Who really was excellent to these three incredible people. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. I dont know anything about it. Thats what the president of the United States told his attorneys tuesday night, after news broke that his longtime lawyer, fixer and bag man, Michael Cohen, has received millions of dollars in corporate payments, according to Rudy Giuliani in an interview with time magazine. Those payments flowed through the same Shell Company that cohen had used to pay off the president s alleged mistress before the election. Asked if the president directed cohen to take all that money, giuliani told time, i have no idea. I doubt t he joins much of trump world in trying to minimize revelations about cohens side hustle, denying that the president played any role whatsoever. Of course, the president also said on camera, as youll recall, that he didnt know anything about the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels. Did you know about the 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels . No. Then why did Michael Cohen make that if there was no truth to the allegations . Youll have to ask Michael Cohen. He is my attorney. Youll have to ask michael. Do you know where he got the money to make that payment . No, i dont know. That claim, we now know, is false. The president did know about the Stormy Daniels payment but still hasnt come clean about when he found out about it. Rudy giuliani has been saying things that we believe are not true. He resigned from his law firm over tensions over his recent statements. We keep getting new information as recently as a few hours, the most charitable interpretation he was engaging in standard washington influence peddling, profiting off his ties to people in power. And companies that hired him like at t and novartis pony up for access, something that his boss railed against his candidate. I know the game. I understand it. So many people have come up, lobbyists. I said i dont want money from lobbyists. The system we have is broken. A guy like bush, all these people are controlled by peemt who give them the money. It is time to drain the swamp in washington, d. C. Thats the best Case Scenario of what cohen has been up to. Here is the thing. There are numerous reasons to believe that scenario may not be the truth. For starters, lets start with this. Prior to taking money from corporate clients, cohens llc of central consultants was being used to pay hush money to the president s mistress and unexplainably to a former playboy playmate who said she got pregnant after an affair with a top gop donor. Doesnt even have a website. Then theres Columbus Nova, linked to the Russian Oligarch that reportedly paid 1 million. The company now denied he had anything to do with hiring cohen. Columbus nova has scrubbed its website in order to distance itself and novartis, the pharmaceutical firm, that raises a number of questions. The company says it paid him 100,000 a month for a year, even after realizing he couldnt deliver what they had offered, they apparently took one meeting. Novartis formal payments to outside lobbying firms averaged under 12,000 a month, less than a eighth of what it paid cohen to do zero work. The total of 1. 2 million novartis is paying cohen exceeds any single lobbying contract in all of washington last night, according to analysis by politico. If you want analysis that his socalled consulting work might not have been on the up and up, a magistrate judge and upper levels of the department of justice signed off on a warrant to raid cohens office and residences. Joined by two journalists hot on the trail of this story. Rosalyn, let me start with you. You have a new scoop about the at t contract. What did you learn about what at t paid Michael Cohen for . Thats right. We obtained internal Company Documents that laid out the scope of work that Michael Cohen was supposed to undertake for 50 a month or 600,000 for the year 2017. And it turns out it was the issues that were most pressing for at t in front of the federal government. Specifically focus on u. S. Tax reform, major Trump Campaign issue and the time warner merger. This had been announced by at t in october just before the election, and donald trump had come out on the campaign trail and said that he was opposed to it. That was a major problem for at t. Lo and behold, its right there in the document we obtained that the time warner merger was something that Michael Cohen was supposed to focus on in this deal. David, youve been tracking the Columbus Nova part of this. Yes. What did you learn about them and their protestations that they dont have much to do with victor vexelberg at all . Trying to distance themselves from victor vexelberg and that payment to Michael Cohen. Myself and one of my colleagues at mother jones did a deep dive into s. E. C. Filings. Boy, these things are hard to figure out. We did see that victor vexelberg was intimately involved with many aspects of Columbus Nova. Hes not only the cousin of the man who runs Columbus Nova, they each have Shell Companies in these opaque deals that work together. Even if the Columbus Nova statement is true, that vexelberg does not own the company, it is a very much a part of his gigantic trancenational business empire. Thats key here. The question is, what are they paying cohen for, and how can he be getting anything from a Company Connected to an oligarch . Particularly at that point in time. Ros a. Lyn, if im not mistaken, youre reporting that Columbus Nova, intrater and vekselberg were seen together, is that right . Yes. Never before attended an inauguration came to washington for Donald Trumps inauguration and we understand there was a moment when cohen, intrater and vekselberg were together in a group at the inauguration. David youve been reporting on washington, money in politics in washington for decades. You and i have worked together. Yes. You know how washington works well. So i want to ask you what you make of an argument that maybe this was a little crasser than what usually happens but this is just how the game works. Its a lot crasser. Weve seen trump people form companies, Consulting Companies and try to cash in and really just be as swampy as you can get. Michael cohen is now the biggest swamp monster we have. And the question also is whether he was delivering any Real Services for the money he got. There are questions where hes bribing them, there may be questions raised about fraud and one company is saying we paid him for a year and didnt have him do anything. This is the type of thing that if you had a congress that was doing its job would start oversight hearings immediately t may not be criminal but it certainly is wrong. Novartis has gotten out ahead of this to say we sign this had contract. He had nothing to offer. So we just stuck in the contract and never used him. What does at t say about what work product the man produced for 600,000 . They say he provided insights into the Trump Administration. I should note that the ceo of novartis sent an email to its employees, apologizing for this contract, saying it was poorly handled by the company. Weve not seen anything like that from at t. Am i right they havent produced anything more specific than that statement, that he was providing insights . Thats right. When we came to them with the documents we have received that kind of laid out specifically exactly what he was hired to help with, they declined to comment about that. Thats also true with Columbus Nova. We dont have a clear idea what he was hired to do for them. It seems like a Pretty Simple question that everyone should be able to answer. Working at a large corporation, people arent signing off on 1. 2 million, 600,000 contracts willy nnilly and not getting anything in return willy nilly. There are contracts somewhere about what this guy did or did not do. Thank you for joining me. Thank you. For the legal jeopardy that Michael Cohen faces, im joined by former federal prosecutor and a former white House Counsel and executive director of the nonprofit group. His testimony before the grand jury, this is what he had to say about muellers team focusing on Michael Cohen. During the voluntary interview, as they go through all these issues and then your history they wanted to know my history, my interactions with michael. Obviously trump tower moscow, which i had nothing to do with. I never met felix sauder. Anything about Michael Cohen and payments . And payments to whom . Anybody. Sure. Like i told you, they asked about what his role was going to be. They asked if i had any knowledge about payments, which i didnt. Got it. Certainly, its an area of interest for them. Whats the significance there, barbara . It does sound like Robert Muellers team was aware of this information long before the public was, which is probably not surprising, in asking about areas. A lot of times when youre trying to corroborate information that you have, you might ask a witness about his awareness of things. They may end up knowing nothing about it and may be able to tell you a lot about it. Its not unusual to learn information from one witness or set of documents and ask other witnesses to answer those questions. It seems, based on the reporting, that Robert Muellers team has interviewed these corporations, stopped Victor Vekselberg at the airport, interviewed him there. They have subpoena power to get their arms around all of these documents, to see these payments. And so no doubt theyre trying to make sense of them by asking witnesses like sam nunberg, questions. Are you buying they knew what they were getting into here. Michael cohen doesnt have any expertise on health policy. What he offers is access to the president. This is whats so dangerous about whats happening here. Weve seen things like runofthemill corruption in washington before. A great piece in the transition called vena corruption, lining their own pocket business selling access. Something that looks a little more like systemic corruption where the president is publicly saying he will potentially intervene in regulatory matters that doj is undertaking or other agencies are undertaking, sending signals he might change the regulatory landscape for Companies Like amazon, that he doesnt like, cost them a fortune. When youre a ceo and see that the president can knock 55 billion off amazons capital in a single tweet, your thought is i have to pay someone to keep them off my back. Great point. When that happens you have a situation that looks more like how Vladimir Putin runs russia, autocratic capture. You need to pay the autocrat in order to stay safe and when that happens, democracy itself is in danger. Barbara, what did you want to say . I wanted to chime in on whether these payments are genuine. Look at the bre breadth of the expertise he was paid for. It seems amazing they would have the expertise to be able to consult with all of these companies and so there is at least some suspicion, i think, likely among the prosecutors, that this is pretextual and instead it was access and influence that he had to sell and not expertise. Extend that metaphor a second. In other place this is is a common model. I said this with the tariff decision. Its when you say blank a tariff and oneoff deals to get lifted so companies can say i can come to you and give you this, give you this. That works in a place like aegypt. Barriers to start a new business but if you pay off the right people. In those places the money flows ultimately to the autocrat. And to the industry titans. Being a successful business person and being a supporter of the regime become one in the same. And the danger is that when Elections Come around, the powerful industry titans keep the regime in power because they know where their bread is buttered and are getting an advantage over others and want to keep that advantage. We should note here, doj is still attempting to block the at t merger, right . I want to be very clear of that. Its a progressive position. Lot of antitrust people on the left think its the right thing to do. They havent been flipped by the 600,000 in Michael Cohens pocket. This is the problem. You can have a good public debate on whether it is a good antitrust. Whats the motivation . Is it some corrupt motivation coming from the president . Barbara, what did you mean by pretext tural . That the payments are not for his expertise perhaps but for access and influence. In municipal governments weve had it here many years ago in the city of detroit with the former mayor. Had you to pay to play. If you wanted to do business with the city, you had to pay consultants and experts and others, contractors a fee that was ultimately shared with the mayor for him to make decisions in awarding contracts. That was on a microlevel, something perhaps were seeing at a larger level. Ultimately shared with the mayor. Keep that in mind when you think about what is emerging here. Great to have you both. Next, Vice President pence channeling his inner richard nixon, telling Robert Mueller time to to wrap it up. But im not standing still. And with godaddy, ive made my ideas real. I made my own way, now its time to make yours. Everything is working, just like it should mr. Elliot, whats your wiwifi . Ssword . Wifis ordinary. Basic. Do i look basic . Nope which is why i have xfinity xfi. Its super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey lets basement. And thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. So sophie, i have an xfi password, and its daditude. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity. The future of awesome. As you know, i have provided to the prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material. I believe that i have provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of watergate is enough. During the 1974 state of the union address, more than a year into the watergate investigation, president nixon said enough is enough. Eight months later, nixon became the only u. S. President to resign from office. Today marks exactly oneyear appointment of Robert Mueller as special prosecutor. As we found out from andrea mitchell, Vice President pence shares the same internal clock as nixon. Its been about a year since this investigation began, our administration has provided over a million documents, fully cooperated in it. In the interest of the country i think its time to wrap it up. The Vice President sntd the only one interested in ending muellers probe prematurely. Wait till you hear what devin nunes is up to today. Editor in chief at the law fair blog and Betsy Woodruff political reporter with the daily beast. Let me start with you, dan. He subpoenaed the department of justice for information on a person that the Department Said if it was revealed would essentially reveal sources and methods and nunes said no, no, no, i was never interested in any individual. And then the Washington Post got its hands on the document. Its very clear nunes was looking for an individual. Today he went over and met with the doj. Whats going on here . Well, i mean, i guess the latest is that it does seem that maybe he is backing down. Although, its always premature to say that about devin nunes. Look, this is an extremely upsetting situation. Every time you think that there is youve reached the low with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, you know, he finds a way to knock at you from below that. And, you know, going after information about an intelligence source is a violation of the most sacred trust that the intelligence oversight system has with the intelligence agencies. You know, if the government cannot protect this material, there is simply no reason why anyone would cooperate with the cia, why anyone who would volunteer to help the fbi when doing so might endanger their life or safety. These are agencies that, you know, have to protect sources and part of the function of the House Intelligence Committee is to do oversight in a fashion thats consistent with that. And so what devin nunes is doing here is really similar to what those of us who were, you know, upset about, for example, edward snowden, were concerned that he was doing, right . Only this is somebody who has sworn an oath to the constitution of the United States, to participate in oversight in a fashion that protects that material. Betsy, its interesting to me that in this dispute, escalating dispute between devin nunes and appears to have, as ben says, climb down, he got devin nunes back on this. I think thats surprising to a lot of people. Take a listen to what he has to say. This request is wholly appropriate, completely within the scope of the investigation thats been ongoing for a while with respect to fisa. I actually think that this is something that probably should have been answered a while ago. I have spoken with chairman gowdy, nunes, the Deputy Attorney general on this i expect that we will be able to have an accommodation to honor this request. Surprised by that . You know, its interesting because it indicates there was a lot of Political Support on the right behind devin nunes who, himself, seems to be close to the white house and the fact that hes pushing forward with this, with the help of paul ryan, is telling. If paul ryan has to choose between standing with the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and standing with the Justice Department, he is going to stand with the former. What nunes is looking at is the question of the wiretap of carter page. Its been well established as very much within the legal bounds. Theres been all sorts of hand wringing and hair pulling over on capitol hill about this. This is what the entire releasethememo kerfuffle was about that your show covered. What we know about the government indicates was wrong doing, have not found good evidence there was wrongdoing with the carter page wiretap. We should all be skeptical about these things. Its good to answer questions but nunes is like no, it look like this one was okay. At the same time hes using this as an excuse to go after officials at the Justice Department and take on President Trumps biggest political enemies and thats something thats quite significant. Ben, some think its an escalating ladder of asks until he gets a hard no that gives a cause to go after rosenstein. What do you think of that . Thats clearly part of whats going on here, that theres a you know, an effort to push and push and push until the Justice Department cannot say yes, cannot accommodate and then use that as a pretext or as a spark for a confrontation. You know, the problem with that is that, you know, there is a Justice Department to run. Right. And there is you know, this isnt the way these interactions are supposed to work. And it does, on a daytoday basis, it sends a message to those people who would cooperate with Law Enforcement that the Justice Department cannot and will not protect you. And, you know, it also sends a message to the men and women of the Justice Department that the Justice Department cannot protect you either. And that message is being sent every day and it is incredibly corosive. Benjamin and betsy, thank you for making the time. Appreciate it. How shelden addleson cut a 30 million check to save House Republicans and protect donald trump. From the very beginning. It was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. To do whatever it takes, use every possible resource. To fight cancer. And never lose sight of the patients were fighting for. Our Cancer Treatment specialists share the same vision. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Specialists focused on treating cancer. Using advanced technologies. And more precise treatments than before. Working as hard as we can doing all that we can for everyone who walks through our doors. This is Cancer Treatment centers of america. And these are the specialists were proud to call our own. Treating cancer isnt one thing we do. Its the only thing we do. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com Cancer Treatment centers of america. Appointments available now. Are you having a great year, viewer . I dont know if you are. Do you know who is having a great year, thanks to trump and the Republican Party . Sheldon addelson. Not only did his Company Notch a Fourth Quarter windfall of 670 million as a result to the massive republican tax cut he also won big in his Foreign Policy, using the embassy to jerusalem, also a big addelson priority. A 30 million check made out to gop aligned super pac with one hilarious caveat. As a federally elected official, ryan not permitted to solicit sevenfigure political donations. When ryan left the room, norm coleman made the ask and secured the 30 million contribution. Want to bring in firmer u. S. Assistant attorney myra wiley. Lonnie, im going to start with you on Donald Trumps view on how shoelden adelsons giving works for the candidate you worked for, marco rubio. I like sheldon a lot. He has been a person ive known over the years. We have a very good relationship. Im self funding. I dont want anybodys money. If sheldon donates to him, he will have total control over rubio. Thats the way the system works. Seems accurate. He didnt sell funds. Lets get that out of the way. That part isnt accurate, agreed. But with respect to how this works, in politics i hate to say it, chris. But the role of money in politics is far too great. I think we see what happens on both sides not just a republican problem. Democrats have this problem as well. And so i would like to see less of a role for money in politics. Obviously it does raise serious questions on both sides. Theres a concentration here, too. Partly because the big this chart is a favorite chart of mine, estate tax part of the tax cut. It hits a tiny percentage of people. These are big donors who literally got billions of dollars to their estate value on a small provision that doesnt impact a lot of people in the republican tax cut and theres a reason that youre basically purchasing this from the government. Its like a return on investment. The best return on investment. Even for a guy in the casino business. 10 million and gets 670 million back. He has decided to invest three times as much so the Republican Congress will give hmm three times as much back. I thought norm coleman asked too low. Youre up 670 in the quarter. Cut us 100 here . Well take half. Theres nothing new about this. Weve got a long, long, long history of it. The real problem is that weve opened the spigots with the Citizens United case with the Supreme Court which unfortunately made a bad situation worse in terms of unfettered corporate spending to get candidates selected. And concentrated in the hands of the very rich lahnee. There is an argument that in some ways everyone is spending way too little. Sheldon adelson is the perfect example. Write a billion dollar check. Right now we have no limits on this sort of spending. It seems like were paving the path toward endless corruption. Yeah. Its problematic for a number of different reasons. First of all, obviously, youve got massive individual donors on each side who are giving to these outside groups. By the way, campaigns technically should not be coordinating with these groups. So they dont have control over what these groups do. Campaigns shouldnt be. Wink, wink, nod, nod, yeah. There have been situations where youre like, thats an interesting coincidence. If you put that aside for a minute, obviously, the big issue here is the separation of the campaign itself and the message of the campaign from these massive outside groups that spend all of this money, these trends are, indeed, very, very troubling and they do end up shining a spotlight ondual donor lahnee has done a good job here, chris, of getting the term be on that side. That we cal corporations people isctually one of the ways were practice that politics stopped at the waters edge. Its also clear we should note it that there are other factors that impact elections, including mobilization. Some of that money that is well spent actually goes to supporting peoples ability to actually engage directly in elections and, therefore, have their voices heard on Foreign Policy as well as local issues. And that money if the more money you have for mobilization and actual registration and access to the polls will im alex trebek, here to tell you about the Colonial Penn program. 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Thing one tonight with so much focus on trump lawyer Michael Cohen and his highclass businesses we almost forgot about his quasi client super landlord sean hannitty. He owns 1,000 rental properties through two dozen limited liability companies, four largest apartment complexes are in georgia with 416 units. Theres basically a hannity town. Whats it like to live there . My middle child used to wake me up sometimes and would feel like something was crawling on her and she would say she was itchy. I ended up experiencing a bed bug situation from living there. Thing two in 60 seconds. Racing isnt the only and with godaddy, im making my ideas real. With godaddy you can get a website to sell online. And it will look good. I made my own way. Now its time to make yours. Everything is working just like it should so a tenant says even after catching up with her late fees her rent check was rejected because she could not also pay the 1,050 cleaning fee for a bed bug infestation according to a Washington Post investigation which delved into the aggressive rate of evictions at hannity properties. Managers at hannittys four largest apartment complexes in georgia have sought courtordered evictions at twice the statewide rate and frequently have done so less than two weeks after a missed payment. And a former corrections officer and her wife who fell behind while awaiting a disability determination, a double amputee who had lived in an apartment with her daughter for five years but did not pay on time after being hospitalized. Evict tenants as aggressively within the law at twice and already highstate rate. Many of which were bought on the cheap back in 2013, according to a guardian report, taking full advantage of the Great Recession foreclosures. And the dream of owning your own home has been made a nightmare under obama for many americans. The rate of those who own a home has now dropped several percentage points. We also saw record numbers of foreclosures during his presidency. The nomination of gina haspel has resurfaced the torture debate and prompted the chorus to argue that actually torture is a good thing. I supported it wholeheartedly. I still do to this day, prepared to defend it and debate it and argue it. Sometimes when there is a ticking time bomb and when you may be saving thousands of lives, then that decision may have to be taken. If it were my call i would not discontinue those programs. I would have them active and ready to go. Some of the definitions the left wanted out there, standing for a long period of time, sleep deprivation. That sounds like a long day in the secret service where i used to work. One defender of these war crimes went so far as to invoke torture survivor mccain who opposes haspels confirmation. It worked on john. Thats why they call him songbird john. The fact is that those methods can work and are effective, as former Vice President cheney said. For the record, as politifact noted theres no evidence that mccain helped vietnam despite being tortured. As leader of the cia, haspel said she would not bring back the torture program she helped administer but also reportedly refused to condemn that torture program as immoral. Every senator considering her nomination should understand the advocates of torture, the people who want the u. S. To engage in war crimes will view a yes vote for gina haspel a green light. President trump welcomes three hostages released from north korea, but cant stop praising their captor. Dray, when he was younger, he loved to smile; and we knew he would need braces because his teeth were coming in funny. This is the picture that was on the front page of the newspaper. All you can notice is the braces then, once he got to michigan state, he broke the retainer my bottom teeth, they were really crooked, and i just wasnt getting braces again. Then i discovered smiledirectclub. Its easy to just grab it and go and i can change it on the road. I did photoshoots with my aligners in and you cant see them. A smile is a first impression, thats why i think having a great smile is so important. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® 3 00 in the morning. Would have thought about ratings when youre bringing home captives who have been over and were dealing with a president who is operating under the madman theory where lets see what happens when you throw two people together who arent really focused on diplomacy and the nuances of give and take and negotiation and see what happens. So thats pretty highstakes negotiation. The best that we could get would be a conversation in which they walk away to agree to continue talking. Thats the standard kind of thing you have when things havent been prebaked in the way they normally would be. I think it would be ideal would be if we were to get the kind of deal we had with iran, which is unprecedented access to nuclear sites. In iran the iaea had 12 people on the ground every day. They took apart 15,000 uranium enrichment facilities. Thats progress. Thats a big deal. To get to that in north korea is going to be very, very challenging because theres zero incentive for kim to do that. Right. Well, tim, i mean, north korea first of all is already far more advanced in what they have than iran, and also they just watched the americans walk away from the iran deal. I wonder how that how you think that will impact the dynamics going into this summit. Well, first of all, i think its unfair to characterize the meeting as it was just characterized. I dont think theyre just throwing them together and hope for the best. I think theres been a lot of plan k has gone on here. The chief planner has been president moon jaein of south korea, who has been very, very involved in this, you know, from the top, from january, from the time this diplomacy began. And hes going to be here on may 22nd to meet with President Trump and theyre going to go over very carefully what they want to accomplish and what trump wants to accomplish at this meeting. Second, you know, mike pompeo just became secretary of state, just came back from there last night with these prisoners from north korea and he spent a few days there. The head of the cias Korea Mission center was also with him. So theres been a lot of contact between the two governments. And i think theres been a lot of planning here. Its not going to be some kind of haphazard meeting and im actually quite optimistic about it. I think that they have a clear deal on the table here, which is north korea obviously wants to focus on its economy, believes it has a Deterrent Force against the United States and can negotiate from a principle of strength with the United States, and then they can Start Talking about ending their program and getting to the point where President Trump, the United States, the u. N. And other countries will lift sanctions. I think thats the chief goal. Heres the big challenge that we have in the United States right now is we dont even have an ambassador to south korea. So all of this conversation is really reliant upon south koreas leadership and their specific agenda for what needs to happen in the region. We havent brought in china under u. S. Auspices, and theyre critical to making sure that information and technology doesnt continue flowing through north korea. So there are several missing pieces that you would normally have involved in this negotiation and then entirely because of the Trump Administrations inability to staff with experts or confirm with people in positions of authority. It also seems to me, tim, that moon jaein, who has been the leader in this, clearly has taken the lead in it, right . The announcement itself happens when the delegation from south korea passes along the invitation to the white house, right . Right. At a certain point you wonder if there are diverging interests between south korea and the u. S. I think it seems smart and altogether makes sense that south koreas taken the lead. Its their peninsula. Its their neighbor. Theyre the ones most under threat. But one wonders when the actual Trump Administration is there and people like bolton and others are involved if theyre going to have different sort of red lines than, say, south korea. All last year the United States and many of the pundits here in washington wanted china to be involved, wanted china to be the one who would be the interlocutor with north korea and the intermediary between the u. S. And north korea. Its now south korea. And thats much better for korea. Remember, these are korean people, you know, 50 million in south korea, 25 million in north korea, who want to end this korean war that ended in an armistice. Thats why moon has been so such an important force here and has been so strong on getting a peace agreement. And i think all the pieces are there for a structured agreement, and i think frankly its a good thing that chinas not there at this point. Certainly we need to make sure that we dont lose sight of the human rights elements in all of this, in trying to rush toward a deal that may or may not denuclearize. We dont know what that definition is yet. That this is not at the expense of the people of north korea and fixing and using United States leverage of sanctions to fix some of the atrocities that are have been going on there. Nayyera haq and tim shorrock, thank you nor being with me. Appreciate it. Now for the moment ive been waiting for. For the last couple of months ive been working on a new podcast. Have you heard of those . Its called why is this happening. And in it i get to talk to people i think are some of the most fascinate and engaging thinkers and writers on a bunch of different topics and ask them to explore some of the big themes behind all the news stories that we churn through here on the news every day. Why is this happening, presented by msnbc and nbc news think. Oh, look at that. Isnt that nice art . I dont even wear a tie in that one. Its a new podcast that will help you take a step back and think big about this incredible moment in time and try to understand better why this is happening. The official launch is next tuesday, may 15th. The good news is you can go to apple podcasts or tune in right now and listen to a little teaser trailer and then subscribe away so you can be the first person on your block to listen to our next episodes, which land on tuesday may 15th. I cannot wait for you to hear it. That is all in for this evening. Tonight, Rudy Giuliani has parted ways with his law firm to focus fulltime on the Mueller Investigation while Vice President pence says respectfully, its time for mueller to call it quits. The president avoids any talk of witch hunts or russia at a rally in indiana tonight as news breaks his Homeland Security secretary was ready to quit after being berated by trump in front of the entire cabinet. And a white house staffer says in front of a meeting that john mccain is, quote, dying anyway after he opposed the nominee for cia director. The 11th hour on a thursday night begins now. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 476 of the Trump Administration and President Trump has returned after