We are a little bit delayed here. We were supposed to start at 9 30 this morning. The judge had a sentencing in another case, so now prosecutors and the defense team are in the courtroom ready to start their arguments any minute. Each side will have two hours to make their case, their final statements to the jury here. Their arguments before that jury goes in to the deliberations. Were spenting to hear prosecutors remind the jury about Paul Manaforts lavish lifestyle, how he allegedly hit those foreign bank accounts, how he allegedly defrauded banks. The defense team, well see what they say. They might pin a lot of this, as they did in their opening statements, on rick gates. The fact that he testified for 2 1 2 days and did admit to embezzling money from Paul Manafort. Of course, he has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. Perhaps the defense team will seize on that as well. Well all see this unfold over the next four hours. Then the jury will be charged and it will be in the hands of that jury. Jess, thanks for the reporting. Our chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin, is with me now. Hi, poppy. Hi. Good morning. So the defense calls no witnesses. The Defense Attorneys come out and speak to cameras yesterday and say the government hasnt done its job, they havent met their burden of proof. Not unusual necessarily to not present a defense. Right . But how do juries read that . Well, its important to remember, it is not unusual. It is also very usual for defendants to get convicted. Upwards of 90 of defendants in federal court get convicted. It is not an easy thing to defend a case. Look, take it from someone who predicted Hillary Clinton would are inthe 2016 election. I dont get the defense in this case. No. But i mean this defense like whats the defense here . They have never really articulated why Paul Manafort is not guilty. Rick gates, they say he is a terrible person. But most of the false statements that rick gates made on paperwork was for the benefit of Paul Manafort. It was not for the benefit of rick gates. Also, the tax returns. They were false. All the documentation. It was false. The bank submissions. The bank applications. They were false. And it was all for the benefit of Paul Manafort, not Paul Manafort doesnt want to go to jail. Is it too late for him to flip . What gives . You know what . I have been baffled by this from the very beginning. I dont have a clear explanation. A lot of defendants just cant come to terms with the fact that theyre guilty. Theres also the possibility that hes playing for a pardon. The president has made clear that he pardons his friends. He pardons his political allies. But or he may just believe this is the way to be a standup guy. He could do right . These are all federal charges so he would have the power to pardon him on everything. Absolutely. He could pardon him tomorrow. He has not indicated that. Lets be very clear. The president hasnt. So he did not take stand at all and this isnt it. He has another trial in like five weeks in d. C. Unless something happens, i mean it is possible that he may take a message from this case. If he gets acquitted, i expect he will go to trial and try to beat that case, as well. If hes convicted, i wouldnt be surprised if he tries to reach some sort of resolution in the washington, d. C. Case. But ive been confused by his Defense Strategy before. Just to be very clear and to say it one more time again, this is not a trial about President Trump. This is not a trial about russian meddling per se, in the campaign. However, rudy giuliani, the president s personal attorney made a connection last night, at least in terms of when the president might decide whether or not hes going to sit down with the special counsel. Heres the Exchange Last night with chris cuomo. Are you any closer to having a deal with mueller to sit down . No. Havent heard from him in a week. How do you interpret that . I think theyre waiting for i hate to bring up the case. I think theyre waiting for the manafort case. I think they feel if they win, theyre going to be empowered. What do you think . I dont really see one as having much connection to the other. This dance would they feel empowered if they get a guilty verdict, even though his allegations arent tied to his time on the Trump Campaign. Would they feel more empowered . We try to psycho analyze Robert Muellers staff. I think theyre just trying to do their jobs. I dont really think one has much to do with the other. It would be a huge, crushing disappointment to the mueller team if they lost this case. That would be a devastating, devastating blow and it would certainly have a political cost to them, as well. If they get a conviction, i dont think it really matters with regard to the donald trump interview. Remember, this negotiation over his interview has been going on since late last year. Eight months. They were almost agreed to do an interview on january 27th of this year. So this saga about back and forth, i mean it sure looks to me like theres going to be no interview and that raises the question of whether there will be a subpoena, and a big legal fight which may stretch well into next year. Jeffrey, thank you. Sure thing, poppy harlow. See you soon. This morning no laughing matter here the white house cannot guarantee their words, cant guarantee we wont hear a tape with the president using the n word. Heres what the because does say. The president s attack on exwhite house aide Omarosa Manigaultnewman this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the president calling out someones lack of integrity. He always fights fire with fire. He always fights fire with fire. Thats is how Sarah Sanders was defending the president taking to twitter yesterday, calling a woman he hired, a black woman, his former aide, a dog. And it seemed like her message here was nothing racist about this because he insults everyone. Reporter pretty much, poppy. The message is that the president is an equal opportunity insulter, but yet we know based on his tweets just in the last several weeks, his goto for insulting programs, whether its lebron james or don lemon or omarosa is that they are not smart. He took it even further when he used a term that he actually pretty rarely uses in a direct way to call one of his opponents. He called her a dog. He didnt say she was like a dog. He said, that dog. I think thats what really took it across the line and highlighted for some people that this is a white house really struggling with issues of race. They are already defending the president against accusations that perhaps there is an alleged tape of his saying the n word during the apprentice, and now this. It is getting bipartisan condemnation. Senator jeff flake saying this is unbecoming of a president. And other lawmakers saying it doesnt matter whether she was africanamerican woman or not, calling any woman or any person a dog is beyond the pale. But this white house not backing down at all. Once again, Sarah Sanders reverting back to this idea that the president reserves the right to insult whoever he wants, poppy. Okay. Before you go, abby, walk us through these tapes. Right . We know omarosa has had these multiple recordings of different conversations, shes sort of drip, drip, dripping through her and people on these tapes that she recorded unknowingly are now speaking out with very different stories than they had before. A lot of credibility issues tied to all the parties. This has been a fascinating show of exactly who we can trust here. The white house and their allies have been trying to say that omarosa is untrustworthy. There are issues with her own credibility, including why she work for a man who she now describes as racist. But she describes an episode in her book in which during the campaign several Trump Officials were on a phone call discussing the possibility of an n word tape. She describes the conversation in detail, including using quotes. Those people on that tape, lynn patton and katrina pierson, both initially denied that that episode ever happened. They denied that there was a Conference Call in which they discussed this episode at all. Then omarosa released the tape. By later that afternoon they both appeared on cnn last night and they totally changed their story. This is what they had to say. She really was a dog with a bone when it came to this tape. It got to the point where we had a campaign to run. What you hear in that tape, which is not the tape shes been referencing, is me placating to her, which i did a number of times, because she would not let this tape go. There were a lot of times that we talked about this tape because omarosa was literally obsessed with it. She brought it up constantly. It is clear now the reason why she did is because she was surreptitiously recording us. First, those conversations never happened, now they happened but they happened because of omarosa. It is all coming down to who can you believe here. Is it the former white house staffer whos turned on her boss, or the Current Trump allies who are lying about what happened . Its i think perhaps going to come down to what is recorded on tapes and what we can see and hear with our own ears, poppy. Thank you for trying to keep it straight for all of us this morning, abby. Still to come for us, the White House Press secretary Sarah Sanders is apologizing this morning for saying that President Trump created many more jobs for programs than president obama. That is simply not true. Also, a big night for diversity and a big fight for the president. Well break down a history making primary day. Plus, hundreds of firefighters, Police Officers and volunteers swarming the site of a deadly bridge collapse in italy this morning in a frantic search for any survivors. We will update you. Tech at safelite autoglass, we really pride ourselves on making it easy for you to get your windshield fixed. With safelite, you can see exactly when well be there. Saving you time for what you love most. Kids whoa kids vo safelite repair, safelite replace with the right steps, hasnt left my side. 80 of recurrent ischemic strokes could be prevented. A bayer aspirin regimen is one step to help prevent another stroke. So, im doing all i can to stay in his life. Be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. And i dont add up the years. But what i do count on is boost®. Delicious boost® high protein nuritional drink now has 33 more protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals boost® high protein. Be up for life. I knew at that exact moment. Im beating this. My main focus was to find a team of doctors. Its not just picking a surgeon, its picking the care team and feeling secure in where you are. Visit cancercenter. Com breast our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition. For strength and energy whoohoo greattasting ensure. With nine grams of protein and twentysix vitamins and minerals. Ensure. Now up to 30 grams of protein for strength and Energy Welcome back. Im sorry for the mistake. Those are the words from press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders as she made a blatantly false statement about Program Employment at the podium yesterday. This president since he took office in the yearandahalf that hes been here has created 700,000 new jobs for africanamericans. Thats 700,000 africanamericans that are working now that werent working when this president took place. When president obama left after eight years in office, eight years in office he had only created 19 5,000 jobs for africanamericans. President trump in his first yearandahalf has already tripled what president obama did in eight years. No. That is not a fact. That is not true. She later corrected the record and apologized. Heres the truth. President obama created about 3 million jobs for africanamericans during his eight years in office. Advisors said, look, this was miscommunication. This is after bloomberg pointed out the mistake. Joining me now, the man who did just that. You were listening to this and you thought, what . Yeah. I just thought those numbers just sounded way off. Just sort of didnt really make a lot of sense that there would only be 195,000 jobs created for africanamericans under the eight years of the Obama Administration when we saw more than 11 million jobs created across the country for all americans. The idea that President Trump had tripled that number and just came in and changed the entire situation for the Africanamerican Community within 18 months did not sound true so we looked back into the numbers and it was clear that Sarah Sanders misspoke. She was trying to defend herself against charges that the president may have said the n word. No one asked her specifically about job numbers but she used that to try to defend this white houses record on africanamerican unemployment and the numbers were just way off and its a rare admission of a mistake. Weve seen Sarah Sanders make false statements from the podium multiple times. This is one of the rare times where she has tried to clean up the mistake because it was so far away from the truth. And thats important, right . If you get it wrong, say you got it wrong. And she did that. Right . So josh, when you look at the big picture conversation yesterday at the press briefing, it was largely about the n word and whether the president had uttered it and whether there is any tape. Here is an important question that she was asked on that in her response. Im not going to get into the back and forth on who has signed an nda here at the white house. I can tell you that it is common in a lot of places for employees to sign ndas, including in government, every Administration Prior to the Trump Administration has had ndas, particularly specific for anyone that had a security clearance. All right. Sorry. We played the wrong sound bite. Lets listen to the right sound bite where shes talking about whether she can guarantee or not that an n word was used by the president on a tape. Here is that. Can you stand there at the podium and guarantee the American People will never hear donald trump utter the n word on a recording, if any context . I cant guarantee anything. But i can tell you that the president addressed this question directly. I can tell you that ive never heard it. Josh, whats your read on how she answered that . Because, some folks have been pointing out to me this morning, you might think that she would Say Something like, i would be stunned if he ever said, that would never happen, its not in his lexicon. Whats your read . Proof that he has said that. So far it is just an allegation from Omarosa Manigaultnewman who said shes heard it second hand. I think Sarah Sanders has learned from the podium no the to ever promise or guarantee anything because this is quite an unpredictable president. He was on the apprentice for a decade or so. Lots of tapes of him. You remember the access Hollywood Tape that came out. No one saw that one coming. I think she wont make any promises or guarantees explicitly. That said, i thought her defense yesterday was fairly remarkable. Questioned repeatedly about how the president continues to insult africanamerican folks like lebron james and don lemon and omarosa. She said hes not racist, he just insults everyone. And then she said hes actually said nastier things about other people. Facing those charges at the podium whether the president was racist, Sarah Sanders says not really, he attacks everyone. An interesting defense. It was odd. Turning to the ndas, the white house basically saying these ndas are totally normal, everyone signs them, nothing to see here. When you look at who white house staffers are actually working for and being paid for, theyre working for the American People, being paid salaries by the american taxpayer and yet there are these ndas with multiple White House Former press secretaries like ari fleischer, is not the norm. You had multiple legal scholars come out and say that these ndas would be completely unconstitutional and against the idea of freedom of speech to have an employee sign basically a loyalty oath saying that they will not for perpetuity talk negatively about the president that they served under. These are Administration Officials who work for the taxpayers. They may work during a specific administration but they are not they are not required to pledge loyalty and to require themselves to never say anything negative about a particular president. These ndas are basically indicative of a presidency who is worried about loyalty, worried that people will reveal whats happening on the inside of the walls of the west wing and clearly is afraid that if that stuff gets out, it will reflect negatively on the president. It is not likely that well see these ndas enforced but they are creating a Chilling Effect for many people. Do they prevent others from talking about what they experienced. There is reporting about white house attorney don mcghan and howal these ndas actually happened and whether he even thought at the time that they were being signed that they would hold up in court at all. Well, throughout his career President Trump has relied on the nda for business contractors, folks who work with him. When he gave them to the white house, he came