Thdo that. I would advise iran very strongly not to restart their nuclear program. If they do, there will be very severe consequence. We will get to those headlines in a moment. But first the story that could overshadow it all, what the atlantic says merges the two biggest scandals in Donald Trumps presidency in a single tweet. The man at the center of it all is trumps longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen. It started with this from Stormy Daniels attorney, michael avenatti. Quote, attorney mr. Cohen received approximately 500,000 in the months after the election from a Company Controlled by a russian by a Russian Oligarch with close ties to mr. Putin. These moneys may have reimbursed the 130,000 payment. Nbc news has reviewed documents that appear to support avenattis claim that cohens Shell Company, essential consultants llc, received money from a Company Called Columbus Nova which has ties to Russian Oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. A man who also has close connections to vladimir putin, a man
hair-brain things we crapped up together. we re thinking, hmm, how will we get people to come on the show at 5:00 in the morning? then what, we decided just call them! just call them and wake them up. but i want you to know, if you think we re rude, we within the last couple months asked our friends, down the road some time, would it be okay if we called you and they agreed, but we just don t tell them when we re calling, so. [ ringing ] a story specific to what we re talking about now. it s politics and apparently, she loves politics. diane is huge into politics. now she s probably not answering because she s mad. hello? sorry! i thought you weren t going to answer. hi, diane. it s fantastic! you woke me up. i fell asleep on the couch. you re in l.a., right? i am in l.a., so it s like 2:45 in the morning, and i bless you for getting up with us. we appreciate it. are you kidding? it s awesome! how are you guys? did you watch the iowa caucus results? i fell
scrutinize him as well. so, we ll see how he stands up to it. all right, 38 minutes after the hour. coming up at about 7:35 on starting point, soledad o brien will talk to senator john mccain about why he endo e endorsed mitt romney. did you watch that? and at 7:05 eastern, soledad will talk to former senate candidate christine o donnell about whether rick santorum s recent momentum will affect mitt romney in new hampshire, where he is leading the polls, quite handsomely. one of the last interviews she did on cnn, she walked out on piers morgan when he was asking about gay marriage. so, i wonder if soledad s going there today. but she laughs about the whole i m not a witch thing. i love that. coming up, we have a special guest. we re going to wake her up. she s actually on the west coast. and, well, that kind of gives it away, doesn t it? i wasn t going to tell you, but it s assistant d.a. casey novak. diane neil. she has no clue, but she s about to get a phone call.
my clothes at 7:00 a.m., fully dressed from the night before. it was like, oh, my gosh, what s going on? if people are your fans, they know you as assistant d.a. casey novak on law & order: svu but probably don t know you re nutty about politics. i am nutty about politics. i have so much fun. the caucuses it s so funny because perry s in, he s out. he s back in. i m like, what are you doing, dude? because it s one of those things. what do you guys think he s going to do? why is he in? he s going to split the evangelical vote in south carolina are you kidding me? it s 2:45 in the morning and you re better than an anchor in politics in recapping. no! here s my question for you, diane, ashleigh says you actually considered running for political office. i actually thought about it. it s funny. i live well, i m on the other coa coast, no offense to this coast, but my favorite coast i love
it. sometimes, you know, we don t get all the sounds we re supposed to get. it sounded deathly quiet in the studio, by the way. 5:42. this is a good time on the east coast to be asleep, and it s a great time on the west coast to be asleep, but not for diane neal. she s on the west coast? she s on the west coast. oh, my gosh! this is what s even worse. she s traveling between the west coast and new york this month. and i know that today [ ringing ] she s on the west coast. she s in l.a. sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. am i getting bogus phone numbers from my friends because they know we re going to wake them up? hello? diane? hey, how s it going? it s ashleigh. you knew you were going to get one of these calls, right? i think we should redial you. can you hear that crazy sound, the dial tone and everything else? we re still not really good with the technical on this segment, obviously. yeah, we re redialing her. this is like a news reality s