Interviews with political figures and news updates. Will he offer Paul Manafort a pardon . That remains to be seen when our own Peter Alexander asked him that question last week. He said hes not really thinking about the. But he didnt dismiss that its on the table. I would also point out, andrea, it was striking to hear the president last night at that Campaign Rally in West Virginia. Yes, he referred to the witch hunt. Yes, he took aim at the media, some of his familiar targets. But he really largely stayed on message. And you have to ask the question, if some of the wind has been taken out of his sails when to comes to attacking the Special Counsel, andrea. On his way to West Virginia as he was arriving, he said he felt badly for both manafort and cohen, clearly he was asked about both, he said he feels badly for both. Thats before the transcript from the court was released. Once the transcript was released and it was very clear that Michael Cohen had very explicitly implicated the
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pardon? and when does manafort give up hope that trump is going to issue the pardon? and how much pain is paul manafort willing to take? i mean, he s already had to pay for a fairly expensive legal defense. everything in front of him is going to be expensive. the timing just doesn t line up in a way that means that he can have this state of telepathy with trump and read his mind and figure out when the pardon is going to come exactly and when he can breathe a sigh of relief. he s got to assume there s more. you ve been following paul manafort for a long time, we ve both seen him in politics and his role for ukraine and other foreign actors. right. how do we figure out what he would decide? cut his losses? he s got this incredible capacity for denial. on the one hand, he is the
he s facing he s in jail. he s facing jail time. but notably, he didn t testify and his defense was the government didn t meet their burden. those are both very consistent with post-conviction cooperation. but once he goes to trial again, i do not think that there s really going to be an opportunity for him to cooperate. and notably, what was interesting yesterday is his defense attorney, after the verdict came down, came out of the courtroom and unlike most defense attorneys who say we re going to appeal, we have a lot of our options and we re going to pursue them through the appellate courts, he instead said, we re going to evaluate our options, which is a very different sentiment than we re going to appeal. so in the next three weeks or so i would imagine we will know whether or not paul manafort is going to cooperate or whether, as i ve been saying for quite a while, he s really waiting out the pardon game and looking for a pardon from the president. and as you just pointed out
deal? will former trump campaign chairman paul manafort flip now that he faces a tough trial in d.c., potentially? you re watching andrea mitchell reports on msnbc. it was here. i couldn t catch my breath. it was the last song of the night.