had you had you heard you said that you had heard that giuliani and perhaps others from the trump campaign had been around trying to get them involved and pressure them for things. had you heard that anything about the phone conversation that had taken place, i know you said you hadn t seen the transcript, did you know a phone conversation took place? did anyone on the ukraine side from the president s office or the president himself ask about or express conflict over who they should listen to or how did they deal with the u.s.? because it is a new regime there. so i knew about giuliani s overtures because by that point giuliani had been very public that he was going to the ukraine to try to convince zelensky to get involved in the 2020 election. i also knew that trump had had phone conversations with the president. and there was a general confusion in ukraine that i had heard about prior to my visit as
let s go live to washington and bring in marshall cohen. have at it. what is the strategy mirror can you derive any from what rudy giuliani is trying to do right now? good morning. well, you know, it is not that clear that there is a strategy. sometimes it seems like the president and his legal team are just trying to win the day or get through the day. at this point giuliani said something over the weekend, he said it before, it wasn t actually the first time that he said it, but some serious back be pedaling yesterday and we ll see where it goes today. but to call it a brilliant mastermind strategy doesn t that doesn t seem to be what is going on here. it is one thing today, another thing tomorrow. and frankly, a lot of contradictions. typically a lawyer is trying to clean up his client s statements, not his own. and that is what happens day after day with rudy. so you hit on something i
for time, trying to push it as close to the elections as possible thinking you might not subpoena him before election that s exactly right. based on my conversations not just about giuliani but other trump advisors, mueller has a window before the election to issue his report on the president s conduct and they are ware if the president doesn t sit down with mueller, they wonder if mueller can finish a report on the president s intent. was it criminal intent or not when he made certain decisions or had certain actions as president of the united states and at this point giuliani is advising his client, the chief executive to not sit down. the president says to his advisors he wants to sit down but actions speak louder than words. at this point they are delaying. yeah. if the president wants something he gets it. if he wants to tweet something dumb that s counter to anything that might benefit him in this case he does it. so he knows better, i think. robert costa thank you. we ll be
we could be inching closer to the point when mueller makes decision about issuing a subpoena of the president of the united states. they ve been negotiating for months. you wonder what is the point where mueller has had enough with giuliani and the president delaying a decision. giuliani said to me last night that he s now going to send a letter back to mueller who wrote giuliani a letter last week, a response back on tuesday or wednesday, today or tomorrow saying any questions about obstruction or in essence going to be off the table. about the president s conduct with regard to the firing of james comey or the handing of the national security adviser michael flynn. giuliani acknowledged in the conversation that this is just, again, pushing the decision away and we re now in the summer as mull certificate trying to wrap up his report and that subpoena threat made months ago back in the spring during a conversation with then trump attorney still hangs over these exchanges. is there a
video from the pentagon of the deadly ambush that killed four american soldiers in niger. it provides new insight to what went wrong. good morning. welcome to early start. i m dave briggs. i m christine romans. one year ago today, robert mueller was appointed special counsel in the russia investigation. there are important developments on the milestone. rudy giuliani says they cannot indict the president. rudy giuliani said all they can do is write a report. they can t indict. they acknowledge that to us after battling with us. it is a point giuliani reiterated on fox. we will see what legal remedies are available to us. including if they subpoena us, challenge the subpoena. i don t think they agree to the process question. the same reason they cannot indict him, they cannot issue a subpoena to him. clinton opposed a subpoena and voluntarily complied.