manafort he may look at manafort as a tough guy who s held his self together so far, but on the other hand trump is innately disloyal to everyone around him, even people who have willingly gone to jail for him. what s the upside if you re manafort and his team in not apologizing to the court, showing remorse? look, i think that was definitely strategic play on their part knowing two things, one, that this judge has a reputation for going very easy on whoite collar criminals. they didn t need to burn that chit and put themselves back behind the 8 ball where trump could interpret it as there s paul selling me out. because manafort knows that the president is vengeful among many other terrible characteristics. so i think you re going to end up with a situation where manafort didn t think he needed to do it with this judge and thought it might have been a risk factor for any potential pardon, which i still think is a long shot for him. what do you make of the
himself. he can be called before state courts. this guy is facing more jeopardy if he is out than if he is in. i think when paul manafort looks at the two big wedges he is caught between, on the one hand he doesn t want to spend his life in prison. if he is out he owes oleg deripaska money. it is a mixed bag for manafort no matter how he plays it. he may look at manafort as a tough guy who has held himself together so far but only the other hand trump is innately disloyal to everyone around him. what is the upside if you are manafort and your team in not apologizing to the court showing remorse? look, i think that was definitely strategic play on their part knowing two things,
the i had the privilege of being on last night. and everyone was if this is true, then x follows. nobody would say this is actually where things are. it could very well be the folks around him directed cohen to do stuff and they were trump people. but not trump himself. on the other hand trump does have a pretty strong disrespect for the law. and it s certainly plausible the reverse is true. this is why we need an investigation. if donald trump is truly innocent as he said, he s the one who should be not clam moring for an investigation. not calling it a witch hunt. bring it on, i have nothing to hide. he doesn t talk to mueller or congress. he s trying to shut it down. saying it s a witch hunt. and lawyers might assert executive privilege. he doesn t sit down and answer questions. this doesn t look like the behavior of an innocent person.
it. they had the response, build the wall, mexico s going to pay for it, et cetera. when i talked to folks and talked about the wall, they weren t steadfast in their need for it because they trusted donald trump, period, to do whatever is best. the fox reporter asked trump or said to trump a lot of his supporters want him to stand firm on the wall. are his supporters saying that or is it just laura ingraham or rush limbaugh? it s a great point. i think what you saw in the weeks leading up to the holiday recess was essentially the conservative choir really denouncing president trump to have any type of bipartisan compromise leading into the new year. is pelosi willing to hand trump or centrist democrats any type of mini-political victory? the notion that they re not playing ball with the white house is something that is going
rudolph giuliani. there were other lawyers previously who were giving him a different set of advice. on the one hand trump believes his biggest risk is not necessarily from mueller but may come from possible impeachment if democrats take the house. so there is an elementary school where he believes this is a public relations battle. that he needs to discredit mueller in case the investigation finds anything but even if it doesn t and lay the ground work. as he likes to say, this is a witch hundred. collusion is not a crime and he did nothing wrong. we don t know. now that michael cohen has flipped, that s a risk. there was a seed change in the people close to him and i m sure you talked to many more. there was a seed ghang the president s potential guilt on the question of collusion. they always thought, he is too incompetent to have colluded with russia. he couldn t even collude between the plane and the headquarters.