times" president trump knew about it months before he denied it to reporters on air force one last month. it wasn't immediately clear when the president learned of the payment. joining me now democratic political consistent julie, joe watkins, aide to george h.w. bush, and rick tyler, former cruz campaign spokesman. very good morning to the three of you. i'll start with you, rick. what's your reaction to this "new york times" story? >> well, this has been an extraordinary week. although for the trump administration it seems to be par for the course. the julianne giuliani interview was planned by me and the president. it was so good, he went back on fox and friends the following morning and gave what was a really colossal interview. and i think trump watched the coverage all that morning and decided it wasn't going very well. and then he just threw giuliani under the trump bus. then later on backed over him. >> yeah. he did it in a nice way, though. he talked about that a good guy he is, and how much he he likesm and he just started. he is in p.r. mode right now. following this revelation he had been aware of the $130,000 payment to stormy daniel. take a listen. >> everybody knows this is a witch hunt. he started yesterday. he'll get his facts straight. he's a great guy. >> so giuliani releases a statement clarifying his comment about the payment. what do you think the president is referring to, he has to get his facts straight? this is his new lead attorney in. >> yeah, of course. they have a longstanding relationship. and giuliani recognizes the fact that even though he is a former mayor, now he's staff. he's staff again. donald trump is in the lead and in control here. so he is going to give the president the leeway to walk back the statements that he made, that rudy guiliani made. and they'll try to figure together what they can do to minimize the damage. and also i think build distance between the president and michael cohen. don't be surprised to see more and more dan built between michael cohen and president trump in the same way president trump danned himself from paul manafort, saying he's a nice guy but he didn't work for me very long. don't be surprised if you see the president saying more and more, well, yeah, he handled some things for me, but i have a lot of lawyers. this is just somebody who handle a few thing for me. that's what the setup will be. giuliani will work hand in hand with donald trump. >> this whole giuliani clarification, julie, what's your take on it? >> as pointed out, giuliani learned anybody associated with donald trump immediately gets thrown under the bus, the minute donald trump doesn't think what they say on tv, or specifically on fox, comports with what he once said out there. the reality is if joe is right, they are assuming michael cohen is cooperating. that is more devastating than any cooperation by paul manafort or anyone else. he knows where the bodies are buried because he buried the bodies over the years for donald trump. what you see so far is the "national enquirer" is starting to go negative on michael cohen. if you see rudy guiliani will start to go negative on michael cohen. the president himself will go negative on michael cohen. they are panicked that michael cohen is cooperating with the southern district here in new york. >> you know, the mayor's logic, though, talking about this payment, going on on tv to do it publicly, he said it's a way of getting ahead of the story. julie, is there logic for that? do you see any reason for that? >> from a p.r. perspective, he contradicted the president and then the president went and contradicted him. so i'm not sure it's a great strategy. from a legal strategy, it's very puzzling strategy because he exposed did the to new questions from the mueller investigation as to what he knew and what he was doing with the money that he was funneling, using rudy guiliani's words. they have to deem with tal with aspect and the legal exposure giuliani expoed for the president. >> i want to pivot to north korea and talk about the comments he made about that, saying the u.s. hostages would be released on thursday. it did not happen. giuliani didn't even have authorization to say such thing. joe, you have worked in the white house. what do you make of this? >> well, it takes time to figure out how things work at the white house, especially this white house, which has seen a lot of people come and go. i think it will take rudy guiliani just a little time to get his white house sea legs so to speak and to realize how he might address these kinds of matter. certainly the optics of what's been happening bode well for the president. the fact that kim and moon shook hand, all that stuff is positive. but the devil is still in all the details, as we all know. and then the verifiable details. so there is a long way to go on this. and i think giuliani will be a lot more cautious going forward with his comments. >> but in terms of those who work in the communications department, rick, sarah huckabee sanders, kellyanne conway say they weren't in the loop about what rudy guiliani was of going to say. and you see this highlighting the struggle to maintain credibility for sarah sanders, how problematic is this? how problematic will it be if the white house communications team is continually left out of the dark? >> they have been left in the dark from the beginning of this administration. of course it is a problem. nothing that is said from the white house press briefing can be trusted. let me skwrubg phme juxta pose north korea. the idea that he would give hope to people about american hostages being free from north korea, which means he has to go on the word of kim jong-un. juxta toes that to our own president who can't tell the truth. these two people are going to meet and settle peace in north korea when neither can be trusted with their utterances. ive find this whole thing just crazy. >> why did giuliani even go there? >> because he wanted to take a political opportunity. that's what the president has been using. he's been talking about releasing the hostages. we're going to have this great meeting. and none of it can be trusted. we can't trust the north korean regime. they lie to their people. they essentially have the whole country hostage. it is this strange cult. the meeting at the border, that wasn't shown live on north korean tv. it was shown later in a propaganda video. nothing they can do can be trusted. unfortunately, now the united states, either from the press briefing or from sarah sanders, or the president's utter ans himself this week by rudy guiliani, you can't trust anything these people say. >> and add to this john kelly's position, which is weakening. the president singing his operation yesterday. julie, if not kelly, who is there in the white house who has the best chance of trying to i rein in the president. >> the president thinks he's his own best strategist. he only needs to see what happened when sean hannity interviewed rudy guiliani. >> everybody, except the president, seemed to be out of the loop. the white house was of of not aware of what was going on. when you have the president deciding he's not going to be his best press schenectady, own best lawyer, which is what we saw happen the last week, that becomes problematic. you can bring in the best chief of staff and that person will fail because he will refused to be handled or anything other than his own chief of staff. we will talk about ivanka trump. why we have heard very little about all the trump children in the mueller probe. just can't satisfy. ahh! ♪ your wing nut has you covered. ♪ hi. ♪ introducing planter's crunchers. a nutty crunch inside a flavorful crunch. ♪ we have the best employment numbers we've virtually ever had. and yet all we hear about is this phony russia witch-hunt. that's all we hear about. >> that was president trump in dallas at yesterday's nra convention attacking the mueller investigation, all the while toutinged latest unemployment numbers. it is 3.9%, the lowest since 2000. by race, african-americans continue to make up the highest jobless rate. joining me is president and ceo of the national urban league. the organization is out with its annual state of black america report, one of the leading benchmark on on factors including jobs. mark, good to see you. thanks for joining me. >> good morning. >> so we're going to get to this report in just a moment. i'm curious, are you willing to give the president any credit for the declining unemployment rate? yes, it significantly started under president obama's administration. but president trump has at least kept it going in the right direction. >> his statement should be we have had the lowest unemployment rate in history. thank you, president obama, for giving me an economy and rouxing that unemployment rate by 10% during his eight years in office. it is telling the complete story. what has given us the economy we have today. but then secondly to focus on what components of the community's economic standing is not reflected in these number. we have low labor force participation rates. we have record low black home ownership rates. a record high, if you will, wealth gap between blacks and whites. it is important to tell the whole story and not turn this into some sort of spiking the ball in the end zone because the black unemployment rate is still where it is. it is still twice as high as the white rate. so i think the key for evaluating any president when it come to the economy is the course of eight years. it could be strong now and it could hit rocky roads. i'm not about throwing out credit. i'm about telling the complete story. they are focusing on what we need to do to make the economy of america cities stronger. >> this state of black america report is quite comp can hencive. there is a new feature which stresses the disparities when it comes to technology. here's one example. 89.3% of black households have computers. fewer than 5 percent of the digital workforce is black. is there a sense a to why african-americans appear to be big time, excelling as consumers but not the beneficiaries. they're not working there. >> yeah. this is really, alex, the pair dock of this report. not only that, african-americans are more likely to own a smartphone than virtually any other ethnic group, with the exception of asian-americans. african-americans are highly likely to use facebook, google, twitter, and snapchat and youtube. however, are woefully underrepresented in the workforce of tech and social media companies. i will compare and contrast that to the record of comcast nbc. not to certainly blow smoke, but to state the facts. there are companies that tend to be legacy technology companies, like couples qaa, at&t, and verizon, that have stronger records in african-american hiring and on diversity than the new tech companies whose records when it comes to african-american hiring, are very low. the other thing we found is there is a pipeline of young african-american and hispanic students and workers with the skills that are needed to work in this new and emerging sector. the report is a paradox. african-americans being strong consumers but not being fairly represented. proposals are taking place all across the nation to correct that. >> i want to thank you for commenting on comcast nbc universal. we're proud of that. it's the right thing to do. it's the smart thing to do. it works for a big successful company for so many reason. that being one of them. aside from the digital divide, though, mark, what really significantly stood out to you in this year's report? >> i think that's important about this year's report is that the disparities that exist in american life seem to be in suspended animation, seem to be in tractable. there's not much movement in blacks versus whites in the 12 years we have been collecting this comprehensive data. african-americans are like the caboose on a train. certainly when the train speeds up, african-americans speed up. when the train slows down, african-americanss slow down. but remain the caboose on the train. these structural economic and educational issues really are the challenges of 21st century america faces. but the urban league also always focuses on solutions. we have urban tech jobs initiative which is training people for middle market, middle school occupations like data installers, customer support specialists, that we are under taking. we don't just want to be diagnostic. we want to be prescriptive, identify the solutions and build a will in both the private and public sectors to address these challenges. >> look, i know you have express said your frustration with the trump administration, but is there any way to work around the administration to try to help african-americanss get more of a piece of the american pie? >> we have to be clear eyed and recognize with the trump administration that there have been some areas where they have assaulted the civil rights laws of this country. cutbacks in education. reversing the voter suppression indication, the effort to undermine the affordable care act, place work requirements on medicaid. however, i'll holdout is any hope if there are and if there will be an initiative in the criminal justice reform area where people can work together or an initiative when it comes to job training, apprenticeships, on-the-job training. we're going to be clear eyed and put thes interests of your community first while at the same time we must resist what the administration does. but we're nephew just going to shut the door and say there is no circumstances under which we can find some common ground. because after all what we have to do is think about not what happens in the beltway or on wall street, we have to be focused on the main streets of america, the communities of measuring. that's where the you about league's real interests lie. >>lie. >> marc morial. it's easy to see why you're the president and ceo of the national urban league. >> we would like people to go to the report state of black america.org. great contributions by about 50 authors. marg, great to see you. special counsel robert mueller is steering clear of the president's daughter for now, the story behind these headlines, next. we got married after college. and had twin boys. but then one night, a truck didn't stop. but thanks to our forester, neither did our story. and that's why we'll always drive a subaru. i would love to go, i would love to speak, but i have to find that we're going to be treated fairly. wait, wait, i have to find that we're going to be treated fairly. because everybody sees it now and it is a pure witch hunt. >> president speaking yesterday about his willingness to be interviewed by special counsel robert mueller. let's bring in julie raginski, joe watkins and rick tyler. >> the the three times he said fair or fairly. in the past we heard the president say how much he wanted to talk to mueller. but this appears to be more cautious, why do you think that is? >> well, he ought to be more cautious, i can't imagine that he would want to. i mean given his record of speaking his mind and then flip-flopping on what he says. it would be dangerous for thoim talk to robert mueller. i would think his lawyers would argue against him talking to special counsel robert mueller. i think he feels emboldened, also by the comments that judge ellis made that yesterday, about the manafort case. but i would caution again that even with those comments, remember judge ellis is not dismissing the case. he's not likely to dismiss the case, he's just holding the prosecutor's feet to the fire. so i think that trump is, is very wise to be very cautious going forward. and to not make any, he's likely to make more outlandish statements, but not make any more outlandish statements as it relates to that. >> judge ellis is looking for manafort, the deep dive in his financial background well before the campaign. that's what he's looking for. rick, i want to talk about the leaked copy of the 49 questions mueller wants to ask the president, published in "the new york times" this week. does that do anything to bolster the witch hunt narrative of the white house? >> i don't think so. i think now we know that, it wasn't really liked. if it was leaked, leaked from the trump side and it was jay sekulow's notes on the meeting. it certainly wasn't leaked from the prosecution side, the mueller side. in many ways who knows, if mueller is not limited to those questions. those are some topics that sekulow decided might be asked. but there could be more questions asked. which is why trump shouldn't agree to speak to the counsel. he may end up before a grand jury. if he goes in front of the grand jury, he won't have his counsel with him. i think he's in hot water, anyway. he keeps say egg wants this thing to wrap up. but you know the sooner he testifies one way or the other, i think the sooner he'll be in deep trouble. >> last question to you julie in this regarding ivanka trump and why robert mueller was not interviewed her yet. rudy giuliani said this week if mueller does not steer clear of ivanka, the whole country will turn on him. what is your take on that in. >> well first of all, i think rudy giuliani, it was the women of america owes the women of america a big apology of the really misogynistic statement about we're such hot house flowers that we have to be protected and how jared kishner is disposable because he's a man. but secondly look ivanka trump was present for at least part of her meeting with the russian lawyer we now find is an agent of the russian government, the woman who met with jared kushner and donald trump junior last year. two years ago. we consistently have heard that she was around when trump needed a decision to fire comey. she was around when trump was on air force one deciding whether to put out the statement and to put out the statement falsely. defending donald trump junior's meeting with the russians. so she obviously has a lot to say. and it may be that robert mueller is waiting until the very last minute to interview her. i think he understands if he does go down this road trump will just explode and go ballistic. it may be a strategy to avoid the president doing that and to have the president come in first. who knows. but per rudy giuliani's comments, i think he really went very much overboard. >> julie raginski, rick tyler and joe watkins, have a great weekend. we talk about the pr effect. coming up next, the questions about the legal impact of rudy giuliani's tv appearances. little scoundrels. with roundup's sure shot wand, you don't need to stoop to their level. draw the line. the sure shot wand extends with a protective shield to pinpoint those pesky bedfellows. it lets you kill what's bad right down to the root, while comfortably guarding the good. draw the line with roundup. trusted for over 40 years. ♪ ♪ no one thought much of itm at all.l people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. they thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldn't that be cool? 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