Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20180509

Company set up by trump Attorney Michael Cohen to buy her silence in october of 2016 went on to take in over 4. 4 million through january of 2018. What was the money used for . And what of the allegation that some of the money had ties to a Russian Oligarch . Well break that story down. Also this morning, the major implications of the president s decision to pull the United States out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. And Don Blankenship comes up short in West Virginia, well show you the classic reaction to the loss by Mitch Mcconnells team on twitter. Welcome to morning joe, its wednesday, may 9th. With us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, associate editor of commentary magazine noah rothman. Author of the book a world in disarray richard haas and washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay. The iran deal, one of the huge stories of the morning. But whats going on with this money and company and President Trump . We dont know. All we know is this company that was set up to create a slush fund for Stormy Daniels, according to documents that we learned about yesterday, suddenly they got a lot more money in there, almost 4. 5 million. And money flowed through this Stormy Daniels company, used for payoffs that Michael Cohen set up. We certainly know this that suf got Robert Mueller investigating and Robert Mueller knows far more than either Michael Avenatti and ourselves. And im sure this is one of the many things hes been looking at for quite some time. Ill tell you, mika. I remember David Ignatius talking about how the iran deal was a cosmic gamble. It was a cosmic gamble. There are people like me who are still very skeptical of this cosmic gamble. Even people opposed to the iran deal said most of the same thing yesterday whether it was Brett Stevens writing in the New York Times, he thought it was a good idea. Or whether it was the wall street journal editorial board. A lot of people were cheering that move on. But they also said the same thing donald trump bet ver a plan b. We wont know that for quite some time. And you, you have to wonder what hes deflecting from and what exactly he might be doing to deflect. I hope hes not playing around with our National Security. Lets start with the claims of pay to play. With the president s personal attorney. The lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels alleging that the company set up by trump Attorney Michael Cohen to buy her silence in october of 2016, went on to take in over 4. 4 million, through january of 2018. Nbc news has reviewed financial documents that appear to support the account of the transactions from daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, including 500,000 from a Company Columbus nova, that is controlled by a Russian Oligarch viktor vanselberg. The New York Times report that therun billionaire was questioned by muellers team. An attorney for Columbus Nova said it is a Management Company solely own and controlled by americans. After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a Business Consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures. Reports today that Viktor Vekselberg used Columbus Nova for payments to Michael Cohen is false. The claims that vekselberg used cohen is untrue. 200,000 was from Communications Giant at t spread over four separate payments from october of 2017, to january of 2018. In a statement, at t said essential consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us and the contract ended in december 2017. Over a similar time period, there was about 400,000 in payments from the Pharmaceutical Company novartis, shortly before trump reportedly dined with its incoming ceo at the World Economic forum in davos. And novartis spokesman said any agreements with essential consultants were entered before our current ceo taking office in february of this year and have expired. Last night, Michael Avenatti said that the payments to cohens Company Raises serious questions. I dont believe that Michael Cohen is registered as a lobbyist. I dont believe hes registered as he should be in order to represent any foreign agents or foreign interests. The big question is this, all this money comes into this account. This essential consultants llc. We have reason to believe that it didnt all go to Michael Cohen individually. Michael cohen needs to disclose where the balance of that money went. And if it went to donald trump or the Trump Organization, and if Michael Cohen was part of a scheme to sell access to the president of the United States, that would be rather, a rather shocking development. But i dont think that that is out of the realm of possibility at this point. Well, and willie, its not out of the realm of possibility and certainly we dont know exactly what happened to this money. We do know that Michael Cohen does have, this is one more reason Michael Cohen has to be concerned. Another question that reporters are starting to ask question about the tens of millions of dollars that Michael Cohen made swapping apartments. And yet he was so strapped for money that he had to take out home loan credit extension on his inlaws home loan to pay 120,000, 130,000 payoff. So more and more stories are rising that suggest at least that investigators need to see, if Michael Cohen was just setting up shell corporations and money was flowing through those corporations and going to donald trump or the Trump Organization. Michael is in deeper than we knew. We thought essential consulting llc was set up as it was, two weeks before the election just to make this payoff to Stormy Daniels if you read through the documents that nbc has independently looked through, its clear that there was a lot more going on here. What was going on was payment for access to the president through Michael Cohen, who was merely an attorney and a friend to the president. Was not working inside the administration as Michael Avenatti has said, was not registered as a lobbyist. There were Companies Paying large sums of money. 4. 4 million that we know of so far, to Michael Cohen for quote access to the president. At t had business before the Justice Department in a merger with time warner. So Michael Cohen was up to a lot more than we knew. And i think the reason thats important and significant is that this gives bob mueller and others much more leverage over him. We dont know for example that this company, Columbus Nova, whose biggest client is a Russian Oligarch, we dont know in theres some russia connection there. It may be a coincidence that he was a client at Columbus Nova. These certainly, joe, are questions that mueller has long been looking into. Mika, you know, obviously mueller has been looking into these questions for some time. When you hear about donald trump, his fixer getting paid money for these large corporations to meet with donald trump, i dont know where this money went. Its all speculation right now. I do know this, though, that every time you and i spoke with donald trump before the campaign or during the campaign, he would always say the same thing. He would say look at my ratings. And he would say why does cnn or msnbc make all this money . I should be making all this money. He would say this publicly, too. He talked about how much money the networks were making for the debates. And seriously, was thinking about charging to show up at the debates. And people say, well you cant do that, theyre not going to let you do that. My point is this donald trump would believe, i know he would believe, knowing him for a decade, if he were going to meet with at t and money was going to Exchange Hands for those meetings, he would say theres no way that Michael Cohen should make money off of that. Theres no way Michael Cohen should make money if i have dinner with fill in the blank. Drug companies, you name it. Thats, thats the first thing that, that question that was raised in my mind when i heard this story. Im shower theyre looking to see if that money went to Michael Cohen. Went through Michael Cohen and somehow found its way back to donald trump, because donald trump would not take meetings and make money for other people. Without giving money back to himself. Especially if it were Michael Cohen making that money. Its also a question about payments, and Michael Avenatti will join us on set in our 7 00 a. M. Hour. Now to a story with global implications. The president s decision to fulfill one of his Signature Campaign promises and end the United States involvement in the Iran Nuclear Deal. It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian Nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement. The iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing we know exactly what will happen. Therefore, i am announcing today, that the United States will withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal. In a few moments i will sign a president ial memorandum to begin reinstating u. S. Nuclear sanctions on the iranian regime, we will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction. Any nation that helps iran in its quest for Nuclear Weapons, could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States. So lets go to richard haa haas,ing council on foreign relation, ive also made no secret i thought this was a fatally flawed deal. I thought the president was desperate for a deal. I thought the negotiations were terrible. And, i like many people didnt believe the president should have done it without getting support from congress. He should have instead of a unilateral deal between barack obama and our allies and iran, he should have gone through congress. And should have been a treaty. That said, we have an old saying in the south about the horse is already out of the barn. Well weve already paid iran 100 million in sanctions relief. Our allies are already standing with us, shoulder to shoulder. What does withdrawing at this point do for the United States . On balance it does virtually nothing thats good, joe. It reinforces the notion that we are something of a rogue company. That we dont honor or live up to our international commitments. It potentially creates a Nuclear Crisis with iran when rumor has it weve already got a Nuclear Crisis with north korea it doesnt help us, what the president announced yesterday, did nothing to strengthen the u. S. Response to what iran is doing around the region which ought to give us concern. And i say the most important thing there was no reason to do this now. What the president was going on about, was not let me emphasize that was not iranian noncompliance with this agreement. That was not the issue. What he was saying is that its possible down the road that iran consistent with this agreement, could begin to put into place the prerequisites of a Nuclear Program it would have the option to do that in 10, 15 years, my reaction is okay, if that turns out to be right and thats one of my concerns with the agreement if that were to turn out to be true, we would have options to respond. There was no reason to make the american response to blow up this agreement now, and what were more likely to see now is a crisis with our european allies over sanction which is isolates the United States, further rips the fabric of our most important alliances while iran might be in a position where were the issue, rather than its behavior. Do you agree with the thought of several people, perhaps including mr. Haas, that withdrawing from this deal inevitably draws us further into potentially even more dangerous area of the world, the middle east, along with israel and saudi arabia, two countries that pushed us to where we are right now . I would take issue with that contention. But your first suggestion, does this draw us further into this region . Yes. And i would say that was explicitly the design of Barack Obamas approach to this deal. Which was to facilitate our withdrawal from the region. That iran was going to fill up this vacuum. And in the process, that it would change certain behaviors, induce cooperation with the west. That it would induce cooperation on the battle with isis. There were some substantial concessions to iran and they were unreciprocated. Irpian behavior has not changed. It has become more destabilizing and aggressive in iraq, syria in particular and yemen. The commitments that were made by barack obama are only as valid in so far as barack obama is president. Without congress, these are not stable arrangements, the reason why this was done now, to your point is they were coming up on a sanctions deadline, this was telegraphed 90 days ago. And frankly, critics of this move i think are arguing against a straw man. I have to say. The notion that iran was in compliance with this deal isnt at issue. It is the fact that iran can comply with this deal. Because the terms are lien yunt enough for it to be able to. Critics of this arrangement have said that the deal itself was not stringent enough. Did not attack the means by which iran could evade sanctions or rather evade inspections as israel demonstrated with its capacity to shield this information of its past Nuclear Program and civilian shelter and it did not have access to military sites. That is written into the jcpoa and that is why it was a fatally flawed arrangement. Mike brings up a good point about how this does draw us more into the middle east. Were already drawn into the middle east. But this is one more step away from Barack Obamas very clear move to turn the region over to iran. To, to be, give the shia preferential treatment. While our shiite allies across the region and israel were in a bit of a state of panic. For those who didnt believe they were in a state of panic for the last few years of the Obama Administration, all they had to do was talk to leaders of those countries ourks ambassadors. This is another clear shift. If you line this up with the movement of the embassy to jerusalem, you now have israel, egypt, saudi arabia, and the sunni, the sunni world, all actually lined up with the United States. Obviously syria, iran and a lot of our allies across europe. Obviously oppose this move. But across that region, more people support what we did yesterday than oppose it. President obama has viewed iran as a natural ally and wanted to open up that country to the United States and give that a chance. Think what he found was that iran was not the partner that he hoped it would be in terms of now supporting terrorism more than ever. Being in iraq and all the other things. Lets bring in former u. S. Ambassador to nato and former state department spokesman, nicholas burns, the profession fessor of diplomacy and International Relations at the Kennedy School of government. Good to see you this morning. I think the question people are asking now, were out of the deal. What comes next . How do we handle iran . The sanctions are put back in place, does it make a military confrontation more likely down the road for example . Where are we now and whats the plan from here . Well i think its hard to discern a plan b. The president had a challenge yesterday. He had to convince the American People were going to be better off outside the deal than inside the deal. He didnt make that case and you see the reaction this morning from europe. The europeans are worried about secondary american sanctions. Already, the new United States ambassador to germany, rick rinnell has publicly warned german companies, they need to begin withdrawing their Business Operations in iran. Thats not going to happen, the europeans are going to fight the United States against sanctions against european countries. So weve estranged or allies. We dont have a plan to put iran back in a straitjacket. The president has torn down the deal, but hes not told us how hes going to constrain irans Nuclear Program. So he didnt make a convincing case yesterday. Were certainly worse off outside the deal than inside the deal. And the iranians will have to decide what theyre going to do. You saw this announcement by rouhani, the president this morning that theyre going to stay in for now. But the hardliners in iran, the revolutionary guard will make the argument, iran should come out of the deal and restart its Nuclear Program so this is not a good day for the United States. No, katty kay, this does draw us more into the middle east. Our allies are upset, for sure, at a time when i think the president s sanity is being questioned globally. It was a campaign promise, it does appeal possibly to his base. But the totality of this president s behavior and decisions does lead me to question why he does anything and whether its to deflect from something else. I dont think he has the moral compass to make a decision based on our own National Security, even at this point. Its interesting, mika when boris yeltsin, the British Foreign secretary was here he met with pence, bolton and pompeo, he asked all three of them. Whats going to happen the day after you rip up the iran deal and pull out . He couldnt get an answer and the other question he asked them, how is the world worse off than it would be with this deal . He couldnt get an answer. The only answer he got, kbas a campaign promise, its a very bad deal. If theres a plan b here, if it was clear that america had decided, the white house had decided to rip up this deal and had a plan of action, that would be one thing. I was speaking to israeli officials yesterday, it was clear that even they think now the ball is in irans court. Well thats precarious position for us to be in. When this is now effectively up to iran. To decide what happens Going Forward. And i think, nick, im not sure what you would think about this, while there may be a shortterm impetus for the iranians to sit there and watch divisions quite happily between the United States and their european allies. In the longterm, thats not a viable option for hardliners in iran. Theyre going to have to seem to me, start the centrifuges again. Well its going to be a battle, katty, no question about it inside the iranian government. The hardliners are in the ascendency. Rouhani and foreign minister zarif were taken in by the United States and the United States has not kept its word. You got to watch that. But you know theres a pattern here. The president pulled us out of the Climate Change agreement. With no alternative. He pulled us out of the transpacific partnership, no alternative. Hes now pulled us out of iraq. There is no plan b from the trump administration. So were left weaker, iran is left stronger and you know, to argue that somehow iranian actions in the middle east, are the reason for this deal, we can oppose iran in the middle east. Through our relationships with israel and saudi arabia, but american interests dictate putting iran in a straitjacket on the nuclear issue, weve given up that interest. So richard haas, right now, many would suggest, many would believe looking at this situation in iran that they are already economically in a straitjacket. Theyre going to be facing tougher sanctions from the United States. They have of course, and have had since 2009, political unrest. And donald trump seems to be giving the iranians the same choice that hes giving the North Koreans, at least from his point of view. You can have a Nuclear Program or you can have a thriving economy. But the United States of america, is going to do everything in its power to stop you from having both. And if that means we have to squeeze our allies across europe and the world, we will do that. But a nuclear iran is not an option. Do you want to live peacefully with us . Or do you want to develop a Nuclear Weapon . That seems to be his calculus, whats wrong with that . Its wrong on two ends, joe. The two fundamental arguments, one, the Nuclear Agreement that we had at least until yesterday constrained iran for the foreseeable future. At the minimum for another decade and quite possibly longer. Second of all, irans economy, i hate to be one to be the harbinger of bad news for some, is not on the brink. Economic growth is a greater than 4 . Oil output is far higher than it was before the sanction as half dozen or so years ago. Yes, inflation is running somewhat high. By the idea that iran is on the brink and if only we squeezed them this is going to force fundamental changes in policy or even in the dreams of some regime change, is simply not, is not going to happen. Plus, the principle way to pressure iran is going to be through the countries that deal with it. That means a trade war with europe, i thought we already had enough of that. Who is the biggest importers of iranian oil . One of them happens to be india. Thats one of the countries the United States is trying to build a strategic partnership. The other one is china. Last i checked, weve already got quite a few things going on with china. Including dealing with north korea. What this, this is why you have a National Security council. The whole idea is to take the various pieces and put them together, and come up with a coherent strategy giving everything thats going on, locally, and giving everything thats going on on all the, if you will the chess board pieces around the world. And i see none of that being done here. Ambassador burns, let me ask you about all the incoming that National Security adviser with a fully formed National Security team would be dealing with right now. If it were functional. And it is not. You have of course, the iran deal being torn up. You have the secretary of state right now, in north korea, talking about an upcoming summit. You talk about a cosmic gamble. Yet another nuclear deal with north korea. And then you have the entire chessboard of the middle east being thrown up in the air. With the embassy in israel being moved to jerusalem. Can you remember a time where so many things were coming at an american president , even one with a fully functioning National Security council . Well i remember a time when richard and i both served on president george h. W. Bushs nsc staff back during the cold war. He had a National Security adviser who was trusted and credible in washington. And we had a secretary of state who was one of the Great American diplomats, james a. Baker iii. A president who was fully engaged, who had a sense of strategy, a sense of our own limits, as well as our powers. Who wasnt guilty of hubris, who actually studied these issues. So we got through the end of the cold war because of the brilliant leadership of president george h. W. Bush. And a wellfunctioning nsc staff and a great secretary of state. We dont have that right now in President Trump. He doesnt study. He probably doesnt even know whats in president obamas iran deal. He just knows that obamas name was on it. And its not clear right now if that team has coalesced, jim mattis, mike pompeo, its a team of factions and it doesnt seem that they agree on some of the major strands of this policy either towards iran or north korea. Absolutely. Nick burns, thank you very much. Still ahead on morning joe, well be joined by three members of the Senate Foreign relations committee, senators chris murphy, jeff flake and tim kaine to get their reaction to the president s decision to pull out of the iran deal. Plus, Stormy Daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, will be here after claiming yesterday that trumps attorney, Michael Cohen, got about 5 hurn,000 from a Russian Oligarch. And the Senate Majority leader gets the last laugh against a West Virginia candidate who attacked him as cocaine mitch. Steve kornacki helps us break down last nights primary results. It took guts to start my business. But as it grew bigger and bigger, it took a whole lot more. Thats why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. With it, i earn unlimited 2 cash back on everything i buy. Everything. And that 2 cash back adds up to thousands of dollars each year. So i can keep growing my business in big leaps whats in your wallet . Im the only bed that actually senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. Does your bed do that . Im the new sleep number 360 smart bed. Lets meet at a sleep number store. The first survivor of ais out there. Sease and the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Visit alz. Org to join the fight. This is a story about mail and packages. And its also a story about people. People who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams theyre handing us more than mail theyre handing us their business and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you oh hi sweetie, i just want to show you something. Xfinity mobile find my phone. [ phone rings ] look at you. This tech stuff is easy. [ whirring sound ] you want a cookie . Its a drone i know. Find your phone easily with the xfinity voice remote. One more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. Senator, quick question, this morning with the withdrawal of the United States from this deal. The odds of a war starting between israel and iran, drawing the United States into that war higher or lower . Than before yesterday . Much meyer. What we know is that the Israeli Defense forces sent out a notice yesterday talking about concerning movements by iranian forces, Iranian Proxy Forces inside syria. Ratcheting up the rhetoric about a potential conflict. The iranians are going to be in no mood to try to defuse that conflict. Now that theyve been pushed out of this agreement. And the tensions between us and iran are going to go nowhere but up, setting up even Greater Prospect for conflict in the region. Senator noah rothman, from commentary magazine, in 2015, the tries to break a democratic filibuster to vote on this deal. In the interim, we have found out that iran didnt come forward with all its nuclear arrangements as israel demonstrated with its intelligence cast, despite what john kerry said repeatedly that iran would have to come clean in order for this deal to happen. In the interim iran has achieved a much higher level of uranium that was not in the jcpoa. We know that the iranians were not supposed to selfinspect. And that as precisely what they do, according to the iaea, did congressman on the right and the left have a reason to feel that they were lied to by the Obama Administration in the runup to the jcpoa . Well lets be honest, netanyahus presentation didnt give us any new information. We knew that iran had a secret Nuclear Program that was fully known by republicans and democrats in congress and for those of us that supported the jcpoa, it was because we wanted inspectors inside iran to make sure they couldnt restart that Nuclear Program so what i may be most worried about, it is as this deal falls apart, in the shortterm, potentially in the longer term, if the inspectors are going to be kicked out as trumps advisers have consistently told him iran has not violated this agreement. Iran has lived up to its end of the bargain. Now is it a perfect deal . No absolutely not. Many of us would have liked for it to go longer. Many of us would have liked for inspect torres get into military sites, but the alternative, which is no inspectors, looking at anything iran is doing, and irans ability to restart the Nuclear Programs today is totally unfeasible. Iran is not good actor in the region. They had a secret Nuclear Program we know both of those things. And unfortunately, coming out of this deal, means that they are going to engage in even worse activity in the region. And theyre going to be able to potentially secretly restart that program again. Senator, its richard haas here. Given all this. What do you see the United States particularly the congress can do . Let me give you two ideas. Is there anything that you can do to say pass a resolution calling for a followon agreement . Because you would agree that the duration of this one is way too short to suggest that . And what do you think you can do to send a message to the people of iran . That the United States supports serious political change there . Yeah, i think those are both two very good questions. Of course my preference would have been for this president to build on top of the jcpoa. And we made overtures to the administration that congress was willing to work with the president on that. Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee Said to the administration, if you want to work with us, on new legislation that will make clear our intent to make sure that this deal lasts beyond ten years, if you want our help on nonnuclear sanctions, to try to put greater controls on their Ballistic Missile programs. Were there, well work with you on that. But the president rejected our overtures, i think its unlikely that youre going to be able to work with the president on those measures, given the fact that he didnt want our help over the course of 20172018. And yes we have to continue to send signals to the iranian people, that ultimately what will secure the United States and our friends in israel in the long run is for the iranian people to demand that moderate internationalist leadership ultimately prevail in the power struggles happening inside that country. So through words probably more than legislation. The congress can try to make that clear as trump continues to pull away from iran. Senator chris murphy, thank you very much. Thanks. Still ahead, 20918 primary season kicked off yesterday as voters in ohio, West Virginia, indiana and North Carolina went to the polls. Were breaking down the results with Steve Kornacki, next on morning joe. You know willie, live the next guy, i love sport. Like mitt romney loves sport. I love sport. And hot dog and i love eating hot dog, my favorite meat. While watching sport. You know i would love to talk about sport this morning. Especially baseball. My favorite sport. But were just too packed. We have too much stuff going. So theres no game maybe if theres did anybody in el centro have a game that was worthy of talking about . The nets fell to the reds. A heartbreaker for mets there was game that ended late last night. Mike barnicle was there, but conveniently left the set. Yankees 3, red sox 2. What about stanton, man . This is a great example and we, i tell my boys this all the time 162 games, everybody was making fun of stanton, he was on pace to set the strikeout record. But is barnicle always says you can judge people in april when things are cold but when it warms up, like for instance chris sale had his best outing yet. Stanton is on fire, two home runs last night. Two lasers he hit last night. Two rockets. That was out in under two seconds. He strikes out a lot. Theres no getting around it. But i think i mentioned last week when they put up his stats at this time last year and compare them to this time this year, hes actually right where he was last year when he had the mvp season in florida. So hell be fine. Its an adjustment when youre playing in florida with all due respect where no ones paying attention. Coming to new york, cold weather where everyone is paying attention. But yankees red sox tied for first place, joe. It will be a fun season. The yankees were 99 when the red sox were 172. And again, i was telling jack all along when they were 172, he was saying how many games are we going to win . I said jack, it all balances out. Theyre going to have a ninegame losing streak in all and youll think its over and they win three or four in september. One of the things thats so great about baseball. I will tell what you disturbs me the most this morning and i am deeply disturbed alex corson was way too ready to show stantons home runs. I said boom. Acore had the home runs lined up and cut. Lets just hope, alex, that if anything good happens over the next two days for the red sox, youll be just as eager. Im not sure the tape machine will work for the red sox. But i had the stanton one waiting for me since april. You know, richard haas, its so exciting we always talk about the al east but this year, yankees red sox, what an incredible rivalry through the years. But this year, the two best teams in baseball at least through the beginning of may. That could all end by the end of may. But man, you look at their lineups, top to bottom. And they are stacked. Exactly. And watching it last night i was also there, you just saw extraordinary talent on both sides. A lot of pure ball players. Young, pure ball players, it will be a great season. All right that was boring but i it showed character on his part. Not to bury that story. I put that out there. A good thing for joe. You know, Steve Kornacki has been waiting patiently. Exactly like real news. Hes got the khakis, sweater, the sneaks. Hes a science teacher. Hes ready to talk about cocaine mitchs shot at Don Blankenship. Well be right back. Were on a mission to show drip coffee drinkers, its time to wake up to keurig. Wakey wakey rise and shine oh my gosh how are you . Well watch this. I pop that in there. Press brew. Thats it. So rich. I love it. Thats why you should be a keurig man fullbodied. Are you sure youre describing the coffee and not me . But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient fullbodied. Originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. Im not really a, i thought wall street guy. Ns. Whats the hesitation . Eh, it just feels too complicated, you know . Well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. Jj, will you break it down for this gentleman . Hey, ian. You know, at Td Ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until youre comfortable. I could be up for that. Thats taking options trading from wall st. To main st. Hey guys, wanna play some pool . Eh, im not really a pool guy. Whats the hesitation . Its just complicated. Stepbystep options trading support from Td Ameritrade i dont know if the polls are inaccurate or if facts changed. Is there anything you would have done differently . No, theres nothing i could have done differently. When youre trying to unseat the establishment, its difficult. Would you consider running again . I doubt it. I mean, when i decided to do it this time, i wanted to give the state a chance to elect somebody to make difference rather than to continue the way its been. Joining us now National Political correspondent Steve Kornacki waiting patiently through the baseball talk, i saw you wanted to jump into that as well. Next time. Lets start in West Virginia. We heard from Don Blankenship. He placed an ad where he used the term china people and china family and called Mitch Mcconnell cocaine mitch finishing a distant third. We talked about internal polling showed him at or near the lead in the race here. What happened . Lets take this as a cautionary tale for the future when you have public polling, media polls, it was dated in this case. You have to go back a week or two to find polling. We had public polling that showed blankenship where he finished up there. The last 72 hours reports from republicans, sounding the alarm bell, it was a test of which one of those maybe is a more reliable barometer. I think for the future, remember, if you have a public poll out there you can look at, maybe ere on the side of that if you have that in the future. While were here, lets look at the tweet put out last night by Mitch Mcconnells Senate Campaign twitter handle. Thats pretty funny. Thanks for playing Don Blankenship. That was from the cocainethemed show on netflix, but photo shopped Mitch Mcconnell in cocaine falling around him. Thanks for playing, don. How nervous should joe manchin be . So, the dream scenario for democrats nationally is blankenship wins. National democrats spent a lot of money trying to beat the other republican in this race, too. Evan jenkins finished second place. Number one, morrisey is the attorney general. A washington lobbyist. Try to position him that way. The second thing is that jenkins is the congressman from the southern part of the state. Three congressional districts in West Virginia. The southern part of the state is coal country, it is rural. Its white working class. These are voters who voted 70 for joe manchin and 70 for donald trump. So the thought for democrats was, whoa, thats jenkins country. Thats where he got most of his votes last noigt. He is somebody who could get close to that trump share in the part of the state that manchin relied on because where morrisey ran up the score is the part of the state that is already heavy republican. Outside West Virginia incumbent republican in North Carolina lost a primary bid. In indiana, two incumbent republicans lost to an outsider. Still a fair amount of antiestablishment washington in the electorate. Indiana is an interesting one. Businessman had the card board cutouts of the sld establishment figures wins easily in the senate primary. Joe manchin, 42 point state in West Virginia. Thats top of the radar. Indiana, though, braun is the outsider credentials doesnt have at least we havent seen any kind of that baggage you saw down in alabama with roy moore. Then youre looking at a state in indiana, trump won that by 19 points. That was a blow out state for trump in 2016. Donley when he won the seat in 2012, a lot of republicans who say he kind of caught a lucky break in that campaign with the opponent. He drew his opponent, murdoch, knocked off the republican in the primary. Said that thing about a rape in the general elections. So you get a candidate doesnt have that baggage, could bit a different outcome . Steve kornacki not yet. Ive got an important question. So when you review the maps, when you crunch the data, when you look at all the analytics, do you think at the end of the day the red sox have a chance of winning one of three at yankee stadium. Im from massachusetts of course you have to say yes. Were a couple months from football season, its may. One other question. Seriously. Obviously i never at this time of the year and im sure youre the same way, i never look at generic ballot tests. Just doesnt matter. Its always the intensity of the voters, the intensity of the base. Now, weve seen in past elections democrats outperforming republicans. More democrats going to the polls. We saw it in 2010 throughout the year in the primaries especially. We saw it in 2008 barack obama and democrats getting outrageous turnouts state by state by state in the primaries. What happened last night . I heard did i read correctly that it was more of a leveling off that republicans as many republicans turned out as democrats. How did that break down . Take a state like indiana. You have to remember what is on the ballot . Whats being contested . You had a threeway senate primary. Greg pence, winning a Republican House nomination there in the district that messer vacating. If theres more action on one side, thats always a factor. Donley, the democratic senator in indiana didnt have to worry about any kind of a primary. A lot of action on the republican side. What about a state like ohio, though, where obviously a key swing state. What about the turnout there . Ohio interesting. This is one that may be well find out a lot more about ohio this fall. The question is ohio in the trump era becoming less of a swing state . Is ohio more of a trump republican state . They have dewine for governor, the republican establishment wanted that. That governors race when you look ahead to the fall there with dewine as the nominee, you might look at that and say thats a tenpoint trump state, that might be advantage to the republicans there. Steve kornacki, thank you very much. Great to have you on. Still ahead this morning, senators jeff flake and tim kaine react to President Trump pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Plus, nick confessorry sums this up, russians pay trump associate and trump associate pays off porn stars and Corporation Pay trump associate for advice all in one story. Interesting. Such a good story. Well talk to Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels who broke it. Morning joe is coming right back. 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Youre hearing panic cries from donald trump and panic cries from donald Trump Supporters and people like devin nunes and other people on the right about the need to immediately disband the Mueller Investigation. I think its because the Mueller Investigation is probably on to things like this. And by the way, like Richard Nixon had a lot of dirty money coming into his Reelection Campaign in 72, anybody that knows donald trump and has known donald trump for more than a couple of days knows that donald trump believes that if anybody is makesing any money on any enterprise thats indirectly to him, he deserves a cut. So this slush fund that at t and other corporations paid into, it would be foolish for investigators not to see what happened with that cohen money. You look also, mika, at what again, Michael Cohen flipping apartment buildings, making tens of millions of dollars and yet not even having enough money to pay off 130,000 payment to a porn star . Having to take out an extension of a loan on his inlaws house. It begs the question, where did those tens of millions of dollars go . And you know, all of these transactions go back to the transaction in florida, in palm beach, where tens of millions of dollars were made by donald trump flipping a house to a russian in palm beach. Again, it all stacks up. Mueller is on top of all of this. And all i can say right now in may of 2018 is i would be shocked if at t and other lobbyists for other corporations paid money to Michael Cohen for arranging meetings with donald trump, and donald trump didnt at least ask for a cut of that money. It would go against everything that we know about him. That we ever knew about donald trump for a decade, especially when you consider how little donald trump thought of Michael Cohen, how he continually mocked and ridiculed Michael Cohen behind his back, suggested he was stupid, suggested he wasnt good enough to work on the campaign, suggested he wasnt good enough to work in the white house, that he was a bull in the china shop that broke glass. That is not a guy that donald trump is going to allow to profit off of him setting up dinners with corporate lobbyists to meet with donald trump. A lot of smoke right now. Not a lot of fire, but im guessing that that fire is being pursued by a special counsel that Donald Trumps allies and the conservative media and capitol hill are desperately, desperately trying to stop. And to add to your list, how abusive he is to people in the administration who are no longer of use to him. It all fits a pattern. So lets get to those claims of pay to play with the president s personal attorney. The lawyer for porn star, Stormy Daniels, alleging that the company set up by trump Attorney Michael Cohen to buy her silence in october of 2016 went on to take in over 4. 4 million through january of 2018. Nbc news reviewed financial documents that appear to support the account of the transactions from daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, including 500,000 from a company, Columbus Nova that avenatti says is controlled by a Russian Oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and his cousin, an american citizen. The New York Times reported that muellers investigators stopped vekselberg at a new york area airport earlier this year, searched his Electronic Devices and questioned him. An attorney for Columbus Nova said it is a Management Company, solely owned and controlled by americans. After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen has a Business Consultant regarding potential sources of capitol and potential investments in real estate and other ventures. Reports today that Viktor Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Michael Cohen are false. The claim that Viktor Vekselberg was involved or provided any funding for Columbus Novas engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue. Among the other payments to cohens company, essential consultants. 200,000 was from communication giant at t spread over four separate payments from october 2017 to january 2018. In a statement, at t said essential consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights and understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us and the contract ended in december of 2017. Over a similar period of time there was about 400,000 in payments from the Pharmaceutical Company novartis shortly before trump shortedly dined with its incoming ceo at the World Economic forrum. Novartis spokesperson said any agreements with essential consultants were entered before our current ceo taking office in february of this year and have expired. Michael avenatti will join us on set in 20 minutes. Okay. So jeffly goldberg, theres a ton in there to sift through, but if you want to start with the umbrella idea here, which is that there was a Shell Company set up by Michael Cohen that began perhaps as a way to get a payment to Stormy Daniels. But then it went on to basically get access to the president of the United States. I know Natasha Bertrand at the atlantic did additional reporting over this overnight. What did she find . I would just note for the record that if anybody wants me to provide insight into the trump administration, you can wire money to michelle company. You know, the interesting thing im happy to take it and provide insight over twitter f you like. What natasha is working on is were in a situation right now where theres a convergence of a bunch of different story lines. I dont want to go too far into where shes going at the moment. And there are a lot of reporters obviously on this as well. But, you know, were seeing this amazing convergence interesting thing to me and a bunch of reporters are looking at is i guess the theme would be let no good Shell Company go to waste. You know, if you set the Shell Company up for one thing, you might as well start funneling into the other. The real issue here is the behavior of huge american corporate titans thinking that Michael Cohen is going to get them something. This has brought in a whole set of other characters and reminds me of the daisy tom buchanan great gats by rule, everybody who gets touched by this crew gets tarnished and destroyed. Yes. But in this case it will be tom buchanan who is picking up all that he crashes, wrecks. Nobody will be going behind him to clean up the mess he makes because in this case, of course, tom buchanan is donald trump. And he didnt have, john, anybody around him telling him what was possible, what was not possible . That transition. You know, he was shot out of a cannon being elected. He never expected being elected and nobody was telling him you dont call taiwan before you call china. You dont talk to people in the middle east about financing business deals at the same time youre meeting their leaders for the first time. You dont take your daughter into meetings with japanese leaders, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In this case, youve been around donald trump in new york. Youve grown up in Donald Trumps new york. Im sorry to call it that, but we would call it Rudy Giulianis new york right now and thats not much better. But youve grown up in Donald Trumps new york. I wonder if you conclude the same thing that mika and i conclude knowing him for about a decade, and that is it is highly unlikely that he would allow Michael Cohen to take meetings with at t and pharmaceutical corporations, get paid for setting up those meetings and not have a side account where he doesnt make money on the side either directly or indirectly. Okay. So here is the sleazy but innocent plot line. Okay, the sleazy but innocent plot line line trump gets elected and the world of politics is in a panic because this is not a conventional political figure. They dont know what is going to happen in terms of how you get access, who to talk to, who is the back channel . How to get your issues before the highest people in the land without people knowing about it, and they had to start from ground zero. And they basically did what everybody else did which is they looked at who was in the news and who talked and then they went and they bought access to that guy. So that guy we know that trump has contempt for Michael Cohen now. Im not sure that at t and novartis and everybody like that knew that trump had contempt for Michael Cohen back in the transition period. So people were just i get that part of it, john. Made 4 million in lobbying fees in the first couple of months of 2017. Corey lewandowski got fired off the campaign. All im saying is i get that part of it because if youre at t and you want to figure out how donald trump operates, youre not going to hire ben rhodes. You will hire Corey Lewandowski or hire Michael Cohen. I get that part of it. Im talking about this money that went to this Stormy Daniels slush fund. Thats the part of the story that is interesting. Where did the money go . And is it possible that just like these transactions where cohen is making, 20, 30 million by flipping apartments in new york city but doesnt have enough money to pay 130,000 payment, is it likely that mueller is looking at these transactions and seeing how that money made it back to trump or the Trump Organization . Im not sure because remember the cohen investigation isnt under muellers eguess. If there had been trace plot lines that led back to a russian and trump and cohen and a slush fund, it strikes me that im not sure that mueller would have called up the Southern District and said you take this. This is really not under our umbrella. Maybe this is really new information, but if its not and we dont even know how avenatti got ahold of this. This is a very odd thing that this document or whatever this thing is has gotten by Stormy Daniels lawyer. You know, why he would get original documents leaked to him or whatever seems very odd because they havent gone through discovery yet, i dont believe. So they dont have access to those files. So, i dont know that this is a mueller issue. Joe, can i make one quick point here about i used to cover the mafia. I used to cover the mafia in new york. Im not making any comparisons, of course, but it is plausible that midlevel mobsters used to get in fatal trouble with their bosses all the time for hiding sources of income. Their tribute was meant to be paid and it wasnt paid. Thats the nature of greed in humans. So it is plausible that Michael Cohen is saying hey, give me money and hes not talking about it with anybody at all. I want to put that out there. Not that this is a sopranos episode, but its a plausible alternative. Well, it is a plausible alternative. Yes, go ahead. Why Robert Mueller would be tied into it. Viktor vekselberg has obvious ties to putin. There are some serious overlapping questions why he is denating visavis Columbus Nova to this bizarre llc. To jeffreys point, yes, its possible, i guess, that Michael Cohen is doing this as a side hustle, but Columbus Nova donated to the Trump Inaugural Committee and in a fair amount. There is overlap there which suggests these are interconnected. For me the Big Questions are really twofold and they both deal with the flow of money. Who actually directed these fortune 500 companies to this very, very, very, very obscure llc that has done no political work whatsoever and that no one knew existed over a month ago. Someone had to be like, hey, you want to get access, funnel it through this shady corporation, through this shady llc. I want to know who made that direction. Cohen or trump. The second more important thing is where did the money go . What was it used to pay for . Obviously Michael Cohen is not a political consultant and not a lobbyist and probably not a very Good Business strategist. Where did that money go . Was it used for an actual purpose or used for bribery . Again, and you just got to look again at all of the money that flowed through Michael Cohens shell corporations and ask yourself, where did that money end up. And its a critical question and one that weve been asking for some time now. Jeffrey goldberg, i want to thank you for changing your schedule and coming in this morning to talk about the iran deal because few people had the access that you did to barack obama at the time. He was sorting through iran and sorting through what the Obama Doctrine was. Im just knowing all that you knew about the framework that barack obama was setting up, not just for u. S. iran relations but his vision of the middle east, how does yesterday change that . How dramatically is that changed by what donald trump did yesterday . And whats the impact as you see it . Well, the shortterm impact this is interesting. I spoke with the former israeli Prime Minister when he was defense minister wanted to bomb Irans Nuclear facilities. I spoke to him last night and you know, he said, short term this might actually keep iran in check. The difference one of the many differences between barack obama and donald trump in the middle east is that over time people in the middle east adversaries of the United States began to feel that barack obama would not use military force against them. The argument here is that iran thinks donald trump is so crazy and is waiting for them to actually leave to violate the deal even though donald trump is leaving the deal, waiting for iran to restart its Nuclear Program that they wont do that in fear that donald trump will either attack iran himself directly or allow israel and saudi arabia to attack iran. So shortterm, were not looking at the end of the world. I mean, youre seeing obviously part of the trump doctrine is if obama did it, i hate it. Right . Thats one obvious aspect of the trump doctrine here. Trump is aligned in a way with people obama could not abide. Netanyahu in israel, the saudi royal family most notably. Hes adopted their world view. He has moved away from a conversation about containment, which is obamas discourse. Were going to contain iran and its nuclear ambitions. Hes moved very frankly toward a model in which regime change is a goal. Its unstated, but thats the goal. Theyre trying to break the iranian economy, foment unrest and lead to the overthrow of the ayatollahs. Chances of this happening im not putting prediction on it. Everything could go wrong. I think thats the fundamental framework. Its not irans Nuclear Program thats illegitimate, its irans government thats illegitimate. Thats a big difference the way these two president s look at it. Andrea mitchell, good morning. Good morning. The decision is made by the president and thats where we are right now. People are asking as we turn the corner here, what now . What is the plan from here such that there is one and what are the implications for our allies in europe and through the middle east . Well, youre asking exactly the question the plan b, which we dont have any answers because they dont have any answers. They havent had a coherent National Security counsel. They havent been able to work on this. They dont have a commander in chief who is drilling down on those kinds of details. Jeff and i were covering barack obama and previous president s who were actually engaged. This president is not engaged in those kinds of details at all. They dont have any kinds of answers to what are they doing have the paris climate accords, what are they doing after withdrawing from the tpp, from the trade deal in asia. And in this case, there is absolutely no plan b except for the hope that the European Companies will also suffer from secondary sanctions. Theyll prefer to bet on the United States, obviously a much bigger market than investing in iran, that somehow down the road will will be regime change through military action or through its internal uprising of some sort. I think that is really a hope that neither jeffrey nor i nor barack would be counting on certainly. And john bolton seems to be counting on it. The overnight reaction, rouhani had a calm reaction, but now overnight what were seeing is the burning of american paper flag in parliament and strong statement from the ayatollah. So this certainly undercuts rouhani and anybody who negotiated with america. Given the allys reaction, jon meacham, soul of america and given Jeffrey Goldbergs laying it out there, a lot of people are great with this that the trump doctrine is basically tearing apart anything obama did. How does this chip away at our standing globally, if you think it does . It absolutely does. Im not sure i would call it a doctrine. Basically the president is an open synaps. Its a massive deflection of whats bothering him at all times. He has no ideology except himself. From hour to hour, theyre not particularly coherent. Even thats a little overly coherent. Hes trump. And hes were captive to the narcissism of a man who tapped into legitimate concerns and anxieties in the country about the future of the working and middle class. Those cares and concerns are totally legitimate. The way hes going about it is the way a lot of people went about it in the 1920s for instance when we raised tariffs, built walls and boy, that decade rial worked out well, didnt it . What did the 1930s give us . I was thinking its not analogous particularly, i was thinking of president reagan, 1981, inauguration day, the hostages are released five minutes after he was inaugurated and there was pressure to kill the hostage deal that president carter had made. Right. And reagan said, no. Thinking about june 1993, the first time bush xli went back to the white house after clinton beat him was to appear with ford, carter, clinton and endorse nafta. And there was a bipartisan view that our broad commitment as a country should not change with every election. This is not surprising. He said he was going to do all this. But i think weve seen reporting this week that suddenly he realizes maybe we need a trade agreement in asia. So i think to me thats whats dont know if youve been to these kinds of im sure you spent a lot of time in Amusement Parks. Theres a ride called a tilt a whirl where you whiz around around throw up your icee. Thats where we are. Its this political equivalent of an Amusement Park ride except there are real world consequences. Go ahead, joe. Jon, thank you so much, jon meacham, soul of albuquerqmeri soul of america now available on amazon and independent bookstores. Its amazing. Ronald reagan also turned his back on nixon, kissinger, fords approach to the soviet union and took a more confrontational approach. Theres also that option and there are also again a lot of critics of this deal brought up last night is the fact that this is this wasnt a treaty signed on to by the United States of america. This was barack obama unilaterally pursuing a deal with iran as i bring up all the time and im sure you remember in november starting in november, december of 2007, obama saying that an iran deal could be struck and could be struck unilaterally. And i guess the lesson for future president s is you take unilateral actions on your own as president , then the next president can undue those unilateral actions on his own or on her own. Obama agreed in the process by which the senate did not reject the iran deal to a threemonth verification of the deals condition. And as tom cotton wrote in a letter around the time that the deal was being debated that was hotly controversial and a lot of people screened the letter written to rouhani and the ayatollah saying, look, here is our system. Our system is this president does this with the stroke of a pen. The next president can end it with a stroke of a pen. So, just understand that when you are talking about this, you understand how our system works and people went, this is terrible. We need to speak with one voice, blah blah blah. But it was actually true. Obama did not submit the iran deal to the senate as a treaty because it would not have passed. But it is a treaty. The whole purpose of it is to bind both the United States and iran for a decade or more out. That requires under our constitution 67 votes by the senate. Obama knew he couldnt get them, so he did it the only way he could get it through, and that method that it was passed by is what has torpedoed it. Now, he agreed to that. That is endemic and implicit in the deal. The president of the United States he ran everyday saying its the worst deal in the world and im going to reject it. Imagine if he turned around and endorsed it. Its not exactly saying no new taxes and raising taxes but its pretty close. But to attack somebody for fulfilling a campaign promise, people voting for him knowing that that was his promise, its fine. You can say he should learn, go with the deal, i dont agree with that, it doesnt matter. At the very least, he did what he said he was going to. To get back to jon meachams fairground analogy, were in this roller coaster situation because thats what trump thinks will work. He looks back and was elected on the promise that he looked back at previous politicians they tried things and had been to cautious and thought about the consequences and that didnt work so you have to throw everything up in the air and maybe that is the way you actually get results. Now, i imagine he would point to north korea and say we are getting towards a summit which no one else would have done and i proposed the preposterous and i got it. Getting back to what you were saying from your conversation, is the throwing it up in the air model have the possibility of working with iran . Sure. This could work. We could end this president ial term with the guy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for either north korea, for the middle east peace process. Right. Im not betting money even at t money on this, but anything is possible. The problem is andrea talks about is, you know, when you throw out something, lets have another plan. I think that the unstated plan is to turn on the pressure on the iranian economy and hope that the regime collapses. By the way, that regime, that dictatorship will collapse one day. I have no doubt about that. I just dont know when that day is. And the problem here is the wild card nature of this which is to say its perfectly plausible that iran will respond to this by fearing donald trump and not trying to violate, not trying to cross any socalled red lines. Its also possible that iran will say, oh, well, you know what, we tried to get this deal and it failed, so well get nukes, just like north korea has nukes and then theyll treat us with respect. Theres no possible way of predicting this. Just a quick point on this because its been a talking point. Ive seen a lot that trump is fulfilling a campaign promise. Yes, he ended up saying that the deal was the worst ever negotiated in the history of america. Where he started is far different, where he started is only one of the republicans to say this deal is horrible, tashlg but the money is out. We cant get it back. He moved away from it. He actually was in a different position early on. The other thing i want to point out and i would like to direct this question to andrea, this isnt happening in a vacuum. We are simultaneously trying to negotiate a nuclear settlement with north korea. What we do in iran must have at least some level how the impact on North Koreans perceive things, our own negotiating strength. In fact this shows to the North Koreans that we have firm resolve and will not accept anything other than denuclearization. The cynic will say to that the North Koreans will look and say, u. S. Cant be trusted to uphold their end of the bargain. Theres really not that much strength and muster behind this. What is your analysis of how this impacts that . You could argue it either way. We dont have great insight into the north korean mentality here, but the fact is we have arguably the best verification system, eyes on, more than 400 inspections, cameras everywhere in what we know. And north korea is a much harder target. So, how do we approach north korea now when we have walked away from that kind of verification with iran. The other point i would make to john, yeah. I agree with you that this should have been ratified by congress. This is a treaty and they knew they couldnt get the 67 votes, but it is a u. N. Security council resolution. Its not unilateral. This is a multilateral seven nation agreement including all the permanent members of the u. N. , embodied and codified in a u. N. Resolution. When have you ever seen the United States walk away from a Security Council resolution before . Its sending a signal and its such rebuff to our closest european allies to this personal appeal from macron, angela merkel, from the uk. I think thats a stunning rejection where he could have waited. He could have delayed the imply mentation. He could have done a number of things to send signals in both directions and say, okay, the europeans, the eu three particularly you have now agreed to negotiate a side deal which initially they were rejecting so my strength has gotten me that much. Lets see what you can deliver in 90 days or six months. Secretary mattis said they were obeying this as did secretary pompeo even at his confirmation hearing in april even though he was a hard liner and was against the deal in the first place. Thats the argument. Joe . So, jeffrey goldberg, this many people are looking at this announcement as a reordering of the middle east. Isnt it actually the United States going back to the future where we are once again aligned with sunni arab countries moving closer to israel than ever before because of their concern with irans growing influence, and once again, this sets up the United States where it has been for quite some time and that is the United States and the sunni middle east against iran and shiites across that region . Right. What you have right now is the jews and the arabs aligned against the persians and their shiite allies in other countries. The United States under its president is aligning itself absolutely in the camp of the jewish state and the arab states and hes bought their interpretation of the middle east which is there is a titanic battle, almost a good versus evil battle between the persian empire and the combination of sunni arabs and jews. And this is not to suggest that hes causing the middle east to go closer to war. We now that iran and saudi arabia can go to war against each other. So, you know, you could also see this as a very clarifying moment, the sides have been chosen. All right. Jeffrey goldberg, thank you very much. Andrea mitchell, well watch Andrea Mitchell reports at 12 00 p. M. Eastern on msnbc. Still ahead, Michael Avenatti will be our guest. We will talk to him about his bomb shell report that details some questionable financial dealings of President Trumps personal Attorney Michael Cohen. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Dear great grandfather, you were persecuted, and forced to flee the country of your birth. But you started a new life in a brand new world. When i built my ancestry family tree, i found your story. Then, my dna test helped me reclaim the portuguese citizenship you lost. Im joshua berry, and this is my ancestry story. Combine the most detailed dna test with Historical Records for a deeper family story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com Historical Records for a deeper family story. 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Com get a coupon and try them for yourself. Mr. Elliot, whats goyour 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. So this is a fiveyear lobbying ban. And this is all of the people, most of the people, standing behind me will not be able to go to work or do anything adverse to our wonderful country. Okay . Fiveyear ban, its a twoyear ban now and is full of loopholes. This is a fiveyear ban. So you have one last chance to get out. That was President Trump last year signing a ban on lobbying for those who joined his administration, but what about people who never went in . The lawyer for Stormy Daniels questions whether the president s personal attorney was selling access uncovering an alleged 4. 4 million flowing through an obscure Company First used to pay a porn star. Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, joins us next. This is a jungle gym. And a baseball diamond. A mythical castle. And a grand banquet hall. This is not just a yard. Its where memories are made. The john deere x350 select series with the exclusive onetouch mulchcontrol system. Nothing runs like a deere™ save 300 on the x350 select series™ tractors with the purchase of a mulchcontrol™ kit. You can do it. We can do this. At fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. Whoo while saving for the things another antiwrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works in just one week. With the fastest retinol formula to visibly reduce wrinkles. Neutrogena®. No one thought much of itm at all. L people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. They thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldnt that be cool . And thats why exxonmobil scientists think its not small at all. Energy lives here. The attorney for Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, joins us now. Michael, first of all, can you tell us where these new documents came from . Well, our summary we produced. But as far as the information that is that we used that we based our summary on, were not going to disclose where that came from. Its our work product. Look, here is what i will say, as of this morning we have nbc news that has independently verified what we said. We have the New York Times who independently verified what is contained within the document and two or three other independent news organizations that confirmed the veracity of what we set forth in our summary document that we issued yesterday. We stand behind what we put in the document. Its 100 accurate. And thats that. Yeah. And look, let me say this, to the extent that its not accurate, the president and Michael Cohen should clear this up this morning. Okay. They should release the Bank Statements this morning. Okay. So, if they are accurate and nbc by the way, our reporting is that they are reporting showed that they appear to support the account of the transactions, so it looks highly likely. What do you deduce that this money was used for, does it connect it all to other women . I dont know yet whether this particular account connects to other women, but what i will say is that this is an enormous amount of money that is flowing into this account. It is. Beginning in october, november, december time period of 2016. Youve got millions of dollars that are being deposited into this account. Michael cohen appears to be selling access to the president of the United States. We now have multiple Different Things supposedly that Michael Cohen was doing for all these companies. Now we hear from novartis that he was hired on health care matters. Evidently hes a doctor. One company mentioned they hired him for real estate matters. Hes a real estate agent. Evidently hes an accountant, lawyer, doctor, accountant and real estate. Im just a lawyer. Im not that bright, i guess. Before we open this up to the panel. You keep saying you have to vet these other women that called in. Is there anything more on other women . We dont have an update on the other women. So, michael, as you look through this, what we initially thought about essential consultants is that it was set up purely to make the payment to Stormy Daniels. That was the thought. And now through these new documents which nbc has verified, it appears that it was much, much more than that, 4. 4 million that we know of so far coming through there. Is there evidence that those payments by Companies Like at t led to a meeting with donald trump . Or is it possible that Michael Cohen is saying, hey, ill get in the president s ear for you. Give me the money. In other words, Michael Cohen took all this money for himself and it wasnt spread around and didnt lead to any interactions with the white house. We know that the president took or lunch with the head of novartis at some point into this relationship. We understand it was a oneyear relationship now based on the statement that novartis just issued. Also the amount of that payment, the per month payment of 99,980 is a very unusual amount. Its 20 short of a 100,000 payment. It appears and we havent confirmed this, but we heard from individuals that the reason why it would not have been 100,000 is because of the reporting, theres an internal reporting requirement at novartis that would have required the Parent Company in switzerland to sign off on any such arrangement. Now, i dont know if thats accurate or not. Thats what we heard as of this morning. Theres a lot of questions being raised relating to these payments. Why did Michael Cohen take these payments . You showed earlier in the broadcast the segment from january of 2017 when the president signed the ban on lobbying. Meanwhile, it appears that his right hand attorney is selling access and holding himself out as an expert in all of these other disciplines and not disclosing it to the American People. This whole thing stinks. It doesnt smell right. Again, im going to say it again. Michael cohen and the president should cause these Bank Statements of Michael Cohen to be released this morning if theres nothing improper about this. Were not talking about a lot of information. They can pdf the document, release it to the media and the media can go through it and report back whether its proper or not. Are you suggesting that Michael Cohen does not have a ph. D. In pharmaceutical . Im not only going to suggest that but state that as a fact. I dont want to two real questions. Hes the da vinci of our time evidently. Two questions for you. One is if this it was a vehicle for currying favor with the president by making these fairly large donations to them, to essentials, how do you explain the rather small donations one check for 4250, very little amounts. Why would someone give just that . We dont know the full extent of these particular individual amounts. Theyve been included in what we released. I think the Bigger Picture is that we dont know as we sit here today the full extent of the deposits. Here is the bigger question i raised this last night, where did the money go . Did all of it go to Michael Cohen . Did some of it go back to the Trump Organization . Did some of it ultimately find its way to the president . Elliott broidy paid into this fund. There was a very intriguing, highly speculative piece yesterday i believe about his own payments to a play mate for an affair and whether, in fact, it was him who was covering up the affair. Im curious if you are looking in an investigative capacity into the role that he played and why he was depositing money into this fund and his relationship with Michael Cohen. Is that part of your overall investigative work . Most certainly. Thats one of the things were looking at. What i find to be highly unusual about that, attorney on the plaintiff and defense side when it comes to settlements, its unusual to me why you would have a potential defendant, if it was it was mr. Broidy, and i raised that with mika, in my mind theres a big question about this, but i dont want to digress quite yet. Its very unusual to have a defendant pay his or her attorney a flat rate for negotiating a settlement. Normally youll pay an attorney on an hourly basis, a defendant, a potential defendant. Its not like a plaintiff who is doing it on a contingency basis. Here it appears that Michael Cohen was paid at least 187,500 or more for his work on behalf of supposedly mr. Broidy in settling. Thats a lot of money. He spent maybe 50 hours of work. I doubt it was 50 hours negotiating this potential settlement. I dont understand why he was paid this round figure by mr. Broidy or why these why these p were made. It doesnt make a lot of sense and its very suspicious to me. Your document points out within 75 days or so of the payment to your client, 500,000 from Columbus Nova, a private equity fund controlled by a Russian Oligarch, went into the cohen account. I think the report is a little different than that. There were payments over Time Beginning in january 2017. The first payment, youre correct, was within about 75 days. So just in a laymans way, what do you think what light do you think this sheds on the enduring questions about the president and his relationship with russia and russians . Well, Michael Cohen, the personal attorney to the president , at the right hand of the president , who by the way if you go on his linkedin page this morning, youll see that he still lists himself as an attorney for the president of the United States and he lists himself as being with Trump Organization, as i recall. I checked it last night. Your viewers can check me out on that. But you have the right hand of the president , the personal attorney of the president , associating with individuals with significant russian ties in january of 2017, accepting money from individuals with russian ties. Look, this does not smell right. And im not alone in this. Theres a reason why mr. Mueller and his team questioned the oligarch at the airport here recently relating to these exact payments. I think cnn reported that last night. Okay. So lets devolve mr. Broidy. Did he take the fall for the president on another situation with another woman . Is that what happened . We dont know that. Does it look like that . Theres a lot of issues. Your colleague raised the article that was in new York Magazine yesterday. I think theres significant questions as to what happened. Are there any women that have approached you and you are in contract with . Not that i know of. You told me not to ask you about the dvd, but what is on the dvd . Im not going to answer any questions about the dvd. Whats on it . Im not going to disclose that this morning. Were here to talk about a lot of very Critical Issues relating to this case. So its not important whats on it . No, its very important. If youll devote a whole show to whats on the dvd, maybe well release it. Miss brzezinski, will you stop badgering the witness. Thank you, counselor. Asked and answered. Miss brzezinski, stop. Michael avenatti, thank you. President trump is up and tweeting, oh, goody, about last nights primaries, calling it a great night for republicans. Tremendous voter energy and excitement and all candidates are those who have a great chance of winning in november. Well dig into the results, ahead on morning joe. Hais not always easy. Severe plaque psoriasis its a longdistance run and you have the determination to keep going. Humira has a proven track record of being prescribed for over ten years. Its the 1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists. More than 250,000 patients have chosen humira to fight their psoriasis. And theyre not backing down. For most patients clearer skin is the proof. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems. Serious allergic reactions and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Join over 250,000 people who have chosen humira. Ask your dermatologist about humira go. Bps natural gas teams use smart App Technology to share data from any well instantly. So they can analyze trends and stop potential problems in their tracks. Because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better. 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. All right. Well have much more ahead on the millions of dollars that seem to flow to trumps attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, after the election. Msnbcs ari melber joins us with his new reporting. Maybe he knows whats on the dvd. Im serious. Okay. No, im serious. Thats ridiculous. You dont tweet that and then not come through. Sam thinks its a burned copy of counting crows. Listen, mika do you think the dvd is the listen, i was very skeptical very early on but if you look at Michael Avenatti, hes done to donald trump what no one else has been able to do since he first rode down that golden escalator, he has beaten trump at his own game. He has figured out how to get into his head. He has forced cohen and trump and now giuliani to make one mistake after another that only entangles them even more. So i dont know whats on that dvd, but him holding it up for the world in that tweet has definitely gotten into Donald Trumps head. I guarantee you, donald trump thinks theres something on that dvd. 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That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you i dont feel good about turning down money, because my whole life ive been greedy, greedy, greedy. Ive grabbed all money i could get, im so greedy. I know the lobbyists. Ive used the lobbyists. You know, ive always taken in money. Im very greedy. Im a greedy person. Ive turned down millions and millions of dollars. I feel foolish actually doing it, you want to know the truth. I said, no, i dont want your5 million. I go back to my its just not my way of life. Ive always been greedy. I dont want to give all that up. I have great executives, theyll run it, its easy. But now i want to be greedy for the United States. I want to grab all that money. So during the Campaign Trump said that it pained him not to take money from lobbyists because hes so greedy, but this morning there are claims of paytoplay surrounding the president s personal attorney. The lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels alleging that the company set up by trump Attorney Michael Cohen to buy her silence in october of 2016 went on to take in over 4. 4 million through january of 2018. What was the money used for . And what of the allegation that some of the money had ties to a Russian Oligarch . Well break that story down. Also this morning, the major implications of the president s decision to pull the United States out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, may 9th, another big day. With us we have msnbc contributor, mieke barnicle, noh rothman, president of the council on Foreign Relations and aur author of disarray michael ross and katty kay. Michael, the iran deal one of the huge stories of the morning but whats going on with this money, this company and President Trump . We dont know. All we know is this company that was set up to create a slush fund for Stormy Daniels. According to documents that we learned about yesterday suddenly they got a lot more money in there, almost 4. 4 million. And money flowed through this Stormy Daniels company used for payoffs that Michael Cohen set up. So we certainly know this, that youve got Robert Mueller investigating, and Robert Mueller knows far more than either Michael Avenatti or ourselves. Im sure this is one of the many things hes been looking at for quite some time. Ill tell you also, mika, i remember David Ignatius talking about how the iran deal was a cosmic gamble. It was a cosmic gamble. There are people like me who were still very skeptical of that cosmic gamble. But even people opposed to the iran deal said most said the same thing yesterday, whether it was Bret Stephens writing in the New York Times that thought it was a good idea or the wall street journal, but all they said the same thing, donald trump better have a plan b. We wont know that for quite some time. Well, and you have to wonder what hes deflecting from and what exactly he might be doing to deflect. I hope hes not playing around with our National Security. Lets start with those claims of paytoplay with the president s personal attorney. The lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels alleging that the company set up by trump Attorney Michael Cohen to buy her silence in october of 2016 went on to take in over 4. 4 million through january of 2018. Nbc news has reviewed financial documents that appear to support the account of the transactions from daniels lawyer, Michael Avenatti, including 500,000 from a company, Columbus Nova, that avenatti says is controlled by Russian Oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, and his cousin, andrew, an american citizen. The New York Times report that muellers investigators stopped vekselberg at a new york area airport earlier this year, searched his Electronic Devices and questioned him. An attorney for Columbus Nova said it is a Management Company solely owned and controlled by americans. After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a Business Consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures. Reports today that Viktor Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Michael Cohen are false. The claim that Viktor Vekselberg was involved or provided any funding for Columbus Novas engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue. Among other payments to cohens company, 200,000 was from Communications Giant at t spread over four separate payments from october of 2017 to january of 2018. In a statement at t said essential consulting was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration. They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in december of 2017. Over a similar time period, there was about 400,000 in payments from the Pharmaceutical Company novartis shortly before trump reportedly dined with its incoming ceo at the World Economic forum in davos. A spokesman said any agreements with essential consultants were entered before our current ceo taking office in february of this year and have expired. Last night Michael Avenatti said that the payments to cohens Company Raises serious questions. I dont believe Michael Cohen is registered as a lobbyist. I dont believe hes registered to represent any foreign agents or foreign interests. The big question is this, all this money comes into this account, this essential consultants llc. We have reason to believe that it didnt all go to Michael Cohen individually. Michael cohen needs to disclose where the balance of that money went. If it went to donald trump or the Trump Organization and if Michael Cohen was part of a scheme to sell access to the president of the United States, that would be rather a rather shocking development, but i dont think that that is out of the realm of possibility at this point. Well, willie, its not out of the realm of possibility and certainly we dont know exactly what happened to this money. We do know that Michael Cohen does have this is one more reason Michael Cohen has to be concerned. Another question that reporters are starting to ask is a question about the tens of millions of dollars that Michael Cohen made swapping apartments, and yet he was so strapped for money that he had to take out a home loan credit extension on his inlaws home loan to pay a 130,000 payoff. So more and more stories arising that suggest at least that investigators need to see if Michael Cohen was just setting up shell corporations and money was flowing through those corporations and going to donald trump or the Trump Organization. Yeah, whats clear in this story, and theres a lot in there that can be confusing. Youve got to take some time and read through it. Is that Michael Cohen is in deeper than we knew. We thought essential consulting llc was set up two weeks before the election just to make this payoff to Stormy Daniels. Now, if you read through these documents that nbc has independently looked through, its clear that there was a lot more going on here. What was going on was payment for access to the president through Michael Cohen, who was merely an attorney and a friend of the president , was not working inside the administration, as Michael Avenatti said. He was not registered as a lobbyist. There were companies who were paying large sums of money, 4. 4 million that we know of so far, to Michael Cohen for access to the president. Companies like at t, which by the way had business before the Justice Department in a merger with time warner. So Michael Cohen was up to a lot more than we knew, and i think the reason thats important and significant is that this gives bob mueller and others much more leverage over him. We dont know, for example, that this Company Columbus nova, whose biggest client is a Russian Oligarch, we dont know if theres some russia connection there. It may be a coincidence that hes a client of Columbus Nova, but these are certainly questions mueller has long been looking into. Mika, you know, obviously mueller has been looking into these questions for some time. You also, though, when you hear about donald trump, his fixer getting paid money for these large corporations to meet with donald trump, i dont know where this money went. Its all speculation right now. I do know this, though. That every time you and i spoke with donald trump before the campaign or during the campaign, he would always say the same thing. Hed say look at my ratings. To cnn, why does msnbc make all of this money . I should be making this money. Hed talk about the debates. And hed say this publicly too. Hed talk about how much money the networks were making for the debates. And seriously was thinking about charging to show up at the debates. People would say you cant do that, theyre not going to let you do that. I remember. My point is this, donald trump would believe i know he would believe, knowing him for a decade, that if he were going to meet with at t and money was going to Exchange Hands for those meetings, he would say theres no way that Michael Cohen should make money off of that. Theres no way Michael Cohen should make money if i have dinner with fill in the blank, drug companies, you name it. Thats the first thing that question that was raised in my mind when i heard this story. Im sure theyre already looking to see if that money went to Michael Cohen, went through Michael Cohen, and somehow found its way back to donald trump, because donald trump would not take meetings and make money for other people without getting money back to himself, especially if it were Michael Cohen making that money. And well get some new reporting on this story just ahead from msnbc chief Legal Correspondent, ari melber. Also coming up, reaction to President Trump pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Well speak with a republican member of the Foreign Relations committee, senator jeff flake. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. This is your wakeup call. If you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. Ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. Humira can help stop the clock. 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So sophie, i have an xfi password, and its daditude. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Now to a story with global implications. The president s decision to fulfill one of his Signature Campaign promises and end the United States involvement in the Iran Nuclear Deal. Joe. Richard, i always have made no secret of the fact i thought this was a fatally flawed deal. I thought the president was desperate for a deal. I thought the negotiations were terrible. And i, like many people, didnt believe the president should have done it without getting support from congress. He should have instead of a unilateral deal between barack obama and our allies and iran, he should have gone through congress and it should have been a treaty. That said, we have an old saying in the south about the horse is already out of the barn. Well, weve already paid iran 100 million in sanctions relief. Our allies are already standing with us shoulder to shoulder. What does withdrawing at this point do for the United States . On balance it does nothing virtually thats good. It reinforces that were something of a rogue country, that we dont honor or live up to our international commitments. It potentially creates a Nuclear Crisis with iran, when rumor has it weve already got a Nuclear Crisis with north korea. It doesnt help us what the president announced yesterday did nothing to strengthen the u. S. Response to what iran is doing around the region, which ought to give us concern. And id say the most important thing, there was no reason to do this now. What the president was going on about was not thats what worries me. Was not iranian noncompliance with this agreement. That was not the issue. What he was saying, that its possible down the road that iran consistent with this agreement could begin to put into place the rerequisites of a Nuclear Weapons program. It would have the option to do that in 10, 15 years. My reaction is, okay, if that turns out to be right, and thats one of my concerns with the agreement, if that were to turn out to be true, we would then have options then to respond. There was no reason to make the american response, to blow up this agreement now. What were more likely to see now is a crisis with our european allies over sanctions, which isolates the United States, further rips the fabric of our most important alliances, while iran might be in a position where were the issue rather than its behavior. Now, do you agree with the thought of several people, perhaps, including mr. Haass, that withdrawing from this deal inevitably draws us further into potentially even a more dangerous area of the world, the middle east, along with israel and saudi arabia, two countries that pushed us to where we are right now . Well, i would take issue with that contention, but your first suggestion, does this further draw us into this region, i would say yes. I would say that was explicitly the design of Barack Obamas approach to this deal, which was to facilitate our withdrawal from the region, that iran was going to fill up this vacuum. In the process that it would change certain behaviors, induce cooperation with the west, that it would induce cooperation in the battle with isis. Those were some substantial concessions to iran and they were not reciprocated. Iran behavior has become more destabilizing and aggressive in iraq, libya in particular and yemen. The commitments that were made by barack obama are only as valid insofar as barack obama is president. Without congress, these are not stable arrangements. The reason why this was done now, to your point, is that were coming up on a sanctions deadline. This was telegraphed 90 days ago, it should not surprise anyone that this occurred. Critics of this move are arguing against a straw man. I have to say the notion that iran was in compliance with this deal isnt at issue. It is the fact that iran can comply with this deal because the terms of lenient enough for it to be able to. Critics of this arrangement have said that the deal itself was not stringent enough, did not attack the means by which iran could evade sanctions or, rather, evade inspections as israel demonstrated with its capacity to shield its information in a civilian shelter and it did not have access to military sites. That is the case, and that is why it was a fatally flawed arrangement. Up next, well dissect the president s latest legal strategy in the mueller probe. What our next guest calls the clinton strategy, and why it could maximize the likelihood of impeachment. Our legal panel weighs in, next on morning joe. Do ndo not misjudgenity quiet tranquility. With the power of 335 turbocharged horses the lincoln mkx, more horsepower than the lexus rx350 and a quiet interior from which to admire them. The Lincoln Spring sales event is here. 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A. , Antonio Villaraigosa invested in classrooms and security. Graduation rates soared. Antonio for governor. We are the suicide squad. Suicide quad. That showed them. You silly sods. Our next guest says that scene from monty pythons the life of brian came to mind when thinking about Rudy Giulianis action, the newest member of President Trumps legal team. Jonathan turley joins us now to explain that. Also with us we have former u. S. Attorney for the Northern District of alabama and an msnbc contributor, joyce vance on the set. Nb nbc chief Legal Correspondent and host of the beat, ari melber, and John Podhoretz is with us as well. The strategy has obviously changed with the Trump Defense team. I dont see any intelligent design here that is going towards the prosecutors and trying to resolve this case. You see with giuliani, who seems to be struggling to beat the timing of that suicide team by half, but hes clearly indicating that they want a more confrontational approach. Theyre not going to make any concessions. Theyre threatening the prosecutors. And the question is what is that . And frankly it looks very familiar. I testified during the impeachment hearings for clinton, and this looks a lot like that. They went with this very confrontational approach. They went to the courts on very dubious constitutional arguments. They lost. It resulted in a unanimous decision against clinton, all designed to really sort of have a muscle play at the end, which was impeachment. Clinton basically, his strategy relied on a partisan vote that would deny a conviction in the senate and it worked. But the result was costly not just to him but very costly to his office. Mike. Joyce, as a former prosecutor, former u. S. Attorney, what goes through your mind as you watch a portion of this play out in the sense that you have one of the principal defenders, defense lawyers attached to the president s case, Rudy Giuliani, constantly going on tv and instead of talking about the case that you as a u. S. Attorney or a prosecutor are involved with, instead of talking to the specifics of that case really, is actually setting up the public for something larger than the case. What would go through your mind as a prosecutor . You know, as a prosecutor, youre surprisingly unmoved by the kind of behavior that giuliani has been engaging in. Prosecutors try their case in court. The only decisionmakers that prosecutors really care about are the judge, but primarily the jury, whos the finder of fact. So these theatrics that defense lawyers try in one form or another are neither here nor there, in the typical case. Here where we have a president who perhaps cant be indicted, who is perhaps setting himself up ultimately for the public to be the finder of fact on his guilt or not, it takes on really a sinister dimension. Ari, we had Michael Avenatti on a few minutes ago, the attorney for Stormy Daniels. I watched that segment. Verified this document by nbc news, New York Times and others that show this essential Consulting Company set up to make the payment to Stormy Daniels doing much more business after that, 4. 4 million at least from what we see in the document flowing through that company. What do you see as you read through this document . What i see is something that is so fully bonkers i dont think as a nation that we fully digested it and we are used to careening from one story to another. If this were the last scene in the movie, willie, and you had money from a putinlinked fund with a billionaire that was literally so objectionable that he was sanctioned by Donald Trumps own treasury department, which is resistant to sanction russians for election meddling and was funneling money into the account to pay off Stormy Daniels, which Michael Cohen lied about and donald trump lied about and Michael Cohens lawyer lied about on nbc and all of this came together like this and the leak came from documents provided by Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels lawyer, i think youd just say, well, thats a little much for one final movie scene. Its a bit much, isnt it . But its not. Its 2018. Its may. Were only a year out from muellers appointment in the first place. So what i read from it is an incredible amount of incriminating information that raises questions about the criminal liability about Michael Cohen, obviously, but also the people who were knowingly involved with Michael Cohen, accessories, coconspirators, et cetera. That is a bombshell wrapped in a set of public lies that i think is still just reverberating. So, john, lets see if you can top that. I think you can. Go. This is all political, right . Essentially you want to talk about legal cases, Rudy Giuliani is here to conduct a political strategy for donald trump, which is to float and test the waters for a possible firing of Robert Mueller. This has been hinted at, its been going on for a couple of months around the white house, around protrump republican circles. Devin nunes, others. So i think you have to divorce rudys part in this from the legal case. This is a political case. Impeachment is a political process. The potential not indictment lets say of the president but a potential report recommending that possible impeachment charges be brought, these are political matters. Trump, i believe, is signaling whether or not rudy is competent at this or not and whether or not hes doing it well or not, this is all a giant signal of a trial balloon to see how the public would react to a mueller firing. Did that do better than ari . It was good. I just wanted to make sure. Im a little biased, but i would say you slayed me, john. No. Sometimes podhoretz can be more biting. This was okay. Go ahead, mike. Jonathan turley, following John Podhoretz, spectacular performance, by the way. Thank you so much. Thank you. Rudy giulianis performance over the past couple of weeks oh, good lord. In a sense the mad methodology of it is working. Hes taken the countrys eyes, i think, a large part of the country that is paying attention to this stuff off the central goal of the prosecutor and on to the verbiage that rudy spews on tv multiple times a day. Well, it very well could be working with that base. I also think that there could be an alternative explanation here. I think that they are going to the worst Case Scenario as the only scenario. It doesnt seem to me like they are working very hard to thread this needle with mueller, to ending the investigation. Instead theyre going to the worst Case Scenario. I think flood is part of that. Flood was involved in the clinton teams defense. Theyre looking down the road and saying whats the worst that can happen to us . We have a muscle vote in the senate like bill clinton, and we constantly sort of poison the well in terms of this investigation to give some cover for people to vote on a purely partisan basis. Now, the problem, of course, with that is the same problem with bill clinton. It costs your presidency everything. Bill clinton largely gave away his second term. He put himself before his office. And it cost both of them so dearly. And i think thats whats really alarming about this is i dont see any type of prep that goes to anything other than that worst Case Scenario. But i think some of this may be overly procedurally narrow, because while the professor and mr. Podhoretz are both certainly correct that anything that winds up in congress is a congressional activity and will be as political as we all expect, in the clinton case no one ever pled guilty to crimes. There was no state level serious prosecution risk related to fraud, to tax evasion, to these other issues. Well, thats not quite right. Ill let you come in when im done. To finish the point, it is quite right in the only person that was even charged in connection with the actual ken starr investigation was his spokesperson, although he was not convicted. There were earlier whitewater inquiries, but as to the president ial activity. So there is a scenario wherein donald trump doesnt face personal criminal liability because as many people reported, myself included, the doj has long held you cant charge the president. But theres a scenario where criminal liability attaches to his family, where the tax returns become public, where people learn why is it that donald trump and Michael Cohen, who were both purportedly so rich, why are they constantly in debt, willie . We need to stop for a second. We need to hop in with breaking news. The president has just tweeted im prooesd to inform you that secretary of state mike pompeo is in the air and on his way back from north korea with the three wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also good meeting with kim jongun. Date and place set. These are the last three american citizens being held captive in north korea. These three men, two of them held captive last year, one of them since 2015 on charges of espionage. The president has teased that this moment may be coming in some tweets last week and comments again yesterday when he said that mike pompeo was in the air and on his way to north korea. This was the hope, that this would be a good will gesture from north korea and the leader there, kim jongun, ahead of a meeting with the president of the United States here. The president says the date and time have been set. But the three remaining americans held captive in north korea have now been freed. The president just announcing that. Senator jeff flake, republican of arizona, joins us now. Your reaction to the news, senator. Oh, thats good news. Obviously there was hope that this would happen. Its been hinted that it was happening. Im glad it has. Im glad theyre in the air on the way home. Thats a good thing. And, senator, what does it tell you about the prospects for negotiation, the prospects for peace between the United States and north korea, this gesture of good will from kim jongun . It has to be a good sign. North koreans seem serious about moving ahead. There have been meetings obviously with the south koreans, additional meetings with the chinese. And then the meeting, i guess the time and date has been set for the meeting with the u. S. I hope that were doing the necessary prep work before the meeting happens, but its only good news, i think, to see americans freed. Senator, what was your reaction to yesterdays withdrawal from the iran accords . I dont think that was a good deal at all. I wasnt a fan of the accord. I thought that the agreement in 2015 should have included some prohibitions and some addressing of irans activity in the region and Ballistic Missiles, but it didnt. But as where we were now, it just does not make sense to relieve iran now of their obligations under the nuclear part of the deal. They have realized the benefits which were largely front loaded in terms of the release of frozen assets and sanctions relief, and now were relieving them of their obligations if they choose to do so to abide by the nuclear side of the agreement. What do you think would be the reaction of the United States, given the withdrawal from the accord, would you think that the United States would eventually be willing to penalize france and or germany or any other country among our allies who would continue to do business with iran . That remains to be seen. Weve seen with the tariffs, we have tariffs imposed and then the president just in a position to give waivers or exemptions, and that seems to be the way we want to play ball now. Its just far from the kind of rulesbased International Order that we helped establish with multilateral institutions and organizations as arbiters of disagreement rather than just one country acting out ad hoc on its own. So i dont know what thats going to be like, but i think its fair to ask a day after, what is plan b . How do we address those other activities that iran is involved in that need to be addressed and still make sure that he hothey to their agreements on the nuclear side. With our unilateral withdrawal, i just dont see how thats going to happen. Im very worried, particularly Going Forward now with negotiations with north korea, how does that make the situation better or it more likely that north korea will enter into agreements with us knowing that at the drop of a hat we could get out of those agreements. In addition, north korea would be much harder to put inspectors on the ground and inspect an existing state of nuclear potential than it was in iran. You bet. I just dont know how we are safer with the possibility that iran can now say to the inspectors, the iaea that does have eyes and ears on the ground there, youre out. How are we safer . How are we any further away from nuclear possibilities with iran in that scenario . Senator flake, i just want to refer back to the breaking news that were covering right now. The president actually tweeting that this is about the three detainees being held in north korea coming home with secretary pompeo, and he confirms in a tweet if we can put that up the second saying secretary pompeo and his guests will be landing at Andrews Air Force base at 2 00 a. M. In the morning. Ill be there to greet them. Very exciting. Lets stay positive with this, senator flake. What are the possibilities that open up with this news . Well, its always a good sign if there are issues like this, good faith efforts like the release of hostages or detainees in advance of talks that shows that the countries are serious about it. And so that, i think, can only be seen as good news, and i applaud the administration for being able to organize that. I hope that it carries forward into the negotiations. These are going to be difficult. North korea is in a different place than iran is. They have some Nuclear Weapons capability that iran hadnt demonstrated yet. And so were looking for them not just to freeze, but to denuclearize. So its good its good news that things like this are happening right now. All right, senator flake, thank you very much. Joe, obviously as we watch this play out and this 2 00 in the morning return home, this is a legitimate act of good faith on the part of north korea. Fair to say. Listen, its great news. I cant even imagine how thrilled the families are. Oh, my gosh. To be having these americans returned home. It is absolutely fantastic news, and we are so thankful that theyre returning home. The second part, though, of your sentence suggesting that this is good faith on the North Koreans part, we just dont know. I mean they took them illegally. They took them as hostages. Theyre actually only letting americans return home after north koreas own illegal actions. And were just not you know, we have, John Podhoretz, in both the iran decision yesterday and in Donald Trumps decision to lurch into talks with kim jongun, we actually have two situations that are fraught with dangers, but also have a great deal of possibilities before them. Im just let me have you respond to that, first of all, and how these two things are died together. But secondly respond to senator flakes suggestion that we are less safe because we dont have inspectors on the ground or dont have the guarantee of inspectors on the ground moving forward. My disagreement with senator flake would go to the fact that there are military sites that we are not allowed and have not been allowed to inspect or go into, the iaea has not been allowed to go into and those sites are really the epicenter of the iran nuclear center. So as my colleague, noah rothman, said earlier on the show, iran can be said to have been huing to the Iran Nuclear Deal because its terms, despite what we hear about the how the inspections regime were so intrusive, were incredibly loose and not serious enough and not severe enough and that is the challenge for the trump effort with north korea Going Forward, which is will they be so eager to strike a deal for the Public Relations sense of it and to claim that they are denuclearizing peninsula, will they be so eager that they will blink in the negotiations and not be intrusive enough. Having said that, i want to make an interesting i think is an interesting point, which is that as weve been talking about Stormy Daniels and mueller and the noose tightening and all of this, over the last couple of months Donald Trumps poll numbers have gone up an aggregate of 4 to 5 . I think that that is probably directly related not only to sort of decent Economic News and stuff like that, but the fact that he seems to be getting somewhere on north korea and getting his sea legs, stuff that i dont agree with, like the imposition of the tariffs, but where he seems to be taking a dominant leadership position in foreign policy, which the American People tend to like and he is getting back republicans who were leaving him because he seemed not only he seemed incompetent or unable to exercise a certain degree of leadership. Something is going on here. We should watch as the north korea negotiations and summit and everything go on to see what kind of effect that is going to have on the president s popularity because that is going to have a boomeranging effect on whether or not, as i said earlier, he might really pull the plug on mueller and he can do that more easily, more readily if his poll numbers are up than if his poll numbers are down. You know whats so interesting, mika, as we talk about north korea and iran, the very things that barack obama did moving towards the iran deal that i was critical of, i thought he was far too eager. He wanted and the iranians knew that they were dealing with somebody across the table that were not going to walk away without a deal, and so they got in my opinion, they got extraordinarily favorable terms. You could say the same thing about donald trump and north korea. What did kim jongun do to get a facetoface meeting with donald trump other than exchange abusive tweets over time . There was no groundwork laid. Right. There were no there were a meeting like this, a summit like this, should take a year or so to set up. Donald trump set it up by rushing into the west wing. A meeting he wasnt even supposed to be in and saying, hey, lets get everybody together, lets have a summit. Yeah, thats a great pr move, but again, for me its hard to see how this turns out any better than Barack Obamas eagerness, i believe overeagerness to strike a deal with iran. Its two president s in search of a deal who have got to be sending a message to the other side that they so desperately want a deal for pr purposes or for political purposes or for legacy purposes that the United States interests are going to be undercut in the end. Well, the breaking news this morning, the three americans detained in north korea are being released. Theyre arriving at Andrews Air Force base at 2 00 a. M. With secretary pompeo. The president says he will be there to greet them. Lets go back to our legal panel. We had to sort of squash things down a little bit because of the breaking news, but ari, ill have you take it to Jonathan Turley and joyce vance. What do you think the key, in terms of final thoughts here, the key issues out of avenattis revelations are . Key issue will be additional facts. Weve seen this bare bones layout. Were not sure of its source. These are the sorts of information that typically is closely held. Mueller can subpoena this information. For it to be out in the public, very unusual. Its banking sensitive information. So well look for more facts to see whether the dates match up and whether the president had knowledge of these occurrences. The feds said in their Court Filings after they raided Michaels Office that he doesnt practice law and his only major client is donald trump. So what was he doing for these companies . What was he being paid for . What did they think he was being paid for . Did he mislead any banks . Thats federal law. Did he mislead federal authorities . Did he mislead new york state regulators or tax authorities, thats state law and not pardonable by donald trump. What is the true nature of this russian investment firm. And what does it mean when people say they want to pay Michael Cohen for insights or real estate help or pharmaceutical analysis . These are things as you i think it means whatever you want it to mean. It means whatever you want it to mean, but if its if its a knowing twoway lie, it might mean that theres a lot of people who are going to be asked more hard questions and looking at potential jail time. Jonathan turley, do you agree . Right now it has the profile of an access payment. We saw that when the obamas came to office, we saw that when the clintons came to office. It does have that profile. This was a guy Walking Around with a virtual tip jar on his belt. It does make me feel a little uneasy about the retainer that willie has had me pay for access to morning joe since december, but he told me thats also standard procedure. So im not casting aspersions. Joyce vance, ari melber, Jonathan Turley, thank you very much. John podhoretz, thank you as well. Of course were following breaking news. This came via tweet by President Trump, but the three american detainees in north korea are being released. They are coming home with secretary pompeo, who had a very quick trip there, and arriving, according to President Trump, at Andrews Air Force base at 2 00 a. M. This morning. The president will be there to greet them. That in itself is great news. Well be right back with much more morning joe. S time to wa. Wakey wakey rise and shine oh my gosh how are you . Well watch this. I pop that in there. Press brew. Thats it. Look how much coffees in here . Fresh coffee. So rich. I love it. Thats why you should be a keurig man fullbodied. Are you sure youre describing the coffee and not me . Do you wear this every day . Everyday. Id never take it off. Are you ready to say goodbye to it . Go go ta da a terrarium. Thats it. We brewed the love, right guys . all yes. No one thought much of itm we brewed tat all. L right guys . People said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. They thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldnt that be cool . And thats why exxonmobil scientists think its not small at all. Energy lives here. And my brother ray and i started searching for answers. vo when its time to navigate inhome care, follow that bright star. Because brightstar care earns the same accreditation as the best hospitals. And brightstar care means an rn will customize a plan that evolves with moms changing needs. woman because dad made us promise wed keep mom at home. vo call 8444brightstar for your free home Care Planning guide. I saw my leg did not look right. I landed. I was just finishing a ride. I felt this awful pain in my chest. I had a pe blood clot in my lung. I was scared. I had a dvt blood clot. Having one really puts you in danger of having another. My doctor and i chose xarelto®. Xarelto®. To help keep me protected. Xarelto® is a latestgeneration blood thinner thats. Proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. In clinical studies, almost 98 of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. Xarelto® works differently. Warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your bodys natural bloodclotting factors. Xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. Dont stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase risk of blood clots. While taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. Xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. It may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. Get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. Do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. Before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. Learn all you can. To help protect yourself from another dvt or pe. Talk to your doctor about xarelto®. Joining us now is National Correspondent for the atlantic former editor at u. S. News and World Reports and jimmy carters speechwriter, James Fallows and his wife deborah. Theyre back from a fiveyear tour of small towns across the country. Wow. Using a single prop airplane. And chronicled it in a new book called our town, a cannot wait to hear about this book and this trip. How fun. And how important at this time. But first, james, if we could get you to respond a bit to the breaking news. Sure. Of the three detainees coming home. Well, certainly, its good news for those people and their families to always be welcomed as weve known dealing with north korea is a longterm waiting game so well see where this leads. But at the moment we can only be happy at their release. I was talking to jon turley about what a move this is for north korea. Act of good faith seems to be too far. Its a symbol . Sure. An extension of during the olympics, when the North Koreans were being more engaged to the south, the meeting at the dmz, its a positive step. Good way of putting it. Joe, jump in. So, james and deborah, ive been actually waiting for this book for year because you all have had teases. You said this is the best airport its the best airport cafe that weve seen out in california. And i said, this sounds like one of the great trips of all time. Deborah, talk about the journey. When did you guys dream this up. And did it turn out to be everything you hoped it would be . In reverse order. Yes, it turned out to be everything we hoped would be. We started off on this journey about 2013. Had a hunch that we needed to renew our instincts on what was going on around the small towns and cities in america. So, we set off in this plane and visited nearly 50 cities but responsibility considerable time in about 25 weeks at a time, just going into these small towns. Asking people what their lives were like. What they were doing. What was important to them. What was their sense of tomorrow in their towns. So, did you did you feel trump coming during the campaign . Weirdly, no. Because we spent a lot of time before the elect until places that went for trump. We were in western kansas and west belt pennsylvania. And people there, its a strange divide where their own communities they thought were getting better. But as soon as National Politics came up, if you asked that, it was this switch. Well, we hate hillary. We need to switch it up but the disconnect about National Politics and how people think about their comphiemunities is ims privilege. Joe. Thats one thing that mika and i we havent done Something Like this but weve given speeches through the years. In various communities. And we say no you know what, whether were speaking in alabama or the 92nd street y, the people that come up and talk to us they want the same for their kids. They want the same for their communities. Were not as separated as we used to be. Were more homogenized. And theres this association that doesnt seem to exist on the ground . We couldntal agree more fully, even including democles, alabama. All of this experiment that you see, city by city, around the country. That this can somehow seep upward to improve our national live, rather than reverse, of the poison seeping down. Well, deborah, if you watch cable news or go on social media, you get the impression that this country has been cleaved in half. Everyone has run to their corners and there may be no healing that divide between us. Its been exacerbated the last two or three years. Did you find that to be true when you went out and talked to people . How did people, for example, feel about the other side . How did progressives feel about conservatives and conservatives about progressives . It wasnt im on this side and youre on this side. Its were owl in this together so lets get creative about our schools. Lets support our libraries because they know the wants and needs of whats going on in the town. And were your neighbors, every time we open the door in the morning or go to the grocery store, were going to see you and be accountable to each other. So theres i am going to say that the personal, im going to say trumped the national in this case. Got it. No one is asking the most obvious of all . What was your favorite town . Whos your favorite child . Oh, come on. Give me the top three, i dont know. Sam. Journalistically, northern mississippi is really interesting. Erie, pennsylvania. Greenville, South Carolina was really interesting. Lets just say im just a traveler and interested in america. Thats not what this is about, sam. Okay, id go to the deep south. The book is our towns a 100,000 mile journey into the heart of america. James and deborah fallows, thank you so much. Thank you. So, joe, you have five seconds. Good luck with that. To wrap up the day. Buy this book. And understand that most of the divisions that we see on cable news that we see on websites, that we hear about, or read about on facebook are exaggerations. Exaggerations, to drive traffic, to drive viewership, to drive people listening to talk radio. This country is more united in more ways than it is divided. And this book will prove it. Buy it. And its on dvd. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle has breaking news with the three americans detained in north korea. That is right. Good morning, im stephanie ruhle. And we start with that very breaking news about the three american detainees who are now released from north korea. President trump tweeting just a short time ago, quote, i am pleased to inform you that secretary of state mike pompeo is in the air and on his way back from north korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with kim jongun, date place set. Secretary pompeo and his guests will be landing at Andrews Air Force