Former GOP representative Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski interview newsmakers, politicians and pundits about the issues of the day. Former GOP representative Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski interview newsmakers, politicians and pundits about the issues of the day. Days before according to the leak, he says there was a meeting with donald junior, with Jared Kushner, with Paul Manafort, with yates and possibly two others in which they, out of the presence of the president discussed the meeting with the russians. We checked with their lawyers. The ones we could check with which was four of the six. That meeting never, ever took place. It didnt happen. Theres no second meeting here . Its highly unlikely. I always have to leave the option open as a lawyer. In case they come across something that startles us or feels some of the things we feel are important. Whats he saying . Whats he saying . Run that clip again. I actually, the words. Try and listen to exactly what he is saying. And whats he saying here . Well hear it. Lets look at it again. Maybe it will make sense. Theres no second meeting here . Its highly unlikely. I always have to leave the option open as a lawyer, in case they come across with something that really startles us or feels some of the things we feel are important. Another round . Yeah. I think willie can translate wlarch. What a journey. My drinks are free. Rudy giuliani is debating himself. He is debating himself. So in the morning on cnn he raised the idea of the second meeting. That came Out Of The Blue to a lot of people. What second meeting . He put that on the table. He says to preempt the New York Times story we havent seen yet and Maggie Haberman says she doesnt know what hes talking about. 12 hours later on fox news, hes shooting down the idea that he raised earlier that morning on cnn. Its a debate all in his own head. The best part, he did it to kill a story he singlehandedly brought to life. Right. None of us were talking about that story. He is talking about the story. Again what he says, well, we
shoot it down just in case we dont know about something that they they know wevhether the did it or not, mike. Like donald trump lying on Air Force One to cover up the real meeting of The Don Junior Meeting Which don junior said his father didnt know about. A little Perjury Issue if we find out that donald trump all of these no big deal, if donald trump knew about the meeting. Its a big deal for don junior because he committed perjury, if thats the case. Its just like trump lying about that meeting means that something went on in that meeting that they wanted to hide. And now youve got rudy saying, well, but you know, were not going to say it didnt happen, because we dont know if it did or not. Yeah, they do know whether it did or not. Its incredibly taxing and tedious to have this put on us,
this early in the day . Begins one segment talking about meeting that took place in the very same segment, same 30second clip goes from there was a meeting a meeting that occurred we wanted to get out to get ahead of the news and 10 seconds later called it along alleged meeting. As if the meeting he referred to didnt take place. What time of night was he interviewed for that . Thats my question. I dont know. I will say, we have theres that question. A good one. Some of the worst v. O. Of Rudy Giuliani ive seen, i think. We need come on. Look at that. Get some good shots of the guy. Whats he doing with that ring . World series ring . Pulling it or something . Heidi, do we need to play it again . Do you have any idea what he was saying, and what would your followup have been if you were interviewing him . Play even more. Not only did he confirm a meeting none of us were talking about but actually flashed out some of the details in those meetings. That apparently Michael Cohenmay have been in Donald Trumps office when don junior came and said, hey, were about to meet with the russians. So he seemed to corroborate that. Thats not good. Is it . He also put gates potentially in the preplanning meeting, which would be huge, if true, since as we all know, gates, rick gates, Paul Manafort business partner, has been cooperating with the Special Counsel for several months, which means we dont have to rely just on Michael Cohen for this information, that rick gates may have confirmed it and mu mueller known about it a long time. Bottom line, the number of conspiratorial meetings around the russians is increasing and so is the circle of Trump Officials, Trump Campaign officials, who participated in these conspiratorial meetings. At least he has Paul Manaforts innocence. Well, theres that. The first trial in the Special Counsel probe kicks off today
with Jury Selection for Paul Manafort. The president s former Campaign Chair is accused of hiding at least 30 million that he made before his days with trump as an unregistered foreign lobbyist for ukraine, and its former prorussian president. Told the Prosecution Plans to call 35 witnesses including agents from the fbi, Treasury Department and irs to show how he stashed his wealth in overseas banks to avoid paying u. S. Taxes. Last week a member of Robert Muellers team said he does not anticipate a government witness will utter the word russia during the trial. But if manafort is convicted, they could use it as leverage for him to talk about anything he knows pertaining to the Trump Campaign and russia. The trial is expected to last about three weeks. Manafort face as similar trial in washington in september. Richard a long haul for him. Yeah. And the question everybody has is, why has he not pled yet . Absolutely no defense. Have him dead to center. After he goes through this in virginia, hell go through it in d. C. Short answer, i have no idea. But theres so much apparent evidence against him that you either hes going to spend the rest of his life in prison or hes going to have to do some sort of a deal and i dont know im not a lawyer. Like you, i am not a lawyer. What the sequence has to be here. Clearly they have a lot on mr. Manafort. Clearly they do. Its interesting. When everything seems to collide with donald trump and things start going really bad. He deflects. He decides hes going to take a meeting with a group of tirendtir tyrants. Its a playbook. It is. And at a particular time, stormy
daniels was about to hit the front pages he went there. Now hes open to meetings with the iranians. After this, when he gets in trouble, hell talk about meeting with the martians. Lets take a quick look at the president of the United States doing what he likes to do most. Deflect. Ill meet with anybody. I believe in meeting. I would certainly meet with iran if theyre ready to meet. I dont know if theyre ready yet. Theyre having a hard time. I ended the iran deal. It was a ridiculous deal. I do believe they will probably end up wanting to meet, and im ready to meet anytime they want to, and i dont do that from strength or weakness. I think its an appropriate thing to do. If we could work something out thats meaningful, not the waste of paper that the other deal was, i would certainly be willing to meet. Do you have Preconditions Noor Meeting . No preconditions. No. They want to meet, ill meet. Anytime they want. Anytime they want. Good for the country. Good for them. Good for us, and good for the world. No preconditions. If they want to meet, ill meet. So the reason why we needed, the world needed to have someone at the meeting with Vladimir Putin and donald trump is because in the past week or so, since helsinkhelsinki, donald t has, one, sent a signal he wants to lift sanctions on an oligarch whos close to Vladimir Putin, that we just put on a couple months ago, and, two, now hes talking again from a position of weakness. Wanting to meet with iran. Its a its a complete 180 turn. Theres very little, actually, to explain that, richard, but there is a playbook for donald trump. Threatened to bomb a Terrorist State. Say you want to meet with the Terrorist State and then capitulate to the Terrorist State. Are we going to see what happened in north korea happen with iran now . Almost certainly not. If the administration were serious about meeting with iran, they would have done it before they unilaterally got out of the nuclear deal, that by the way iran was what if foot eputin asked hi reach out to iran . Another reason the iranians want no part of it. The secretary gave a big Speech Calling for regime change. The administration is ratcheting up sanctions. Got out of the nuclear deal after the president said hes meet without preconditions. The Secretary Of State started listening to preconditions on nuclear issues, iran regional behavior, how theyre treating their own people. Look what weve been saying about north korea all along and you have donald trump declaring victory in north korea, when the north koreans now, we keep finding out, in more ways, that theyre cheating and, in fact, their Nuclear Program is more dangerous today, u. S. Intelligence officials tell us, than it was when donald trump first started negotiating with the north koreans. A Front Page Story in the Washington Post today, after last weeks story about their Nuclear Program, we learn now their Missile Program, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile program is continuing. The only word i take exception with cheating. We dont know if north korea is cheating because we dont know what north korea and the u. S. Agreed top its like a piece of swiss cheese. The holes were bigger than the cheese. We know this. Donald trump said americans can sleep at night. That Nuclear Weapons were no longer a problem with north korea. We know thats a lie. We know thats a lie, and nothing like that was accomplished. What were seeing is a pattern of summits where the promise is great. We dont really know what was agreed on wrong at both ends. Theres no preparation and theres no followthrough. No engine, no caboose. All of these summits essentially leave us worse out than where we were before them. Think about it, willie. The north Korean Leader leaves far stronger than when he first met with trump. Putin, much stronger than made donald trump look like, you know, his patsy on the world stage. Hes much stronger than he was before, and now trump is saying, we dont negotiate from a position of weakness or strength. No. If youre the United States of america, im sorry. You always negotiate from a position of strength. As richard points out, the president is supposed to come in end of the process. Dot handshake, sign the declaration. Not come in at the beginning making promising and declaring victory at the end of a Press Conference where nothing was actually achieved. One of the patterns of the Trump Administration, the president make as grand public declaration, the rest of the administration comes in to reshape it or clean it up. Yesterday mike pompeo talked about all the preconditions he would need to see before a meeting with iran. If iranians present a commitment to change how they treat their people, that its worthwhile to enter into a Nuclear Agreement that actually prevention proliferation, the president is prepared to sit down and have a conversation with him. One of the things they tried to get in at the senate hearing. Who should the american people, the United StatesSenate Listen to. You have President Trump saying one thing on the big stage and then people like pompeo, bolton and others coming in after the fact, saying something completely contradictory . The answer is clear. Listen to the president of the United States. Thats what the rest of the world is figuring out. As much as they may respect the secretary of defense or the Secretary Of State, end of the day, if they dont speak for the United States and it doesnt appear they do, how can you listen to them. The two summits we had, there was no staff in the room. They werent in the room. The president of the United States has become the chief different mat of the United States. We have to learn, thats reality. So the Secretary Of State and others can come in before or afterwards and try to clean it up, but we he is look, i like mike pompeo. Dont get me wrong. I think the president is putting him in an extraordinary difficult almost untenable position like with rex tillerson. If youre not in the room and dont know what transacted, how can you authoritively say this is the policy of the United States . And talking Republicans Trust donald trump more than their family, more than they trust the media. So at what point do republicans visit at what point do republicans, the question we continue to ask, at what point do republicans say, wait a second. We were antiputin and antirussian. Didnt like him shooting down commercial aircrafts or invading other countries. Poisoning people, assassinating but now donald trump says hes okay. So hes okay. And rewriting 70 years of policy that republicans champion and then makes nice with north korea. And now he sounds so weak. Basically begging the iranians for a summit. At what point does somebody like nikki haley go, im out. Im running against this guy in 2020 before he ends up, like, turning u. S. Foreign policy over to all of our enemies. I was if he hasnt already. If you remember, i was critical and every other conservative was critical of barack obama being so focused on dealing with iran and cuba. That was childs play. Donald trump is north korea,
russia, now iran. There is not a tyrant, not a terror state that this Guy Doesnt Want To Cozy Up to. I think the answer is, at least all the evidence weve seen to date is never. Never. Thats what i cant stress enough, theres no evidence whatsoever that his base supporter or any member of congress is actually turning on him in a public way. Id say the opposite is true. Hes growing more powerful. His sway is growing more powerful. Because conservatives now like iran and now like north korea and conservatives like russia . I dont think people pay that close attention to it. I think people look at him and say, hes doing it different. The old way didnt work. I dont believe any of you guys on the set. They dont trust us. They trust him. Heidi, they could go on the Google Machine 30 seconds. You dont have to trust me. Go to your neighbors Google Machine and type stuff in. The truth is out there, but this
isnt the x files. Russia was the perfect example. Right . It never happened. Cant sit alone with putin for two hours, meet with him. Treat him like the pope when standing next to him. Surely republicans will turn on him. Nobody turned on him. Even the couple of congressman, kel, concerned about that. Within 24 hours, all ran for the hills. Why . Because they fear the base. Its painful. The base loves trump. Somebody needs to tell the base the truth and could that, go to town Hall Meetings and actually tell the base the truth, heidi. They ought to try it sometime. You have, again, with donald trump, you have him capitulating to terror states, and then you have Steve Scalise actually joining in. Somebody in the republican majority joining in, signing on to impeach Rod Rosenstein, because theyre trying to get to the bottom of Vladimir Putin and
his attempts to undermine american democracy. Well, that is a republican leader. Not abencher. That is a republican leader who is actually working hard to subvert and investigation already indicted several dozen russians, and we have the the u. S. Military, the u. S. Intel community, has the goods on the russians. They tried to subvert american democracy in 2016, and Steve Scalise is signing on with Freedom Caucus back benchers to try to actually subvert and investigation over someone actually trying to undermine american democracy . Joe, i saw your tweet yesterday about how this election in 2018 is going to be the most important of our lifetimes for a lot of people, and i think that is your answer. Whether you want to go down whether its Foreign Policy or
its guns or