Mika has the day off with her family, a longplanned family event which shes sorry shes not here because well be talking about baseball most of the morning. Im just joking. Were doing politics. So along with willie and me, we have mike barnacle, john heilman, Donnie Deutsch is here and guru, advertising guru and all around good guy wearing baby gap tshirts in all black this week only, Donnie Deutsch. Actually, thats he week. Also the aps legendary jonathan okay. Right. Washington anchor for bbc world news america caddie kay and White House Correspondent for pbs news hour, yamish. Willie, i know mika would agree with me and Jonathan Lamere would agree with me this morning that you got in the Boston Red Sox, like we understand the yankees are going to probably win by 15, maybe 20 games next year. Thats right, yeah. So were kind of playing and lamere, feel free to chime in. Were kind of playing for maybe third or fourth place. We have joe kelly who is our best pitcher. We know were never going to be a team that wins with, you know, by paying young kids a lot of money to throw the ball around. So joe kelly fight club. Kelly is gone. Kimbrell is not coming back. At this point, i think our best bullpen arm is going to be barnacle. Im ready to go. I can close it down. Ive closed this show down many times. Well, willie, which explains why the red sox maybe, maybe we squeak ahead of baltimore next year, maybe. I think its the rays year, red sox fourth and fifth with the yankees, i think. Is that right . Yeah. The rays payroll, what, 65 million . Theyre going to be good. They are good. Joe, we see who is in charge of this marriage because the second mika is not here, were into baseball. Instantly. On behalf of mika, im going to pick up the news. President trumps former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was sentenced yesterday to three years and to pay almost 2 million in fines, forfeitures and restitution. He has until march 6th to surrender. The sentence comes after he pled guilty to two Campaign Finance violations that cohen claims were made at the direction on of donald trump. The judge accused cohen of creating a veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct. While cohenen said he accepts responsibility for his actions, he also implicated the president again, telling the court, quote, recently the president tweeted a statement calling me weak and he was correct. But for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again, i felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass. My weakness can be characterized as a Blind Loyalty to donald trump and i was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands. Meanwhile, another ally of President Trump came forward in Court Documents yesterday to acknowledge it concealed a legal payment the to benefit trumps 2016 campaign. As part of an agreement, American Media incorporate, the publisher of the National Enquirer, admitted it paid hush money to a woman who alleged to have an affair with trump. The white house denies that. Prosecutors said ami admitted that it made the 150,000 payment in concert with a president s president ial campaign and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate. Ami further admitted its principal purpose in making the arrangement was to suppress the womans story so as to prevent it from influencing the election. Assuming they comply, the u. S. Attorney has agreed not to prosecute ami for its role in that payment. The company and its ceo declined to comment. David becker and President Trump have been close for years. He has been a member at maralago since 2003. Trump wrote in a tweet Time Magazine should definitely pick david pecker to run things over there. Hed make it exciting and win awards. Ive always said, why didnt the National Enquirer get the Pulitzer Prize for edwards and omp j. Simpson and all of these things. So, joe, we have here those two stories dovetailing for what Michael Cohen is telling prosecutors and to what ami is telling prosecutors and that is in the waning days of the 2016 president ial campaign, payments were made at the direction of candidate donald trump to women to suppress their stories to help them become president of the United States. Yeah. Ill tell you, yesterday was a fascinating day, had to be a very troubling day for donald trump where you had michael co. E cohen going out there and basically delivering the same speech that darth vader delivered to lucas he was dieing at the end of return the jedi. But more troubling than that, you have ami brought into this, brought in specifically for another payment for the suit that they are obviously continuing. This does not stop with Michael Cohen going to jail. The this starts with Michael Cohenen going to jail. And they clearly have ami admitting as a third party they made a contribution and they made that contribution to help elect donald trump president of the United States. Under any reading for all of these republicans who are covering, you know, their head in the sand, of any reading of the federal election laws, that is a crime. The fact that they knowingly conspired, im talking about trump and cohen and their team, they knowingly conspired to hide that payment made in the waning days of the campaign or months of the campaign, even. Thats a clear violation of the law and a felony. And, joe, it was a devastating day for the white house and for donald trump because what the ami settlingment with the Justice Department does is literally figuratively put donald trump in the room as part of a conspiracy. They are the corroborating witness to Michael Cohens testimony. And danny sovalos, i dont know about you, but looking at the plea agreement and reading about it, this would seem to me, if theyre climbing the ladder of justice, this is just maybe the second or third rung in this climb towards justice. There is a lot more to come out of this and potentially real, real, real threats to perhaps other people, including maybe the president s extended family based on cohens agreement. Mike, you just took the words out of my mouth when i talked about ami. The prosecution and the government is building a foundation of corroborating evidence by using ami to bolster Michael Cohens claims in the future so that its not a he said, he said situation. That is the purpose of ami. The government knows they need a well corroborated case with document, text messages, emails, anything they can because this is not an easy crime to establish beyond a reasonable doubt. Lets go to caddie kay now. Youre from britain and you see nothing but peace and happiness in the political system over this there. I love the civility. Lets talk about yesterday and talk about what happens next. It is clear that theyre building a case against donald trump and you do wonder how long republicans, all these Senate Republicans, especially, can sit back and pretend that a felony that they know would put them all in jail, that this felony is much ado about nothing . You put together the ami news and the Michael Cohen sentencing and it gives you a fascinating insight with the way Donald Trumps world worked, with michael pecker going down to maralago to discuss how they could get rid of these problems of affairs and liaison about it during the course of the campaign. And then trump and his russia business and how he was negotiate, the russians all through 2016. Youre building through these various Court Filings and sentencings a pretty clear picture of what the Trump Administration was up to in order to protect the candidate and to president the candidates familys business during the course of the campaign. And a sense that rules were there to be thwarted and bent to the need of the candidate. Whether any of that amounts to anything that would be impeachable or even indictable, perhaps when the president leaves office, we dont know yet. That we dont have. But the picture of how that campaign operated and how that business operated in service of the president , the candidate and the business above all else is emerging and thats pretty clear. And what is also emerging, john heilman, is the results and the strategy that Robert Mueller and his team have been putting together quietly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, going up against and we see this again yesterday with Rudy Giulianis statements and him bopping around in bahrain to make an extra few bucks. You have a white house wholly ill prepared for a legal crisis that many are saying is far worse than watergate ever was and hes doing this without a legal team or without any knowledge of who his white house chief of staff will be guiding him through the legal battle of his life. Right. Weve seen president after president get into pickles, special counsel, special prosecutors common. The administrations often have one or two that they have to suffer through. And usually in those cases, because they are paragons from their party, they can draw from literally the best people trying to help. When its george b. Bush or bill clinton, they have a swarm of people trying to come in and defend them. Donald trump has the opposite. Hes always had had trouble getting the best top level legal talent to come in and now hes managed to kind of cobble something together for these two years. Now at exactly the moment when he needs help the most, he has the least help on hand. So donnie, i ask you this. What is it that we talked a lot about Michael Cohenen and your relationship with him, but now i want you to play trump whisperer, being Donald Trumps new york psychotherapist. Trump cant find a good chief of staff, let alone any chief of staff, and he cant help but see the vice, the pincher movement from this other district on one side, mueller on the other side. Where is trumps head right now . He projects, at times in some of these you interviews, an incredible degree of calm and confidence as he did with reuters just a couple of days ago. But is he actually privately completely freaking out . Thats a milliondollar question. I believe still he i think it will be interesting to wooatch him. If you think back about a year ago, when you describe brand, you would have said strong, authoritative, incharge, nasty, with intimidating. Now when you look at him, as each day goes by, you see him as pathetic and defanged and confused and goofy. So hes now going to be operating for the first time hey, donnie, lets go to the worst term to describe his brand. Weak. Hes cowtailing not only to vladimir putin, hes weak in the face of a Saudi Crown Prince that slaughtered a Washington Post columnist. Think about how weak as president of the United States, how sniffling as the president of the United States you would have to be to cower and kowtow to some 30 somethingyearold Saudi Crown Prince because you want his money after you leave the white house. Joe, its the first time in his life hes not dealing from strength. And you see it. And hes vulnerable and hes weak. Theres a pathetic quality to him and it feels like a confused quality to him. And as this continues to be there will be nobody around of any consequence and even when there has been people around with consequence, with it doesnt matter. And hes gone from malignant to benign. To me, he was always a cancer and hes gone from malignant to benign cancer. He does not have the ability to force his will on anything. And i think the weaker he seems and the weaker he is in reality, the more the circus is going to take on a surreal tone. There is willie, there is no doubt that the checks and balances of matesonian government which weve always said will hold him in check, they are tight. Iening around hi. The checks and balances put in place years ago that he thinks is outdated and outmoded, it most definitely is not. Its stood this stress test and at the end of 2018, its doing just fine. And the biggest check off them all came on election day a few weeks ago. Jonathan, i think we can measure the president s level of concern about Michael Cohen, ami, Stormy Daniels, all this by what you write about in your piece which is his shifting explanations for. Back in april, remember on air force one, i think he was if in a place where he thought he could blow it off. Then he said, yeah, Michael Cohen represented me in that crazy Stormy Daniels deal or whatever he called it. Now hes got to the point where he said, yeah, it happened, but it was a simple private transaction. And if it violated campaignen finance law, it was a private matter, it was a civil matter. So hes gone from i dont know what youre talking about to okay that happens, how can i protect myself from the legal issues. The first time he learned about it, he was on air force one and he was taken by surprise. Since then, we have seen an evolution from trump denigrating Michael Cohen. In fact, trump memorably tweeted once that if youre looking for good legal counsel, whatever you do, dont go to Michael Cohen. His explanations have evolved as the legal peril has increased. He has acknowledged that hes had to be out there and acknowledged that there was some degree, he knew where the payments were, but he tried to suggest it was a civil matter pep compared it the to a violation of when President Trump was hit with the fec. Fec violations if theyre done by accident or via bookkeeping error, you get a fine. You get slapped on the wrist, you move on. This is being categorized as a very different thing because it was seen as an attempt to hide from the American People, to influence the election and that this, of course, could have a felony charge connected to it if, of course, a president can be charged. And youre talking about the original point about how the president has reacted to this. I think its very telling in the last 24 hours, hes reacted not at all. Had his twitter feed has gone completely silent. He hasnt weighed in on cohenen yet. Hes a liar, thats it. At the white house, he was asked about it. He ignored the questions. This is something the president and his people dont want to touch. So the prevailing view seems to be still in the Justice Department that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Is President Trump counting on the fact that a president cannot be indicted, a, and b, even if impeachment comes up in the house, it wont get through the Republicanled Senate . I think the president realizes that he is hoping that some sort of legal issue arises so that he will not have to have the same fate as Michael Cohen. Because theres no way that the president , who we all know now is someone who watches cable tv watched Michael Cohen go out and watched Michael Cohens family go out. His daughter, really, almost in tears. Theres no way the president watched those people who he knew very well and didnt think, wow, that could be my fate. So i think theres a legal question of whether or not president s can be indicted. Rudy giuliani is counting on the idea the president s cant be indicted. So im guessing President Trump is also doing that. When it comes to impeachment, the president is yes, maybe a little worried, but democrats also have to show that they can balance power, that they can actually produce legislation and produce some sort of wins while also going after the president. So i dont know if impeachment is going to be something the democrats are going to want to go full throttle on. I can say this, though. Catch and kill, this idea that there was a real attempt to catch stories and kill them to protect donald trump was something that reporters, especially the people at the wall street journal, broke and explained to people months ago. Now we have a federal court justifying what journalists knew all along. So i think yesterday, as much as it was about legality and so much about donald trump and the people around him, the loyal people around him flipping on him, theres this idea that journalism still matters, that journalism is why in a lot of cases why were in court yesterday. So i think that thats something that the president is also not lost on him, that theres this idea that when something wasnt caught and killed, when it was actually brought to the light, that you had someone then go to jail for three years. And weve talked about it on this show. Obviously, a great deal. And in personal ways, too. The National Enquirerer and donald trump worked hand in hand throughout the campaign and even after he was elected president of the United States. They would plant stories. If somebody if ted cruz was moving ahead in iowa, then there would be front page slash and burn stories about ted cruz.