Down near historic lows. The Unemployment Rate just fell beneath 4 for the First Time Since the beginning of this century. And when a package was misdelivered to a Harvard Law School graduate in phoenix, he was afraid to let his sons redeliver it because they are a black family in a white neighborhood. A viral moment ensued. Was he right to be worried . First, Rudy Giuliani debuted as the new head of the president s legal team this week. His appearance wednesday with sean hannity which sought out to put out a legal and political fire instead ignited one. When giuliani told a new narrative about how Michael Cohen had been repaid for the Stormy Daniels hush money via a retainer and over several months he caught many by surprise including members of the president s legal team. Where hed spoken to his client, the president , before going on air, this was a deliberate strategy, one that the president embraced the morning after in a series of tweets seemingly the intent was to provide cohen with cover from potential charges that hed violated fec requirements when making the 130,000 payment to a porn star without disclosure. Among those caught by surprise, Michael Cohen himself, at leeas according to his confidante donny deutch. I spoke with Michael Cohen yesterday. His quote about giuliani was he doesnt know what hes talking about. There are two people who know exactly what happened, myself and the president. Youll be hearing my side of the story. By friday, the president was excusing away giulianis behavior as rookie mistakes. Hes learning the subject matter, and hes going to be issuing a statement, too. He started yesterday. Hell get his facts straight. Giuliani did release a statement which allowed no more improvising. Theres no campaign violation. The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president s family. It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not. And my references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president s knowledge but instead my understanding of these matters. Regarding the Stormy Daniels situation, the president has been trying to thread a needle. Hes been trying to argue he was out of the loop on the settlement, had nothing to do with the settlement but its binding. Only time will tell whether rudys strategy proves a legal asset or liability. The daniels case might be a case of us witnessing the reprise of, say, whitewater, where an inquiry into a confusioning land transaction ended up exposing an intern scandal. Here investigation into russian meddling in the u. S. Election has morphed into questions about the aftermath of a onenight stand more than a decade ago. Might it nevertheless imperil a presidency . Or are the stakes of what the president calls a witch hunt overblown . Thats todays poll question at smerconish. Com. Do the latest developments arising out of the Stormy Daniels case imperil the presidency . Go cast a ballot. Results later this hour. Joining me to discuss is jonathan turley, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington university. He wrote this piece in usa today. Is Rudy Giuliani working for donald trump or against him . Professor, welcome back. Whats your answer to my big picture question, this whole Stormy Daniels business. Might it imperil this presidency . I think it just might. The problem with this is it didnt have to be an existential threat but its becoming that. Theyve allowed this to metastasize, to get to a point where you could actually take a scandal and make it criminal. It takes a lot of work. You have to make a lot of missteps but theyre making a good show of it. What giuliani did in that interview is really baffling. Youre not supposed to work out the facts on live television. And when he says this is my understanding of the matter, not my clients knowledge, his clients knowledge is the matter. And so its it was just an appalling thing to watch. Heres what struck me in the hannity interview. It was the way in which he had a sort of epiphany as to, ahha, its the retainer that was the repayment method for the Stormy Daniels litigation. Watch this clip. Everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasnt. I knew how much money donald trump put into that campaign. I said 130,000. Hes going to do a couple of checks for 130,000. When i heard cohens retainer of 35,000, when he was doing no work for the rt. Thats how hes repaying thats how hes repaying it. In other words, its not that President Trump told him. Its not that Michael Cohen said, hey, rudy, heres the way it happened, but, rather, it occurred to him. Your reaction . First of all, its not a defense. It actually is worse. First of all, basically changing what was called a gift into a loan does not get you out of Campaign Finance problems. It trips additional wires. You then have reporting problems, tax problems. Also questions about past statements. So it doesnt help. And what was really curious about this is his statement that, well, you know, we disguised effectively, or he did, hush money in the form of legal fees. Well, that triggers ethical problems as well. Lawyers dont do that. You are a lawyer and you know that as well as i do. So lets go deeper. Who was the intended beneficiary of the giuliani strategy . Because superficially it would seem theyre providing cover for Michael Cohen. But is it that simple . I dont think it is that simple. What worries me is this was a play again to the public. Giuliani was there making all types of threats, calling the fbi agents storm troopers or saug that hes going to basicalbase ically crush mueller. Giuliani cant really imagine thats going to intimidate mueller or the prosecutors. He was there. He was on the other side. So that only leaves the public. Why are you still making a pitch to the public . This is getting into a chronic stage. You are in serious difficulty with your client. Trying to make this pitch to the public is a very dangerous thing. And its not going to help. If Michael Cohen made 130,000 payment out of his own pocket, even from a credit line to Stormy Daniels, and it was deemed to have been a campaign contribution, an inkind contribution, he might have exposure for not having declared it, visavis the fec, but would the president have any exposure in that regard . Thats what mystifies me as to rudys assertion and why he would have made it. The president would have exposure. I think we have to put this in perspective that Campaign Finance violations are ordinarily not treated as criminal matters. The john edwards prosecution under a similar set of facts, money going to a mistress as opposed to a onenight stand, did lead to his indictment. Did lead to his trial but it did not lead to his conviction. And many of us questioned how strong that case really was. So we have to keep that in perspective. But if the president , particularly through his lawyers engaged in a knowing effort to conceal Campaign Finance contributions as retainer fees, yeah, he could be pulled into this. The other problem is that the team seems to be pivoting away from the president s former position. I think theyve concluded, particularly with the documents that were secured in the raid against cohen, that they could no longer factually and legally maintain the position that he was in. But in tacking away from that position, they left cohen where he was. He is alone and not in a good place. And that can be very dangerous because he can be very dangerous. If he decides to cooperate with prosecutors. I have a defense for Michael Cohen. You want to hear it . I am eager to hear it. All right. Its a defense that says we paid 130,000 ten days out from the election. We were looking at the same polls as everybody else. Nate silver et al gave us no shot to win. We didnt think we were going to win. Therefore, we didnt pay 130,000 with the election in mind. We paid 130,000 with the future of donald trump, his brand, his marriage, his family. It had nothing to do with the election. You buying it . Im afraid not. First of all, trump had a reputation with regard to these types of liaisons that preexisted and also followed these disclosures. But more importantly, giuliani himself undermined that argument. At first he said this was all about saving the marriage and then he immediately contradicted himself and said it wasnt about the marriage. It was about his reputation. And then the next day, could you imagine if this had gotten out during the president ial debates. October 15. Right. So he himself cant seem to maintain a coherent narrative. This isnt rocket science. You sit down and you create your narrative for defense. The only thing you have to do is preserve its clarity and coherence. Giuliani i know, but i have to say this, professor. Hes a smart guy. Mayor giuliani is a smart guy. So i continue to give him the benefit of the doubt wondering, are the rest of us missing something that we havent picked up in a grand scheme. Thank you for being here. I always appreciate your analysis. Thank you. What are your thoughts . Tweet me smerconish. If a point of that statement is that he doesnt know all the facts and is not speaking on behalf of the president , why should we listen to or believe anything rudy says . Thats the question people are asking about the white house now. That its death by a thousand cuts. Like the doctor, the whole doctor ronny issue and the doctor from new york and the president having dictated that. In the scheme of things, is it a big deal . No. But when you add them all up, its problematic. One more, if we have time for it. Is a retainer fee or retain her fee . This legal stuff is so confusing. David, its the only time i said its the only case where a billionaire has to use a retainer in 35,000 monthly installments to pay a 130,000 debt. It strains creduality. Go to smerconish. Com. Do the latest developments now imperil the presidency . The president has been seesawing about submitting to questions by Robert Muellers team by dragging it out this long. Is he risking giving the democrats more power, those who want to impeach . During the campaign, the president famously said, what have you got to lose to unemployed africanAmerican Voters. Well, the unment nemployment nu has dipped below 4 and black unemployment is also at historic lows. So was he right . Id say, what do you have to lose . And they voted for me, and we won, but now the numbers are much higher than they ever were with africanamerican n weand happy. 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Ask your doctor about victoza®. I just want to find a used car start at the new carfax. Com show me used trucks with one owner. Pretty cool. [laughs] ah. Ahem. Show me the carfax. Start your used car search at the allnew carfax. Com. To give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you dont. Ill take that. [cheers] 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. New ensure max protein. In two great flavors. The new unemployment numbers are historic falling below 4 for the First Time Since the year 2000 leading the president to tweet, just out, under 4 unemployment. Meantime, witch hunt. You have to admit. Black unemployment is down to 6. 6 , an alltime low. Does he deserve credit . Joining me now, christopher lue, former deputy secretary of labor for president obama and steven moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation and cnn senior economics analyst. Christopher, if these numbers came in on obamas watch, youd be psyched, no . Yeah, the numbers did come in under our watch. If were looking simply at africanamerican unemployment, that dropped 9 Percentage Points since the peak of the recession. Its dropped another percentage point during the trump administration. So if were going to give credit, lets give 90 of that credit to president obama and 10 to President Trump. Steven, i imagine your ratio is slightly difference. Go ahead. So, you know, during the campaign, one of the things we always talked to donald trump about was this idea of a rising tide lifts all boats. That if you can get the economy growing faster and a robust business expansion, that will benefit everybody. Were starting to see the fruits of that. Its not just the low Unemployment Rate for everyone. As you mentioned, the fact we have the lowest black unemploy am rate since the beatles were still playing together. Hispanic Unemployment Rate is also the lowest its been in recorded history. I watch cnn. I want to congratulate you, michael, for covering this story because its a story, frankly, that others on cnn really dont cover because its the russia probe 24 7. And what people care most about, you know, certainly during the campaign was getting the economy moving again. And i think a lot of positive results so far. One statistic, michael, that were still concerned about, if we really want to see this economy explode. We want to see an increase in the Labor Force Participation rate. Thats the one that still hasnt moved as much as wed like. Getting millions on the sidelines back into the workforce. And i guess ill put it to christopher now. It was going to raise this with you but in the sake of fairness in terms of time, that was candidate trumps position, right . I often heard christopher from candidate trump that you cant believe the obama era unemployment numbers because they dont reflect all the people who have given up. Now i see hes the president and wants some credit, deservedly so, for 3. 9 . He seems to have forgotten the argument that was just made. Christopher, your reaction . Thats exactly right. Its ichronic that a president who criticized the government numbers as phony and hoax is now taking credit for them. We often know the president s get too much credit and too much blame for the economy and unemployment numbers. When i look more broadly at this issue of what do africanamericans have to lose, im not just looking at jobs. Im looking at the president s rhetoric and the atmosphere hes created. His attack on black nfl players. His embrace of people like roy moore, charlottesville, his policies on the Affordable Care act. So this is not just about jobs. Its not just about wages. Its about the tone that this president has set in this country and a sense that africanamericans feel like he is embracing policies that help people for everyone except for them. Except that i would make the case go ahead. Stephen, christopher brings this up in a bigger political context. Im curious to ask you something. Front page in the New York Times today has side by side stories above the fold. One about Stormy Daniels. And one about the jobless rate. And im sitting here wondering in 2020, which of these matters more to American Voters . I couldnt have put it better. This is the case ive been making quite often that if you look at the polls, you know, going up through the couple years before the 2016 election, very clear what americans cared most about, undeniably, was jobs and the economy. That was first and foremost on americans mind because obama did the best he could but we had the weakest recovery from a recession since the great depression. People didnt feel good about things. Look, im going to agree with a democratic president , michael, bill clinton who said its the economy, stupid. If we get an economy this strong 2 1 2 years from now, despite all Donald Trumps other issues, i think hell win 40 states because people feel better about their financial situation in their lives. Christopher, the wages are stagnant. I guess thats the down side of the economic picture that we face now. Why is that the case . Take it out of a partisan context. Just explain to me as a guy who would like to know, why are wages not popping . Well, look, at 3. 9 , youd expect wages to be high are than the 2. 6 increase that weve had. In part,