and there is suspicion about not just this issue of document production and who might be, we hear concern that there might be efforts to flip paul manafort, for instance or mike flynn and get them to talk about

that's why ty cobb was brought in in the first place.rs in the white house counsel's office, including don, both to handle the incredibly complex legal issues that arise in the daily process of governing, and set aside the russia investigation, and also to limit their entanglement in the russia investigation which, in the case of mcgahn, as you rightly point out, he is so sort of -- he is so exposed in this that he has his own lawyer who is representing him in this. the thinking being, it is better to have someone kind of independent, even if they're inside the white house counsel's office, handling there stuff. we learned, both from the conversation and from our reporting, is that there are a whole lot of tensions between this sort of ad hoc, you know, white house counsel inside the counsel's office ty cobb and the broader white house counsel's office, as well as the other lawyers representing other players who are part of or have attracted scrutiny in mueller's russia probe and the congressional russia probes. >> in case people forgot,

production and executive privilege and the degree to which they may be at odds and laying out the way that ty cobblt which is that mored document production would potentially help mueller shift the investigation or sort of guide mueller in his investigation away from trump because cobb feels there's nothing in these documents to hide we also were able to flesh out more from our subsequent reporting, which is that these. this document production should be done only after a very thorough review as to whether these documents should potentially be privileged. is that is something that mcgann, we understand feels cobb is not taking into account, and in so doing, he may potentially compromise the ability of the trump white house in this investigation, in future legal dealings, and maybe even future presidencies ability to assert privilege when a prosecutor is seeking documents. you hear what this conversation is about, and it's surprising. they were so oblivious. at one point talking about jared kushner. he's taking notes, sitting alone. he took their picture. they didn't notice. is this more than just

that's ty cobb on the right with the handle bar mustache. many of us engaged in some skeptical speculation that maybe these attorneys were mouthing off for ken vogel's consumption, having recognized him. it is a question, nicole wallace put to him during the 4:00 p.m. hour. watch this and comment afterwards. >> did you ever have the sense that they wanted to be heard? >> well, that last part first. i don't get the sense that they wanted to be heard. i've seen a little bit of speculation on that point on twitter and elsewhere. and, you know, typically with folks in trump's orbit, if there's a spectrum between, like, incredibly devious sort of manipulative puppet mastery and just clumsy incompetence, it's usually closer to the clumsy incompetence. i think that's what happened here, they were very indiscrete. >> so, that's part of his defense, that the people around trump are not button down, carolyn? >> right, absolutely. it reminds you of the mar-a-lago seen when they had a conversation about national security and geopolitical crises in the m

that's ty cobb on the right. the one with the handlebar mustache. many of us engaged in some skeptical speculation that maybe these attorneys were mouthing off for ken vogue yell's consumption, having recognized him. it is a question nicolle wallace put to ken during the 4:00 p.m. hour. we'll watch this and dment afterwards. >> did you ever have a sense that they wanted to be heard? >> well, that last part first, i don't get the sense that they wanted to be heard. i've seen a little bit of speculation on that point on twitter and elsewhere. and, you know, typically with folks in trump's orbit if there's a spectrum between like incredibly devious sort of manipulative puppet maisry and just clumsy incompetent it's always going to be closer to that clumsy incompetent. i think that's what happened here is they were just very indiscrete. >> so that's part of his defense that the people around trump are not buttoned down, carolyn. >> it reminds you of the mar-a-lago scene when they started having conversation about -- >> illuminated by cell phone flashlig

mouth in public isn't the biggest mistake made by trump lawyer and wilfred brimley tribute head, ty cobbbb's biggest blunder is that the steakhouse is "on the same block as 'the new york times' washington bureau." it's 171 steps away from the washington bureau of the "new york times." don't go to the same place that people eat who are out to get you. 3 that's like shaving in a shark tank while wearing a vest of pork chops. and this is huge. this is huge. we also just learned that the government wire tapped former trump campaign chairman paul manafort, before before and after the election. ( cheers and applause ) sure, sure, absolutely. you applaud until they wiretap you. ( laughter ) this means manafort was under federal investigation when he interviewed to become trump's campaign manager. "mr. manafort, what would you say is your biggest weakness?" "well, sometimes i think i work too hard. oh, and treason." now, we already-- manafort fans here tonight, evidently. we already knew the f.b.i. conducted a predawn raid of manafort's house back in july, but now we've learned that instead of k

this was ty cobb complaining about don mcgahn and how much don mcgahn, in his argument, does not wantention even that mcgahn might be, quote, hiding documents in a safe. >> yeah. he said documents in a safe where we weren't sure specifically what he was referring to there but it was in this broader context about document production. don mcgahn from all the folks who we discussed this with is of the mind-set that he has a duty to protect not just trump but the office of the presidency. so he feels that if he is green lighting document production that would potentially jeopardize trump's ability or the trump white house's ability to assert privilege, it's not just going to affect this case and the mueller investigation. it could potentially limit their ability to assert privilege in future cases, either if they come under investigation or there are other legal issues. not only that, poppy, but it could potentially influence or limit the ability of future presidents to assert privilege by setting a precedent that if a special counsel comes in and demands a bunch of documents from the pre

the report also revealed that ty cobb will have a trove of documents to the mueller team moving forwardhere is the suggestion from the reporting it sounds like there are documents in a safe somewhere that somebody is hiding from all thi this. >> that is the other interesting thing, which is what are these documents. what is it that don mcgann has in his possession if anything that he is does not want people to see and why does he not want people to see that? there is been some speculation that he could become a focus of the investigation. what role did he have and perhaps obstruction of justice. >> shepard: you are not allowed to keep documents in a safe in the middle of this. that is a long and short of it. >> right, right. look, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. i wonder where the president is at this. sources inside and say anything if it were made, and simple as a traffic report and my lawyers are talking about it in open form, the first thing, very first thing i would do is find the lawyers. you cannot do that. the president cannot be pleased. >> he can't be, especial

have required they would know that ken vogle was sitting there and disbelief by one of the lawyers, ty cobbwho was last heard responding to a dummied accounts by some e-mail impersonator, and ty engaged this guy over and over again. >> there is a pattern. >> i think what we have seen around president trump during the campaign, in his white house -- it is much less now, to be clear, by the way. things are stully more stable in that white house. how long that lasts we don't know. for the time being i think john kelly has had an impact. he creates chaos and then he responds to the chaos he creates and everybody around him ends up sort of in some kind of death grip with another side in their lane. you have this sort of battle -- i'm using that word loosely. mcgahn versus ty cobb, versus whoever, don mcgahn, white house counsel. it's the public nature of the fighting that has been surprising about this white house over and over again. i don't think that this was intended for public consumption, literally and figuratively. >> ty cobb is not to be confused as nigel, to quote spinal tap here. >> th

i think that was dowd that did the e-mailing and not ty cobb. of the things you've got here are three lawyers with different status. cobb and mcgahn both have the same status. their client is not donald trump. it's the office of the president. whereas dowd, his client is the president. he has a privilege. that's clear. it's not so clear that the others have a privilege. so i think if you're mueller what you do is you go after those other two and test that privilege if you want to see what's in that safe. just that simple. >> all right, gentlemen. thank you. i appreciate it. when we come back, no laughing matter. sean spicer yuks it up at the elm my, joking about lying from the white house podium. our newest contributor, mr. frank rooney ways in next. plus hurricane maria slams into the island of dominica and takes aim at puerto rico. we're going to go there live. being the incredibly busy man that i am, i've asked chase sapphire reserve cardmembers to scout the world to find my next vacation. elton, what are you up to? i'm having breakfast in uga

"the new york times" reporting that white house attorney ty cobb was overheard talking publicly about the probe and disputes within the legal team about how much to cooperate with special counsel robert mueller. cobb reportedly suggested that white house counsel don mcgahn was withholding documents that were locked in a safe. also saying colleagues may be wearing wires to record conversations for mueller. i'll get that and more from republican congressman will heard, a member of the intelligence and homeland security committees. our correspondents and specialists are standing by. let's go to our senior white house correspondent jeff zeleny outside trump tower in new york city. jeff, the president will be staying there tonight as he prepares for his major speech before the u.n. tomorrow. >> reporter: wolf, president trump has been here at home at trump tower working on that speech, i am told, throughout the afternoon. aides describe it as one of the most important speeches he will give. of course it is going to fill in some of the blanks on the trump doctrine on iran and most urgently,

there is a line in the story that ty cobb was not the first choice for this job. we know that the president's outside counsel also were not the first choices for those jobs, a lot of senior high-profile washington attorneys turned it down. we have seen mistake after mistake after mistake. ty cobb -- this is not the first indiscretion and e-mailing with internet trolls. >> in the middle of the night. >> the president's outside counsel also made very indelicate comments over e-mail. mistake of cobbs and other members of the team and bob mueller with an accomplished team of investigators in history it is a mismatch right now. >> seems mismatches to say the least. talk the me a little about -- you were on the justice department side of this but one of the concerns that mcgahn reportedly has here, he's the inside the white house counsel dealing with a lot of other issues in addition to this investigation, is this idea that the president needs to protect executive privilege and potentially ramifications of future presidencies. what underlies that concern? >> he is right

ty cobb is a part of the white house counsel.slightly different jurisdictions and different privileges they need to protect. they might have an agreement between them that they can discuss things in private. however, once you blab it on a sidewalk in front of the "new york times" and a third party hears it, it opens the door. there's that issue. they also disclosed information that's going on inside the white house, that there might be a document inside mcgahn's safe. if i'm mueller, i'm going to see that document. and i won't stop until i find it. >> you know what this speaks to, in all seriousness, is a lack of within the trump administration and from the president himself, taking the functioning of government seriously. you're saying he should call the lawyers in for a tongue lashing. really all of these people were hired by the president of the united states. he's the head of this organization. their arrogance and lack of believing that the legal rules apply to them completely mirrors the president of the united states. what

and i -- what i think is going to happen is more of what we saw today, which is trump lawyer ty cobb distancing himself and the president from manafort. mike pence having a statement distancing himself from this sort of activity, and i think what we're starting to see is mueller is moving into areas that are more politically explosive and it will be interesting to see if it's less likely that manafort could get a pardon. if i represented him, i'd think, my client may not get a pardon at this point. i'd start doing what i think i could do to help the government now that i know my client is going to be indicted. >> your paper was the first to report that mueller's prosecutors had told paul manafort that they planned to indict him. can you talk a little about the circle around the current state of that investigation which seems pretty advanced and where your reporting suggests the circle of investigation around mike flynn. i believe your paper also broke the story about michael flynn jr. now being a subject of the fbi investigation. can you talk about these two circles around these two

these new outside lawyers and inside lawyer, ty cobb, they've got their own agendas. it's complicated and it sets the table for a steak lunch. >> now the table is set, mama mika. go ahead and say grace. >> why did he have to jump? >> maybe -- i don't know. anyway, we apologize to don mcgann for that video. white house counsel don mcgann and ty cobb have reportedly argued. >> many requested e-mails and documents in hopes of ending the investigation. >> that's not going to happen. >> he has expressed worry about setting a precedent that would weaken the white house long after president trump's tenure is over. then this. cobb was overheard by a reporter of "the new york times" discussing the dispute during a lunchtime conversation at a popular washington steakhouse. cobb was heard talking about white house lawyer he deemed "a mcgahn spy, saying mcgahn had a couple of documents locked in a safe that he seemed to suggest he wanted access to. >> he's saying this. >> cobb, while having a cobb salad, mention aid colleague whom he blame for the record some of these earlier lea

john kelly, white house chief of staff, had a conversation with ty cobb is that he was airing white house laundry in public. i'm told the two will work through it. mcgahn worried about presidency down the road. cobb wants to get the investigation done as quickly as possible. by being totally transparent with mueller. they think they have a good relationship with mueller, they can expedite the end of this investigation. >> bill: a healthy debate. >> when you consider how much the president has to talk with russia in tough terms about north korea is affecting his ability. >> bill: see you tomorrow at the u.n. >> shannon: the escalating tensions with north korea expected to dominate the president's first u.n. general assembly address. yesterday the president took to twitter and mocked the regime's leader saying i spoke with president moon of south korea last night and asked him how rocket man is doing. long gas lines forming in north korea. too bad. this as u.s. ambassador nikki haley wants strong measures against north korea. greg palkot is live from seoul, south korea. >> a show of force o

ty cobb wants to be open and transparent and hand over the documents readily. of course has maybe a different tact. he is all for cooperation, but he is not just the president's lawyer. he is counsel for the white house. the executive branch. if he hands this over and does it set a dangerous or bat precedent for administrations? >> he reportedly said that the white house counsel who was not at this lunge yon had a couple of do you means locked in the safe. presumably they would like to have access to the documents. >> they worked with bob muller and that is the one part of the conversation we are focussed on and when you think of who is at the table, you have ty cobb. these are all lawyers trying to help him get through this. why is it that one lawyer has documents locked in a that he is not sharing with other lawyers on the team. i want to know what's in that safe and what they reveal and if they are relevant. >> great questions. we will see where he goes from here. thanks very much. as president trump considers killing the nuclear deal with iran, the country'

now, the special counsel for president trump ty cobb says this does not impact the white house' cooperation with the mueller investigation. the attorney for flynn and his son declined to comment. the young son tweeted and said the fake news media is done covering those pesky currency u hurricanes and back to russia, a nothing burger. anonymous former staffers of the security counsel told the "wall street journal" that flynn was promoting a private sector nuclear power in the middle east that had once involved russian companies. >>> one student is dead, three more are injured after a shooting in a high school in washington state t. stude the shooter is in custody. the student lost his life, but possibly saving others in the process. nbc news' joe friar has more. >> reporter: the school day was just getting started when the sound of gunshots filled the sky near freedom high in spokane. >> i heard somebody pop something. >> the thing going through my head is run, just go. >> reporter: students took cover as news spread across rockford washington. the sheriff says an armed student showed up at

ty cobb is at the point, we have to get all this stuff out there in off the table, because what is going on with the russian investigation? it's impeding that president's ability to deal with russia on the north korea issue. there's some really difficult points at the white house. >> neil: why are they going to this? speak i do not know why iran's, and we will hear from him. after he is slapped by the president. >> neil: but emmanuel macron... that is the extent of my french. his is much better. can we trust the united nations to deal with north korea and iran? general, to this point we do not have the russian leader or the chinese leader there. it might just be scheduling conflicts, but those are two big missing leaders. >> that is not unusual. vladimir putin went almost ten years, and the chinese leader is often on. this is not the place where the stuff gets done. let's be frank. we are involved in united nations dealing with north korea, and because we want the entire international community to line up against north korea. we did not get all the sanctions we wanted of the last u.n. re

john dowd represents the president in his personal capacity and ty cobb is white house counsel so they to those clients to be discussing this in the open where they can be overheard, really opens up a lot of issues including waiving potential privileges and based on what was reported it's now given mueller a new potential avenue of investigation. there may be a document in don mcgan's safe that he is now going to have questionses abo a and may want to see. >> ken cuccinelli, would you waive executive privilege? >> well, that's a broad question, and you can't just say on all things or nothing you take them one point at a time and don mcgan's obvious concern is if i waive it here or i waived it there and that's his role. he's white house counsel. i appreciate the fact that in the new york times article the comment these two lawyers made as it reflected on don mcgan showed a cautious white house counsel who is concerned about the precedence as they relate to the presidency. of course, the president is donald trump, but he's doing his institutional job well, that being don mcgann at least

that is not -- ty cobb makes it very clear he wants to know everything he possibly can within reason because he wants this investigation to go away. his theory is these documents will show the president didn't do anything wrong and therefore they should turn them over. >> and it's not too lofty that don mcgahn defends the institution of the presidency. >> right. >> we often ask you and about donald trump and distractions. you were talking about his twitter habit in your last answer. has u.n. week been distraction enough that we know he tweeted about the ratings of the emmy's, been distraction enough for donald trump and as i ask that it's occurring to me distractions cut both ways. are they actually going to try to get health care through under the banner of the republican party with this growing and enormous distraction of the mueller inquiry? >> well, i think the u.n. to start with has been a distraction in a positive sense. my understanding from talking to people is that the president's mood was pretty good going into the u.n. just to begin before he gave that speech and that he e

ty cobb is quoted in "the times" story.e is donald trump's lawyer, brooke, saying they will turn over many of the documents this week. we'll have more on this story throughout the evening. >> so let me just go back. so you highlighted that the events that we've all been covering, but it's 13 different areas where mueller's office wants documents. een you said, as critics have said, this is a fishing expedition. you're saying no. >> right. >> what does this tell you big picture about the scope of this investigation and just how aggressive mueller is being? >> right. one of the things that you often here discussing these investigations that it's a fishing expedition, that they're throwing lines in the water hoping to catch something. i think it's much bigger than that. it's like a fishing trawler expedition. they throw out many large nets that go back many, many years. they're looking into paul manafort, the former campaign chairman for donald trump, not specifically just what he was doing during the campaign -- >> 11 months

bloomberg politics reporter margaret tal spoke to trump's larry ty cobb who said, quote, it would be truly shocking if manafort tried to monetize his relationship with the president. and a manafort spokesman is quoted in tonight's journal story saying, it's unclear if paul manafort was the objective. perhaps the real objective was donald trump. tonight we also have a new bit of information from politico. it reports that mueller requested the phone records having to do with a flight on air force one. you may recall this, a flight to the u.s. coming home from that european summit. it was on that flight that a statement was crafted explaining why done junior had allowed this meeting of russians at trump tower. the statement was more of a cover story as we learned the truth later. politico also reports mueller is interested in more about the firing of fbi director comey, specifically a statement sean spicer made as the white house was reportedly gearing up to fire comey but before it happened. and here it is. >> yesterday the president tweeted that fbi director james comey gave hillary c

they called ty cobb in on friday and read him basically the riot act and said you can't be talking abouthis in an obviously public context, the concern here being not just potentially tipping their hand through the press to what their strategy is and tipping their hand to mueller, but also, a potentially violation of attorney/client privilege. >> i'm glad it was at the blt steakhouse for bad lawyers for trump. you know? i think that it's an incredible thing. but, you know, one thing that's in that story, that story by vogel and baker, is the fact that one of these complaints was that don mcgahn documents in a safe in the white house that he will not show to donald trump's lawyers and what i can tell you about that, lawrence, those documents in a safe cannot be documents that are good for donald trump. because if they were, his lawyers would have seen them. so, you know, this obviously was a horrible act of lawyering by the two people but really it begs the question of what is here and what's yet to come out and gives a road map for bob mueller for the documents to most want to see. >> cu

took a while to shook out to the point where today at least being led inside by ty cobb and outside by john dowd. that is not the case in june. there was a turmoil, the team sort of sidelined. no question that the previous legal team, the one basically sidelined, had the problem with jared kushner. he was talking to the president. their client. outside of the their presence on the issue of the investigation. they felt that undercut everybody and it was not the smart way to do business. that came to a head and i think a reason they're no longer the main part of the legal team. >> we have a statement from one of president trump's lawyers ty cobb apparently. the president's special counsel. he is not one of the lawyers that this article is actually talking about so he may not have the vaguest idea what he's talking about saying that "wall street journal" is completely false. jared kushner is one of the president's most trusted, able and intelligent advisers. kind of a meaningless statement that has only relevant line of completely false and, max, that's from someone not in the position to

you quoted ty cobb now as sort of essentially throwing manafort under the bus.t seems to be -- a tricky decision to make, if you are on the president's legal team and do that, because there has been an assumption, i want to be careful in assuming, but an assumption part of the play here by mueller is to squeeze manafort, that they have found a lot of irregularity involving where he reported money. maybe simply tax evasion. issues how he handled his -- his operations with wen it came to ukraine. that may have anything to do with the central collusion question but committed crimes. and they squeeze him. you would think the president's legal team wouldn't throw him under the bus unless they're really worried about him? >> and obviously denies committing crimes. unless they already concluded mueller has so much evidence, manafort, the ship sailed. he's going to cooperate and say what he knows. the question, what does he know? just paul manafort returning his own show inside the campaign with ties to senior russians or coordinating with donald trump and others? what

as ty cobb said earlier today, to the extent the special prosecutor is interested in these matters, wely transparent with his investigation. and frankly, i don't have anything to add beyond that. >> do you have a copy of the letter. >> again, we're going to work with the special prosecutor. as ty said and we'll work through that process. >> sarah -- >> hey, guys, one at a time. i'll come back to you after that. >> earlier this week, the president tweeted that talking is not the answer in regards to the north koreans. today, the south korean president's office says he and president moon agreed to reaffirm that north korea should be brought back for dialogue. so, which is it on that? >> i think i was clear on this yesterday. the president's looking for integrated process, and we're continuing to move forward on that. we take north korea extremely seriously and all options are on the table. that hasn't changed. >> follow-up to the nafta question. mexico has threatened to end the negotiations that are going on if the president initiates steps to pull out of nafta. would the president view

i also know that you had interaction with white house special council ty cobb earlier this month andthe chance to get your take on this yet. in this e-mail exchange you reported that he asked you "are you on drugs" in response to a question that you were asking. what happened there, and how did you make sense of that? >> so i had written an article, you know, basically analyzing the reports that don mcgahn, the white house special counsel, had blocked a letter that trump had written in may outlining his reasons for firing james comey. he had actually blocked it from being sent to james comey because he thought that it would be legally problematic. so the article that i wrote was kind of explaining that if don mcgahn was ever called to testify before a federal grand jury, then his testimony would be very instrumental in the obstruction of justice case that mueller is currently building, reportedly building against the president. ty cobb did not like this article and he wrote in a very lengthy statement, which was unusual for him, he usually gives very clipped statements to the media.

as ty cobb said earlier today, to the extent the special prosecutor is interested in these matters we will be fully transparent with his investigation. frankly i don't have anything to add beyond that. >> can we get a copy of the letter? >> we'll work with the special prosecutor as ty said, and we'll work through the process. noaa -- one at a time. i will come back to you. >> earlier this week the president tweeted that talking is not the answer in regards to the north koreans. today the south korean president's office says he and president moon agreed to reaffirm that north key should be brought back for dialogue. so which is it on that? >> i think i was clear on this yesterday. the president is looking for integrated process and we're continuing to move forward on that. we take north korea extremely seriously and all options are on the table. that hasn't changed. noah. >> to a nafta question. mexico has threatened to end the negotiations that are going on if the president initiates steps to pull out of nafta. would the president view that as a positive outcome, and is there any conc

i'll refer you back to ty cobb's statement that i ready earlier. nothing more to add to that. >> can i drill down what is driving the daca decision? is the president reviewing the merits of the daca policy or is he reviewing the legality and the validity of the process? in other words, if congress were to move to protect daca, would he be in support of that? is there interest there? >> again, i hate to sound like a broken record, but since you guys are, i have no choice to be. we're continuing to work through this process. i'm not going to go further than that. the president made a lot of statements on this. he's going through all of the details of this very thoroughly and once a final decision is made and the details are ironed out, we'll let you know tuesday. as we're wrapping up here, a reminder if you have suggestions for the president to contribute to, that would be great if you could get those to us by the end of the day. we own courage everybody to participate in the national day of prayer and hope you have a good labor day. thanks so much.

there and he overhears a conversation between two lawyers for the president, one is dodd and one is ty cobband they're talking about whether to release documents or not. it seems to me like this is heated up right now based on your reporting and vogels. this is right at the heart of the president. in watergate should there be a limited hangout or stone wall. these are phrases i was brought up with. your thoughts. >> there is tension in the white house among the lawyers on how to deal with the requests from mueller. should they hand over as many documents as possible? that's sort of cobb's point of view. the idea is get as much of this to mueller as possible because we've got nothing to hide, we shouldn't put executive privilege on them. the white house counsel is more conservative on that point and concerned about the precedent of waiving executive privilege and handing this stuff over to the white house. but there's issue between cobb and mcgann about how mcgann is going to be handled by the special prosecutor. mcgann needs for cobb and the president to make a decision about whether the pr

the president's special counsel, ty cobb, tells nbc news this does not impact the white house to any extent with regard to its cooperation with the special counsel. >> kristen welker at the white house, thanks. >>> president trump is reaching across the aisle inviting congressional democratic leaders to join him for dinner at the white house this evening. they'll have a lot on their plates from taxes to healthcare, but not getting a spot at the table, top republican leaders. let's get more from chief white house correspondent hallie jackson. >> reporter: president trump working to woo democrats with an open door and open arms. >> i will tell you, i'm not skeptical. and i think that if we can do things in a bipartisan manner, that will be great. >> reporter: the president also hosting democratic leaders nancy pelosi and chuck schumer for dinner. on the menu? tax reform, protecting so-called dreamers and healthcare. notably not in the room? the republican senate majority leader and speaker of the house. why not also inslight mitch mcconnell and paul ryan? >> look, you've got the leader

and i'll refer you back to ty cobb's statement that i read earlier. there's nothing more to add on that. >> sarah, can i drill down what is driving the daca review and final decision? is the president reviewing the merits of the daca policy or is he -- legality of the process. if congress were to protect the daca would he sign on to such an effort? there seems to be interest there. what he's reviewing? >> again, i hate to sound like a broken record but since you are and i guess i have no choice to be, but we're continuing to work through this process and i won't go further than that. the president's made a lot of statements on this. and he's going through all of the details of this very thoroughly and once the final decision is made and those details are ironed out we'll let you know on tuesday. just as we're wrapping up here, a reminder, if you have suggestions for the president to contribute that, that would be great if you can get those to us by the end of the day and we encourage everyone to participate in the national day of prayer. thank you so