and lies matter in the long term? we don t know, mika. we don t know if they re lies, if they re just mistaken statements that he makes. it s so hard to follow him. the new yorker interview you referenced, it s another example. he s talking about the buzzfeed story. from the moment i read the story, i knew it was false. rudy then says because i have been through all the tapes, i have been through all the texts and all the e-mails. the interviewer says what tapes have you gone through? i shouldn t have said tapes giuliani said. the level of incompetence he brings to this, whether it s planned or unplanned, on he knows. i have never seen this before in a representative of the president of the united states, but we are continually getting into unchartered waters
just make stuff up, and if he s just make stuff up, we can t pay any attention to him. this is really crazy, because he s not doing his client any good. one understands why people in the white house and other people on the legal team would be enormously frustrated at this. it s one thing to sow confusion as a diversionary tactic but this has gone beyond that to something else that s not good for the president. mike barnacle, i think it would be a sad exercise to figure out what s going on with him. what about the story? what about pulling back the big picture. to his errors, to his misstatements, to his lies martin long term? we don t know because we don t know if they are lies or mistaken statements that he makes. it s so hard to follow him. the new yorker interview that you just referenced is another example. this is out of the new yorker. he s talking about the buzzfeed
that changed on friday when carr issued a statement on the record disputing the accuracy of the buzzfeed story about trump directing cohen to lie to congress. it s been followed now by a number of stories that appear to be sourced to people inside mueller s office explaining their rationale off the record. now the question becomes since mueller s office has spoke up in response to one story, what to make of their silence for all the others. joining me is the author of that peter carr man of mystery profile, hunter walker. also broke major part of this trump moscow story. what do you as someone who wrote about peter carr make of what happened friday and what it does now i should note i wrote that profile with my colleague nyc southpaw. we ve been fascinated by peter carr because he is in one of the
matters and not a single public hearing has been held with a single fact witness in the entire russia investigation. that is astonishing to me. all the hearings that were held, all the interviews were done behind closed doors. we still haven t seen the public release of that testimony, by the way. so michael cohen s testimony, donald trump jr. s testimony, go down the list, jared kushner s testimony. all behind closed doors and we re still in the dark about exactly what they said michael isakoff, that is a great point. i think there s a divide between journalists and prosecutors on this. the prosecutors say you have to leave them alone, it s a criminal inquiry and the journalists tend to want public transparency. you saw chris murphy say this. i thought it was interesting on friday after the buzzfeed story. it s even more important in some ways after the carr statement to say, look, we got to do something here in congress publicly about what the heck is going on in this country and w
it is all wildly confusing, even, frankly, for someone who follows it for a living. let s take a step back and look at what we know for sure. whether or not buzzfeed s report turns out to be true, there does seem to be widespread consensus the president instruct ing a witness to lie to congress would cross an obvious bright red line. it would constitute an impeachable offense and that s that s what drove the freakout over buzzfeed s story. that freakout we now know included the president s legal team. a source familiar with the matter telling nbc news that friday morning after the story had been published, the president s own lawyers, quote, raised concerns in a letter to the special counsel s office before it released its own statement disputing buzzfeed s report. another thing for sure is that the president s company was continuing to pursue a deal in moscow seeking putin s approval far later than they diflgd to the public.