good morning, everybody. we have breaking news. in fact, it's a very busy morning here. welcome to your "new day." we just watched vladimir putin arrive in buenos aires, and we are also waiting for prime minister to go to a ceremony in buenos aires where he is expected to take questions. why is that important? because there are a lot of questions this morning about everything from what is happening on the international stage to what is happening here at home with the mueller probe. >> on your left vladimir putin arriving just moments ago. he will not meet with president trump. the president cancelled that meeting. the story they gave is because

of events happening in ukraine but the cancelation of it, of course, took place just hours after the revelation, the latest revelation in the mueller probe. >> we know a little bit about what is on the president's mind as communicated by his twitter feed. he is thinking about the mueller probe this morning. here's the "washington post" headline that sums it up. individual one, trump emerges as a central subject of mueller probe. robert mueller appears to be focussed on mr. trump and two of his adult children and their financial links to russia. cohen admits he lied to congress about plans to build a trump tower in moscow. cohen said those discussions stretched into june of 2016, and that's when the candidate trump was becoming the presumptive nominee. sources tell cnn the president is spooked and distracted and may even be nervous about his

written answers to robert mueller. >> the special counsel appears to be interested on three broad areas, roger stone and wikileaks, number one, and the 2016 trump tower meeting, and number three, the moscow trump tower project. we are learning one of the ideas floated for that project was to gift a $50 million penthouse to vladimir putin. that is that according to convicted felon who worked on the project with michael cohen. vladimir putin announced plans to sit down with president trump tomorrow but the president canceled that meeting. we want to go right to argentina right now, and cnn's chief white house correspondent, jim acosta, is in the ballroom. what is new in buenos aires? >> reporter: good morning, john and alisyn. as you can see folks are entering the room at this motel

in buenos aires, and we will see the president of mexico and the canadian prime minister in just a few moment. they will sign on to the new trade pack between the three countries that essentially replaced nafta. i apologize, and there are folks come into the room and they are taller than myself that may block our angle a little bit. good morning, sir. as you just promised a few moments ago, he is venting his frustrations about the mueller probe and responding to the bombshell about michael cohen pleading guilty about the trump moscow project, and the president said on his twitter feed said he talked about it on the campaign trail. one thing we should point out, when we were covering then-candidate donald trump during the gop primaries in 2016, there was no talk of a

moscow project, and he said he looked at lightly doing this at somewhere in russia, and somewhere in russia was the capitol of russia, moscow. the president is not scheduled to take any questions at this event. we expect it to be a signing ceremony with comments from the three leaders, and obviously sometimes the president has not been able to resist taking questions and there's a possibility he will be asked about all of this when we get going in a few moments. we should point out i did talk to a source close to michael cohen last night that wanted to comment on some of the things from the president and rudy

guiliani, and right now cohen is describing with the special counsel's office, and the suggestion being, john and alisyn, that there may be other steps in this process for cohen as he cooperates with the special counsel's office. all three leaders will come out to sign on to the new trade agreement. the question, of course, the big question of the day is how much the president wants to talk about the situation with michael cohen and the rapidly developing story with the russian investigation that seems to be changing hour-by-hour. >> we are going to bring in legal cnn analyst, michael tubin, and mr. lockhart and rick santorum, political commentators for cnn. jeffrey toobin, i want to start with you. this morning already the president weighed in on twitter

and said yeah i was doing business during the campaign and i lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in russia. i call this a few good men defense, you are damn right i did, i was doing this. did he break a law? >> certainly not by conducting his real estate business. it is not illegal now or then, and the question is was he candidate with the other candidates during this period about what he was doing and how does that relate to the other parts of the investigation where there might be illegal activity. certainly the developments itself was not illegal. what he keeps saying is that everybody knew i was negotiating in moscow during the first half of 2016, obviously untrue. we all know what he did and didn't say, and he did not say he was negotiating with russia. that's important because this

was the period when he was being so mysteriously kind to putin. why did they change the american platform to make it pro russia. it comes clearer if he had a financial motive. >> let's remind everybody of the time that donald trump, then candidate, was asked about it and even as president and how he responded about his financial entanglements with russia. listen to this. >> you say you have no investments in russia but do you owe money -- >> i don't have any deals with russia. i had miss universe there a couple years ago, and other than that, no. i own nothing in russia. i have no loans in russia. i don't have any deals in russia. i had the miss universe pageant,

which i owned for quite a while, i had it in moscow a long time ago but other than that i have nothing to do with russia. >> rick, what are your thoughts? >> i didn't see anything that he said there that was untruthful. he did not have any deals. the deal was never done. >> should he have said but i do occasionally think about having a trump tower -- >> i think he does lots of negotiations and lots of deals happen and some don't. does he have to disclose everything he is looking into? probably would have been wise to do so but there's nothing criminal about not reporting you are probing into doing a deal, and i think he should have but i don't think there's any legal obligation. >> if you had known the trump organization was negotiating with kremlin officials, what

would you have said to candidate trump on a debate stage? >> i would say if you are going to run for president you should have extricate yourself from these types of things and should not do these types of deals if you are running for president of the united states given the tension between the two countries. there's nothing criminal about it or untoward about it, and lots of business people do business if russia and in china. >> to jeffrey's point, do you think that made him susceptible to vladimir putin? there has to be -- >> you are not susceptible until you have been rewarded something. having a negotiation with somebody, i don't think that makes it susceptible. >> you are trying to get russia to agree to participate, so you are trying -- you are intkpwraeurb kwraeuting

yourself. >> what i read, the russians were eager to do that deal, and i think they were trying to intkpwraeurb kwraeut themselves to him. >> if the president lied in his written response to robert mueller, which he submitted over the last few weeks, that's a problem, that's a legal problem. dana bash who is with us right now and has done all kinds of reporting on this and other things related to this, what is the word inside the trump legal camp about these written answers? >> they insist there's no contradiction, and we have no specifics to back that up so we have to underscore that. we don't know exactly the detailed level of the questions that the president got on this matter. you know, when did he know? when did michael cohen and he talk about it? we just don't know. all we have from the trump legal team is the general promise that

there's no contradiction between what the president said which was supposed to be truthful, otherwise he, just like any other american -- it's different with the president, but you get the point. the difference between that and what michael cohen said. the thing that we can't lose sight of is what we can't see. robert mueller has been so good at and sort of wiley about putting in the bear minimum to make clear to other people involved, in this case, individual one, the president of the united states, i'm on to you. but there's so much more in the, what, 70 hours of conversations that we now know michael cohen had with the mueller team that we don't know about. when you talk about the president's mood and you talk about what we are going to see and hear from the president now,

it's impossible to think that is not weighing on his mind. our reporting is he's not happy and is lashing out. that 70 hours and e-mails and perhaps audio tapes that michael cohen is known to have recorded with people, that's all part of the fed's big evidence war chest. >> quickly before we get back to jim acosta, one of the interesting things about this, we talked to carrie cordero and talked to rick santorum, there's nothing illegal about the candidate doing deals with russia and not fully wanting to disclose it, but for some reason the people around the president lied about the timeline, and that's what michael cohen is pleading guilty to. instinctively the paul manafort and the michael cohen's of the world were fudging things.

>> what mueller has done here is laid out several predicates. the stuff with roger stone, the wikileaks, that matters, and the moscow projected matters, and often during the campaign donald trump resisted releasing his tax returns and there's something they are hiding. there's not that it's under audit, and that's why people were instinctively trying to cover this up. it could be something terrible and it could be something innocuous. we don't know what it is. mueller knows and we will find out. >> karl bernstein, our friend, says to follow the lies in journalism. something he knows about, and you are looking at pictures from buenos aires, and our jim acosta on the scene there. jim, a meeting with vladimir putin was canceled for the day. the whole schedule adjusted in a

way where it looked like to me the white house was trying to protect or with draw the president a little bit from the public eye. what is in store? >> that's right. john, i should point out in just a few minutes, we are getting started here soon, because i just saw pompeo and sarah sanders and others making their way into the room. the schedule has been adjusted and it was adjusted on air force one as the president left washington yesterday and he just told reporters that he was looking forward to the meeting with vladimir putin and then he got on the plane and the white house says he got a briefing from his advisers about the situation with ukraine and russia aggression with ukraine and because of that he decided to cancel the meeting, but the backdrop of the president meeting with vladimir putin, and all of this news about possible trump tower project in miscellaneomoscow

that might have involved putin and his cronies and so on. one thing we should point out, and good to see the secretary this morning, he was tapping me on the arm a moment ago, and they are making their way into the room for this event. one thing we should point out, if during the campaign and the gop primaries in early 2016, remember, then candidate trump was taking a soft approach when it came to vladimir putin in russia. it was almost sort of counter to the direction of the entire republican party at that time. had it been known at that time when the president was advocating softer ties, closer ties with russia, while the public knew about a trump tower moscow project, it would have been a totally different conversation, i would imagine. i would assume his gop rivals would have barehand -- would

have gone after him. is that why you are advocating these closer ties and taking a softer approach when it comes to vladimir putin? that obviously would have been part of the conversation and it's a conversation the american people didn't have. obviously it's very relevant now and these questions are going to continue to be raised. the big question this morning is the president meets with the canadian prime minister during this event here in buenos aires, and the question is whether or not the president will take questions, and our sense is they will sign the new trade pact and make remarks and move on to other activities of the day. they have tailored his schedule with respect to what the president is going to be doing over the next couple of days, and it's a more suppressed schedule than what we saw days ago. >> i saw you, rick santorum

responding to what jim was saying. did you see during the campaign -- >> what i responded to was that donald trump having a potential business deal would somehow have been a damaging blow to donald trump. given all the damaging blows that donald trump withered through on the campaign with no ripple affect on his publicity, in some way, increasing that, i don't think it would have had impact whatsoever. it does raise the question why would somebody lie about it. >> as a republican were you uncomfortable that donald trump was always complimenting vladimir putin? did you scratch your head and say, i wonder why he likes vladimir putin so much? >> well, yes, and potentially

his thing was we need to get along with the other folks. it was pardon of a broader -- it was not, you know, what doesn't fit and why here. this was all consistent with his approach that he could strike deals with folks and he could develop these relationships. >> we just got a two-minute warning. we are about to hear from the president. we don't know if he will take questions on the subject we are watching closely. we know who he is traveling with. i did not hear a lawyer mentioned in the group of people, and i wonder if over the next few days he needs a lawyer nearby? already his statement on twitter this morning i think moves the ball where he basically said, yes, i was negotiating with russia while i was campaigning. >> what is so different -- i mean, joe can speak to this, but i covered the clinton white

house during the monica lewinsky and the whole whitewater scandal. the approach there is the president is doing the nation's business and the president is not going to talk about the investigation, he's going to talk about health insurance and he's going to talk about, you know, what presidents do. donald trump is doing something different. he addresses mueller all the time, both in person and on twitter. you know, i have every expectation if he is speaking off the cuff he will speak about the investigation. other presidents, especially in a foreign country in a setting like this would be talking about trade and jobs, and we will see. i mean, it's just a different approach. who is to say which one is right, but certainly trump talks about this a lot more than clinton ever did when he was under investigation. >> what are you looking for joe? >> he's right, our strategy was

to not talk about this, it was to focus on what the president was doing on the job, and it was about them and not about him, and sometimes the president railed because he was angry, but it was about them. i think there's a difference between some of the other trump issues and this one. if you look back in the polling when clinton was in office, and the drop he got was not from lewinsky, but whether a democratic fund-raiser sold secrets to the chinese, and people know if you are selling out your people, that's different than infidelity and political misgiveings. i don't know that we know that, but i think it is different. >> again, we are minutes or seconds perhaps away from

hearing from the president. we have been hearing from republican officials to some extent yesterday, and their hair is not publicly on fire over this. i have not heard people come out and say the president was lying about this and the president needs to answer about this. i have not heard that publicly yet. is that what you are hearing out loud and privately? >> i think this has been going on so long that these republicans who have been more candid have genuinely decided to take a wait and see approach because their hair has been on fire so many times they have run out of matches to light it again. they are taking the time. joe lockhart, i remember that scandal from the clinton days and i think that you are right, that that is what a lot of what the president -- now president

and candidate trump got a pass on, and he has been married three times and he's not perfect and he's a tabloid guy from new york. that's all true. i was at many trump rallies and talked to scores of trump voters and i agree with senator santorum that they would have done a shoulder shrug on the russia thing. the difference, of course, is that between and now, many of them, they didn't think he would be president. now we have him on the world stage dealing with people who are relying on the president, the leader of the free world to be tough on russia. he hasn't. so it is all coming full circle and it's all kind of coming together right now. the issues that he's had on the campaign, and the issues he had as a businessman, and the issue he has right now being under investigation, which is very clear, named publicly for the first time in a document, in a

court document, and now the issue of being commander-in-chief. and this is the first time we will see it all come together right now on the world stage. >> go ahead, rick. >> dana, with all due respect i think the president was much tougher on russia than obama ever was. >> not verbally. >> no, actions. and i can tell you that russia -- >> he cancelled the meeting, but aside from that he has not said anything about the current issue. >> i think if you look at the russia policy, dana, the administration has been quite tough on russia. look at what we have done with our energy prices and destroying the russian economy. >> forced to buy a huge bipartisan majority in the united states congress, he didn't want to do it and he did it. >> he has not been tough on them on the central question of them

manipulating and trying to manipulate our elections. he has been soft on them there. he refused in helsinki to look putin in the eye and tell him it was wrong. he said -- i believe he said when he was not involved here, so he has been soft. >> i agree verbally he has been soft and on the policy issue, he has not been soft. >> not on the hacking. >> he sanctioned -- >> well, again, i understand the policy in ukraine, i will give it to you, legal arms is different than blankets, but on the policy of attacking the u.s. election, not so. we have a picture of a podium. let's listen in. what you will hear first is the trade and the renegotiating nafta. >> the prime minister of canada

and the president of the united states. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. we're gathered together this afternoon for a very historic occasion, the signing ceremony for a brand new trade deal, the united states/mexico/canada agreement. i am so honored to be here with the mexican president and justin trudeau, and he also has become a great friend and it has been a battle and sometimes battles make good friendships. it has been terrific.

we are replacing nafta with a truly ground breaking achievement, modern day agreement. i want to thank u.s. trade representative, bob and his entire team for their tremendous effort and the efforts they made all throughout the last almost two-year period. thank you as well to jared kushner, secretary of state, mike pompeo, secretary of the treasury, steve mnuchin, and director larry kudlow for their hard work and untiring devotion throughout the negotiation process. peter navarro, thank you so much for the work you put in, and so many others. the umca is the most modern and significant modern and balanced agreement in history. all of our countries will benefit greatly. it's probably the largest trade deal ever made also.

in the united states the new trade pact will support high-weighing manufacturing jobs and promote greater access for american imports including farming, manufacturing and service industries. as part of our agreement the united states will be able to lock in our market access to canada and mexico and greatly expanded our agricultural exports, something we have been wanting to do for many years. this is amazing deal for our farmers and aloallows them to u scientific technology and use new measures to competition and promote higher wages. under the usmca, 75% of our

automobiles content must be manufactured in north america, and 45% automobile content will help stop auto jobs from going overseas and it will bring back auto jobs that have already left. many, many jobs are already planning to come back. many companies are coming back. we're very excited about that. this landmark agreement includes intellectual property protection that will be the envy of nations all around the world. the usmca gives new provisions on digital trade and the most ambition eurpb sraoeur ambition environmental protections made.

we have confronted massive subsidies, and currently if you look at it currency manipulation, and the currency manipulation from some countries are so intense and so bad and it would hurt, mexico, canada and the united states badly. we covered it well in this agreement. these new provisions will benefit technology development in each of our nations leading to greater growth and opportunity throughout our countries and across north america. in short this is a model agreement that changes the trade landscape forever and this is an agreement that first and foremost benefits working people, something of great importance to all three of us here today.

president enrique pena nieto and justin trudeau, we have worked on this agreement long and hard and we have taken a lot of barbs and a little abuse and we have gotten there and it's great for our countries. thank you for your partnership throughout this process. this new agreement will even su ensure future prosperity. it has been so well reviewed i don't expect to have much of a problem. to ensure the complete implementation of our agreement. enrique, i want to thank you on a personal note and wish you the best, and this is your last day in office and it's an auspicious day when you can sign something so important, and we appreciate you and i think i can speak for justin when i say that. [ applause ]

>> we both agree he's a special man and has done a great job. thank you. i just want to congratulate you on ending your term in office with this incredible milestone. it's really an incredible way to end a presidency. you don't see that happen very often. i look forward to working with president-elect lopez for many years to come and our relationship will be a very good one. we have had great conversations and i think we will have a great, great relationship. i would now like to invite the president and the prime minister to say a few words and perhaps we can start with justin, and we appreciate it very much. justin, please.

>> good morning, and thank you all for being here and thank you to presidents trump and nieto. and it's wonderful to see you and be here on this historic moment. [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language] foreign languages

the new north american agreement maintains stability for our economy and stability that is essential for many jobs across the country that rely on strong and reliable trading relationships with our closest neighbors. that's why i am here today. the new agreement lifts the risk of serious economic uncertainty that is without the trade agreement process, and it would have gotten more damaging had we not reached a new nafta. but canadians came together and rolled up their sleeves, and they put their country's interest first and worked hard the achieve a new modernized agreement that will protect jobs and strengthen the middle class and create new opportunities for

businesses. [speaking foreign language] >> there's much more work to do in lowering trade barriers and in tpfostering growth that benefits everybody, but reaching the new agreement with the united states and mexico is a major step in our economy. canadians got here because team canada was driven by the interests of the middle class. free and fair trade leads to more and better paying middle class jobs for more people, and

the benefits of trade must be broadly and fairly shared. that's what modernizing nafta achieves and that's why it was so important to get the new agreement done right. as a result the tariff-free access that nafta guaranteed for 70% of total experts is secure, and that's essential for businesses, families, intrapreneurs and hard-working people in every corner of our country. as i said, the task is not done. there's more hard work ahead to build resilient strong economies that support families everywhere in canada. as i discussed with president trump a few days ago the recent plant closures by general motors that affects thousands of canadian and american workers and their families are a heavy blow. make no mistake we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and communities.

donald, it's all the more reason why we need to keep working to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum between our countries. [speaking foreign language] with hard work, goodwill and determination, i am confident we will get there. our shared interests, prosperity and security demand it. before wrapping up, i would like to personally thank our foreign affairs minister along with u.s. trade representative, bob lighthighser for all their hard work and dedication since the beginning of this process, and i would like to thank the chief negotiator and the ambassador

and their hard-working staff. thank you again for all of you being here today. [speaking foreign language] [ applause ] [ speaking spanish [ speaking spanish ] >> translator: distinguished members for joining us today, thank you for your generous remarks. that is precisely the last day of my administration, ladies and gentlemen, members of the media. during the last day of my administration as president i am honored to be here standing next to the leaders of two countries

who are friends and partners in this signing ceremony of the tpnew agreement between the u.s., mexico and canada. the deal expresses the deal between the nations that will bring prosperity to each one of our societies. it's the culmination of negotiations that allows us. it will be then when this innovati innovative instrument bears fruit for our future exchanges. the negotiation of usmca allowed to reaffirm the importance of

economic reintegration in northern america. for more than a quarter of a century ago our three countries have maintained very tight trade relationships, and such trade transformed mexico. today our exchanges abroad represent more than 70% of our gross domestic product. this has contributed the benefits of trade with the world are valued by the mexican society. revamping the trade agreement was aimed to present a view of a firm belief that today we are stronger and more competitive. in spite of the progress that we have seen in our trade relationship in the last decade illustrates there was a road ahead of us to take advantage of

the potential. the agreement gives us a renewed phase of the process integration, and trade agreements shall not be static, agreements need to move along with the economy and should be according to the needs of our society. the inclusion of new provisions on e-commerce and enabling practices are now part of the agreement. in fact, one-third of the agreement includes topics that were not included in the current agreement, and the renegotiation of the process of the agreement allowed us to move into a integration that listens to the demands of our societies. 24 years ago nafta set a new

benchmark of trade agreements back then, and today the usnca is the first trade agreement that incorporates elements that address the social impact of international trade. it enables the participation of more sectors in the economy including the participation of regional strayed and it extends the protechtition of workers ris and also includes a review clause that would make easier that the agreement is revamped more constantly. this is a true sign of the will we have put in this agreement, the decision to provide more and better opportunities to our people. i with a like to acknowledge the work done by the negotiators

from the three countries, each team advocating for each country's interests, and by doing this reached a very possible result for the sake of all countries. in the case of mexico there's testimony of the work of the business community that was present during the process, and specifically the new administration that will take office tomorrow. your support and the alignment of visions in the last phase contributed to the success of this renegotiation process. i would like to say that i sincerely acknowledge president trump and prime minister trudeau for their vision and the vision they put into the process. thanks to you, president trump and prime minister trudeau, the agreement that we have and are signing today will allow each

country to gain individually and also north america will grow stronger and will grow to be more prosperous. ladies and gentlemen, currently in the world each country's future is firmly linked to what happens in other countries, and in north america we understand this very clearly. we understand that each society's prosperity will be greater and will be deeply rooted if it's based in the prosperity of the region as a whole. this signing ceremony is a sign that mexico, the united states and canada being close, not only our geography but on values and our expectations. we are ready to begin a new chapter in our shared history. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> let's go. >> let's go.

>> each of us get a copy. >> excellent. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. [ applause ] we have been watching the signing ceremony there of these three presidents, canada, mexico and the united states, of course, and their new trade agreement. we were wondering if there would be any questions shouted but obviously the press is respecting the formality of this moment and there you have it. >> the questions that we

expected to be shouted were about the news that took place over the last few hours, michael cohen pleading guilty with the efforts to build a tower moscow. what you just saw there was an important story, the mexican president on his last day, and justin trudeau who has been feuding with the president, they just signed a new nafta deal. this is a formality because congress has to ratify it, so it doesn't go into effect just yet. >> it's a victory for president trump, who did not like nafta and said he was going to renegotiate it and has done so, and as the final act of the mexican president, knee they go

along. >> and thrudeau made a point in his remarks about the steel tariffs, and saying we have to tpaoeupb find a way to work it out, and our jim acosta was in the room for this. again, jim, a significant moment in terms of trade and also significant that the president not taking questions. this entire visit to buenos aires seemingly tailored in a way to avoid maybe speaking more about the scandals at home. >> reporter: i think that's right, john. i think you saw all three leaders exit stage left there and ducking out of the room pretty quickly after all of this. there's the secretary of state leaving right now and also not taking questions on all of this. i think you are right, john, there was a pointed remark there from the canadian prime minister, justin trudeau, and

the tariffs was a source of frustration for the canadian leader, and what the president said in the past is he would somehow find a way to fund a border wall through some sort of renegotiated trade deal with mexico and business dealings with mexico and so on, and that appears not to be part of the new trade pact, as the president is seeking u.s. taxpayers to foot the bill for the wall. you will see the president in a number of interactions, and some were disclosed to us and some were not. there's a chance -- you always see this on the sidelines of the summits, where the president will brush past a world leader and he could brush past the

crowned prince of saudi arabia, and there are tensions between russia and crukraine, and ivank trump was also in the room here for the ceremony, but make no mistake, this was stage crafted and managed in a way so the president did not take any questions. he got out of this room very quickly. often there's a silence at the end of the events where you might have a few moments to shout a question out and there was barely an opportunity for that as this wrapped up quickly. >> there is jared kushner, of course, leaving the room now. that's the next thing that we will look for, not an official meeting with vladimir putin but if there are sidebar meetings.

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president trump spoke moments ago at the g20 summit in ba buenos aires. saying the president is spooked. this comes as his former longtime attorney michael cohen pleaded guilting to lying to congress about donald trump's role in planning a potential project in russia. joining us now michael isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for yahoo! news. also author, i should say, of "russian roulette: the inside story of putin's war on america and inside the election's donald trump." it is good to talk to you today. so tell us, if donald trump was in some sort of negotiations during the presidential campaign, at least up to june of

2016, about building some sort of trump tower in moscow, why is that so significant today? >> well, because the president misled the american people about his efforts to do business in russia. he did that after the campaign when this news of this project first broke last year. so while the campaign was going on, the voters knew nothing about the president's efforts to do this deal. at the same time that he was saying all of these nice flattering things about vladimir putin, and there's one passage in that plea deal that michael cohen signed yesterday and agreed to in federal court that really leaps out, and that is in january 2016, six months after donald trump has declared his candidacy, iowa caucus is about to take place, michael cohen, the president's personal lawyer,

e-mails dmitry peskov, the press spokesman for vladimir putin. now, cohen told the senate it ended there. never heard back'sthe project went away. we now know that's not true, and in the plea deal yelled we learned that peskov's office calls back michael cohen and cohen requested assistance in moving the project forward both in securing land to build the proposed tower and financing the construction. think about that a moment. here is cohen, on behalf of donald trump, seeking the help of vladimir putin's office, vladimir putin himself, to make this deal happen. that's in treaty by the presidential candidate of the united states to the president of russia, i want your help to get money to do this deal. stunning in the full context of everything we've learned since about the president's efforts to

do business in russia. the whole questions of what, the contacts between his campaign and russia. it really puts an entirely new cast on everything we've learned up until now about trump and russia and the mueller investigation. >> here's what president trump says about this. he sees it obviously in a very different light. here's how he explained this deal that never happened yesterday. >> i was running my business while i was campaigning. there was a good chance that i wouldn't have won, in which case i would have gotten back into the business and why should i lose 0 lots of opportunities? even if he was right, it doesn't matter, because i was allowed to do whatever i wanted during the campaign. >> there you go, michael. allowed to do whoever he wanted. >> okay. one could say the voters, the rival candidates to donald trump would have had a very different take on trump's efforts to do this deal seeking the assistance

of vladimir putin, somebody whose conduct led to sanctions against russia. you know, an adversary to the united states. you know, there's all sorts of reasons why the president's comments there don't really hold up. now, does this lead to criminal charges? you know, lots of questions whether the president can even be criminally charged, but probably not, but on the core question whether the president was candid with the american people, told the truth to the american people about his dealings with russia, i think the cohen plea really puts a big hole in that. >> remind viewers that you were the first reporter to sort of spell out the ties between russia and the trump campaign and introduced the world to carter page, who was -- another character i want to bring up here. felix seder. not a household name yet he also was instrumental in the trump organization and helping to

develop real estate deals for something like ten years, though president trump now says he would not recognize him if he saw him in the same room. here is another interesting bit. this is an e-mail from felix seder, bab this deal, in moscow. let's make this happen, and build a trump moscow and possibly fix relations between the countries by showing everyone that commerce and business are much better and more practical than politics. that should be putin's message as well and we will help him agree on that message. help world peace, and make a lot of money. i would say that's a great life time goal for us to go after. in october. those are basically the talking points we then heard from candidate donald trump and now from president donald trump. >> interesting is felix seder first pitched the idea to michael cohen and we learned from the plea deal yesterday cohen briefed the president -- then candidate trump, on this multiple times. so trump was very much in the

loop about these plans that seder cooked up to make this deal happen, and, you know, when the -- when trump was asked during the campaign about felix seder, that's when he gave that answer, oh, i wouldn't know him if he walked in the room. trying to distance himself from him even though he was doing dealing with him many years. trump's soho project was something he intricately involved in. >> thank you for joining us. we just heard about the president and mueller's probe. our coverage continues right now. good morning and welcome to yeoh "new day." friday, november 30th. 8:00 in the east. breaking news and a lot of it. moments ago, president trump appeared onstage at the g20 summit to sign a new trade deal with mexico and