People have made to congress to buttress the russian side of the collusion investigation. Thank you for that. We thank you for watching this hour of msnbc live throughout, i mean, from the very beginning craig melvin whos about to pick up our coverage from the day that Robert Mueller was appointed thrappoin appointed, this story has never been far from the headlines. Among these many days, this is huge. This is an infection pointing deep. Were going to continue our coverage. Good morning, craig melvin, msnbc headquarters here in new york city. That Breaking News on the Mueller Investigation is where we start. Shortly before President Trump left for his meeting with World Leaders in argentina, last hour just a few moments ago he called his onetime attorney and fixer Michael Cohen a quote, weak person, who is lying. Cohen made a surprise appearance in a Federal Courtroom in manhattan this morning. He named the president. He named President Trump in a shocking new plea deal involving Trum
in sync. finally, what a summit. the focus is going to be the meeting with the chinese president. there are now two foreign leaders who are land mines for him, not only vladimir putin who he s not going to see, but then you have mohammed bin salman, the crown prince of saudi arabia. michael, thank you. i want to turn back to tom winter here in the studio, of course, nbc investigative unit tom winter who was there at the courthouse this morning, legal analyst danny cevallos. we also have chuck rosenberg, an msnbc contributor, a former u.s. attorney, and kim way lee, a law professor at the university of baltimore. tom, i will start with you. you managed to sift through these documents you were there in the courtroom this morning. talk to me about the top lines here. it would seem to me that the biggest nugget of news is that michael cohen is clearly cooperating with the special counsel s office? that s exactly correct, craig. according to the court filings, we know that michael coh
south lawn was the way he talked about paul manafort and the way that he talked about michael cohen. the president lamenting how poorpoo poorly paul manafort, his former campaign chairman has been treated by the special counsel s office, and of course reportedly earlier this week manafort, his plea deal was snatched back by the special counsel s office because he allegedly has been lying to them after the deal was reached. natasha, what do you read into the contrast between michael cone and paul manafort, the way that they ve behaved with the special counsel s office and the way the president has spoken about them publicly? yeah, i mean, i think it s fairly straightforward, craig. i think it s just that the president knows that paul manafort has not flipped on him. he knows that because of course he has had this kind of deal with paul manafort for the last several months as manafort has been cooperating with the special counsel, and he knows that michael cohen has completely turned o
pled guilty to charges brought by the special counsel s office. in august you ll remember that cohen pled guilty to federal prosecutors who oversee the southern district of new york. those charges involved tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. today the special counsel landed a guilty plea for lying to congress. the president lashing out at the special counsel s investigation just hours before that new plea deal was announced. one read in part, quote, did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime? here to break it all down for us, top of the hour nbc s intelligence national security ken delaney, ari melber is with us, and natasha bertrand has been closely following the russia investigation since it started. let me start with you. cohen naming the president in the indictment, tell us a little bit more about that ari melber.
back and forth and i have to get clarity from the special counsel s office, and craig, what it means is that at least seven occasions, michael cohen definitively said to prosecutors, hey, this is some of the information that i can provide or at least this is some of the information that i will admit to. and that has been over the past several months, and so this is something ongoing as we have reported before, but today, we r are getting more clarity on exactly what this type of cooperation has been. and chuck, again, there are some tidbits of information in the documents. we have learned a fair amount about what the special counsel s office is claiming that it knows, thanks to the conversations with michael cohen. how real is the possibility, chuck, that is just a fraction of what the special counsel has. it is always a fraction, craig, of what the special counsel has. and there is an interesting thing here, but it is a subtle point. you don t need to plead guilty