his business dealings, his candidacy, his inauguration, and people as well. this latest strikes perilously close to melania trump because the main vendor who got a seven-figure salary in the inauguration is stephanie, who s very close to her. ditto the campaign finance, potentially implicates trump junior and to shimon s point, it s not michael cohen who s carrying the water all by himself. remember on the inauguration, richard gates, the deputy chair of inauguration s already cooperating and likewise, besides cohen, you have david pecker on the campaign finance. so, mueller and the sdny already have a lot of information in hand. all right, so, mark, you know, look, the inaugural committee gave a statement out gave it to me a few moments ago. they say they re not aware of any investigation. they haven t been contacted by prosecutors. obviously not been contacted by prosecutors is not necessarily
president trump still needs that chief of staff, so we put jeanne on the hunt for some ideas. reporter: as the list of finalists to replace john kelly shrinks. five people, really good ones. reporter: the jokes expand. trump found out yesterday that his second pick, colonel sanders, isn t available. reporter: so many americans don t want this job. trump might have to let a mexican do it. if anybody here wants to be president trump s chief of staff, just raise your hand and the job is yours. reporter: sure, there have been volunteers, former baseball shrugger jose canseco pitched himself for a job in the tweet but probably won t get it after tweeting, i will buff you up, daily workouts. british commentator piers morgan also applied, promising that if the president is doing something dumb, he would tell him. and if you continue to do it, you re an idiot.
protect trump? well, erin, i think, you know, over the years david pecker has proven his friendship but there were, you know, obviously there were limits, and obviously david pecker became aware that he was getting in over his head with this guy. you know, as larry said, the bombshell today is that he was in the room. regardless of rudy giuliani saying that, you know, this was just a civil matter or the president s denial, the president s finally conceding that, okay, i was in the room, you know, up until weeks ago, he had no knowledge of any of this. right. it s just it s just he s just burying himself further. well, and he keeps moving the goal posts. first he knew nothing about it, then, okay, then, well, maybe if i was but not they re saying he s in the room and he s
saying michael cohen did it without him knowing about it or not being directed, which obviously makes no sense at all, given the relationship. larry, let s be clear here. american media, which is david pecker, you know, controlled, right, national enquirer is a part of it. has an agreement now with prosecutors and in that agreement, they have agreed to, quote, provide cooperation in the future. so, in other words, that opens the door, it sounds like, larry, to, we re not just talking about this story about karen mcdougal, that david pecker paid her $150,000 for and then killed it, didn t run it. it opens the door to, were there other trump stories that were paid for, buried with the principal purpose of influencing the election. am i reading too much into it? no, i don t think you are at all. if we ve learned one thing during these past months, years, it s that every day brings a new revelation. that just when we think we have a handle on what s going on, it gets worse for trump. s
important. i mean, separate means separate but it also means the broader and more people looking into it. all right, shimon, thank you. i want to go to jeff zeleny at the white house. jeff, as all of these things start to mount, this criminal investigation news happening just within the past hour or so, what is the mood right now inside the white house? reporter: well, erin, good evening. the mood from the president is one of defiance. we saw him all day long talking in interviews, on social media, clearly trying to blame all of this on michael cohen but the reality is, as more and more investigations merge together, others in the white house, in the west wing, frankly, aren t sure what to make of this. there are some questions tonight, if the president has said this was not anything illegal, a campaign finance violation was not a crime, then why is he not saying that he directed the money? as federal prosecutors did. so many questions mounting up here. but the real concern i m picki