We also have new information on when mueller plans to drop his final report. Its a big night. So lets get after it. A lot unfolding. Its immediately gavel cuomos court into session. Welcome to the show. Good to have you for the first time. Thank you. Its great to be here. Neil, are you good . Are you hearing me okay . John, ill start with you. You get to go first. So the new reporting we have is yes they want to know about the president s Business Practices in the Southern District of new york. Insurance claims. The New York Times had that and left it there. We have advanced it to how did they use insurance at the companies . How did they file . How much did they coffver . How much did they claim . How much did they recover versus how much they spent on those claims . Was it done legitimately. Pretty specific questioning. What does it mean to you . Where could it lead . This seems to be part of the broader investigation into the Trump Organization and how it was doing business and as you said in the lead into the show, this is separate from the Mueller Probe and whether there was a conspiracy with the russians. Well see that report hopefully next week or in the week following and thats going to focus on a different thing. I think youre probably right. If theres going to be something thats going to continue to dog the president , thats going to give people in Congress Grounds to conduct oversight, potentially even impeachment, its going to be things coming out of the Southern District of new york and unfortunately it centers around this guy, cohen, that is a convicted liar and has been doing, sounds like he was kind of a bag man potentially for the president. Unfortunately, i cant tell whether hes telling the truth. Hes trying to reduce his sentence by claiming that trump ordered him to pay off women. That the Trump Organization it sounds like is committing insurance fraud. Who knows . But you have the special counsel that worked with cohen that said he was credible and useful and you guys deal with liars or people that lied all the time. You just need the corroboration. When i was first developing this today, i was like, theyre going to find out they cheated on their insurance policies . That they took money that was more than what they have to spend on it. A lot of people do that. But then i was thinking a lot of people cheat on their taxes also and dont go to jail for it. Michael cohen is. If they choose to prosecute you then you have to explain those actions. How deep could this go in your opinion . I think it could go deep. I 100 agree with that. Im not sure ill be saying this much tonight but i agree with everything he just said. Thats that it poses a real threat to the president. I also think that the mueller one and the russia one does as well but the kind of thread that ties both of these together, chris, is the lying. Constant lying about whether its insurance, whether its dealing with russia, whatever, tr trump is like a grand master of all of this and you know, john is right, he attracts liars around him. Hes like a magnet for liars whether its cohen or flynn orman fort or all of these people and once the southern s district starts looking into it, theyll find damaging stuff. Obviously the president is entitled to the presumption of innocence and so on but the Southern District already uncovered lie after lie and found most importantly, remarkable, only time in 40 years that the prosecutors have said a president , a sitting president ordered the commission of federal felonies. And they have said that back in november. So john, they say the president said dont mess with my money. Is there a line at which you think it would be okay for the attorney general to say, look, this is a sitting president. You want to take up these kinds of prosecutions about his past life, about all of these other actions, do it after he has served his term . I think this is one where you and neil and i disagree. I think the constitution gives congress this job. If the president is unfit for office, if he has made bad policies, committed maladministration, political crimes, thats what congresss job is to investigate that and conduct impeachment proceedings. I dont think its a job for a special counsel. I think thats become a distraction for the real constitutional route. However for the crimes that the sdny that are occurring before trump was president , i think the sensible things for the courts to do is to delay that until after the presidency is over. We didnt do that with president clinton. Theres a case called clinton versus jones which says let the process work through, but the Supreme Court also said but we dont want those investigations to interfere with the president s ability to do his job. Neil, counter point. So two things, if john is right that this is a job for congress, the logical consequence that follows is mueller, the Southern District, all of their information has to be given to congress so they can evaluate impeachment. It would be the height of putting someone above the law to say oh, you cant prosecute through the executive branch and then congress you cant impeach because were going to hide all of this information from you which is why every scholar that takes johns position which is a sitting president cant be indicted also says the remedy is impeachment and thats a role for congress. And the second thing is is for crimes like the Southern District ones which go to lying and cheating to win the election in the first place, im not sure that the prohibition on indicting a sitting president applies because what that would incentivize is if you cheat a lot and lie a lot and commit a lot of crimes, enough to win an election then you get a delayed or get out of jail free card and that cant possibly be the law. Now on mueller, let me use your own case against you neil, given what he was asked to do, hes not just a general fact finder, although thats the way i determine the first line of rosens terks rosensteins memo. But even if you want to fold that into ultimately he is a prosecutor and looking for prosecutable items then this report could be thin, neil and in that case, theyll be left with a lot of Unanswered Questions for congress, i guess they have to subpoena mueller, have him come in and tell him the parts of the story that he didnt put in the report and proceed. I think thats exactly right, chris and in an oped i wrote in the New York Times today i outlined that point. Trump has been hoping for a short concise report but that might be the worst thing for him because that will then just move the entire ball game to congress and there is precedent from watergate to have all of the special counsels materials and investigation turned over to congress, including grand jury information and other confidential information. For grand jury information, john, he would have to go to the a. G. Hed have to get a court order for that. Its attainable but you guys should be on the same page about that, right . If theres a thin report and questions left unanswered and suggestions of hallways that werent walked down mueller could get subpoenaed and you wind up with a whole new round of exploration. I always thought trump made a serious tactical mistake by attacking mueller and questioning his ethics and trying to delay the report. The best thing that could happen for trump is that the Mueller Report makes a lot of things public, thats a thick telephone book i dont know if people know what telephone books are, but they used to be really thick books. A telephone thick book that lays out everything he says found if decided not to indict the president and didnt find conspiracy to commit federal crimes. Everything he said that clears the president will be helpful. So i agree with neil, ironically, trump has been doing things to make the report shorter. Thats going to give congress a lot more space in any kind of impeachment investigation. Last thing, do you think this manafort pleading, assuming it comes tonight, he has a midnight deadline. Do you think this is going to be the definitive tale of why this guy matters in the probe as opposed to his previous life and what he was doing to cover any debts he had . Give me a quick answer . I dont think it will be definitive but it will tell us a lot. This manafort worked for 143 days for the campaign and he lied to mueller but hes been caught red handed. Nobody wants 14 scaramuccis. One is enough. He gave sensitive polling data to the russians and that, you know, thats the crowned jewels of the campaign and the question, you know, you and i have been talking about this a lot, why lie so much about russia . We have a little suggestion that its about a pardon. That the prosecutors, muellers team think hes been angling for a pardon. If we hear anything more, thats the part that would be real news tonight. Always a pleasure. Thank you for making him a unit of measure. Were awaiting the manafort memo and you know, you heard these guys. Theyre experts. They look at these things all the time but if you want to talk about mueller, the man winds up being an instruction in his methods. So our next guest wrote the book on mueller. Whats his guidance on what this report would look like . What mueller would want to achieve and how likely is he to go as far as this process does . Next. [knocking] memories. What we deliver by delivering. Was a success for lastchoicehotels. Comign badda book. Badda boom. This year, were taking it up a notch. So in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, wow, maybe ill glow too if i book direct at choicehotels. Com. Who glows . Just say, badda book. Badda boom. Nobody glows. He gets it. Always the lowest price, guaranteed. Book now at choicehotels. Com welcome to fowler, indiana. One of the windiest places in america. And home to three bp wind farms. In the offchance the wind ever stops blowing here. The lights can keep on shining. Thanks to our natural gas. A smart partner to renewable energy. Its always ready when needed. Or. Not. At bp, we see possibilities everywhere. To help the world keep advancing. All right. Were on mueller watch. The manafort sentencing memo. We have seen them before but this is the one thats supposed to show the connecting of the dots between what manafort did and why it matters specifically to the russia investigation. Whether its criminal or counter investigation. Now who better to ask than the man that wrote the book on robert mueller, garrett graff. Theres the book. Theres the man. Well, the suggestion that this is the one. This is where they have to lay it out. What is the suggestion about what the special counsel would need to show about manafort in the pleading were waiting for . This is an opportunity to present a theory of the case. What we have seen so far in so many manafort documents is simply the what. We have seen the actions. The financial transactions, the records, the evidence, but we havent actually seen why. Why was he giving that polling data . Why was he traveling to madrid to meet with him . What were the conversations . What was the role that Paul Manafort was playing in that june 2016 trump tower meeting . Why was Paul Manafort working for free in the midst of the Trump Campaign as he was tens of millions of dollars in hoc to russian oligarchs. What was going through his mind . Thats what we might end up seeing in this sentencing memo, at least as best as the mueller team understands. And of course we know that there are redactions. If we dont see it on our watch, its probably because the court needs to negotiate the actions. Then we get to the report. You have been following this very closely, do you believe we are done until the report . This memo comes out on manafort. This is a big enchilada for him. Next comes the report. Nothing in between. Its hard to say. John and neil were talking about this very thoughtfully a few minutes agato but theyre not journalists. I always turn to a journalist when i really need something. Everyone in america hears of the Mueller Report and thinks of that telephone book sized definitive be all and end all report. Thats not necessarily what were going to see from mueller. In part because mueller doesnt necessarily control what ends up getting turned over from the Attorney Generals Office to control. So what we have seen mueller do throughout is that every indictment he has brought, every court filing is more detailed, more inciteful and better informed and more narrative than we need for the underlying criminal charges. Its why we refer to these as speaking inindictmedictments. They have a role beyond proving the criminal case. One of the things that i would imagine mueller is thinking at this moment and his team is thinking is further indictments, if they can bring them, further Court Filings if they can make them, thats the only way that mueller controls what is made public and when. So i think that there is a lot of bread crumbs that bob mueller has left us in these Court Documents over the last year, year and a half really. And he wouldnt have let them for us. He wouldnt have left this level of detail unless he has another move up his sleeve. Thank you very much. Ill bring you back as soon as we learn more. Steve kings racist remarks made him a political pariah. Either you stand against it or you dont. Did you hear what he said about king today and the sad words he had about a guy that wanted to kill a bunch of us. They say a lot, next. clients voice remember that degree you got in taxation . danny of course you dont because you didnt your job isnt doing hard work. Its making them do hard work. And getting paid for it. vo snap and sort your expenses to save over 4,600 at tax time. Quickbooks. Backing you. The latest inisnt just a store. Ty its a save more with a new kind of Wireless Network store. Its a look what your wifi can do now store. A get your questions answered by awesome experts store. Its a now theres one store that connects your life like never before store. The xfinity store is here. And its simple, easy, awesome. Heres his response to the coast guard lieutenant accused of plotting a domestic terror attack. I think its a shame. I think its a very sad thing when a thing like that happens and i have expressed that but im actually getting a very complete briefing in about two hours. Do you think you bear any responsibility for moderating your language when it comes to that. No, i dont. I think my language is very nice. You just think its sad. Imagine how he would feel if his name was on that list. He also had the opportunity to condemn steve king, the congressman under fire for defending White Nationalism but listen to what President Trump said when asked if king should seek reelection. I dont know anything about the situation. When did he announce that . Today. I have not seen it. He hasnt told me anything. Well have to take a look. I havent spoken to him in a long time. I havent been involved in that. Has the president ever known about anything that isnt good for him . Thats the makings of a great debate. I understood it when he was against islam. Islam hates us. Islam is bad. I dont want to hear about white terror even though its the biggest problem we deal with from a terrorism perspective but hes not running that game anymore. Why is he so shy about going at this problem . I think we have to segment different manifestations of his allegedly being shy. For example, youll recall during the campaign in 2016, i think it was nbc news that was trying to get him to talk about david duke and he pretended like he didnt know david duke and people criticized him for that. I thought it was a brilliant move. He didnt want to give more oxygen to david duke. Its like if you said something dumb tonight, which you wont, hed say, i dont know him. How do you say his name . What is it . You cant go to it every time. Every time somebody says something thats bad for you, you cant pretend you dont know what it is and who they are . In certain circumstances he does not want to give more oxygen in the room to a group of folk that are irrelevant. You know history and know that there was a time that the kkk had tremendous political power when half of the United States congress was loyal, a part of, or intimidated by them. Our country has changed dramatically since then and these socalled white extremists are irrelevant and thats why trump doesnt want to give them more oxygen than they deserve. Whats your take . Hes inarguably correct when he said there was a time that the klan was far more powerful than today and they have been marginalized but theyre coming back. When david duke was running for governor in 1991, george h. W. Bush, the republican president disavowed him. Thats what were looking for today. Antidefamation league says 50 of our fellow americans were killed last year and politically motivated violence, which is really terrorism. Terrorism is the use of violence or threats to achieve a political end. All 50 were murdered by far right wing terrorists. It happens on the left. Steve scalise was targeted because hes a republican. The man that shot him, shot him because he was a republican and that was awful. But the president needs to speak out especially against the right because some of them seem to be inspired by him or at least effected by him and he needs to be our National Leader and put a stop to that. Just tell those people to stop. You know im not coming at it from a personal perspective. I was on the guys list. A lot of people were on his list. If i spent my time with that ax to grind, id have nothing else to do on the show. Thats all wed talk about. I just see it as low fruit for the president. I see these as layups. Steve king, what do you say . Hes out. I dont want anything to do with him. The people can decide in iowa but i dont have time for that talk. Not i dont know who he is. Not im not paying attention. It just boggles my mind and then we wonder why people with these ugly ideas seem to think they have a friend in this president. Dont you get it . Lets be careful here, when president obama was in power, he invited black lives matter and some other far left wing groups to actually come to the white house to organ