that even from the president is quite brazen. his argument seems to be, there is no accountability. there is no laws. like the matrix, there is no spoon. it s just not there. you can do whatever you want with it. and his current argument about campaign finance law, that there was no law there, that s broken or crime. or crime, what do you make of that? despite what we have heard from federal prosecutors saying that they have all kinds of law that there was a law and a crime committed. despite the fact that the wall street journal is reporting that david pecker, chairman of ami, is telling prosecutors that the president had knowledge of this. well, let s remember why campaign finance laws exist. they exist so that we know who funds campaigns, where the money comes from, and where it goes. you know, what do campaigns spend their money on? what michael cohen did, with he says the assistant of the president, was lie about both of those things. where the money campaign from and
to do damage control and address this. and we got a taste of that yesterday when matt schlapp, one of the president s staunchest supporters came on and said to us, quite surprisingly, we thought at the time, no crime here. there s no crime. this is not a crime. there s no campaign finance law that was broken, which i m sure was also a surprise to michael cohen, who had pleaded guilty to it and was looking at jail time. but, in fact, that started to take hold and bubble up yesterday. so is that your understanding of what this spin will now be? well, it s the only spin they can make, because the southern district as you just pointed out has charged michael cohen with it, he pleaded guilty to it. and it s hard to say it s not a crime. the spin that i heard more in the white house is, this was supposed to be about russian collusion, there s been no russian collusion, you know, obama violated campaign finance laws. now, clearly, what he did, if you read the story, was a totally different
cornerstone of justice. and, listen, this happens all the time. i always believed once these folks were facing the full weight of the responsibility of their criminal actions, all of them, manafort, others, that they re going to start thinking, hey, i m not going to go to jail for 60 or 70 years or whatever the charges are. i m going to try to cut a better deal here. cohen had that written all over him right up-front. and again, it s the cornerstone of our justice system, to say that that should be illegal is, that s fundamentally not understanding how justice is brought about here in the united states. it may be beyond not understanding. it may be, as i said, disdaining. it may be actively, aggressively not liking the way that justice is done. it sounds, as many have noted this morning, it sounds like something you might hear from a mob boss. the problem isn t the crime, it s those who call out the crime. john, can i just say one thing. in every courtroom in america today, in that
payments. did you direct him to make the payments? he made the deals. he made the deals. by the way, he pled to two counts that aren t a crime which nobody understands. i watched a number of shows, sometimes you get pretty good information by watching shows. those two counts aren t even a crime. they weren t campaign finance. ainsley: did you know about the payments? later on i knew. later on, but you have to understand, ainsley, what he did and they weren t taken out of campaign finance, that s a big thing. that s a much bigger thing. did they come out of campaign? they didn t come out of the campaign. they came from me. i tweeted about it i don t know if you know but i tweeted about the payments but they didn t come out of campaign. in fact, my first question, when i heard about it was did they come out of the campaign because that could be a little dicey. and they didn t come out of the campaign. and that s big. but think weren t that s not it s not even a campaign violation
progressive billionaire tom steyer who s calling for donald trump s impeachment. but first, donald trump s legal strategy and the risk of adopting talking points from fox news. school. grade. done. done. hit the snooze button and get low prices on school supplies all summer long. like these for only $2 or less at office depot officemax. are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? like these for only $2 or less try zyrtec®. it s starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. the other top story tonight, donald trump in the eye of the legal storm and talking about where he s getting his legal advice. he pled to two counts that aren t a crime, which nobody understands. i watched a number of shows, sometimes you get some pretty