least for now, at flooes for a day, trump resoutheasted lashing out in a dramatic and public way. instead, wednesday was a moment for calculation and conversation, a pause for a rattled administration. according to white house officials and outside advisors familiar with the discussions. michael cohen's lawyer is making it clear his client is ready, willing, and able to share what he knows with robert mueller. jonathan lamere is standing by captures the state of affairs in his latest title "more dirt on president trump?" lanny davis made a series of television appearances today. here is what he said this morning. >> is he hoping for a pardon from president trump? >> not only is not hoping for it, he would not accept a pardon. he considers a pardon from somebody who acted so corruptly as president to be something he would never accept. >> earlier this evening, davis Brian Williams examines the day's top political stories and current political-campaign news. those denounced in the moment. this is a white house that is still reeling. it's gone to the president, as well. according to our reporting, he's been far more subdued the last day or so. he's distracted. angry behind closed doors about what happened. particularly on the cohen matter. he was able to sort of maintain at the rally. he didn't speak about either man while on stage in west virginia. but today, of course, we saw him start venting. he started on twitter. including the tweet about if you're looking for a good lawyer, don't go to michael cohen. i think it's one of his better efforts of late. and then, you know, he continued on ward. we have the moment of sara sanders the repetition of the president didn't do anything wrong. he's not charged of a crime. the issue is with our reporting there's not much of a battle plan there yet. they put together some talking points. they barely circulated them. rudy is golfing in scotland. relatively m.i.a. today compared to what he usually is when he's trying to hit back against something threatening the president. they're still reeling. >> peter, your paper was fresh reporting tonight that this was a consequential event yesterday. two of them, actually, and this is a subdued president adding to the sense the feeling of moment. >> no question about it. this is a day that sort of put the question of impeachment on the table in a way it hadn't been before. any white house, of course, would be reeling as jonathan describes given that political reality. now that the republican congress is going to necessarily take up that kind of action against him but it reinforces the consequences and the stakes involved in this fall midterm elections that now is on the table. allegations against the president go beyond the russia case where there has been, you know, no firm conclusion by prosecutors yet of, you know, allegations the president has done -- participated in something that is a crime by his personal lawyer. that changes things. and that now, for the next two months, until the election, you're going to hear a lot of discussion about what the proper remedy is. sara sanders says the president hasn't been charged with any crimes. this is the same white house that said the president can't be charged with any crimes. under the constitution, their theory, anyway, and the justice department prevailing policy is the president is not capable of being indicted while in office. that's not telling us anything. the real question, again, comes to congress and the political process and the midterms being held in the next couple of months. >> carol, you've covered law enforcement and justice for a long time. perhaps without knowing how exciting the beat might become someday. you have your own reporting for the "washington post" tonight on michael cohen specifically. walk us through the condensed version of what he might know and what might have motivated this decision by him. >> what he might know is something his attorney has described in many different ways over the course even of today. so sometimes that's a moving target, brian. but as for what has happened with his plea agreement, it came together rather rapidly starting after basically late july. it's not very common for a plea agreement to come together in two, three, four weeks. that's really what happened here. and he was under a lot of pressure. he was facing potentially decades in prison. based on charges that he lied on numerous bank forms. line of credit. he lied to get, you know, millions of dollars in loans. and he also faced the potential threat that his family was in danger because some of those loans were ones his wife might have actually been a part of or a party to. and what he decided, and a lot of people would say he made the right call, when he decided was to go for the cap on the amount of time he'd spend in prison. instead of 40 or 50 years, he's limited this to five. he's agreed to plead to three different categories of charges. and the weakest of the charges is the most explosive. the campaign finance violations. >> jonathan, there's no other way to ask this except to ask it. and that is what is the level of concern among the folks you talk to that this presidential term does not end at its organic calendar scheduled ending but ends before that? >> there's certainly some republicans quietly who are wondering about that. those closest to the president aren't ready to go there yet. they are at their battle stations. this is a big day. this is a big moment. they have a lot of stuff they need to wade through in the weeks and months ahmed. there's still the president himself, though, frustrated and perhaps a little subdued or distracted. he's not one who is going to throw in the towel. we've seen him -- he's most unpredictable when his back is against the wall. remember the access hollywood tape it was two days later before the second presidential debate with hillary clinton when he surprised the press corps. including me with a bill clinton attackers and a really dramatic turn around to change the conversation. >> so a dark moment. >> certainly. it would not predict that again but certainly he has stuff that he'll find a way to change the conversation to move forward. that said, this is something the impeachment word is sort of resurfacing here in the last couple of days as peter started to say a short time ago. whether the democrats want to embrace that idea, if they are to capture the house, assuming they don't control the senate as well, which seems unlikely. steve bannon said to me and others repeatedly let's make it about impeachment. it would make the stakes high enough for republicans. they think it can be a miscalculation for democrats. the worries would be the idea if the democrats control the house and have subpoena power, it'll be investigation, investigation, investigation. anyone mentioned donald trump's name will be hauled to the committee. >> hey, peter, i want to play a piece of video. it transpired during the 9:00 p.m. hour tonight on fox news. ainsley was doing what he called a debrief. she was appearing with sean hannity talking about her big interview with the president today for air tomorrow morning on his favorite morning program, "fox and friends" and this moment happened. >> he mentioned pardoning manafort and you have michael cohen's attorney. >> he mentioned that? >> he did. >> so that happened. peter, what are we to make of that? >> well, you know, it would be explosive thing for him to do. you know, every president who has waded into, you know, the investigations of people around him with a pardon ends up paying a political price. they usually do it after their last election when they're on the way out of office. that's when george h.w. bush pardoned casper and bill clinton pardoned rich and others. for president trump to do it in the middle of the first term and the middle of the midterm election season. to pardon the person who was his campaign chairman just convicted on a number of serious tax and bank fraud violations, that would be a political fire storm. may not accomplish what he might want it to accomplish. if he doesn't want -- he's praising paul manafort today for not breaking, for not, you know, giving the prosecutors information, in effect. giving a pardon wouldn't necessarily prevent that happening. then paul manafort would no longer have the right to avoid testifying because of self-incrimination. prosecutors would be able to put him on the stand the next day and say you have to tell us everything there is to know about president trump. >> carol, is it fair to assume that donald trump has not done due diligence as a client and told his legal team everything mr. cohen might know because in plain english, mr. cohen handled just about everything. whatever the president's effort to diminish him tonight that we showed earlier. and a lot of it is unpleasant business. >> you know i'm so glad you asked me that, brian. it is something that perplexed me for months. and i'm just stunned talking to the sources that i talk to or close to the president who say, you know, we've never really asked him. it's kind of uncomfortable. i mean, every lawyer it's like lawyering defense 101. you go to your client and you say tell me everything. tell it to me now. let's figure it out. then we can deal with it. it seems like the people who would most likely be able to really give the president a good defense don't really know every detail. and it's odd. i'll also mention one more thing that is odd to me, brian you raised it at the beginning of the program. did the president know? didn't the president know? the tape you played where michael cohen is talking to the president about purchasing the rights to playboy center fold karen mac dougall's story. there's two women here. there's a lot of information to suggest and evidence and sources certainly to confirm this. the president knew about the karen mac dougall story. knew it was out there. knew that david pecker probably bought it. knew they wanted to try to maybe consider buying it themselves. but what is interesting is that the stormy daniels story explodes right in the days before the election. and there's some evidence to suggest that the president may not entirely have known what michael cohen was, quote, unquote, fixing at that point. he may not have known all the details. it's a really res intriguing thing. back to your great question, i'm just shocked at how few of the defenders, the people who should know what the president knows don't. >> i can't thank you enough for starting our broadcast off tonight. our thanks. coming up for us, how manafort's conviction and cohen's plea put the president in a new kind of legal jeopardy. later, the latest on the duncan hunter scandal. one of the president's first supporters now indicted for misusing campaign funds. like the president, he supports the congressman says the justice department is on a witch hunt. 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a subpoena to cohen as investigation into the trump foundation. cohen reached out to the state's tax department. any state charges against cohen wouldn't be subject to a pardon by the president. even though we heard cohen's lawyer say cohen is not seeking and would not accept a pardon. paul manafort's conviction hanging over the white house tonight. our own writes "his nightmare is just starting." 69-year-old already facing a lengthy prison sentence as he prepares for another and perhaps tougher trial in washington, d.c. he, of course, could change his mind and choose to cooperate at any time. with us to talk about all matters legal related a former federal prosecutor. and arianna berg a former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. a brachblg of the justice department that has been in the news once or twice this week cynthia, one of the great words in the law is "allocution." it's a fancy thing for what happened yesterday. michael cohen gets up in open court, his attorneys are seated behind him, in front of him is a federal judge. he says allow what is agreeing. what he's admitting to. what he's copping to. then he said that about being at the direction of his boss. person one who went on to become the president of the united states. were you surprised by that? is it true that nothing happens by accident in allocution? that must mean the feds knew he was going there >>well, i'm sure they knew, but usually in an allocution you sort of keep things as simple as possible. he obviously felt the need to burn the bridge behind him and just go a little farther. he seems to need to needle trump and have a relationship that he has to fight back even as he's pleading guilty. >> and, arianna, this legal development yesterday kind of collided with the pr narrative that the president and his team has been spooling out. >> yes, it did. we cannot overstate the magnitude of what happened yesterday. particularly with respect to michael cohen's guilty plea in federal court under oath implicating president trump in the commission of a federal crime. now, the pr and legal strategy in the past 24 hours of the white house administration and president trump has been threefold. to say i didn't do it. if i did it, it wasn't a crime. even if it was a crime, everyone is doing it. and i guess that the implication of everyone is doing it is therefore we shouldn't care that he's potentially committed a crime. but none of that really distracts from the magnitude of what happened yesterday. michael cohen said that he committed campaign finance violations at the direction of president trump and for the express purpose of violating -- of affecting the election results. >> cynthia, i want to play for you something that happened on the air tonight on cnn. a new york attorney, long time friend of donald trump appeared with chris cuomo tonight. the following took place. >> alleging concern the public that the president can't be counted on to tell the truth. i would agree with you. i mean, i'm a good friend of the president and i don't condone lying to the public. >> so that's where we are, cynthia. jay goldberg who known donald trump for a long time, decades, has to go on television tonight and say he doesn't condone lying to the public. >> the "washington post" estimates he lies about 7.6 times a day. they're going to have to up it after this week. i don't think tlths any question about that. it'll be interesting to see how mueller looks at those lies and what they do to corroborate cohen's lies. because cohen has lied, too. over the last year or so. there are interesting little nuggets in the indictment about other people in the campaign who knew about the payments to stormy daniels and to miss mac dougall and i would predict that now we're going to see concentrated effort by this southern district of new york to interview about everybody to find out exactly who did know and, of course, do some debriefing of cohen to find out, you know, how exactly they're going to handle his cooperation. >> and knowing something about mueller in the way he operates, what is your gut on whether he'll regard labor day as this kind of beginning of forced rest period where pencils down, we have to act like nothing is going on until the midterms. >> labor day is a day of work in the department of justice. >> that's right. yes. >> labor day is a day of work. there's a difference between not making news and affecting the election and not working. remember, as people are talking about oh no. there's no real cooperation. the southern district of new york is also under the same rules about not effecting election that mueller is under. so they sort of had to get this plea done and quickly before labor day. right. >> yep. >> now they can be quiet. stay off television, make sure nobody is moving around in front of the grand jury. they're not indicting anybody. they're not doing anything in public. in private they're dealing with the cohen question and whether or not he's going to have a full cooperation agreement or not. they can find out the indictment who supposedly knew about the things with the president and the payoffs to the porn stars. and this time beginning in labor day, really, just means more labor for the poor people who work for bob mueller. >> arianna, since we've been on the air tonight, one of the jurors has broken their silence and granted an interview. she told fox news it was one hold out among them. that's the reason they didn't knick manafort 18-0. instead it was 8-10. but in your view, arianna, does that change or maintain mueller's stance in this case? is a win a win? >> undoubtedly there was a win for the government. whether it's eight counts that he was quitted on or 18 counts. paul manafort was found guilty of all three categories of crimes from the indictment. that's a win for the government. >> i should also end this conversation with something of at "wall street journal" tonight. they're reporting that michael cohen is the son of a holocaust survivor and maurice paraphrased i did not survive the holocaust for the cohen family name to be sullied. and the point of the really is that michael cohen was influenced by his father to fight these charges. cynthia, ariana, thank you so much. coming up for us, as we approach our next break, back in october of 2016, some trump supporters were calling the upcoming election a referendum on government corruption. safe to say it's not working out quite the way they have planned or predicted when we come back. ever does it really? i didn't do it so when i heard they added ultra oxi to the cleaning power of tide, i knew it was just what we needed so now we can undo all the tough stains that nobody did dad? i didn't do it it's got to be tide this is the biggest political scandal since watergate. when we win on november 8th, we are going to drain the swamp. we are going to drain the swamp. drain that swamp. >> if she were to win it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. hillary is likely to be under investigation for many years. probably concluding in a criminal trial. >> the final days of the 2016 campaign amid chants of "lock her up." trump's closing is the anti-corruption candidate. remember, returning washington to the rule of law. they're still chanting "lock her up" last night in west virginia. but circumstances have charged for donald trump now. 19 months in the white house, five of his closest associates have been convicted or pleading guilty to crimes. first two supporters in congress are both now under indictment. and the president himself was implicated in a crime yesterday. so there is that. joining us tonight two men who remember those waning days of the 2016 campaign. msnbc national affairs analyst and white house reporter for the los angeles times. i was watching you watching the clips wondering for we needed to call in counsellors. i know there's a ptsd factor. what do you make of that looking at it now in the rear view mirror. >> immediately was thinking to myself sometimes in the moment you don't realize how much he's projecting. you don't realize exactly how ironic it will seem. how surreal it will look. you know, you have to remember that at that time, there was in the news, the fbi had just reopened comey announced they would reopen the investigation into hillary's e-mail server in the closing days of the campaign. we know the history. that gave what he was saying, i think, to voters at the time an oral believability for people who might have wanted to believe it and certainly wanted to depress some votes who were considering about coming out for clinton. i think it was impactive. now it looks absurd. i think at that time thinking back to it on the trail, you know, that was the election was hanging in the balance there. and that was his closing argument. >> john, it's often said that on fox news hillary clinton is president and hillary clinton is president in donald trump's mind. what percentage of his base do you think cast a vote for better government? for good government? for cleaning up government and who do they see about that now? >> i think there was probably more -- when i detected in the period and throughout the entire trump phenomena for me in 2015 through to the election day is not so much about good government and about draining the swamp. it was about blowing up everything. >> yeah. burning down the house. >> roll a stick of dynamite into washington and blow it up and see which way the rubble falls. i don't think they would think the washington they're blowing is more swampy than they imagined under donald trump. and the way the blowing up was going to be done under him. you watch the clips and the sense of projection that trump is projecting his own problems. you go back a little bit. play the tape back a couple of weeks before that. what he was running on then was it's a rigged deal. >> yeah. >> it's a rigged deal. the system is rigged. trying to undermine the legitimacy of the election because he was going to lose. of course, it turns out now especially in light of the michael cohen pleading, we know it was a rigged deal but by donald trump and his people. not just to get to russian collusion. in that way but just on this front, the president, turns out, if cohen is believed participated in the massive fraud in the last days of the 2016 campaign. >> what he was saying about drain the swamp. do we take him literally or seriously or neither? but at the time he was telling us that drain the watch was a slogan to him. he would tell the crowds at the rallies i didn't like draining the swamp. i thought it sounded cheesy but people loved it. he was gauging it on the crowd liked it. maybe it made sense to people and it was believable because he was wearing the outsider's mantra. he was carrying that i'm going to d.c. and i'm going to shake things up. and that certainly turned out to be true. but, you know, the anti-corruption people projected that on to what he was saying. and never ever meant that. >> a time out has been called on the field of play. both guests agreed to stick around. when we come back, our friend chuck todd, who he says could be a hero in the republican party. there. >> eli and john remain with us. they declined comment on chuck todd's notion. john, i heard david tonight suggest to the republicans at least look like rigor behind your solutions. pass a law protecting mueller. put forward a revolution saying mr. president stop waiving pardons around. you can look tough and sound tough but still be trump republicans. i heard you today at 4:00 say the only thing that will turn republicans against trump is the day after the midterm elections, if they lose those. >> that's right. i had various views about some of these people on the basis of some things paul ryan did during the campaign. i lost all hope. to me, i think the house, in particular, is just a math problem for them. they're guided by polls. it's not that different from the nixon era. the nixon era republicans turned against nixon because facts came out. then the public turned against nixon. they were a lagging indicator. it's the case now it may be worse, in that sense. >> they lost 40 seats. >> exactly. crucial. so at this point, they've been doing the math and every day a lot worried about getting primaried and the math is painful to stick with trump but divorce myself from trump would be more painful. the calculus you'll do in your head is different. what are the costs of staying with him. abandoning him? i think after it comes to pass the democrats take control of the house. that calculus will shift dramatically. >> eli, the part of this we may not see meaning the three of us is the rich folks who write checks and provide the financial underpinning to the republican party across the country. they might get wobbly and pull back. >> they might. or they might say we got tax reform. we got conservative justice. that's when mcconnell is going to say. that's what trump will try to say. >> immigration. >> right. i think, you know, there are things for conservatives. it's hard to generalize because there are different things that turn out different segments of voters. i think it's a base election the republicans probably stay republican. the republicans i've talked to still think they have a decent chance of holding the senate. but the house is the problem. the white house talk about sending the president on the campaign trail a lot. not talking about sending him to house race to swing houses. they don't know it's going to be helpful in the districts that are going to matter. the suburban districts. and there so many more of them that are competitive coming into november. and donald trump in those districts is not an asset. he's a liability. there's a difficult thing that these candidates face now in having to not just sort of wriggle out a question about trump but questions about trump related to the investigation. not the fact that manafort and cohen are guilty and it just gets harder and harder to make that calculation. >> do you think he's right, though? as a hedge. just as a hedge they should try to put some law in place to protect mueller. the reality for all the water mueller has taken on, it's still a two-thirds or one-third proposition in the country. two-thirds of the country wants bob mueller to finish his job. >> republicans are worried about 2018. after watergate, the republicans didn't win the house back for 20 years. right now it's november, but for paul ryan it's the future of the party. >> our thanks. we're back with more news after this. so, how's it going? well... we had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. go someplace exotic? yeah, bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. what? what happened? i got a little over-confident on a moped. even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401(k) so it set us back a little bit. sometimes you don't have a choice. but it doesn't mean you can't get back on track. great. yeah, great. i'd like to go back to bermuda. i hear it's nice. yeah, i'd like to see it. no judgment. just guidance. td ameritrade. combat veteran from iraq and afghanistan elected to congress. hunter quit his job after 9/11 and joined the marine corps and served in combat with distinction. the problem is, tonight he is under criminal investigation. along with his wife for allegedly misusing a quarter million dollars in campaign funds on themselves. the federal grand jury indictment is staggering. 60 counts, 47 pages, the hunters are accused of lying to use veterans groups as a charitable cover for skimming money for themselves. for example, hunter is said to have bought hawaii shorts at a golf pro shop so the purchase could be falsely labeled as some golf balls for the wounded warriors. the indictment also alleged they spent over $14,000 in campaign funds on a family vacation to italy even though a planned stop at a u.s. base in italy which was going to be the cover for the trip fell through. the indictment contains purchases large and small, $11,000 at costco, lots of golf, lots of trips including tahoe and vegas and london. there's cosmetics and video games and tablecloths and pillows all allegedly purchased with campaign money as their own bank accounts went dry. records show the hunters is overdrew bear balance. they're alleged to have used campaign funds as their bank despite warnings not to do so. this has to hurt. his hometown paper the san diego union tribune writes representative duncan hunter, do the honorable thing. we sign. they say he's become corrupt to the point of caricature. he's disgraced himself and doesn't deserve the privilege of representing californians in congress. hunter says he'll stay and fight. it's a deep red district. he's on the ballot now for the midterms. the local u.s. attorney bringing these charges, by the way, is a donald trump appointee. hunter was the second sitting member of congress to endorse donald trump for president. the first member of congress to do so, that would be chris collins of upstate new york under criminal indictment. house speaker paul ryan says duncan hunter will be removed from his committee assignments pending the resolution of this matter. coming up for us after a break, why our thoughts tonight are with the people of a beautiful part of the united states of america. we'll have a late update when we continue. from the very beginning ... it was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. to do whatever it takes, use every possible resource. to fight cancer. and never lose sight of the patients we're fighting for. our cancer treatment specialists share the same vision. experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. specialists focused on treating cancer. using advanced technologies. and more precise treatments 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to the coastline. it has delivered a hard hit to the state's economy as will this is storm. our thoughts tonight are with the folks in the 50th state. that's our broadcast on a wednesday evening.