of azov. that obviously would be a big escalation here of things going on. the russians, meanwhile, firing back saying they believe that foreign powers may have had to do with the standoff that took place here a couple of days ago. as you can see, wolf, things ratcheting up, and certainly the president cancelling that meeting not going down well at all. wolf? did they say what they would like to do if there s no two-hour formal sit-down. do they want a little side meeting along the sidelines, as they say? reporter: i do believe the russians still hope that there will be at least some sort of interaction between vladimir putin and president trump, even if it s on the side, maybe before or after some photo opportunity, but all we have right now from demetri peskov saying that he ll find some other meeting for vladimir putin to take place. this is important for putin as well. he s meeting with mohammed bin
became the presumptive republican nominee and just one month before the convention. cohen saying he told congress the deal, dubbed the moscow project, ended before the iowa caucus and the very first primary in hopes of limiting the ongoing russia investigations. cohen s revelations in court showed he discussed the status of the moscow project with donald trump on mohr than three occasions and briefed trump s family members, plus, despite previously denying any contact with moscow related to the project, cohen now admits he talked directly with somebody in vladimir putin s press secretary s office for 20 minutes in january 2016. i don t know putin. i ve never met him, but if this deal was going forward, i certainly would have started working the phones. reporter: cohen also worked with felix sater, a russian american businessman to discuss the deal and cohen even contemplated that cohen would
would sit down with vladimir putin. why would this attributed to hostilities between russia and ukraine, that s the white house s answer to that, but, of course, a lot of people are skeptical about the timing. that s a good point. chris cillizza, do you think the president was wary of the optics of sitting down with putin so soon after this bombshell? yes, and i think context matters. let s remember back in helsinki, donald trump and vladimir putin side by side. donald trump says, well, you know, i know our intelligence community says it was russia that interfered in the election and helped me and hurt hillary clinton but vladimir putin said it wasn t. we are both to blame. there was a huge uproar stateside. if he s not in a great place mentally dealing with cohen and what looks like bob mueller s investigation picking up momentum and the vice tightening, it might not be the
best idea for him to sit down with donald trump or any other hostile world leader. i don t think the ukrainian issue is the reason for that, wolf. i think it can be cited for a reason but put me in bianna s camp in that it would shine even more light on what he would not do and if donald trump sat down with vladimir putin, he s not going to all of a sudden confront vladimir putin over russian interference. he hasn t done it before. it won t do it now. optics didn t have much of an effect going into the helsinki meeting as well. there was a lot of anticipation from both republicans and democrats and the worlds to really address russian interference in the u.s. election and to be firm with put puel. he seemed to go into this
mind, paul manafort. mr. trump said he hasn t ruled out a pardon. i ve never seen anybody treated so poorly. the question was asked by the new york post and i said no, i ve not asked any pardons and they said would you, and i said i m not taking anything off the table. loyalty counts. if cohen was such a bum and have him on your payroll and have him do so muchch your dirty work? because a long time ago he did me a favor. a long time ago he did me a favor. reporter: the president s decision to cancel this meeting with vladimir putin here at the summit doesn t mean they won t actual little meet. they could push pass each other and getting back to the president s comments about michael cohen and calling him a liar, we should also note that the president s outside attorney