to say this shuffle comes a a tumultuous time is an understatement as all his legal team debates whether the president should sit down with special counsel robert mueller. right now the word dominating the day is subpoena. overnight a bombshell from the "washington post" revealed that back in march mueller raised the possibility of a presidential subpoena when trump's lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators. it appears this latest revelation struck a nerve with the president and his team of bright and early this morning trump launched a litany of tweets within a span of three hours. the tweet series included some of his favorite buzz words like no collusion, witch-hunt, and a rigged system. and also included a quote from a legal confidante claiming mueller's probe is interfering with his presidential duties. to top off this final rant, trump threatened to quote, use the powers granted to the presidency and get involved. you need to sit with this for a

second. s that very big deal. following all these storylines for us from the white house is nbc'scally o'donnell. cally, run us through this. so much has developed since last night when we first heard of the discussion of a subpoena. then another unexpected change to the trump legal team. for people who don't follow it as closely as you and i do it seems like a seismic shift like things are changing on the president's legal strategy. >> it is that sort of popping today but it's been the works behind the scenes for a long time. by that i mean our sources have told us that the president and those top officials here in the white house have been trying to bring in this lawyer that you mentioned, emmett flood from the firm in washington, to bring him inside the white house. you mentioned his work on the clinton impeachment case, more recently inside the white house counsel's office for george w.

bush. he dealt with investigation. he has relevant and recent experience in these key areas. a white collar crime defense attorney from one of the big firms in washington. so this has been a courting job to try to get him to come into the white house. it happens at time when ty cobb is exiting. we also saw that the president's personal outside lawyer john dowd left the team a while back. we have got a reconfiguration here, rudy giuliani is a propment voice for the president's personal affairs on the outside and john sekulow and the team they are building. on the inside we will have emmitt flood with the tenacious experience right down the alley of what the white house will need. at the same time we can perhaps discern a shift because we know that the m.o. for ty cobb had been to send a signal of cooperation to try to work with the mueller team and to hope that that would be a way to wrap things up more quickly and to the president's benefit and the white house's benefit.

he is not the president's lawyer. he is a white house lawyer. he will be leaving at the end of this month. is this a shift in style as well? is it also a possibility that flood would come into this picture with a reconfigured team both inside and outside? that the time thing that drew him in. it is important. the white house is putting it in a statement from sarah huckabee sanders with flood coming into to be part of the white house team to fight the russia witch-hunt. that's not typically in a personnel announcement regarding things we would see in the white house. and ty cobb is a friend of the president, they say he has done a terrific job and will be retiring. is the shift something that has been bubbling for a long time? based on our reporting we think that it has. >> we will explorp it in some depth. we need to understand what this means. this is serious. when we start talking about a subpoena and changes to the president's legal team it is a

big deal. the issue at hand is not so much whether a president can be subpoenaed although that's relevant but whether the president must comply with a subpoena if he gets one. this is an important question which analysis from the "new york times" highlights. above the fold smack on a 1 of today's newspaper reads the headline why talking with mueller is a minefield. the analysis there says the list of questions reportedly compiled by jump's lawyer jay sekulow on what mueller would ask shows why his lawyers think an interview with the special counsel would be dangerous for trump. to talk about this, daniel goldman, danny is a vallos author of the piece i just told you about in the nooim. charlie savage, and jays vance, msnbc could transcriber and former u.s. attorney in alabama.

charlie, you outline in your piece in the "new york times" something that has become common thinking now. while there may have been discussions, cordial discussions with a sit-down with robert mueller the thinking has now become, robert mueller knows what robert mueller knows, which is more than we know about this whole thing. and all this now looks like -- not the use donald trump's words but the fact is if donald trump sits down and says something contrary to what robert mueller knows to be the truth, he then might be -- might perjure himself and this is not a good plan for the white house. michael? >> that seems more or less the universal view of lawyers surrounding the president outside the white house. people who like trump, people who hate trump, if they are a lawyer they think it's absolutely crazy for anyone could be counselling president trump that he ought to go voluntarily sit down and subject him to an interview with the special counsel about all of these issues both involving

russian links and possible obstruction of justice. the problem all along has been that number one when you are the president you are a little different. you have got to project the image that you have nothing to hide that you have done nothing wrong. and trump himself we have been told repeatedly said he once, both in public and in private he wants to sit down with robert mueller. he thinks he has done nothing and wants to make that case. his determination at least to do that or at least to send the signal that he wants to do that has been part of the reason there has been such a volatility within his legal team. one of the reasons john dowd quit, the main reason john dowd quit in march was he was saying mr. president you can't do this and trump was saying i'm going to do it and the lawyer thought his legal advice wasn't being taken and he couldn't continue like that. yule jewel is suggesting he is willing to do what trump wants, which is negotiate some kind of sit dunn interview without getting to the cataclysm of a subpoena fight. we will see whether all of this is just posturing where everyone

wants to pretend like they are cooperative. >> of course i meant that question for the author of the piece charlie savage. charlie knew that. i appreciate that, charlie. joyce let's bring this in. can donald trump had some sort of negotiated statement with robert mueller or anyone on his team in which when and if he lies it is not perngry. the problem is it's donald trump. donald trump speaks off the cuff, robert mueller has a lot of information. is there any way you can see a conversation between those two people or two teams without there being a subpoena? would would donald trump ever agree to this you no? >> there are a lot of good reasons for trump's lawyers to try to negotiate a voluntary statement. the biggest reason is this. if trump received a grand jury subpoena he has to go into the grand jury room where he will formally be placed under oath and he will have to answer the questions from whoever on the prosecutorial team is

questioning him. he won't have his lawyers at his side. on the other hand, if the a voluntary conversation is scheduled, trump can bring his lawyers along with him. they can help to guide the conversation. and it will go a lot easier in some ways for him. there is also the political perspective. nothing says you have committed federal crimes like receiving a grand jury subpoena to come in and testify. it's not a good look for a president. much better to do the same thing that bill clinton did and come up with a last-minute agreement to be voluntarily interviewed so that you can say that you have cooperated and that you have been forthcoming at the end of the interview. >> joyce makes a good point. not a good look for the president. he tweets twor to or three tombs a way about the witch-hunt, no collusion and the sham investigation. it seems the president is on a p.r. tear as opposed to a legal strategy tear. >> perhaps this change in lawyers is in furtherance of that. ty cobb was the most

conciliatory of the president's legal team all along and the reports were that he was the one who was most earn couraging of the president sitting down for an interview. if he's now gone and emmitt flood is in, who is a veteran of the clinton impeachment process as well as the bush administration, this is someone who understands the nuances of the system. at a minimum it's not going to become more conciliatory in relation to mueller. the subpoena has always been in mueller's arsenal but we haven't heard about it until the "washington post" broke the story last night. >> the president's team always knew a subpoena was a possibility but somehow in a conversation it came up. >> that is -- certainly his lawyers understand that that's the backdrop of all of these negotiations and what it really comes down to is how does pratt -- desperate is robert mueller to avoid protracted litigation

which will result if a subpoena is issued. >> that's where the negotiating comes in. as a prosecutor, i never esht inned these things. i never would provide questions to a witness in chance of a meeting. but clearly -- i'm not convinced by the way these are the actual questions from the special counsel. there may be topics that trump's lawyers put to the. >> right. >> but this is already very favorable to the president and this is already an indication that mueller wants to avoid the protracted litigation and would rather sit down and hear from the president. >> danny, you have dealt with people who get questions and who get subpoenaed. these questions that we have seen that may or may not be the real questions, they seem benign but they are not really. robert mueller doesn't really want to know what the president sort of knew about this, that, or the other thing. robert mueller knows what he believes the president's involvement to have been. and the issue here -- we are rolling some of the questions on the screen. is whether the president is

going to tell robert mutualer the truth. if he doesn't, i want to remind people that president clinton's impeachment came out of the fact that there was a grand jury subpoena about which a question wassed is about monica lewinsky. >> in many ways we are in very unfamiliar territory. dan as a line prosecutor here never would have given questions to a defendant in advance and as a defense attorney i have never received a list of questions. i have picked up the phone and had an informal conversation with a u.s. attorney or assistant u.s. attorney about what to expect if my client were to sit down for an interview. but dan is absolutely right. the mere fact that there is a discussion about whether to subpoena or not to subpoena, in most cases the u.s. attorney, the assistant u.s. attorney, has the right to subpoena or not subpoena, and if you want to sit down with us, fine. if not, we are going to subpoena you. it is a take it or leave it offer. the fact it is the president tells us -- and the fact that mueller is considering this

tells us he does want to avoid a protracted battle that will ultimately decide whether or not a president had been subpoenaed for his testimony. we already know he can be forced to produce documents. we learned that in the nixon case. what we will learn next if there is a battle is whether or not the president had been subpoenaed and the weight of legal authority and legal scholarship says that he can. >> joyce answer this for me, for us non-legal minds f. the president somehow negotiates a conversation of sorts an interview of sorts with the mueller legal team, is he in danger of purerjuring hymn himsf there? in other words can heic if a it or say something that's not true if it is a less formal version of an interview than if it is a subpoenaed interview. >> there is a federal crime of lying to the fbi or lying to a federal agent. if you are being interviewed by the fbi, and presumably that's what this setting would look like and you make a material misstatement. not maybe you get a date wrong

accidentally but in discussing a material matter you intentionally misstate it or omit. then yes you have committed a federal crime and you can be prosecuted. it's not perjury, which is lying under oath. but this crime of making a false statement to a federal agent would be available in that setting. >> charlie n your reporting, what does it look like? what do the other options look like for the white house if they don't want to go down this road of the land mine that you write about that an interview would entail? do they have a list of other options? >> because they are not getting rid of robert mueller. >> they have been talking about, mr. mueller what if we instead gave you a written statement, written answers in response to the questions you may have about these various topics? it doesn't seem like -- of course we are seeing all this through a glass darkly. but that doesn't seem like anything the special counsel's office issing go to be satisfied by. that sets up the question of

either a short negotiated interview of the sort that everyone is saying would be very dane rouse for the reasons we have been discussing or fight a subpoena and have a protracted fight to either run out the clock or eventually maybe if trump decides to go the nuclear option and burn down the justice department and force it to fire mueller and shut down the investigation. those are the end games we are looking at. >> which he implied in a tweet today. >> one last thing there could be a breakdown of asserting executive privilege for stuff he has done as president. but that would not be available for stuff he did before he was president. >> thank you to all of you, charlie savage, daniel goldman, joyce vance, and danny is a val owes, with us. joining me now, jennifer ruben, an msnbc contribute, conservative opinion writer for the "washington post's" right turn blog. jennifer when i first knew you were going to be on the show that was two columns ago for

you. you have just put out a new piece with this headline. republican makers must decide, can trump snub a subpoena. you are not old enough to really remember this well but it is moments like this that had republican lawmakers caught up during watergate, right? it was the moments at which they said i can no longer sustain amongst my constituents defense of a president in the face of very specific legal activity -- or illegal activity. you have mulled over this for a long time, you have thought about this type of topic for a while. i have to say, i am not convinced this is the turning point for republican lawmakers, many of whom are in districts that the president is still more popular in than they are. >> for starters you are very kind but i actually do remember watergate. i was a child at the time but i do remember it. yes, i think two things werer going on here. one i think the press has sort of been playing along for reasons i don't quite understand with this fiction that donald

trump had a choice as to whether he was going to sit down or not. doesn't. he will be subpoenaed if he doesn't agree. and mueller has very little incentive to curtail the interview, the deposition, in any real material way. and it's actually pretty clear that he gets to do this. not only do you have nixon, but clinton v paula jones. >> correct. >> in my latest column i'll quote from it. basically it says the president is subject to legal process. in the famous murder trial of aaron burr, chief justice marshal enforced a subpoena against the president of the united states. that's how solid we are in saying the president is not above the law. he will be subpoenaed. and he will be compelled to testify. >> let me read this from your column. you quote from clinton v jones the court found it is also settled that the president is subject to judicial process in appropriate circumstances. although, as you just said although thomas jefferson

apparently thought other wise, chief justice marshal ruled that a subpoena could be directed to the president. >> correct. >> we have gone through interpretations of this a few times. >> yeah. and everyone is sort of pretending like there is some controversy or the president has some wiggle room. he really has very little and that was the purpose of my piece, which is when are republicans going to say if -- mr. president, if you duck a subpoena, if you try to snub the court after you have exhausted whatever appeals you want to take that should be an impeachable offense. that has to be the rule. because without it you are saying the president is above the law. >> right. >> you are saying he cannot be compelled. and then the question becomes, will he assert the fifth amendme amendment? that is an interesting question. legally he can do that. he's a citizen. he's a resident of the united states. we all have fifth amendment rights. but frankly asserting the fifth amendment is incompatible with his oath of office. he took an oath to take care

that the laws are enforced, including laws about obstruction of justice, including laws about campaign finance violations. and for him to interpose his own personal interests in avoiding -- >> over interests of the country. >> exact liam i think it would be a material breach of hi oath. >> sorry to interrupt. here a question. the turning poinl for me if i was a member of congress would be the tweets where the president in the last week or so has suggested i'm not involved in the justice department but they are going to force my hand. i mate get involved in the justice department. literally signaling to his base that he will do something many lawyers and thisnkers think woud constitute an impeachable offense. >> rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who is in charge of supervising the

special counsel made an appearance and gave an impassioned explanation of the rule of law. it doesn't give the president the ability to reach down into the justice department and defend him selves. that's an abrogation, a violation of the rule of law. if he goes there, if he either fires people or he sends down orders not to issue a subpoena or request a subpoena, then we are into impeachment territory because then it's not timplly whether trump did this or that. it's whether the president as a presidential matter going could be compelled to abide by the rule of law. >> that's what in watergate changed peoples mind. not whether the law is on his side or not, but whether he is abiding by the law. i would recommend people read this column of yours. it does lay it out in a great

way. republican lawmakers must decide, can trump snub a opinion. coming up, michael of a gnatty, attorney for stephanie clifford, better known as stormy daniels will weigh in on the changes to trump's legal team. who is going be the the first one to talk to president trump under a court under oath in an interview setting. you are watching msnbc.

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it seems all of trump's various legal teams have their hands fuchl let's move on to the top lawyer for the trump organizatio organizati organization. he is weighing in on allegations from trump's law time doctor. dr. harold barn steen says last year the top lawyer for the trump organization and the president's long term bodyguard showed up at his office and raided the place. but a spokesperson for the organization's chief legal officer doesn't use the word raid in the statement today they called it a hand-off. they said it was peaceful and cordial. anna schechter probe the story yesterday. he spoke to bornstein, the doctor himself, he did not describe it that way. he used colorful terms with you to describe what happened in that what he calls a raid, what they call a hand-off of trump's medical records. >> he used the term burglary.

he felt intimidated. he was frightened. he wishes he had called the police or the fbi. now it's been a year and he feels ready to talk about it. he was seeing ronny jackson of the now former white house doctor in the news a lot decided he was ready to tell his story and called me up. >> have you been able to establish since your reporting whether he has standing on this. in other words could trump's people legally get hold of donald trump's records? >> well, you need to have a hippa release form. there was a letter a piece of paper, that schiller and the other two men had. dr. bornstein believes it was from ronny jackson. no one can remember if it was signed. so that part of the story is in question. >> let's talk about the facts of this. this is a statement for the spokesperson for allen gar ten. he said at the request of the white house dr. bornstein voluntarily turned over the medical reports to mr. schiller testimony handoff, which occurred well over a year ago

was peaceful, cooperative and cordial. prior to turning over the documents the doctor was informed of the reasons for the request and willingly complied. are these facts in dispute? this stuff that they are saying? >> two days before they showed up at the office, a story ran in the "new york times" where -- and source of the story was dr. bornstein. and we all found out that donald trump takes propecia. >> a hair growth medication. >> right. so one understands that president trump did not want any more of his medical information divulged. and it is understandable that he wanted to get his hand on his medical records. >> this doctor acknowledges that he was the source of that information. >> yes. >> anna thank you. coming up, another week, another lawsuit against president trump. at least that's how it feels. the latest, stephanie clifford also known as stormy daniels is suer for defamation saying the president attacked her in a tweet calling her a liar.

michael avenatti joins me after the break. sfx: muffled whistle text alert. i'm your phone, stuck down here between your seat and your console, playing a little hide-n-seek. cold... warmer... warmer... ah boiling. jackpot. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, you could be picking up these charges yourself. so get allstate, where agents help keep you protected from mayhem... ...like me. mayhem is everywhere. are you in good hands?

this just in. attorney general jeff sessions spoke to us justice department about that caravan of migrants from central america who are applying for asylum in the made to. he says more judges are heading

to the border to prostes asylum cases more quickly. you know many of these people are sleeping on the ground outside not being admitted even for an asylum hearing into the united states. pete has the latest. >> what he says is they are going to send more judges and more prosecutors. 35 more prosecutors from border states surging in. 18 more immigration judges to handle cases. the message was clear. he wants these people run through the system quickly. he wants the message to get out that this is not going to be an effective way to get into the united states, that the way to do it is to apply. as he said, get and line and do it legally. he noted that well over a million people were admitted to the u.s. legally last year. that is the way to do it. i asked him whether there were humanitarian concerns about the people who are here now trying to get in. and he said they are being treated humanely. but this is mainly about trying

to get the message out to others who would try to come here that they are going to get the quick turnaround through the justice system and be sent home. >> all right. pete. thank you for that. it is worth noteding that from ecuador, honduras and god malla the countries that the people in the caravan are from the denial rates are generally upward of 70% when she is hearings take place. pete williams for us in front of the justice department. the special counsel's investigation is as you probably know one of the many cases on the president's plate. there may be a lawyer who is closer to a presidential interview than robert mueller. that's michael avenatti. he is the lawyer for stormy daniels. he joins me now. thank you for being with us. let me start with the bigger issue here of the change in the guard again of the president's lawyers. there seems to be a seismic shift here. we seem to be abandoning the idea that the president is going

to have a friendly conversation with robert mueller. and they are headed towards something else. he has just hired a guy who was an impeachment lawyer for bill clinton. what do you read into this? >> i think the likelihood of the president voluntarily sitting down for an interview for a statement under oath with bob mueller or anyone from his team is basically zero at this point. based on my professional fin and years of experience in reading those questions and my understanding as to where things stand i don't think it's going to hatch i don't think he is ever going to voluntarily do that. >> you mabel the proof why because you have been baiting the president and he takes the bait sometimes. he has made references to the payment and michael cohen and stormy daniels a few times even though he has been advised not to because of thing you have done. >> we are doing our job. i think thus far we are doing it well. i don't think that he is

disciplined by any stretch of the imagination. ali, when you have a litd gant that's not disciplined in litigation and you have lawyers on the other side that are aggressive whether it is our case or bob mueller and his team that makes for a very, very bad situation for the individual that's not disciplined. i think that sooner or later that's going to pose a problem. >> ultimately there are a lot of questions about subpoenas and the president is what can he can do and what he can do versus executive privileges. we have examples dating back to aaron burr, richard nixon and president clinton that actually somebody can get the president to sit down either under oath or in an investigatory seth. who is likely to get that? where are you in this picture? >> my personal picture is i think we are going to get a swing at the pitch before bob mueller. i think there are a number of reasons for that. i think our case is not as

politicized by any stretch of the imagination compared to the bob mueller investigation and where that is. i think that he and others associated with him are under a lot of pressure politically. anybody who claims otherwise i think doesn't understand how the process works. i think there is a high likelihood that bob mueller may in fact be terminated or fired depending on what transpires this the next weeks or months. i think it would be atrocious if it happened but it wouldn't surprise me. inthe president is more hikely toe sit down for a deposition or be ordered to sit down for a position in connection with one of our two cases. >> one of those case is about defamation. and one of the thing we had on msnbc was sort of a question about after her 60 minuteser is interview and after she talked about all the gigs she is getting now, is that a hurled for you to prove defamation? because she seems to be doing fairly well, benefiting from this at least economically. >> there are two avenues under new york law to prove defaming

a. per se defamation, you do not have to prove actual damages or special damages in connection with. then there is garden variety defamation where you have to prove special damage, we have pled the case as per se defamation because our say is that the president by way of his tweet accused my client of committing a crime, namely fabricating this assault and the etch and of the man when the reality it did happen. in that area, we don't have to prove daniels and we think we would be entitled to damages nonetheless. >> what that tweet was, a sketch about a non-existent monarchs total con job playing the fake media for fools. the president has implied in that tweet that he knows of no such man or the existence of such a man who threatened your client. >> you are absolutely correct. i keep asking a very simple question, if the president knew nothing of stormy daniels back

in 2006 and 2007, if he knew nothing of what was transfiring in 2011 relating to the hin touch article, if he knew nothing of the agreement, nothing of michael cohen's efforts, and nothing of the payment, then would he know whether this man was existent or not. >> right he would know as much about that man as i would. no idea whether he existed or not. >> correct. how could he possibly offer a statement of fact relating too that man's basis or his existence? it makes no sense. >> does the fact that the president is known to tweet thing that are not factually accurate help or hurt you. >> i think it helps us because we have a claim for punitive j das. in that kind of a climb you can look at like conduct and an evident to ask a jury to award punitive damages. >> there is a circle here. michael cohen, the president, and then there is other stories. and american media, the parent company of the national enquirer seems to be taking a different

tack with michael cohen. you seem to think that means something, that they are now taking a negative approach to michael cohen. see this title here, trump's fixer, secrets and lice. why do you think they are doing it? most people think they are all on the same side. >> i think this is a back channel effort by mr. president trump and others in the administration to begin the erogue of michael cohen's credibility -- erosion of michael cohen's credibility. because they have determine what i have been saying for weeks, a he is in a lot of trouble and b there is little question whether he is going to roll over, turn or flip, whatever phrase you want to use on the president. this is the beginning stages of them trying to take his legs out from underneath him so they can later argue he doesn't have any credibility when he flips on the president. >> it may work on the shelves of the stores that sell the magazine. does that help in a court of law. >> you don't know how a jury or owes are going to view this. there is a pr angle as relates to this. it may prove as fodder for him

to ultimately fire the special counsel. it is a dynamic fluid swachlgs i think they are trying to lay the groundwork for destroying his credible. >> michael avenatti is the attorney for stephanie clifford. coming up, kanye west is raising eyebrows once again, this time about recent comments about trump and slavery. some of those comments tame came during an interview with charlamange tha god. age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd. that's why i fight. because it's my vision. preservision. try areds 2 + multivitamin.

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the pressure on the president keeps mounting as his lawyers keep falling. what he plans to do next with special counsel robert mueller remains unknown. but did the president actually ever intend to sit down with mueller and answer his questions? my next guest says absolutely not. nick ackerman joins me now. s the former assistant precious watergate prosecutor. 's partner at dorsey and witness. a msnbc legal analyst. he understands this stuff. the president says i want to actually do this. he can't possibly want to do this. >> he want to do this like he wants to sit through a root canal. there is no way it is going to happen. he has been saying i'll

cooperating. i'm going to do it. but he hasn't done anything to advance the you will about. instead he is probably responsible for leaking those questions that his lawyers came up with yesterday. he's using as an exexcuse the michael cohen search warrant but he was bound to use some kind of an excuse. i think the bottom line is that the mueller group is going to give him a grand jury subpoena and he is going to have to testify before a grand jury where his lawrence won't be present, when he will be able to walk out and talk to his lawyers when he so chooses. >> which is why a negotiated conversation would be better for the president because his lawyers could possibly be there? >> exactly. possibly in a conference room at the white house. >> right. >> but the fact of the matter is it is got to be done under oath, dot to be done with a transcript. this is a man who even with a transcript will claim he didn't say what the transcript says he said. >> that gets iminto more danger which is what the problem

problem is. that's why his lawyers don't want him talking -- >> the questions that came out are general top i go. you or i could have written them up. the nub of the questions are going to be the questions based on the evidence mueller gathered. whether from the cooperating witnesses who pled guilty, flynn. >> gates. >> gates, wright, and papadopoulos. >> right. >> other cooperating witnesses, all the documents, the documents seized in the search warrant at manafort's home -- the he coulden documents. >> so in the end -- >> he is not going to tell his lawyers, either of that's the other point. >> right. now if mueller determines the only way he is going to get this done is to get a subpoena what's the president cess there. because the president dropped a hint saying i'm going to get

involved. it is his prerogative to do so. the president is saying what, i am going to fire you? what? >> he is going to be served with a grand jury subpoena. if he refuses he either has to make a motion to quash and make an argument before the district court judge, which is a total loser. u.s. versus nixon basically establishes the principle that he is subject to providing evidence whatever that evidence is. no one is even saying he is going to be indicted. he could just be providing evidence on other people. >> right. >> he has zero chance of getting anywhere with that argument. then it will be appealed. it will go probably just like it did with the watergate tape issue. >> to the supreme court. >> to the supreme court. this is not going to take a lock time. in the watergate situation i believe it was around may 20th that the president was ordered to produce the tapes. and by july the supreme court

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welcome back. kanye west is no stranger to controversy, but the hip-hop artist raised eyebrows last week when he tweeted his support for president trump. last wednesday he tweeted, you don't have to agree with trump

but the mob can't make me not love him. we are both dragon energy. he's my brother. he went on to tweet, i don't agree with everything anyone does. that's what makes us individuals. west also tweeted pictures of a red make america great again hat signed by trump and him wearing the hat in a selfie with two other people. the president responded with a tweet saying, thank you, kanye, very cool. a lot of people have criticized kanye for his comments about donald trump. and in an interview with nationally syndicated radio host charlamagne tha god he talked about how he identified with trump as an outsider. >> when he was running, it's like i felt something. it's like the fact that he won, it's like it proves something. it proved that anything is possible. in america. that donald trump could be president of america. i'm not talking about, you know, what he's done since he's been in office. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> but the fact he was able to do it. >> well, i guess that's a sentiment a lot of people can agree with. charlamagne tha god joins me to

talk about the remarkable interview create a lot of buzz. he's talked to a few people in the last few days. in typical kanye fashion he continues to get a little bit more controversial every time he speaks. he said a few very interesting things. let's start with that one. >> okay. >> he looks at donald trump as a feller outsider, fellow traveler outside of normal circles. i guess that part you can get. what else did he tell you about donald trump and his seeming affection for him? >> that's literally all it is. it's not about donald trump's policies, it's not about donald trump's ideology. i don't think kanye is even aware of any of those policies and ideologies. that's why he looks ignorant. if you're throwing on the make america great again hat and you don't know what this guy stands for, you only like him because of his quote-unquote style, because he's an outsider, because he reminds you of yourself because you're that type of rebel energy, say what you want, interrupt people at awards shows, that's not a good enough reza to stand next to a

bigot, if you ask me. >> he's working through a bunch of things on his own and he talks about the fact that interrupting taylor swift at an award show seems to have cost him a little bit in his career. >> yeah, absolutely, it did. with great risk comes great reward. i'm sure there are a lot of people who might have turned their back on cann i can't in that moment. and there are people who agree with him. that's the rule of 10. 6 people will agree, four people will be on the fence. we worry about everybody not liking it as opposed to people who felt the same way you felt. beyonce did have the best video that year. i'm not going to say you had every right to interrupt that young woman on stage, you didn't. you voiced your opinion and people agreed with you. >> do you think his affinity for donald trump has something to do with his animosity for barack obama who really liked kanye and maybe still likes kanye, but chastised snim >> that's a good point. it's kind of like when donald trump was at the white house correspondents dinner and barack

obama was on stage making jokes about trump so trump became the villain. it's kind of the same thing with kanye. they both remind me of the villain off the earn credibles. remember the ville on off the first incredible s? they didn't embrace him so he became the villain, that's what i get kanye's situation. >> the things he says that are getting a lot of attention are his comments about racism and slavery. let's listen to what he said about racism. >> first thing they say is racism. they say, what makes george bush more -- any more racist than trump is a question my friend asked me. my response is, well, racism isn't the deal breaker for me. if that was the case i wouldn't live in america. >> interesting response, racism isn't a deal breaker for me. if it were i wouldn't live in america. >> i said that's some rich

rhetoric. that's what a rich person can say. they have the option to move someplace else. i don't know too many places where they can go to escape racism or colorism. but, yeah, i feel like that's just a disconnected statement because it's a lot of people here who are disinfranchised that don't have any options whatsoever. i think that's a very rich statement from a rich person. that's a rich person's option. but a lot of other people in america don't have that option. >> you were actually fairly accommodating of another statement he made about slavery being a choice. and that he meant something more complicated than he actually said. and you gave him some advice about maybe thinking twice before saying something like that, that that's going to get a lot of attention. he did say slavery is a choice. >> i have a segment on my show where i give donkey of the day for being stupid. it's not about what you meant to say, it's about what you

actually said. what he meant to say was psychological slavery and, you know, he was talking about we shouldn't be enslaved now mentally. but that's not the way it came out. the way it came out was 400 years of physical slavery, us being kidnapped, us being sold, bought over here, raped, tortured, it's not like slave was a fraternity. i didn't enroll in slavery. we didn't have a choice in that matter so that was just a stupid statement. >> you did tell him, to he, the advice you'd give him is measure twice, think it through. >> he's into clothing. when you're into clothing, he has a factory. he watches people make clothes. when you see people cut fabric, they measure twice so they can cut once because they're not going to waist that fabric so don't waste your thoughts like that. you have too big of a platform. you have too much influence. there are people actually out there listening to you. when they hear that rhetoric,

look, kanye said slavery is a choice. black people can get up and go be great. yeah, i feel like we can get up and go be great but it's more nuanced and more complex the way he words it. >> charlamagne tha god, thank you. the host of the breakfast club. all right. shifting gears quickly, you probably noticed the rising prices at the pump. according to aaa the average price for regular is 2.81 a gallon u. up 40 cents from this time last year. gas prices have reached their highest level since 2014. obvious culprit is the rising price of crude oil. that upward trnd continued today. oil closing at just under 68 bucks a barrel. join us to figure this out, a guy i turn to because he can explain it in easy to understand language, stephen schork, editor of the schork report. insight into the global energy industry. are we going to see oil prices continue to go up?

>> we're at the peak right now. we're quickly approaching the peak, ali. we have to keep in mind we are at a part of the season where demand is starting to rise. crude oil demand very large, very, very stable right now. so, in fact, we've had recently record demand for crude oil. now, what does that tell you? if you have record demand for crude oil, that means you have record dee planned for production and diesel. whatever you take out of the refinery, you put in the refinery. we're gearing up for the summer supply to get to the market. i will add, people who are naturally long oil have never sold oil forward to the amount they have now. they are record short, which just means they're going to bring even more production and we've already set crude oil production here in the united states in 14 out of the last 15 weeks. that is going to continue because the hedges are in place. who has been buying all the oil? >> yeah. >> of course, it's our friends on wall street. it's speculators. they're driving this market

higher. this is a market the last $5 being driven by geopolitical fears. there is a risk premium priced in. the latest coming out of the netanyahu's presentation the other day which helped turn a loser in oil to a winner. it's the same situation today. you had a very strong rebound, sell off in the dollar following the fed meeting and now you had a late rally in oil prices. but we are really, i think, pushing the limit here. >> all right. i hope you're right on that, at least for people who have to buy gasoline at the pump. somebody is making money off of this. steven, good to see you. >> thanks, ali. >> stephen schork editor of the schork report. that does it for me this afternoon. i will be back tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon covering all the news for you. but for now "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. /s >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. we have breaking news on the president's legal battle with special counsel robert mueller,

and new details about the team that's being assembled to aid him in that fight. "the new york times" breaking the news this afternoon that veteran impeachment lawyer emmet flood has joined the white house to help defend the president in the mueller investigation role until today will depart after a brief transition. flood is a veteran of both the clinton impeachment proceedings and several bush era and legal congressional investigations. we can add to their headline additional reporting on flood. three sources tell me the recruitment of flood to the president's legal team sends a clear signal that the team plans to rely much more heavily on a legal strategy long advocated by current white house counsel don mcgahn, to exert executive privilege more aggressively. two of these sources say flood's finesse at exerting executive privilege was on display in legal work he conducted during the busch iv 3 administration. i am