howard, what do you make of rudy giuliani strategy here? let's begin with fact that he says he won't be rushed into consideration about a potential interview with the special counsel. how long has that been around? >> well, the situation is this, donald trump has a terrible problem with lying. i can understand why rudy giuliani said truth isn't truth because in the white house truth isn't truth. there is no truth. it's all conjecture and bs. that's the first problem. the second problem rudy mentioned a perjury mentioned a perjury trap. perjury happens when you perjure yourself. so they're worried that trump will say something to mueller that will perjure himself. for example, the fact that the russian appointment, rudy tried to make out that was some russian they didn't know. in the e-mail sent by donald jr. -- i mean, sent to donald jr., it was really clear that the russians were representing the russian government. so there is an objective truth. mueller will have it in writing, and the perjury trap is if trump perjures himself, which he

rudy giuliani is very experienced at these things. >> will ask rudy giuliani about negotiations the way they are covering the investigation in the media and along with his role. and why he's fighting these battles on the air in the court of public opinion. sean spicer, former trump spokesman takes on omarosa per the fired white house aide for her book trashing the president. should the media be trumpeting her disputed allegations? the high-tech war over free speech for apple, facebook, youtube and spotify. dan alex jones but twitter refuses to follow suit. >> it is easy to dismiss concerns it all seems coordinated the shutdown jones p because he is a media poster child for conspiracy theories. but this isn't about alex jones. this is about freedom. >> alex jones and rosie o'donnell and all of these other people believe that building seven had imploded. and that it was, the united states government had killed americans on 9/11. why anyone would listen to them, at all and alex jones -- my god! >> is big tech cracking down allies and conspiracy theories? i am howard kurtz and this is #medi

rudy giuliani said he carefully used the word "should." on the advice of his lawyer, did ru rudy giuliani advice the president to use the word should so he could defend him publically and base that defense entirely on that one word, "should"? what most republicans lost sight of is that presidents must not give their opinions about ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions. there is no innocent persian of the president of the united states putting his finger on the scales of justice. but a year and a half into the trump presidency, the president today decided he was ready to say the thing that he had not publically said before. attorney general jeff sessions should stopped this rigged witch hunt right now. if there was a tape of donald trump saying that in the white house today, it would be the smoking gun in an obstruction of justice case. but rudy giuliani has told him to do his obstructing in public as if he was standing on fifth avenue with a gun. there was a deeply perverse twist in donald trump's tweet today. right after he tel

forget what rudy giuliani says to the president about pardoning paul manafort. what paula duncan says is much, much more powerful. the paula duncans of this country are now donald trump's worst political nightmare. paula duncan was supposed to think it was all a witch-hunt, paula duncan was supposed to think paul manafort didn't do anything wrong. paula duncan was supposed to think that truth isn't truth. but the brainwashing didn't work. donald trump and rudy giuliani pumped all of those messages into the propaganda fog that was

rudy giuliani says the investigation should end in the next three weeks but if it drags on until november, he claims republicans will benefit politically. >>> meantime, president trump's first supporter in congress also facing legal trouble this morning. new york republican chris collins arrested for an alleged insider trading scheme. he faces up to 150 years in prison and he's not the only one. his song among the others named in that indictment. collins is vowing to clear his name and run for reelection. let's bring in "new york times" white house correspondent maggie haberman and cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. as we look at this, if we start with mueller, based on your reporting, maggie, where do we stant at this point in terms of how quickly there could be some sort of resolution here between mueller and giuliani and the legal team for donald trump. >> i think you can expect that this is going to be one of the final exchanges between team trump and mueller on this. giuliani threw out the date of september 1 sayingnks this needs to be done by this date because of doj guidelines

rudy giuliani, the former u.s. attorney, has just been reduced to lying on national television to try to avoid the obvious conclusion that that meeting did, in fact, constitute a conspiracy against the united states and to violate the campaign finance laws. >> okay. you've answered every question i would have had on that. i want to get to the "new york times" report about white house counsel don mcgahn doing those 30 hours of volunteer interviews with the white house counsel in october of last year. it's being called extraordinary. what is your take on it? >> i'm not sure it's extraordinary. i don't think it's surprising that mueller would want to speak to mcgahn and would want to learn about those conversations that took place before the president had the various conversations in which he tried to interfere with the investigation when it was being handled by jim comey, and various other key moments that mcgahn has been there for. but i have to say this quest for the media to find, could this be the key thing that

it will mussel out rudy giuliani. a judge is not going to let rudy giuliani talk like this. i don't think mueller needs it. i would just go ahead without it. >> robert, this is out of balance like all the passengers on a plane moving to one side, all we hear is the rudy giuliani/trump's side. mueller never speaks. he thinks they're waiting to see if guilty or innocent, is that real? >> it is real to a point but i think the previous point about how mueller could issue a report any moment in my conversation tonight with mayor rudy giuliani, that stood out because >> it is real to a point but i think the previous point about how mueller could issue a report any moment in my conversation tonight with mayor rudy giuliani, that stood out because he acknowledged bluntly that is a possibility that mueller could decide enough of the games between the trump's team and mueller and all this back and forth and the letters sending of the interview, the longer mueller holds off on a letter back to the trump's legal team, the more it becomes a possibility. rudy giuliani says this is as poss

well i think rudy giuliani is doing exactly what they would like rudy giuliani to do and i think he's tried it out there to to float some test theories and to talk to the american people about what's going on with the special counsel's office so i think rudy giuliani as doing exactly what he's being paid to do you know bill just said there that donald trump is his own communications director i think to some extent that is true and i think rudy giuliani on some days this is press secretary as odd as that may sound but i think rudy is doing exactly what president trump likes for him to do which is go out and talk to the american people about some of these other theories and i think they test those i do think their message test those and go back and work on their communication strategies. you know you know i could always in on the giuliani a moderate republican one time. he's got a different choir. if i were donald trump i get my money back the group is helping him at all you know donald trump and i think successfully this sold the story that he didn't know anything about money paid to s

sorry about that. >> to rudy giuliani. rudy giuliani is an absolute walking disaster of an attorney. he's destroyed his legacy. he's done a disservice to himself and his client. and i mean, he's basically committed legal malpractice in the way they've handled this. look, donald trump should have brought michael cohen into the tent a long time ago when he, when he went to -- >> i asked lanny that question. why did he keep him and giuliani and the whole administration keep throwing michael cohen under the bus? >> because they don't understand the sense of loyalty unless your last name is putin. then they understand loyalty. >> your client stormy daniels tweeted this. this is the last thing i've got. how do you like me now? #team stormy. how big of a day is this for your case? >> it's a huge day. she's ecstatic. she feels vindicated. there were a lot of pundits that took shots at her and our strategy. how we used the media. as of today it looks okay. >> all the reporting we were doing was fake news, remember? >> it's all fake

and we have rudy giuliani also who is on meet the press this morning. we played a little bit of what he said earlier. i guess we have to take the most obvious headline, him summarizing -- what many might say is happening for the last year and a half or. so the truth isn't the truth. >> well, that's an extraordinary statement and i don't even know where to begin to try to parse rudy giuliani on that. i think the trump white house version of the clinton version of the is line. what is your definition of is is? >> and that's what we're seeing so far. why don't we play that first so we can hear it again and get your reflection. >> when you tell many he that, you know, he should testify because he's going to tell the truth, he shouldn't worry. twhal is silly. because it's somebody's version of the truth. not the truth. dent have a conversation -- >> truth is truth. i don't mean to go -- >> no, it isn't. truth isn't truth. the president of the united states says i didn't -- >> truth is a truth, mr. mayor. do you realize -- >> no. >> this is going to become a

rudy giuliani was asked about this plea deal today. he took a pretty dim view of it saying, they're really nothing to see here. >> it turned out to be this irrelevant indictment where i think mueller has turned into a private prosecutor. what does this have to do with president trump? not a single thing. it has nothing to do with collusion. some guy who donated to the inauguration? my goodness, there are about 500,000 people who donated to -- every time they got a speeding ticket, the special prosecutor is going to do it. >> reporter: rudy giuliani says this has nothing to do with donald trump. it was just money that went into the inaugural questicommittee. the reality is we've long heard mueller was investigating whether there was any foreign money that flowed into donald trump's campaign or his inauguration. we now have this person who admitted he helped put money into the inaugural committee and we don't know if more is coming down to the line. >> and it was a pro-russian ukrainian oligarch. thank you very much, sara. >>> as the pre

rudy giuliani is very experienced at these things. >> will ask rudy giuliani

rudy giuliani is now trying to make that conversation go away. >> the public negotiating that rudy giuliani has been doing about this potential interview is really astounding, in part because bob mueller stays silent. rudy giuliani just keeps kind of spinning these different versions of events. he did the same thing involving michael cohen and the stormy daniels payment where it was giuliani who then put forward the notion that trump actually knew about this after trump said he didn't. obviously what giuliani is trying to do is muddy the waters here, trying to paint this almost as though he's on equal footing with mueller in these negotiations. i think it's an open question as to whether that's true. i think giuliani is trying to pretend like there are more conversations happening, more real negotiating happening than is going on. >> is it also a fair question that is rudy giuliani a good lawyer? i want you to listen to him. this selleriis earlier today on. if you're the president of the united states, this is a very serious investigation. even if you did nothing wrong, this is a serious in

they're just not knowing what's going on with what rudy giuliani is doing. >> she's saying rudy giuliani is saying he's worried the president is going to make inconsistent statements. that's exactly what rudy giuliani is doing. he's changing his story about trump tower. he's changing his story about whether there was collusion. even if there is, it's not incapsulated in the federal code, which is technically incorrect. a lot of misdirection, a lot of unforced errors here. >> giuliani goes on television and doesn't even know a lot of the facts involving that trump tower meeting in june of 2016 when the russians were pitching an idea to help the president get dirt on hillary clinton, and they made it clear in the e-mail exchange, the text messages they were sending with donald trump jr. this was coming from the russian government. >> yeah, i mean, rudy giuliani is shooting from the hip like his client. i don't think he's actually functioning as an attorney, as was mentioned in the traditional sense. mcgahn is at least trying to adhere to his ethical obligations. i think this misinformation

rudy giuliani says this. watch this. >> if she has some piece of proof that demonstrates that the president was aware of what e-mails they had, what would that mean? >> 100% confident that she does not. i know he did not know. >> if he did? >> i know beyond being his lawyer. >> if he knew, is it a problem? >> no. >> no? >> i am not going to get into the hypotheticals. >> he did not know. he didn't know but if he did it would not be a problem, does this defense makes sense, making it better or worse for the president? >> these are legal defenses. these sorts of arguments are made in front of judges, you would say you know a, the facts support it but b if they don't the law supports it. sometimes it makes sense and sometimes the judge will rule for you on the legal question. i don't know if it makes a lot of sense in the court of public opinion. no one wants to hear, oh, he didn't do it and everyone if he did it, it is okay. >> let's make no mistake about this. what rudy giuliani is doing is planting seeds that

cnn has now learned that rudy giuliani is preparing a report to counter mueller's findings what's the latest. >> that's right, wolf. we know that special counsel robert mueller is working on his investigation, still talking to witnesses. but the president's legal team are team is not wasting time. they say they are working on a report, rudy giuliani in particular says that he is here in washington right now working on that report as we speak. now, what this report will be is essentially a rebuttal or a prebuttal of what we expect to be the findings of robert mueller. and the report that rudy giuliani says his legal team is working on will attack the issues of collusion, collusion between the allegations of collusion between people connected with the trump campaign, and russia. michael flynn -- the michael flynn firing and the obstruction of justice allegations which the special counsel we know is still investigating. wolf, at this point we still don't know how much longer the special counsel has in his investigation. but clearly the -- the trump legal team believes that they need to t

we have seen and heard various things from rudy giuliani. he has done a media blitz over the past 24 hours. sometimes he has said this is going to be probably our final offer. other times he said differently. to me he seemed to suggest that he hopes that they are getting close but admitted they have no idea. they have no idea how robert mueller is going to react. the suspicion and hope inside the president's legal team is that a subpoena is not something that robert mueller will do because it will make a court battle last for months and months. >> we don't know what is in it. we suspect based on things that giuliani and other members of the president's legal team and the president has said that there is going to be not much on the table from the president's point of view that has to deal with possible obstruction of justice and it is hard to imagine that robert mueller will be okay with that. >> is it appropriate for the attorney for the president of the united states to be making this kind of political calculation suggesting if there is no

>> it's impossible to understand rudy giuliani's conduct. truth is not truth, throwing a client under the busby admitting essentially we now know a crime by saying he reimbursed a campaign contribution that was above the limits and didn't disclose it in his 2019 -- 2018 report, rudy giuliani simply doesn't understand the law or doesn't care about the law. and this particular culture of lying we know, that it was rudy giuliani who said that when donald trump lied to the press on air force one -- you've done that clip, i've seen. it's not a crime to lie to the american people. well, giuliani's right about that, but it is an impeachable offense. to use the office of the president to abuse the powers of the presidency and lie to the american people. >> i'm not going to hold you too much longer, but again you say, michael cohen has information that does what as it relates to conspiracy and collusion? >> i think it would be of interest to mr. mueller, and i don't want to go any further than that. mr. mueller, in a book that's about to come out in

rudy giuliani says this is a possibility. mueller drops the report on an update of the investigation and gives it to the department of justice and rosenstein say it is your decision on how you want top handle this or you want to upgrade congress and what progress is being made. >> a great nugget there from robert costa and thanks to mimi rocah, terrific conversation tonight. coming up, the manafort jury has the case. they'll begin tomorrow morning, more on what they'll say and deciding on when we come back. metamucil every day. it traps and removes the waste that weighs me down, so i feel lighter. try metamucil, and begin to feel what lighter feels like. >>> jurors in the manafort trial are hours away from starting their deliberations. during closing arguments today prosecution pointed out of the overwhelming evidence of financial of personal gain. in their statement to the jury, manafort's defense attorney argued the government have not met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. they argued that manafort had other pe

i would defer to rudy giuliani again. this investigation should go away. it was set up on a false pretense. we've read the memos. there is no collusion. they're going to drag this out. this thing just needs to go away so we can get on with the nation's business. we talk about our debt, we talk about these other threats. this is a distraction. think how much more we could get done in congress as a nation if we got rid of this witch hunt. >> i just want to correct you. you keep saying it's a false pretense. do you agree the russians did meddle in the u.s. presidential elections in 2016? >> there's no doubt about that. >> all of the members of the u.s. intelligence community agree, including the president's own director of national intelligence and cia director and everyone else. >> sure. >> isn't that part of the investigation that robert mueller and his team are -- >> we know that happened. >> -- to learn all of the lessons and to see if there was any cooperation whether with george papadopoulos or any of the trump advisors working in that area? >> you know

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rudy giuliani weighing in on that as well. fascination for me was in the "new york times" piece on that tweet. the way that the president's legal team pushed back on that. first the e-mails, thenal the calls with rudy giuliani and jay sekulow. what do you make more broadly of rudy giuliani's behavior, his approach to this interview and this case? >> sure. i mean i think it is clear that when you turn to rudy giuliani in 2018, you know, despite the fact that he used to be a prosecutor, you're not using him to make a legal case, okay. they have lawyers who are far more in the mix right now who will do that and they will battle for the president in the courtroom. what they are doing by using rudy and putting him out there is they are trying to sow doubt about the findings of the investigation to begin with, they are battling in the public sphere because ultimately again impeachment really is a political process. it is not a legal one. and so they are kind of fighting on two fronts. fighting in the courts and then they are fightin

let's read from headlines we heard from rudy giuliani now. talking about a lot coming from the tweet the president sent out earlier this morning essentially saying his own attorney general should end this, in his words, witch hunt, this entire investigation where mueller was appointed not, by the way, by the ag but rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general. saying the mueller team, they don't have anything. saying this whole investigation needs to end, we heard from sarah sanders in the briefing. reiterating about what the president said in a tweet, it wasn't a directive, it was an opinion. no, they don't want to fire rod rosenstein. so let's go to harry litman, former u.s. attorney who is back with us. i've got to tell you, the point in the end, harry, where you heard rudy giuliani say he did not collude. on the other hand conclusion isn't a crime. i'm getting lost or confused in all the spin. >> yeah, i think that is the country. they backed away from no conclusion, to, well, maybe conclusion isn't a crime. i think here it's a misnomer. they

rudy giuliani and the president prefer to talk about collusion rather than obstruction. this is the week when the trump defense motto seems to have shifted from there was no collusion to collusion is not a crime. we will spare you the video of the president saying for more than a year now there was no collusion. i think we've all heard that quite enough. but the new repetition of collusion is not a crime begun by rudy giuliani and now seconded by the president this morning in a tweet is a defense shift that seems to case the president and rudy giuliani might be preparing for the revelation from special prosecutor robert mueller that there were links or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of president donald trump. rudy giuliani has been making much of the fact that the word collusion does not have any criminal legal meaning except in antitrust law. but the words i just used, links and coordination, don't have any legal meaning in and of themselves but they are exactly the words used to describe what special prosecutor

now it certainly looks like a big slap in the face to rudy giuliani. we all seem to be closing in on roej er roger stone. the manhattan madam, kristin davis, testified before the mueller grand jury. another stone association, andrew miller, skipped out on his grand jury to try to test mueller in some way. and now we've got this radio host, randy credico, who was supposedly a link, and will have to testify. do you think roger stone will be charged? >> he's been named in an indictment. in fact, he was named in one of the most serious indictments that robert mueller has issued against those russians. >> right. >> intelligence operatives. deployed by vladimir putin. he was not identified by name. but he was, in effect, named. so he faces so many very serious exposure. frank's absolutely right. the developments of this last week, even though we tend to focus on the circus and the side shows that giuliani/sekulow showed today, andrew miller was held in contempt of court. >> which is very significant. >> for refusing to appear in the grand jury. he has, as fa

rudy giuliani said that. the reason he's been able to get away with all this is because the president is okay with it. rudy giuliani is not going rogue here and acting in isolation, he's saying what the president wants to say. he's saying what the president wants to hear and that's why all of this is happening. it doesn't just reflect on rudy, it reflects on the commander in chief. >> and rudy's audience is one plus, right? the one being donald trump and the plus is the base. i mean that's who he's talking to when he says this racist thing about islam, that's who he's talking to. he's on fox and knows exactly who's watching, donald trump and those 35% of core folks that will never go anywhere. >> but he is part of a legal team, or maybe it's spokesperson, it's joe peschi like figurehead. >> joe peschi in "my cousin vinny" might have in the end been a better lawyer than rudy giuliani is today. >> what if jay sekulow and emmet flood and other lawyers involved in actual lawyering, do with this? >> i think they h

now, rudy giuliani says they have nothing. they already have trump's second campaign manager. trump's -- i mean, indicted. trump's deputy campaign manager indicted. trump's national security adviser indicted. this is like the grand jury indicted all of these people. trump's foreign policy adviser that he said was one of his two most important, indicted. trump's first campaign manager had charges dropped. and trump's first congressional endorser now indicted. the man who put him, who put his name into nomination for republican nominee now indicted. and 5 russi25 intel agencies sa is the forensic evidence of vladimir putin, the gru, ex-kbg agents trying to undermine de c democra democracy. how does rudy giuliani even have the nerve to go on there and say what he just said? >> that is an awful lot of indictments and plea bargains. trump's legal team continues to put out these arbitrary calls based on, i don't know what, other than they want it to end to clear the president. may 10th the vice president of the united states said, q

well i think rudy giuliani is doing exactly what they would like rudy giuliani to do and i think he's tried it out there to to float some test theories and to talk to the american people about what's going on with the special counsel's office so i think rudy giuliani as doing exactly what he's being paid to do you know bill just said there that donald trump is his own communications director i think to some extent that is true and i think rudy giuliani on some days this is press secretary as odd as that may sound but i think rudy is doing exactly what president trump likes for him to do which is go out and talk to the american people about some of these other theories and i think they test those i do think their message test those and go back and work on their communication strategies. you know you know i could always in on the giuliani a moderate republican one time. he's got a different choir. if i were donald trump i'd like i get my money back the group is helping him out all you know donald trump and i think successfully the sold the story that he didn't know anything about money

rudy giuliani trying to clean up the comments. making clear he wasn't simply talking about a truth as a broader theme. but he was talking specifically about this notion of he said she said kind of situation. let me read you rudy giuliani's tweet where he said my statement was not meant as a upon pontifin on moral theology. so that may be the case as far as what rudy giuliani was saying there. it does go to this broader idea that he and the president have been trying to poke the credibility of the mueller investigation and kind of realign the facts here and what mr. mueller will ultimately put out. >> appreciate the reporting. this morning, let's dig deeper into this with former trump white house lawyer jim schultz with me. good morning. jack quinn joins us, former white house counsel for the clinton administration. two good voices to have with us this morning. jim, if you were in your old job, with the trump legal team, would you be concerned about the fact that mcgahn gave 30 plus hours of testimony to mueller's team over three d

you listened to what rudy giuliani told us. what do you make of it? >> in the interview with the president yesterday, we asked specifically about what giuliani said, about the perjury trap. he agreed, which is what you were discussing with kristen. he said, yes, it is possible. that is right. if i had an sbeinterview, sayin something that contradicted what comey said, comey is best friends with mueller, and he'd believe him, making me a liar. he used the word liar, clearly concerned. we asked him, as a natural follow up, will you then do an interview or will you not? he said, i'm not going to comment on that. >> that's not the only headline out of your interview. you also talked with him about this idea of maybe his presidential power, you could say. the president told you that he believed he could run the russia investigation if he wanted to. says he would be totally allowed to be involved and to do whatever, quote, unquote. interestingly, he expressed thoughts on the russian attack saying, if russia was the spoiler -- and according to the intelligen

rudy giuliani right now doesn't seem to agree with rudy giuliani. here is august rudy giuliani, the one who says the president never discussed formery ed avad with then fb i director james comey. >> the president says he never told comey he should go easy on flynn. comey says he did. if he testifies to that under oath, instead of being a dispute, they can say it's perjury if they elect to believe comey instead of trump. >> here is let's call it july giuliani, who said the opposite. >> how is he a good witness for the president if he says the president was directing him if his words to let the michael flynn investigation go? >> he didn't correct him to do that. what he said to him was -- >> comey says he took it as direct. >> that's okay. >> how do you make sense of these conflicting statements? rudy giuliani says they're not conflicting at all. >> the president didn't say to him go easy on flynn or anything about flynn. he is saying that, i am talking about their alternative. i'm saying, the conversation never took place. if it did take place -- her

now, that's rudy giuliani doing all the talking. the president, for his part, is staying silent on this, not answering shouted questions earlier today about whether or not he still wants to sit down with robert mueller, something he's expressed interest in, in the past. but he is tweeting those very cryptic messages today. his same angry rhetoric about the special counsels investigation, but those two words at the end there, with erin, "stay tuned," is raising the question of what it is that we're staying tuned for. >> exactly. sort of a cliff-hanger the president likes. is it a threat or not? kaitlan, thank you very much. and now let's go to the democratic congressman jared conley who sits on the foreign affairs and oversight committees. congressman, good to see you. if you were rudy giuliani, it would be a very, very serious violation of justice department rules, that's the quote, if robert mueller doesn't wrap up the investigation by september. he's technically wrong, but do you think the investigation should be wrapped up by the

does rudy giuliani earn the benefit of the doubt at this point? i wrote a story about rudy going on tv and lying. he has been lying all along, as the president's lawyer, and the president's been lying ever since he took the oath of office. do they have credibility left? >> that's one of the big problems. it's a credibility issue. it's a communications issue, too. >> you are right, he is speaking to the base. speaking is the base is working for the president's fan base, truth isn't truth anymore. >> that's true. this brings into account, we could walk away with a different impression from the same meeting. that's true. that's where you get the he said he said. there's a kernel there. if we go back to the point of, there was nothing incriminating but we don't know what was said because we didn't do a full debrief, what's to stop the white house from getting a full debrief saying don mcgahn, we need you in here today, monday, we want to know everything you talked about? is there anything that could get in the way of that? >> what would normally happe

this morning, i'm giving rudy giuliani the benefit of the doubt. the truth is harder to determine. >> if this was some fact view maybe perhaps i would be incl e inclined to agree with you a little bit, but he says the truth is relative, he says they have a different version of the truth. >> it will be hard to know if james comey says one thing and the president says one thing, and there is only two people in the room. luckily we have experts. we have a truth quad here. we have ross barber, who is an expert on impeachment proceedings, and john avlon, an expert on truth. you know rudy giuliani. in that situation, how can run know the truth. rudy for a long time, his go-to phrase social security that the law is a search for the truth. it is the bedrock of his world view and the opposite of what he said yesterday. but it is inconsistent with what he said over a long period of time, and we can't slide into this world over and over again. they are basically trying to cover up for someone. >> you're on team camerota. >> you're all telling the truth. it is

a statement made by president trump's lawyer rudy giuliani. likely saying that the version of the truth by james comey that would likely be believed by the special counsel doesn't square with the president's version. the truth as the special counsel sees it is not so. that's what he was trying to say and not what he said. he said truth isn't truth. which would be more shocking if this had been the first time we heard something like it. >> our press secretary gave altertive facts. >> over time, facts develop. >> statements like this pop out when all the president's men and all the president's women try to explain and justify why president trump is not tethered to facts. the same president who according to "the washington post" averages more than seven false or misleading claims every day. >> just stick with us. don't believe the crap you see from these people. the fake news. just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. >> now, what the president's seeing and reading which is happening has led to him launchi

i thought rudy giuliani already loaded all of his bricks. they are working on their legal research to fight all the way to the supreme court if robert mueller issues a subpoena to donald trump. we would move to quash the subpoena and we're pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena. by we dpgiuliani means mr. floo. he outlined three possible scenarios of what happens next. plan a is rework out the questioning. plan b is redon't and they subpoena. plan c is they file the report and don't issue a subpoena. joining our discussion now, jason johnson, politics editor at the root.com and jill wine-banks is back with us. jason johnson, in the history of these kinds of investigations, presidents have always wanted to show they have nothing to hide. and that is part of why bill clinton ultimately ended up agreeing to testify rather than face a subpoena. but this president and rudy giuliani seem to have no problem communicating very clearly that he's got a lot to hide and a lot he doesn't want to talk about. >> they're acting incredi

i just don't see it. >> here's more rudy giuliani. sometimes you just want to play it because you can't believe what you're hearing on television sometimes. this is rudy giuliani basically as you pointed out earlier, kimberly, openly admitting what they're afraid of. >> he knows the answers to every question that he wants to ask. he's going to ask him, did you tell comey to go easy on flynn? the president will say, no, i didn't. hey, bob, you know it. why do you want to get him under oath? you think we're fools? you want to trap him into perjury. we're not going to let you do that. he doesn't need to ask a single question on obstruction. he has all the answers. they're not going to change. the president is not going change his testimony. so stop the nonsense. you are trying to trap him into perjury because you don't have a case. >> the president has lied, he's going to continue lying. >> we're not putting him under oath. then he lies under oath. >> the president really wants to testify and his lawyers are holding him back. i think tha

rudy giuliani frankly is not much better about that. they are just going out there saying whatever they want. >> how bad do you think it would be for the country to paul manafort before or after the mid terms? >> it would be bad and taken by a democratic house and republican members of the house as an impeachable moment or one would have to consider impeachment. if you are pardoning someone almost explicitly to hamper an investigation into yourself that has been proven to have some credibility so far based on various guilty pleas and verdicts. he is signaling roger stone who seems to be under inquiry by the special counsel, that he should hang tough and pardons will be there. i suppose you want manafort and stone and others believing they would get pardoned if they hang tough maybe until the end of the four years and not just the two. that is a tough thing. i never put beyond what could happen that he could pardon manafort and stone and be willing to run that risk. >> stay right here. we will come back to you guys. a throwback thursday

listen, rudy giuliani has always been on a p.r. campaign to try and discredit the mueller investigation from day one. it's a p.r. campaign, but it's not going to work in court, so -- >> the interesting part about what he said today, and we played a little bit here, christine, is that the truth isn't the truth. >> mm-hmm. >> he also said it's the mueller team that provided the information for the article that was published in "the new york times" today and came out yesterday. very interesting tactic, but maybe not. >> we know that this administration keeps moving the goal post as well. so when he says, oh, the truth isn't the truth, but i'm also not going to let the president perjure himself, they speak in very mobster-like terms where it's like you do know your client is a pathological liar, cannot tell the truth if his life depended on it, and has possibly colluded or done something that is either illegal or definitely not befitting of the president. and so when you have the p.r. campaign of rudy giuliani and donald trump saying t

the president and rudy giuliani are now saying this. this after the president has repeated some version of no collusion a whopping 165 times since may of 2016. we have the author of "the truth about trump". and harry litman. i'm happy to have you both on. harry, the president and his lawyer have gone from no collusion to collusion. collusion isn't a crime. collusion as we know is not a legal term. what charges do trump and his family need to be concerned about? >> in a word, conspiracy. but it doesn't help their credibility that he's been screaming no collusion, no collusion from the rooftops and then there's kind of a never mind moment oh, maybe it is collusion but that's not a crime. but it's always been the case. people have been saying it on these shows and others for months. look, the crime here is conspiracy. it's a simple crime. you agree to do something unlawful and you do something furthering it. mueller has laid down a couple of conspiracies involving violation of federal election law, involving violation of spu computer law a

you take that into consideration. >> so poppy, yesterday rudy giuliani as you said taken a different position saying there was no conversation at all regarding michael flynn and here's what he told jake tapper. >> the president didn't say to him go easy on flynn or anything about flynn. he's saying that. i'm talking about their alternative. i'm saying the conversation never took place. but if it did take place and here's the conversation that's alleged, it is not illegal to have said that. >> really whether it's illegal or not, that is something that is at the central issue and it's central investigation into obstruction with robert mueller, poppy. >> shimon, thank you for walking us through that. it is more than a little confusing. with me now back with me jeffrey toobin. look, i suppose rudy giuliani can say whatever he wants in all of these tv interviews and whether he's be truthful or not truthful and completely flipping the story. there's nothing illegal about that. but i mean, where do we go from here? what does it tell you whether the president will sit with mueller and if he

one involving rudy giuliani and one with a former aide omarosa. we break it all down for you next. automatically adjusts. so you wake up ready to train for that marathon. and now, save up to $500 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. ends wednesday. >>> president trump returning to washington to a new flip flop on his legal team. how rudy giuliani contradicted himself on a key question from the special counsel. >>> a low-life. she's a low life. >> omarosa on the outs with president trump. she will play the bombshell tape she recorded in the situation room. >>> and the leaders of north and south korea announcing a summit in pyongyang. we go live to seoul. good morning. welcome to "early start." i'm christine romans. >> i'm dave briggs. omarosa once tweeted donald trump almost always produces high drama. >>> we start with the president returning to the white house. following a week at the new jersey golf club that the white house called a working vacation. robert mueller's investigation perhaps top of mind in the west wing. sunday, rudy giuliani te