Erin Burnett stays ahead of the headlines, delivering a show that is in-depth and informative.
nice to have you all. john dean, let me begin with you. you heard the president out there try to defend himself today. did he do himself any favors? every time he opens his mouth he seems to conflict with a prior statement so i don t think he did himself any favors. they have not developed a clear strategy or approach or answer or response to any of this. and it is reminiscent of others in high places that got themselves in trouble. some of them kept a better message than trump has. david, to you, the defense from the president again and again is, you know, the payments didn t come out of the campaign. he said and i quote, they being the payments, came from me. if what he said on fox is true, that statement, then at the very least he admitted to a payment that was not disclosed on the financial disclosure forms, which very well may be illegal, but how does the court of public opinion s
A newscast reviewing and analyzing top stories of the day as they happen.
interesting part of the president s answer to ainslie earhart s question, that hasn t played in that portion that you aired there, shep, where the president said this was not a campaign contribution, because it wasn t the campaign that paid it, it was me. and i have tweeted about that in the past. now, you remember, the president put an awful lot of his own money into the campaign. so i asked sarajevo hah huckabee sanders how did the president dlinity what was going to the campaign and what might have gone to other people for campaign purposeles. listen in here. how do you draw the line between what was a campaign contribution and what might have been a payment to somebody for other purps. secretary sanders: i m not going to get into the back and forth of the legal part of. this i would refer to you the president s outside counsel 678 as i told cecilia, what i can tell you is what the president has stated
doesn t stop there. cohen s attorney tells msnbc he has information that bob mueller would want to know and is more than happy to start talking to the special counsel. meanwhile, paul manafort who two years ago literally ran donald trump s campaign is now a felon. he is facing serious prison time and like michael cohen sits atop this list of trump associates who are indicted or convicted criminals. that is a lot of witches. good morning, and welcome to morning joe on this wednesday, august 22nd. joe is off. he s tweeting. he ll be filing for the washington post. we ve put together an all-star lineup for this morning s incredible amount of news. a small law firm of legal experts, msnbc legal analyst danny savalas, john thnathan tu and barbara mcquade and two experts or the cohen stories
i do not think there s a parallel. we ll see what you come up with. a legal landslide like none other in the history of the presidency. what the conservative drudge report described as trump hell
A roundup of the day s events.
justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. but president trump telling fox he thinks politics matters in prosecutions. if you look at president obama, he had a massive campaign violation, but he had a different attorney general, and they viewed it a lot differently. you know, we have somebody, they seem to like to go after a lot of republicans. reporter: one top republican, now a convicted felon, paul manafort, president trump s former campaign chairman, found guilty by a jury this week of tax crimes and bank fraud. i have great respect for what he s done in terms of what he s gone through. some of the charges they threw against him, every consultant, every lobbyist in washington probably does. reporter: the question now, will the president pardon manafort? his press secretary says he s never discussed it. that s not something that has been up for discussion. i don t have anything for you on that. reporter: his
we begin with breaking news on this friday. just 70 some days since the president s meeting with the north korean dictator and he is conceding that things are not going as he had hoped. he just tweeted this, quote, i have asked secretary of state mike pompeo not to go to north korea at this time because i feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the korean peninsula. additionally because of our much tougher trading stance with china, i do not believe they are helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were despite the u.n. sanctions which are in place. secretary pompeo looks forward to going to north korea in the near future. most likely after our trading relationship with china is resolved. in the meantime, i would like to send my warmest regards and respects to chairman kim. i look forward to seeing him soon. remember right after the summit
with kim jung-un, trump praised himself saying that there was no longer a nuclear thr