was all about trump, i don t think i could exonerate manafort. the president has not ruled out a pardon at this point. what do you think the end game is here. the president has been asked about this over and over again and always refused to take off the table the idea of pardoning paul manafort. certainly from the manafort side you have to imagine that is the end goal, get donald trump to pardon paul manafort to clear, you know, as he has many times, to clear this whole russia thing and all of the associated illegal behavior, including things that paul manafort has pled guilty to, was all a hoax and wipe it all away. rosalyn and tom, thank you both very much. we want to get to breaking news now. back over at the white house, president trump as we speak, talking about ukraine and joe biden on the south lawn before he heads to florida. kristen welker is back with us. i m looking at notes from our colleagues, the president was asked again, what did you want president zelensky of ukr
exonerate manafort and lay the predicate for a pardon. whether barr is involved is another question. ic i can tell you that the president of the united states is trying to overturn and has not fully accepted that russia interfered because he s saying that ukraine did it. if you read half of what rudy is saying, that s what he s saying as well, which brings me to our colleague on the hill, geoff, let s talk about rudy giuliani. if he refuses to testify, they re not clear that they want to call him, they want to depose him privately, they don t necessarily want to put him on camera, having faced corey lewandowski. what if mike pompeo puts a guardrail around all these potential witnesses? the key to their investigation is to do it completely and quickly and only on this ukraine whistle-blower complaint.
of his life in prison. he has nothing to lose at this point. max, let me bring you in because the defense team is also emphasizing that the special counsel hasn t charged him with any illegal coordination with russian government officials in 2016. they re making the claim that there is no evidence of collusion. your reaction here given what we know about manafort s interaction, especially with konstantin kilimnik. this is really the last refuge of the scoundrel in this case, don, to claim, oh, you know, i committed all these other felonies, but i didn t commit, quote, unquote, collusion with russia, which as we know is not actually a crime. that s just a phrase that we in the pundit business use to describe the cooperation between the trump campaign and the kremlin. and the actual crime, if there is one, would be something like conspiracy against the united states. but i mean how does that exonerate manafort from all the financial fraud, all the tax fraud, all the bank fraud that h
he has nothing to lose at this point. max, let me bring you in because the defense team is also emphasizing that the special counsel hasn t charged him with any illegal coordination with russian government officials in 2016. they re making the claim that there is no evidence of collusion. your reaction here given what we know about manafort s interaction, especially with konstantin kilimnik. this is really the last refuge of the scoundrel in this case, don, to claim, oh, you know, i committed all these other felonies, but i didn t commit, quote, unquote, collusion with russia, which as we know is not actually a crime. that s just a phrase that we in the pundit business use to describe the cooperation between the trump campaign and the kremlin. and the actual crime, if there is one, would be something like conspiracy against the united states. but i mean how does that exonerate manafort from all the financial fraud, all the tax fraud, all the bank fraud that he committed? it s a com