his son to cancel the meeting. he did not tell the fbi about the meeting. and if anything, he further encouraged and emboldened the russians to hack, because he went out just about a month and a half after the meeting and said, russia, if you're listening, which years ago from today, as you pointed out, you would be rewarded for hacking hillary clinton's e-mails. >> michael avenatti, after, represents stormy daniels said michael cohen has far more incriminating things about the president. >> i demanded release of all trump tapes and stated at the time there were multiple recordings and we know there are indeed over 100 recordings seized. this information on the trump tower meeting is not the best information michael cohen has. issure you of that. >> start with kelly o'donnell. not far from where the president is spending the weekend at his bedminster resort. good morning. the president refused to answer questions on camera about michael cohen and that infamous meeting at trump tower with the russian lawyer. still, we keep asking what did he know and when did he know it? >> reporter: these are persistent questions, alex, and the president commented in his own way but not engaged with reporters when we have been asking about this issue. it is important in understanding what the president's knowledge was, what his role may have been, what the intentions were when that meeting in 2016 was taken, and the fact that the stories have changed over time, and once considered an ally, michael cohen now appears to be squarely in the camp of being a threat to the president. but there's credibility issues all around. which one of the figures in this is to be believed? now, this comes at a time when the president also has other things on this mind like the economy, and improved numbers there, and the campaign trail. with all of this russia investigati did. >> reporter: referring to friction the president caused with nato leaders after demanding they boost defense spending. friday, for the first time, the president shared a national security council meeting on election interference, but notably, the official statement did not mention russia. his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in you are 0 elections from any nation state or other malicious actors. the president refused questions ten times this week. >> mr. president, sir, is michael cohen lying? >> reporter: after news his former attorney, michael cohen, is prepared to tell authorities that mr. trump was aware that russians offered to bring dirt on hillary clinton to a trump tower meeting with donald trump jr. in 2016. >> mr. president, did you know about the meeting at trump tower? >> reporter: but his only response has come on twitter. i did not know of the meeting with my son, don junior. then suggests a motive for cohen under investigation. sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jab. amid the controversy, the white house is celebrating. new signs the economy is thriving. >> we're on track to hit the highest annual average growth rate in over 13 years. >> reporter: and, alex, sometimes there is just the unusual situation of two figures well known being in a space where you might not expect them and that happens from time to time at washington's reagan national airport and on friday politico captured an image showing special counsel robert mueller waiting in gate 35x. a number of different destinations in the same location in the waiting area. so robert mueller seated there in the lower left frame and in the upper right side of that frame, that's the president's son donald trump jr. also waiting for a flight. the two men did not interact but of course, their lives very much interconnected over the last year and a half since mueller took over the investigation and all of these new questions surfaced about what did donald trump jr. know? had he been fully disclosing information to the congressional committees? is he in sort of the -- the p purview of the special counsel? imagine waiting for your flight to take off that says so much about what's happening in washington. >> what i would give to be that lady sitting directly across from mueller. are these guys even acknowledging each other? quite something. anyway -- >> reporter: yes. >> we chuckle now. thank you so much, kelly. see you again. bring in brian bennett, senior white house correspondent for "time" and nbc news digital reporter. gentlemen, good saturday morning to you. a source telling nbc news that michael cohen is certainly ready to tell robert mueller then candidate trump new in advance about his son's 2016 meeting with russians at trump tower. of course, this contradicts both the president and donald trump jr. and his testimony. brian, if it's true, what does this mean for the mueller investigation? >> it means a lot, and already rudy giuliani is out there trying to take down the credibility of michael cohen, and what's interesting is when a prosecutor like robert mueller has a cooperating witness, and if michael cohen decides to cooperate fully with prosecutors, it's more than just what he has to say. so he may say he recalls president trump knowing about the june 2016 meeting, but he also may know a lot of details about where prosecutors can look for communications, as we know, there may be some recordings of conversations that could refer back to that. there could be other pieces of evidence that michael cohen knows about that he could tell prosecutors, and so it's not just his word against theirs. it could also be other pieces of Alex Witt hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. evidence. for instance, donald trump jr. called an unlisted number shortly after that meeting. get cell phone numbers leading to donald trump himself would be very strong evidence. >> brian, the president verbally silent, publicly speaking. you go to twitter and in a tweet says cohen is "trying to make up stories" to get himself out of an unrelated jam. different than the tone when the pr president called cohen a great guy. can you make heads or tails what this looks like? >> estranged now and unlikely to ever come back. michael cohen has turned on the president. he has in public actively is trying to undermine the president's story on this, and those tweets are really significant, because the president has put in black and white on the record what his version of events is, and there's no going back from that. that is incredibly significant. i'd note right now. you can see the weather in bedminster is incredibly good. in the 80s, sunny. significant. the president will be golfing, distracted. the last time the president sent a rainy weekend in bedminster, more than a year ago in april, and he decided to fire jim comey when he came back to washington after that. so it's significant, i think, that the president will be in bedminster on a sunny weekend where he can be out golfing and not stewing and watching reports about the russia investigation, as you know, probably make time to put out tweets. usually does that before he hits the golf links as he's done the last couple of weekends. look at robert mueller, alex, right now combing through the president's tweets. what about those relative to attorney general jeff sessions? how does that factor into it? the way he's slammed him on twitter? >> right. robert mueller is looking for, building an obstruction of justice case. the key with an obstruction of justi justice, you have to prove intept. challenging. it's not a smoking gun. you have to establish a pattern of facts. that's what robert mueller will be trying to do with these tweets. jeff sessions, trump almost specifically threatens him. if i had known he would have recused himself i would never have appointed him, and trump threatening sessions to drop the witch-hunt into the presidential election. the president is his boss. you could make the case this is trump trying to pressure his subordinate to drop an investigation into the president. >> can we pull up that picture once again from politico? this dca, reagan terminal 35x. have either of you been there, and if you have, would it be possible to not know. it's small. cramped, right? would you not know somebody else who is potentially boarding the same plane, these two -- >> it's possible if you're absorbed in whatever you're reading and didn't look up to see as people came in and out. but it is not -- it's not a large space, but because of a lot of flights depart from there a lot of people do go through. an amazing terminal. sort of like a green room from outside a cable news show. people from all walks of washington go through there and often there's curious interactions that happen in that terminal. >> oh, yeah. especially after events like white house correspondents' dinners and things like that. alex, you want to weigh in on this? >> i've spent too much time at that gate. brief eye contact and in a split second agreed to pretend they didn't see each other. fully aware they were in public and any interaction would be a big public scenants an interesting reaction to this picture. thank you for weighing in. appreciate it. coming up next, suspicions about that trump tower meeting. and in the dark. how even the secretary of state appears to have little idea what exactly happened in that trump-putin private powwow. >> senator, i understand the game that you're playing, again. >> no, no. mr. secretary, with all due respect, i don't appreciate you characterizing my questions. my questions are to get to the truth. (vo) what if this didn't have to happen? i didn't see it. 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>> seems so to me. i'm not legal expert. there's been a pattern of lies, lies, lies or cover-ups. that's obviously where legal investigators are going to look. from the outside, there was certainly a willingness and a welcome desire to collaborate and collude with anybody to help them against the hillary clinton campaign. >> and is that why you say that this was not an innocent meeting? that they were trying to get dirt on hillary clinton? i mean, it wasn't all about adoptions, we later found out not true in the claim. why is it you think it was -- you know, not an above board meeting? >> for a couple reasons. one is, when a foreign power steals information from american citizens and provides it to you, the right thing to do is go to your lawyers, your security people, go to the fbi. >> but is it possible that the trump team was too knew eve to know that and do it? people suggested this team couldn't even have pulled off corroboration, that naive and inept? >> still doesn't make it right, however, it's a good point and possible donald trump jr. was that naive and that inept, but not possible paul manafort was that naive and inept. he's worked in that cesspool of russian collaboration, collaboration of russian cooperation, mafia intelligence overlap and would have definitely known what happened, and they had months and months of other contacts and things following that they could have in some fashion reported this. >> how does this differ from traditional op-o research? you've heard the defense, everybody does this. you try to get opposition research on your candidate, merely because of the foreign entity involvement? >> yeah. i don't know much about opposition research and that certainly makes sense, but when a hostile foreign power, who -- whose soul foreign policy goal is to hurt the united states steals american citizens documents and offers them to you you have to have -- if you're of any common sense or a patriot or any ethics have to look into that before you jump. part of this problem is, it goes to the fact that i think people have become so partisan now they see their political enemies as real enemies, and, therefore, actual foreign enemies that can help them, they're willing to sort of work with them to take down their political enemies. we really are in a bad place if that becomes sort of the standard operating procedure. >> okay. i want to get to the president's hil cin helsinki meeting. talking at the senate foreign relations committee hearing this week. take a listen. >> a number of conversations with president trump about what transpired in the meeting and present when he and president putin gave a synopsis what took place. speak with sergey lavrov, i have a pretty complete understanding of what took place in that meeting. >> did you speak to the translator at that meeting? >> i haven't. >> did the president tell you that he discussed relaxing russia sanctions or not? yes or not. >> they are entitled to have private meetings. i'm telling you what u.s. policy is. >> does it sound pompeo got most of his information just like the rest of us russian readouts and what's your thought on that if you agree? >> i do agree and feel bad for him. he's trying to walk that tightrope of loyalty to the president and also lack of access of information what the president talked about. it's clear to all of us president trump really doesn't understand what his policy is and doesn't explain things well about what happened. mike pompeo who has to defend the administration probably went to president trump and got the same word sale we all got and is trying to make something out of it. in the government we usually have what we call an olive government approach. big foreign policies, everybody has to be moving in the same direction. the problem with this administration is, there seems to be a,eneder the president policy and then whatever the president happens to say. trying to square those two things is really hard. >> can i ask you your thoughts on the fact that vladimir putin has invited president trump to moscow? the president's apparent willingness to accept? hasn't done it yet, but do you have concerns about that? if the president goes to moscow for a meeting? >> i have concerns about it but i think probably everybody in president trump's administration also has concerns about it. i don't think anybody under him supported the helsinki summit. and now they've seen what came out of it, they certainly don't want a replay of that anytime soon. president trump seems to have his own sort of game going. sort of likes to stick his finger in the eye of everybody and it's the george costanza foreign policy. do the opposite of what everybody else wants to do here. it doesn't make any sense and vladimir putin knows that very well and understands the partisanship here and that every time he throws out something it's going to have us all feeding on each other. he can just keep throwing these things out and trump will mischaracterize it or, yes, or no, and then eat each other up a couple weeks and do it again in a month. >> out of time. quickly, can i ask, any suspicion or concern the helsinki meeting could have been taped by vladimir putin? would that be typical standard operating procedure? >> i think you certainly he would try to do that. it was in the presidential administration building there. it would be unlikely, and they don't need to. president putin can sort of say whatever he wants to say in that meeting and cause trouble for us over here. >> thanks so much. good to talk to you. >> thank you. open warfare. up next, the pivotal moments that convinced michael cohen to go to battle with the president. sweat the details. noticing what most will never notice. it's what you do. when the thing you're making... isn't a thing. it's your reputation. the all-new ram 1500. comfortably, the most luxurious truck in its class. and why more people are switching to ram than ever before. sharper vision, without limits. days that go from sun up to sun down. a whole world in all its beauty. three innovative technologies for our ultimate in vision, clarity, and protection. together in a single lens. essilor ultimate lens package. purchase the essilor ultimate lens package and get a second pair of qualifying lenses free. essilor. better sight. better life. that's confident. but it's not kayak confident. kayak searches hundreds of travel and airline sites to find the best flight for me. so i'm more than confident. how's your family? kayak. search one and done. essential for the cactus, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. for a man he said he's take a bullet for. carol lennik, thank you for being here. good to see you. looking right into one of your reports in which you write cohen has felt wounded and abandoned by trump waiting for calls, even a signal of support that never came. cohen got frustrated when trump started talking about him in the past tense. panicked last month when he thought the president no longer cared about his flight, becoming furious when giuliani commented on some of his accounts. do you think he's turned against the president all because of a soured relationship? >> i think, alex, you've hit on the central question. the soured relationship is really worrisome to michael cohen, but there are two parts to that. first, remember the raid on michael cohen's home, his apartment and his office? that raid seized a lot of information, and criminal investigators are looking at michael for reasons that have nothing to do with donald trump. in addition to looking at whether or not he played an illegal role in trump's campaign. but separate and apart from all of the drama about trump, michael cohen has serious problems that have to do with potential bank fraud, and that's wearing on him. he is very concerned and has told many of his colleagues and associates that he expected to be arrested any day, and he wanted some sign from the president, some, if not promise, some indirect signal that he was going to protect him, and potentially pardon him for the things in which he has very, very much exposed. >> okay. i'm curious. >> go ahead. >> experts are saying the release of the recording that cohen put out there could end up hurting him? because it's infuriating not just the president but prosecutors as well. so ultimately cohen's emotions. might they have gotten the better of him, or do you think this is part of a bigger strategy we can't see yet? >> so clearly, one of the pieces of the early strategy was to say, president trump, i love you. i care about you, but i have some bad things to say about you. i have information that could be damaging to you. and when there was no love shown or no commitment shown, that got michael cohen quite concerned, according to people close to him. as for whether there's a larger strategy. we can't know what else michael cohen has in his, i want to say bag of tricks, but that's too flip. we can't know all the things he might have and recordings and e-mails still to be released. however, you're absolutely right, alex. his initial salvo doesn't seem that smart, because prosecutors with whom he ultimately has to make some kind of plea agreement, with whom he ultimately has to negotiate, are not going to be pleased by this kind of behavior. sharing evidence that's not been entered into the public record. making claims publicly and on cnn and the "washington post" rather than in a quiet room in secret. >> regarding cohen's reported claim trump knew of the 2016 meeting with the russian lawyer, despite his repeated denials, cnn reports cohen has no evidence to back that up. is the claim worth anything if he can't corroborate it? >> there is a really, quite a he said/she said, he said/they said element to this as you mentioned. on one side people are saying cohen has direct knowledge, firsthand witness knowledge, that don junior told his father about this. however, on the other side, there are a lot of people in trump world, a lot of very well-paid lawyers and a lot of family members and friends, who say, everyone else does not agree. no one else can recollect this ever coming up, and i think interestingly, that group of folks have told us there is no corroborating evidence. so somebody says they saw it. a lot of other people say they don't remember anything like that, and, by the way, there's no recording. there's no memo. so are you relying on the word of michael cohen? i find that interesting, because it's not exactly denying it, but it is saying, it will be hard to prove. >> you know, rudy giuliani praising cohen at one point. the president praising cohen. now going on the attack against him. do you think they're just trying to goad michael cohen now into saying something, or i guess appealing to, as you've written about, this heightened emotions that he has? >> i think in trump world, everyone would like michael cohen to simmer down rather than be goaded, and, remember, rudy giuliani essentially created a bit of an opening for this dramatic weekend and turn of events, because rudy described the tape recording that was ultimately just first described and then released, but rudy, after the existence of the recording was made public, rudy went on television to say it was entirely exculpatory and showed the president absolutely had no advance knowledge. now, when we actually got the transcript and cnn got the recording, you heard that it did seem as though the president did have advance knowledge. he didn't seem surprised at all about the idea that karen mcdougal was claiming he'd had a long-running affair with him, and that she'd sold the rights to her story to american media incorporated, david picker and publisher of "national enquirer" so when rudy made that description, that set off cohen world and when the recording was ultimately released. i think everybody in trump world would like michael to -- to quiet down. >> carol lennik, not you. come back and talk with us any time. thank you. >> thank you. and coming up, trump versus cohen. who will supporters ultimately believe? 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why wait? ask your doctor about prolia. source telling nbc news former lawyer michael cohen is willing to tell special counsel mueller that he knew about that meeting in advance. bring in a clumpi iscolumnist t "daily beast" and a political analyst. what do you make about the claims and how this changes the investigation for the russia investigation? >> this was actually a very important week, because what it did was, it connected these, for lack of a better word, the sex investigations, that part of the story, with the russian collusion story. and the connection is the accountant, allen weisselberg, now testifying before the grand jury. so we learned on these tapes that, you know, there had been this special unit that may have broken campaign finance laws in paying off karen mcdougal. then we learned towards the end of the week that, you know, this june meeting, this now knnotoris june 2016 meeting, might have been something that donald trump knew about. it's a little bit like a mob case. you have liars on both sides, but just because somebody is established as a liar, like they're trying to paint michael cohen in the trump camp, doesn't mean that he won't be credible on the stand. if it comes to a try. so, you know, this idea that they can kind of knock him out by saying that this guy that they used to have in the family is now a liar which is what giuliani is saying, that's not necessarily going to work for them. >> but on twitter yesterday, you have the president lashing out at michael cohen, dibbling down de -- doubling down on the meeting, that he knew anything. would they take the president's word over michael cohen? >> jonathan, i disagree. i think they are going to be successful, the trump camp, in painting cohen out to be a guy who lacks credibility, has lied and lied over and observver aga. look back in time. remember, all the polls comment? he was never really in touch with reality and kicked out of the trump universe because his last name isn't trump and he so badly wanted to be one of the cool kids lunch table and never was. they'll paint him out to be somebody scorned and frankly i think they'll win. the president wins when he takes it directly to his base, speaks directly to them, i did nothing wrong. believe me. stick with us. literally used those words. stick with us, don't believe the liberal media and where he wins out every time. funny for us who see the truth pap guy who lacks credibility serving as the president's lawyer, rudy giuliani saying the former personal lawyer lacks credibility is a goofy game here. i think in reality, we know that president trump is going to win with his base. >> you've got to distinguish between the politics, where you might well be right, because his base will stick with him, even if he shoots somebody on fifth avenue, and the legal proceeding where you have laws that may have been violated. it you're looking at a jury, for instance, in the trial of donald trump jr., and he's in a world of hurt, legally, you can't, you know, say, well, they will necessarily believe his father over michael cohen. we have a long way to go now before we know who's going to be more credible on the stand. >> there's a problem here. a problem here. it's that cohen says he was in the room with many others. but who's going to corroborate that claim? he doesn't even have audio recordings of that june 2016 meeting with the russians. so he has no physical evidence to prove -- >> we don't know that. there's speculation on that. no. we don't know what sort of other evidence he might have. remember, he made 100 audio recordings. now, it's true that if he'd made one of this meeting they probably would have brought it forward this week, but we don't know what kind of corroboration there might be on that. we're very early. this story just broke. >> it is. i agree. >> there are calls for donald trump jr. to re-appear and give testimony this time in front of the senate judiciary committee. any reason republicans should not support that move? >> there's really no reason. here's the thing. they know don trump jr. lies, whether behind closed doors, to the public, doesn't matter to republicans on the hill. don jump jr. is who we know he is. jonathan rightly points out, the legality is what matters i don't know any republicans on the hill have a reason to get involvedfine with him re-appearing, he's again going to lie. this family looks us in the face and lies to us. a segment of the republican party buys that and another part of the part that rejects that. frankly, i agree, it's early. no problem with don trump jr. going to the hill and clarifying what he said before, but my sense is that he's going to go and he's going to lie again. the trump organization as a whole always wins out by saying, look at the democrats. look at the liberals. they just want to take us down. >> jonathan, you mentioned the tapes. 100 of them reportedly in existence. listen to lanny davis, michael cohen's lawyer. responding to questions about why these tapes were made in the first place, or how. here it is. >> michael cohen has an answer to why he taped conversations, and i think he'll have to give that answer himself. i can't reveal that, but i will say that michael cohen has turned a corner in his life, and he's now dedicated to telling the truth to everyone, and we'll see what happens. >> how do you interpret that, jonathan? >> well, he's ready to flip, if he hasn't flipped already. that's been clear for a while now, and that's very dangerous for donald trump. this is a person who was at his side in many, many situations. we'll see what allen weisselberg testifies to before the grand jury. he is so close to trump. you know, he comes out of his casino empire. been his accountant many years, worked for his father. he knows where all the bodies are buried. he's even along with trump's sons, a trustee of the business while trump is president. so talking about what he knows, and he will be compelled to do so before the grand jury, to a certain extent. this could get an awful lot messier for the trump family. >> thank you both. guarantee i'll speak with you both again. thanks. thanks, guys. rules for beating president trump up. why trump opponents should stop obsessing over that trump tower meeting. ahead on "a.m. joy" why claire mccaskill is a top target for russian hackers. because they've chosen the industry leader. subaru outback holds its value better than any other vehicle in its class, according to alg. better than rav4. better than grand cherokee. better than edge. make every adventure a happy one with subaru outback. get 0% apr financing on the 2018 subaru outback. or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you've had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. the most common side effect is nausea. i can't tell you how good it feels to have smoking behind me. talk to your doctor about chantix. new this week, attacks the attorney michael cohen. calling him a liar. willing to tell the special counsel robert mueller trump knew about the 2016 trump tower meeting between his son and russia lawyer. joining me now, columnist for "new york times" and nbc pretty contributor brett stevens with a big welcome to you i can't wait to get to you this week. let's talk about this michael cohen. you're your reaction to this news overall, what are the implications of this going forward. >> they might be really serious, especially if cohen has a whole series of recordings. my fear is that i think the trump's opponents, and i include myself among them, have beeen cn i wantly -- consistently sort of banking on the expectation going to be smoking gun evidence. really bad news. michael cohen is kind of tainted witness. spent the time talking about what kind of lawyer he had been in his past life. the sort of jobs he did for donald trump. so there's going to be a question about his correct from the get-go which the presidents's team is going to exploit, even if they were defending him a few months ago. >> let's get to allen wieselburg. "new york times" is reporting that federal investigations have asked to interview him as part of investigation. it's sganlt for this reason. many have suspected in in our guts that if counsel mueller find evidence of collusion. improper relations it's going to get financial side. an organization that is constantly pishing the legal envelope or that was operatings perhaps outside of the legal envelope. in terms of the volume of lawsuits they were engaged in, the sort of investors they had. the places they were looking for markets. it's very natural that someone like him would be in their interest. if you can get access to anything. wieselbereisselberg. it will president's father. so he's been in the family for a very, very long time. and it's not entire lly clear tt he either has something to give or would be prepared to give it. >> what do you think is the northwest important rule for being donald trump. >> don't focus on the past. americans are not going to vote in 2020 on what may ronald reagan m-- or may not have happened. frankly, there is this obsession. i engage in it. in 2017, did the president's tweet cross the line into the obstruction of justice. guess what, i think the balance of the american eledoesn't real care. those are going to be the things. >> in other words, stop bashing. give voters reasons to vote for you. >> eric: every party only has so much political capital to spend. democrats are spending a lot of that capital on trying to relitigate 2016 and hoping they're going to find a smoking gun evidence of impeachable offense. they need to inspire like barack obama did in 2008. >> the one thing you wrote the prior day and it reads how trump won re-election in 2020. during the commercial, i would say you said it was a very easy thing for you to write. >> yes. >> how so and what has been the reaction other than someone looking at you rather stunned. >> people think i wrote a prediction. i wrote a warning. a piece that's day lined after the election trying to look back on how he won. it comes down to one thing. in 1992 when bill clinton ran against the senior george washington, he said it's the economy stupid. that's the primary consideration on the minds of most americans. so if there is prosperity. will that be strongly in favor of trump. counter trump with a positive agenda coming from practical democrats. is this going to be prophetic if the economy stays strong and builds as the president in that news conference yesterday suggested it would? a lot of things can happen that would talk over the ability to build. if it's a strong economy, have you just written what everyone will be writing the day after the election. >> take one more historical example. in 2000, we had an incredibly strong economy under president clinton. peace and prosperity and george w. bush ran under the mantle i'm going to restore dignity to the office. he called it conservatism. look back and say it didn't work out as he intended. it was a very different presidency. that's how he won with a positive message against a presidents who is seen as having to baste the office. and that's how democrats, something like that is the way democrats are going to win. i want to be proved wrong on november 4, 2020. >> brett stevens, very good to talk with you. see you again, no doubt. in just a few minutes on a.m. joy, president trump's timeline of denial about the trump tower meeting. if your adventure... ...keeps turning into unexpected bathroom trips... ...you may have overactive bladder, or oab.