Again from our news headquarters here in new york. Day 551 of the trump administration, and we have breaking news again this evening. Well get right to it. We have one of the recordings made by Michael Cohen back in 2016 with then president ial candidate donald trump. In the recording which first aired tonight on cnn, cohen and trump appear to be heard discussing arrangements surrounding payment to former playboy model Karen Mcdougal. The payment was eventually made, we know now, by trump friend david pecker, head of the company that owns and publishes the national enquirer. Cohen attorney lanny davis supplied the tape youre about to hear to cnn tonight. Youre going to hear at first the president who appears to be finishing up a phone call. We do not know if theres been any editing or altering of the original recording. Here it is now in its entirety. You know whats happening, okay . Oh, oh. Maybe because of this it would be better if you didnt go. Maybe because of this, get rid of this because its so false what theyre saying. Its such [ bleep ]. I think i think this goes away quickly. I think its probably better to do the charleston thing just this time. In two weeks its fine. I think right now its better. Okay, honey. You take care of yourself. Thanks. Im proud of you. Great poll, by the way. Big time. Mark burns, can we use him . No. We got served from the New York Times seal the divorce papers with ivana. Were fighting it. Kasowitz is going to they dont have a legitimate purpose so correct. Two, three weeks now. All you have to do is delay it. Even after that its not going to be opened. Theres no purpose for it. Told you about charleston. I need to open up a company for the transfer of all the back info regarding our friend david, you know, so that i couldnt do that right away. Ive spoken to allen about how to set the whole thing up funding yes. And its all the stuff. Because here you never know with that Company Maybe correct. So im all over that. And i spoke to allen about it. What financing . No, no. Because its important we want to hear again a key part of this conversation. Remember the setting 2016 before the election donald trump and Michael Cohen on a recording ultimately seized by the fbi apparently about a payment made to a former playboy model. I need to open a company for the transfer of all the bad info regarding our friend david. I need to do that right away. Ive spoken to allen liesenberg about how to set the whole thing up with funding yes. And its all the stuff. Because here you never know where that company correct. So im all over that. And i spoke to allen about it. When it comes time for the financing, which will be what financing . Well have to pay no, no. Cnn says tonight that trumps attorney Rudy Giuliani was aware and had the recording. Trump waived his attorneyclient privilege that allowed this tape to be released to prosecutors. Giuliani told cnn that the privilege was waived because he and his team believe itll help trump. The two sides disagree about what is heard on the recording. Lanny davis, cohens lawyer points to trump seemingly using the word cash after cohen mentions financing. Giuliani in a phone call last week accused cohen of raising the idea of cash payments. Tonight giuliani was reached by telephone to talk with laura engram of fox news. The president does bring up cash but he says dont pay with cash. And then cohen says no, no, no, and the president says check, and cohen says i got it. The point is the president wants the transaction to be memorialized. I dont think anyone can suggest this represents the president did anything wrong. With that lets bring in our lead off panel on a tuesday night. Robert costa, moderator of Washington Week on pbs. Jackie combs, mimi roca, now a distinguished fellow of criminal justice, and Emily Jane Fox with us in new york, whose new book is about the trump family. Good evening and welcome to you all. Emily, because you are most steeped on a daytoday basis with all things cohen and trump, im going to begin with you. Why did this come out tonight . What else do you know about this and other recordings . Whats interesting about the timing tonight is on friday night we knew about what was on the recording, the recording to Rudy Giuliani. And my sources in cohen world were already telling me at that point that this was not the true narrative in their mind. And i think over the weekend there was some stewing going on, that this was not what they believe was the truth and the truth would ultimately come out. And i think theres a lot of growing frustration that people were accepting this narrative that Rudy Giuliani put out as truth. The president and his attorneys had waived privilege on these recordings so i think there was a little bit of a throwing their hands up today where they were like this is becoming the actual narrative. Its not the actual narrative in our reading or listening to the recording, so they wanted to set the record straight. I think that is the defining reason why this tape came out. Lets talk atmospheric for just five seconds. Ive heard this already kind of erroneously referred to as a phone conversation. This by all accounts is an in person meeting. You can hear room tone as if it was recorded by say a device on cohens lap sitting across from donald trump at trump tower. Thats exactly right. This is meeting that took place in person in their day to day interaction. You can hear him basically running through a checklist of all the things he had to tell the president. Whats interesting to me, and this is point actually Rudy Giuliani brought up to me on friday, the fact they had these kinds of conversations that Michael Cohen was allowed to do these kinds of transactions on his own without running them by his boss, and he thought that was exculpaatory because of the storm daniels stuff. But i think what is interesting is this recording now shows that Michael Cohen did have the time to run these by his boss and that now President Trump did know about the ins and outs of all of these things that were going on. So even though he was in the midst of this turbulent very busy president ial campaign when he was well aware of what cohen was doing when. You were just off the phone with people very close to the principles in this case. My phones dead. Really . We should be able to get you a complimentary charge. But were in the middle of a war here. They felt prompted to do this tonight, to sit down and release the tape because in lannys words he doesnt want Michael Cohen to be a punching bag. And a few minutes later had a conversation with mayor jewel jew giuliani. He thinks the president in his view of the whole thing was just learning about this from that conversation. So you already see both sides fighting. And the most important thing i was looking for tonight from giuliani is a pardon in the works for Michael Cohen. As this escalates, as this whole thing becomes even a bigger fight between the both sides, could a pardon be on the table . Giuliani said he would not say yes or no, just saidit its extremely inappropriate to talk about pardons at this time. Since were all dealing from the same hymnal, the same recording you dont hear the president express surprise or ask questions about this venture that someone is seemingly setting up an llc to take care of. No surprise from then candidate trump. And its been deeply reported by the post and others theres been a longstanding relationship with david pecker, who runs American Media with Michael Cohen, with trump when he was tabloid figure. Theyve had this very close nexus for a long time. Its its been pointed out the president s pseudonym in some of these court papers was david so theres speculation which they were talking about. Can we get a charge for bob costas phone . Mimi, the only attorney in this room, please save us. Federal, do you hear any laws being broken from listening to that recording . From a prosecutors perspective what i see here from this recording is a good piece of evidence in showing that some laws were broken. On its face by itself probably not. But no piece of evidence stands alone. Weve talked before about its building bricks on bricks to build the wall. And this is one brick. And by the way, the prosecutors potentially are not going to be listening to this in a vacuum. Theyre going to have it with potentially Michael Cohen interpreting it for them. And thats very important because hes one of the participants in the conversation. And so we can all sit here and try and guess about which david it is and, you know, what they meant when they said ex, but if coh cohen cooperates it shows how valuable he can be because he can interpret conversations like this. As for the laws to show were broken, one of the hardest things to show in a Campaign Finance case was that a payment was made to impact the election. I think we talked a lot about the edwards case and in that case they did not get a conviction in large part because they were not able to show the payment to silence the woman in that case was made to actually impact the election. Heres theres some distinguishing factors. This is made much closer to the time of election. So we now know we have a payment being made whether its by ami or directly from trump and cohen. Doesnt really matter at the end of the day, but its to silence this woman from coming out very close to election. And theres a little nugget in this reporting thats before the part where theyre talking about the actual payment to Karen Mcdougal. Theyre talking about keeping the record sealed in ivana trumps divorce case. And trump says cohen assures him theyre never coming out, its never going to be unsealed. And trump says you just have to keep them sealed for, and its not clear whether he says a couple of months, a couple of weeks. But clearly what hes talking about there is a time frame, they need to keep information under wraps. There hes talking about ivana trump. But guess what, its followed by this conversation about the paemt payment to karen mckdougal. This could show this is what theyre doing with that payment of Karen Mcdougal. There also could be potential fraud charges here. Theyre talking about setting up a company. Im guessing they didnt tell the bank the truth when they actually wrote the check, if they wrote a check. An llc exactly. There could be potential fraud on Karen Mcdougal if she was scammed thinking she was being paid for one thing but really being paid for another thing. I really think theres a whole host of crimes this could be evidence of contribute to. Wow, thats a lot. Thats exactly why we wanted you here tonight. Jackie, i was just going through my head the last time, and i dont think its happened before, we have a Senior Member of an important west coast publication from the safe distance of washington reacting to news that broke in new york. That being our set of rules, what do you make early on now of the potential blow back on the president come morning . Well, youve just addresses the potential legal aspects of this. I think as a political matter theres not a lot that i see changing because people have so baked in the cake of donald trump that hes had these relationships with women, that he doesnt tell the truth, as he didnt tell the truth about Karen Mcdougal and his knowledge of the payment, et cetera. When i first heard this tape initially i thought it was completely ambiguous and that each side, protrump, antitrump, people in the middle would just hear what they wanted to. And i still believe that to some extent. But the more i listen to it the more its clear this is not a good look for donald trump. Hes talking almost in conspiratorial tones with his lawyer or fixer. And its clear hes not surprised of his talk of Karen Mcdougal though he said on air force one he knew nothing about it. Its almost like a talk between a godfather and his consigliary. Its just icy. Whether that changes anything i have to doubt. Your reporting friday night on this effort perhaps more of a notion that cohen only has a finite number of things priprietary to him upon which he could flip and be of value to the feds. Of course he first needs to be charged. And there was an effort to diminish the value of what he had on donald trump. Can you speak to that . Yeah, its interesting. All of this is out there because the president s attorneys decided to waive privilege on this tape. We wouldnt have heard this tape. This tape wouldnt have even been turned over to prosecutors and none of this would be able to be used as evidence in the case. So thats the first thing i want to stress here. But the belief in cohen land over the weekend was that the president s toeattorneys tried take a card out of cohens deck in order to cooperate if he is in fact charged. But the way it was characterized to me was, yes, there is recording and perhaps one day we would hear the recording and tonight we did. But its not just whats on the recording. Its the back story. And that was stressed a me over the weekend that whatever we hear now is only the beginning, only the tip of the iceberg and theres more explanation to come. Our former fed wants to weigh in on the legal angle. Well, the point we never would have heard this recording, i still dont completely understand what giulianis motivation was in releasing this. But there is a theory that in fact the court was still considering this and whether it should be released under the crime fraud exception. And if that had happened that would have been pretty damaging. That would have looked damaging for trump as well to have a court ruling that this should come in under the crime fraud exception, which now having listened to it, i think theres a very good argument for that. And so they may have been trying to preempt that. I want to make sure people understand what giuliani is saying about why he released it may not be true, and they might have been trying to preempt something that looked worse for the president. This could be any one of a nine inning game here legally. I asked lanny davis are there more tapes that have trump on the recording . He did not give an answer to that, but he acknowledged there are more tapes of Michael Cohen at least. In the world of the media this has been all over the place since friday. Some very good reporters were convinced friday there was but one such reporting. Some very good reporters were convinced by Rudy Giuliani that on the recording weve now heard its cohen who initiates the idea we should pay this off in cash. Thats right. Weave to listen to the tape. Theres going to be a fight over this tape. You already have both legal camps efighti cam camps fighting about it. I asked giuliani tonight whats his mood like behind the scenes, is he enraged. And he said hes disappointed. Jackie, im reminded we heard from the president himself today there was a whole bunch of stories were going to cover before the audiotape came out tonight. But let me just take two seconds and show you what he said speaking to the vfw about his achievements as president and what to believe and not believe. Just remember what youre seeing and what youre reading is not whats happening. He also called the output of the fake news media, quote, crap, unquote. And on twitter earlier today the president decided to throw something of a long ball, going against what we know to be the truth from our intelligence agencies and from putin himself. He turned it all upside down and wrote this on twitter. Im very concerned russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming election. Based on the fact no president has been tough on russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the democrats. They definitely dont want trump. Putins statement in helsinki to the contrary. So, jackie, where does this put us on a tuesday night heading on into wednesday morning . Well, it puts us right back at the beginning. It was a week ago today that trump was cleaning up the mess he made the day before in helsinki standing side by side with vladimir putin. When he sided with the russian president , accepting his denials of any interference in our election, and subversion in our 2016 election and against the overwhelming unanimous conclusions of our intelligence community. And tuesday hes saying, no, no he meant he said would be when he meant wouldnt be. And he really believes his intelligence community. Well, every day since then up to this tweet you just read hes given us more evidence, that, no, its right back where he started from which is he doesnt accept the findings of the intelligence community. And so, you know, now were faced with this situation where hes invited the president of russia to the white house. The president of russia seems to be demurring. And tomorrow at 11 30 a. M. The president has a meeting on his schedule with paul ryan, speaker of the house and majority leader mitch mcconnell, both of whom today said they would not welcome putin to congress, to capitol hill. So i would love to be a fly on the wall when the three of them meet tomorrow. Because i thought from the beginning that the two Republican Leaders of congress would do everything in their power to make this putin visit not come off because its the last thing they need before the election. With that our thanks to the trump floor tonight. Really appreciate you guys stepping up on a busy news night. Well have more ahead on tonights breaking news. Plus on this day when the president told veterans pay no attention to what they see going on and during this week where trump surrogates have compared the president to lincoln, president ial biographer doris concerns goodwin is here with a warning about what she sees out there right now that may pose the greatest danger to our democracy. The 11th hour on a tuesday night continues. Today. Back pain cant win. Now introducing aleve back and muscle pain. Only aleve targets tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve back muscle. All day strong. All day long. Does it look like im done . Yet . Shouldnt you be at work . [ mockingly ] shouldnt you be at work . Todd. Hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game fist pump your real bikes all fixed. Man, you guys are g