On a friday night, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 554 of the Trump Administration, and the president escalates the war on his former lawyer and confidante, Michael Cohen, while denying that he had any advanced knowledge about that june 2016 meeting in trump tower. A source has told nbc news cohen is willing to tell Robert Mueller that donald trump jr. Informed his father about the meeting before it took place. Trumps son had that meeting with several russians after he was told they were coming prepared with damaging information about hillary clinton. Well, today the president responded with this so, the fake news Doesnt Waste My Time with dumb questions, no, i did not know of the meeting with my son, don junior. Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam. Taxi cabs, maybe . Well explain that one. He even retained bill and crooked hillarys lawyer. Counsel. Muellers office says it plans to call 35 witnesses and financial crimes trial of exTrump Campaign chief paul manafort, which is slated to begin tuesday. This is the first of two trials for manafort. The witness list was made public just today. The biggest name on it, no surprise, is that man, rick gates, manaforts former partner and onetime deputy on the Trump Campaign who pleaded guilty and is now cooperating with the Mueller Investigation. After all of that, lets bring in our leadoff panel on a friday evening. The aforementioned emily jane fox, Senior Reporter for vanity fair. We should add, she just wrote the book on the trump family. Its called born trump inside americas first family. Josh gerstein, senior White House Reporter for politico. And jill wine banbanks, former Watergate Special counsel. Good evening to you all. Emily here in new york, id like to begin with you. If this relationship hasnt soured, id hate to see a relationship that has. Seems a little chilly. Offer to donald trump, but some people have argued that perhaps hes sending a smoke signal looking for a pardon. Pardon, yeah. Now, people who are close to cohen and familiar with his thinking have flat out denied that time and time again to me. They have said, the way that you would get a pardon is not by angering the president and sticking a thumb in his eye repeatedly, and even if he were to get some sort of prepardon, then he would undoubtedly be subpoenaed and would have to testify and then would not be able to plea the fifth. Thats something that according to all my reporting hes taken off the table. On the other side, you have President Trumps camp. And there was a school of thought on friday when the recordings were first released and Rudy Giuliani was the only person on the record describing the Subject Matter on that tape yeah, we quoted you on this broadcast. Yeah, so he was able to control the narrative for a few days until lanny davis did put out the actual recording earlier this week. And so, it was kind of a smart tactic to be able to define the
narrative, even though we now know that the very best case for Rudy Giuliani, there are questions raised about the narrative that he laid out there. So, what you have is a complicated set of motivations from each side, characters on each side that are not necessarily the most trustworthy or have the greatest credibility. And so, to try and determine who leaked what when is a difficult game. I will say that from my reporting in the cohen world the past 24 hours particularly after this revelation last night about what Michael Cohen may know about the trump tower meeting, they have said over and over again, we did not leak this, because this does not serve us. To have this out in the public was not our strategy. We wanted to be able to go to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, with this information. It doesnt serve us to have this out in the public. Now, it is possible in some way that it does serve President Trump to have one of the most damaging things out there, perhaps to control the narrative
again, and perhaps to make it more difficult for Michael Cohen to cooperate. If Michael Cohen is not going to cooperate, then maybe the president can breathe a little easier tonight. And josh, the only problem with conversations the likes of which were having here is its about the mechanics of leaking, and were forgetting the story in chief is, oh, yeah, by the way, its alleged the president had a heads up on russians coming to his Office Building in new york prior to him becoming president with dirt on his opponent. At the top of the ticket, as they say, one donald trump has been conspicuously silent but for his twitter feed this week. Right. And you know, given his No Collusion Mantra that hes put forward time and time again, there could hardly be a more damaging allegation then that he was aware in advance that his campaign was endeavoring to get damaging political intelligence about his opponent from russians
and russians that i believe his own family had been told had some connection to the russian government. So, theres no question that this would injure his narrative if people believe it. I think the problem is, as emily points out, theres a need for some additional cooperation. You have a number of people whose credibility is not particularly high and who have made statements that prove not to be accurate. The real question i think is not whether Michael Cohen has stories that could damage the president but whether he can lead Robert Mueller or other federal investigators like the folks in new york to provable facts, to other sources of information that can allow them to assemble a damaging case against the president. If its just stories that hes telling Michael Cohen, i dont think its going to be that damaging. And now to jill weinbanks. Counselor, if theres a short version of this answer, if its answerable, in your view, how
has cohens case changed this week, since tuesday . How has trumps case changed this week . I would say that cohen is in the same position he was in terms of whatever evidence positions against him but that he has put himself in a better position, because if he really does have the willingness to testify that he was in the room when donald trump sr. Learned about the meeting in trump tower, and if he will identify the other people who, rumor has it, were also in the room, it means that its not his word against the president s word. And as everybody has pointed out, they both have credibility issues. Giuliani is saying that cohen is a pathological liar, and he knows that because cohen lied for his client for many years, which is not exactly a very strong defense. And what does that make the client who hired the lawyer to lie for him . So, they both have credibility issues, but if he can identify other witnesses, i think josh pointed this out, it means that there is a really credible case. And to some extent, if im viewing this as a trial lawyer, juries really can make logical conclusions, and the evidence at this point is now getting very compelling that there was a clear willingness to accept help from the russians to win the election, to collude with them, as the public is calling it, or to enter into a conspiracy with them, which is what the crime is. And i think it really has gone to the stage where were really getting somewhere now, and we could have a very significant case. Emily, the counselor is right. Last night, watching Rudolph Giuliani on cnn, it was straight up Character Assassination, calling a person who was up until recently the personal, trusted lawyer of the man who
became president a pathological liar. If you believe the theory that the leaks have come from the trump camp, that would hold that this is some of the worst, most damaging stuff cohen has to tell the feds. But your reporting tonight is that cohen is sitting on top of a, quote, treasure trove. Is that a promise or a threat, or did they not characterize that . I think its both. I think there is a combination of things that is happening right now. Cohen had been preparing since early july for the onslaught that we are now seeing. He had heard word from people in the president s orbit that this kind of Character Assassination was coming, and he wanted to be ready to combat it, because he, as he has said, he has a family to protect, he has a duty that he feels he wants to serve to his country, and he wants to smack back if he is smacked. And he feels right now like he is the most under siege from
someone he was incredibly loyal to for more than a decade, and he doesnt want to take it anymore. And so, what he is saying is that, like we saw last week, if Rudy Giuliani is going to come out and categorize a tape like this, perhaps leak it or perhaps try to control the narrative, then hes going to release the tape in two days and try to correct the record. And he said to people who are close to him, if they want to keep playing this game, ill play it and ill play it to win. So, that is what i think, if Rudy Jagiuliani and the Trump Surrogates continue this Character Assassination we saw last night, then were going to continue to see the kind of behavior from cohen that weve seen in the last week. I have to ask you a question because youre still young and you have your whole life ahead of you. Maggie haberman tonight talked about this is what she called it, the culture of corrosive lying surrounding this story on both sides. Does it get to you . Youre writing down some of these quotes that become the news of the day. I think as all reporters are doing right now, youre just trying to get to the truth, and that is the hardest thing to do right now because there are so many people who are not honest brokers in this whole set of characters. And all that we can do is try and get to the truth of the matter, and trust who you think should be trusted and has proven to be a trusted source for you. It is wearing, but it is worth the wear and tear that it takes. All right, josh, next week begins the manafort trial, unless were looking at another delay. What stood out to you, if anything, if anyone on the witness list . Well, its going to be a cavalcade of sort of haberdashers . Haberdashers, if you call someone a tailor who sells suits to someone to a total of 800,000 over several years, youre going to see people that specialize in highend
landscaping 500,000 that manafort spent on that. Its really going to be sort of a Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous episode, i think, with one after another of these individuals coming in and testifying not just that manafort spent Hundreds And Thousands of dollars on their products, but that the method of payment was highly unusual. We had these exhibits come out publicly yesterday where people have written in longhand that these funds were transferred from some strangely named account in sky precypress, Whet Improvements or for a mercedesbenz that went for 130,000. Probably not typically the way people pay for these kinds of purchases, even if theyre lucky enough to have the money to do so. Jill, were also going to be seeing something important next week. This is the first of about 100 times i plan to say it these are Public Servants who are going to be putting themselves and their argument forward at
trial. Every one of the lawyers in this case could exponentially improve their salary in the private sector, especially with the pearl of any association to the Mueller Investigation on their resume. Instead, theyre going to lay it all on the line. This is a very closely watched trial, the first of the mueller effort. It is. And every one of them is dedicated to finding the truth and presenting it to a jury for them to evaluate. And i think thats what we will have. Its going to be a very exciting week. But if i could go back to something that was said, i want to address why possibly trump would have leaked this. And its because one of the first things that a trial lawyer learns is that if you have bad news or bad facts, its better to get them out yourself first. Dont wait to have to take it on cross examination. Put it out on direct
examination. Its much more effective in front of a jury for you to put it out. And in the way that this has happened, they did have a couple of days of their narrative, sort of explaining away this very bad for example, the tape. Then you hear the tape, and you go, whoa, its nothing like what giuliani said. Thats completely off. But after two days of hearing it, his base will believe that what he said is true. They will pay no attention to what they actually heard on the tape. And so, that is a reason why he might have gone ahead with it. And the other thing is, the value of cohen is not diminished by these leaks because he still has to be a witness in a trial. Its not enough even to have the tape. Someone has to explain the tape and someone has to say, did the president say use cash or dont use cash . And he is the one who can do that because he was the other
party to this conversation. So, i dont think it hurts his value as a witness, and he still will be valuable. And if he wants to make a deal with mueller, i think mueller would find him very interesting. Our thanks to jill weinbanks, to emily jane fox, josh gerstein, the members of our leadoff panel late on a friday night. The good news, ive been assured its friday. There will be no more of this for this week. Coming up, more talk of another u. S. russia summit. This time, one suggested by vladimir putin. And the white house says the president is open to a visit to moscow. Lord knows hes been there before. And later, with midterms fast approaching, the Administration Says foreign interference in our elections will not be tolerated. Well try to arrive at a definition of that when we come back on a friday night. It clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors. All this as nbc news reports, as the headline says pretty clearly, Trump Administration has no central strategy for election security, and no ones in charge. Thats pretty direct. Our own ken delainan writes even members of Trumps National security cabinet have acknowledged the need for a central, unifying effort, one that experts say is missing. Senior officials have also admitted that the government has failed to take steps necessary to give the russians second thoughts about intervening in american politics. Thats where these next two gentlemen come in. Two guests each with a book relevant to our conversation. First, malcolm nance, veteran of naval intelligence, security ops, homeland security, and the author of, get this, the plot to destroy democracy how putin and his spies are undermining america and dismantling the west. Plus, we have clint watts back
with us tonight, former fbi special agent, former member of the joint Terrorism Task force. His latest book, get this, messing with the enemy surviving in a social media world of hackers, terrorists, russians, and fake news. These guys are a lot of fun, trust me. So, clint, are we getting played before putin ever dealt with our invitation to come to washington, which was smartly delayed after mcconnell and the speaker of the house visited the president. The president s now being invited to moscow of all the places on the planet . Yeah. As ive talked about on this show with you before, President Putin owns President Trump. Hes pushed him both directions and set him up in these scenarios. Im not sure President Trump even minds because he adores President Putin, it seems like so much. But you could see this coming. I mean, this play was going to be there. And every time these overtures are made and then pulled back,
it puts russia in a very strong position where they can then make these challenges, push these things. When you say, russia, do you have those emails . I think it was two years ago today, when you make that statement, it puts you in a very weak hand if you ultimately become the elected official, because you have someone across the ocean who has been influencing the election, who is in a powerful position, and who is manipulating the system, whether its information in Foreign Policy around the world in ways that are to the detriment of the United States. So, it makes President Trump really look like he has a weak hand in this scenario. And if he goes ahead and takes it, you know, part of the reason why they wanted to delay it for the witch hunt is they probably want to delay it for the midterms. Reaction was not good here in the United States, republican or democrat, to that helsinki summit. Now President Putin puts it out there. Do you go to moscow right before the midterm elections . It probably isnt a good political strategy for the president. Malcolm, our friend, clint, is absolutely right. It was two years ago today in response to a question from katy tur, who just anchored the hour
before us. Well take a look at what the president sa