versus below the surface of the water. in answering it, imagining tonight you re on the trump west wing legal team. what must that feel like? they have some idea of what s been assembled against them. yeah, because paul manafort helped hand some of the confidential information to them. you want to be technical about it, sure. and they were surprised, according to news reports, they didn t know that michael cohen had been having all those conversations. so, when they answered those questions of robert mueller s, they had some sense from manafort about what they were what mueller was getting. they didn t know they had to know he was cooperating some way obviously, but they didn t know the amount of time he was spending with them and they seem to have been surprised. so what they are sitting there worried about is did we sufficiently cover our tracks in how vaguely we answered those questions that we re not looking down the barrel of a perjury charge?
and i pressed him on that. i said, are you really not going to engage with the special counsel? he said, well, if they do have a question, i may consider it. he spent most of our conversation going back to michael cohen, taking shots at michael cohen, calling him a liar, trying to set this up as a credibility war against michael cohen, against mueller. the republican party is watching it with an eye a little bit askew, but they re not taking action because they still want to get their agenda done. that s the political bargain they continue to have with this president. it is hard to imagine this ramped up. it is hard to imagine what happens when this president and the white house, west wing staff, really go to the mattresses. as it is tonight, he s in argentina, quoting greg jarrett of fox news on twitter, which may indicate to us that he is watching the coverage. what is it going to be like? and is that legal team preparing for every day should feel
immediately is does the president today regret not taking president obama s advice about mike fwlin? if he had taken the advice and not made michael flynn his national security adviser, we would be talking about something else today. that also harkins back to the president s decision to fire james comey from the fbi. there s widespread believe had the president not fired james comey, there would not be a special council investigation into his campaign s dealings with russia. shannon, all these reports out there tonight including our own about how this was a thunder clap, this was a surprise in that west wing, devils advocate side of that question, how could it have been? a lot of news organizations have been preparing their mike flynn packages of coverage in anticipation. absolutely. everyone knew not everyone. a lot of people close to the president certainly knew flynn
came to the white house to meet with president obama, sometime after that, we learned president obama warned donald trump about mike flynn and so the thought immediately is does the president today regret not taking president obama s advice about mike flynn and maybe if he had taken advice and had not made michael flynn his national securitiedy ed advisor, we woul been talking about something else today. had the president not fired james comey, there would not be a special investigation. shannon, all these reports out there tonight including our own about how this was a thunder clap, this was a surprise in that west wing, devils advocate side of that question, how could it have been?
general john kelly, u.s. marine corps retired, and the normalizing impact he is already having in a west wing that has functioned of late more like the wild west. first tonight, a report from the associated press that says kelly has reached out to a cabinet member who was recently publicly humiliated by the president to tell him that he s safe. jonathan la mere broke the story. jonathan standing by to talk to us. it goes like this, quote, kelly in one of his first acts in his new post called attorney general jeff sessions to reassure him that his position was safe despite the recent onslaught of criticism he has taken from president donald trump. the second report tonight is from politico. it s about kelly cracking down on the flow of information to the president. quoting here, kelly has told aides that anyone briefing the president needs to show him the information first. the trump west wing tradition of