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Donald Trump has turned American politics into a reality TV show, but how did we get here? We dissect the greatest storm in U.S. political history. (Part 2 of 4)

Protests, political turmoil, pandemic - the inside story of the extraordinary Trump presidency. Friends and foes tell of Donald Trump's rise from TV star to leader of the free world.

Primary Title
  • The Trump Show
Episode Title
  • A Dirty Business
Date Broadcast
  • Monday 26 October 2020
Start Time
  • 20 : 30
Finish Time
  • 21 : 35
Duration
  • 65:00
Episode
  • 2
Channel
  • TVNZ 1
Broadcaster
  • Television New Zealand
Programme Description
  • Protests, political turmoil, pandemic - the inside story of the extraordinary Trump presidency. Friends and foes tell of Donald Trump's rise from TV star to leader of the free world.
Episode Description
  • Donald Trump has turned American politics into a reality TV show, but how did we get here? We dissect the greatest storm in U.S. political history. (Part 2 of 4)
Classification
  • 16
Owning Collection
  • Chapman Archive
Broadcast Platform
  • Television
Languages
  • English
Captioning Languages
  • English
Captions
Live Broadcast
  • No
Rights Statement
  • Made for the University of Auckland's educational use as permitted by the Screenrights Licensing Agreement.
Subjects
  • Documentary television programs--United Kingdom
  • Trump, Donald, 1946---Biography
  • Presidents--United States--Election--2016
  • United States--Politics and government--2017-
Genres
  • Documentary
  • Politics
We're going to build the wall. We're getting it, we've already started. I don't know if you've seen. CHEERING You know, it's funny... So we started the wall... We love you, Trump! I love you, too. CHANTING: USA, USA, USA, USA, USA! He's the only one stand up and stuck his neck out for regular people. ISIS is on the downslide because of Donald Trump. The economy, the stock market is sky high because of Donald Trump. Hi, everybody. We have a lot of things to work on, a lot of things to accomplish. The stock market is up very, very big today. The tax cuts are really kicking in, far beyond what anyone thought. The US intelligence community is increasingly confident that Russian hacking was intended to steer the election toward Trump. We're going to Camp David with a lot of the great Republican senators, and we're making America great again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Welcome back to the studio. One day, if someone were to make a movie of your life, who would you see playing yourself? Maybe, er... Maybe myself. Reality television has taken over America. Donald Trump is the reality television king. We love you, Trump! I love you, too. Tremendously entertaining. The guy knows how to put on a show. I don't want to tell you this, because I want to save the suspense for next week. It was in January, and I was, you know, er, working. I was actually trying to take a nap because I didn't feel well, and my phone just would not stop ringing, and finally I got annoyed and picked it up. And I received over 400 text messages in, like, two hours, and I was like, "What in the actual fuck?" Quite a story today in the Wall Street Journal. The story had broke. President Trump's long-time personal attorney is denying Mr Trump had a sexual encounter with an adult film star. Trump is accused here of paying hush money to cover up an adulterous encounter. It was pretty scary, because suddenly I was the most famous person in the world and I was alone, completely alone. Everyone was looking for me, so I was just hiding out. This is an important story. And, you know, my husband's blowing up my phone. Imagine finding out your wife had sex with THAT thing by turning on the TV. But you know what? Trump picked the wrong person to fuck with. Good morning. It is Friday October 7th 2016. Welcome to CBS This Morning. Hurricane Matthew slams ashore... Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton get ready for a rematch. We'll show you how they're preparing for Sunday's Town Hall debate. Sunday night's debate in St Louis is do or die for Donald Trump. It is a must-win if he wants to keep his campaign alive. I was literally at Reagan Airport, on a plane to St Louis. As I sit down in the plane, I look down at my phone, it's our Chief of Staff at the RNC. She sends me a note and says, "You're going to want to look at this." There's a description of a story that's about to come out with a partial transcript, and I'm like, "Oh, this isn't good." And then, as I sit down in the plane, she says, "There's a video accompanying it." And I was like, "Oh, we're dead, we're dead." The monster political storm rocking down Trump's campaign. His language raw, obscene and repugnant. It goes to this question of predatory behaviour. Make no mistake about it, at this point, Donald Trump's campaign, I think, is literally coming to an end. We are two days away from the second debate of the presidential candidates. Pretty fair bet, this will be one of the issues. There are lots of Trump aides inside Trump Tower, er, presumably still with him, trying to figure out how to respond to this crisis. I'd been obviously talking to Reince Priebus, Chairman of the RNC, up in their room. Trump had looked at him and said, "OK, what are you hearing, Reince?" And Reince looked at him and said, "OK, here's the deal. "You can either lose epically or drop out, "but those are the only two options." I think any politician would have done one of two things. They would have just decided it wasn't... ..they were going to step aside and give up. Or they would have just found some way to grovel and ask for forgiveness. Big discussions going on in that campaign over whether he will come out and address, er, this tape. Any truth of you dropping out? No. They made a very big thing out of it, very immoral, terrible things, terrible things about women - terrible, terrible, terrible. It played like he had murdered four people. They went crazy. Every normal man says something like this somewhere, and most of their wives know it. And Reince Priebus said that the President should drop out, and I basically told Reince to, you know, get lost. The President, you've got to understand when things get tough, he gets calmer. Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! How about Trump? Ask her about that. How about Trump? He's a man! He's an animal! He's a fake. He's not an American. CHANTING CHEERING Any other politician would have just sort of crawled under the bed and...and not emerged. What does he do? He goes outside and basks in the cheers of the people who were standing on the street. Donald Trump's superpower, er, is his brazenness. And I remember the shock of realising that Donald Trump was not going to be cowed or embarrassed by the evidence of his own obscenity, but in fact was going to revel in it, embrace it. Will you drop out, Mr Trump? It was clear that we were going to have to evaluate Donald Trump by very different standards, er, than... ..than politics had ever been played by. CHANTING: USA! USA! USA! That night was obviously traumatic for the campaign. It was very high tension. But, um, we had an ace up our sleeve. We were about to hit 'em right in the mouth. I've never said I'm a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I'm not. Let's be honest, we're living in the real world. This is nothing more than a distraction. I want you to watch the video that we're just getting in. The travelling press pool was called in to a photo op with Donald Trump. This is what they encountered. Bill, you want to narrate what we're seeing here? CAMERAS CLICK I get there for the debate, and Bannon pulls me over to the side and says, "Come here, Rudy." And I said, "What is it, Steve?" He said, "You got to help me on this. "You got to agree that this is a good idea." I said, "What's the idea?" He said, "I got the three women." I said, "What three women?" I got the woman that Clinton raped "and I got the two women that he harassed." So I said, "OK, Steve!" I said, "Look, I've brought all the Clinton women "that he assaulted and attacked in a room. "The press is right there, and we're just going to open the door." We're going to close the trap on live national TV. And Trump...Trump never opens his eyes. He's just laying there, and he goes, "I love it." OK? Hi, I'm Juanita Broaddrick. Mr Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don't think there's any comparison. I'm Kathleen Willey, and I am here to support Donald Trump. Wow, we're just, er, taking this in. The President reaches for the old playbook. Fight back, hit back harder. Never, ever back down. Never go soft. He goes to war. Clinton's lawyer denied all the allegations and said that any allegation that the President assaulted Mrs Broaddrick more than 20 years ago is absolutely false. There's only one way that Donald Trump can win this election - that's to go nuclear. He has to fight fire with a bigger fire. Strap on your seat belts - this surreal race for President about to take a strange new turn. Those women who accused Bill Clinton are right over my shoulder here. They say Hillary Clinton can handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way, but there were aides who found out in here that these women would be in this hall tonight and, George, they look nothing short of shell-shocked. You called what you said locker room banter. You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals. That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that? No, I didn't say that at all. I don't think you understood what was said. This was locker room talk. Er, I'm not proud of it. I apologise to my family, I apologise to the American people. I will tell you that when Hillary talks about words that I said 11 years ago... ..I think it's disgraceful and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth. Mr Mayor, right here. Donald Trump...Donald Trump won the debate... ..hands down. If you watch that debate, he really...got into her head. I think it really shook her up. As they say, politics is not beanball. HE CHUCKLES It's a tough game. And Trump was tougher than they were. * The First Lady is taking her own motorcade to the President's State of the Union address, a break with long-standing tradition. Reports that Stormy Daniels received a pay-off reportedly blindsided the First Lady. The woman was paid $130,000 a month before the presidential election to keep quiet about a sexual encounter with Donald Trump. I know Donald Trump, and look at his three wives, right? Beautiful women, classy women, women of great substance. Stormy Daniels? I didn't need this attention, I didn't want this attention. He called me a liar, and people were attacking me and attacking my child, saying that my child should be taken from me. My husband's freaking out. And I was like, "You know what? Enough is enough. "Fuck this, I won't be bullied any more." I was at a charity golf tournament in July of 2006 in Tahoe. And the company that I worked for, the adult film company Wicked Pictures, er, sponsored a hole. Yes, I understand the irony of that. SHE LAUGHS And Trump came through the gift room. The owner of the company introduced the girls, and I was the last one. He goes, "This is my contract star and director Stormy Daniels." And he goes, "Oh, you're a director, too. You must be the smart one." When he walked away, his bodyguard came back and asked if I wanted to have dinner with him to discuss being on a television show. So, I figured I'd go up and meet him. He asked if we could sit and talk for a minute before we went down. At the time, I was struggling very hard to be taken seriously in the adult business as a director, and I went on a tirade about it, and he was... That's how he thought we could incorporate that into the television show. He's like, "This could be your chance to prove to people "that you are intelligent." We talked for a very long time, and I asked if I could use his restroom. And when I came out, he was on the bed. Like, he was down to his boxers and his socks, doing his impression of Burt Reynolds on the bed. And I was like, "What in the...?" I was so confused for a second, and then it just kind of hit me all at once. I went to walk past him and that's when he stood up and said like, "Oh, I guess you don't really want it," like, "You have to be willing to do whatever it takes." It wasn't a Me Too thing because he, you know, he didn't force himself, and I never said no. But... ..I made the decision to... ..go for what I wanted. I can't believe this is coming out of my mouth, but I think the first person to have outplayed Donald Trump is... ..is a porn star. I've lost count as to how many times the disgusting, liberal mainstream media have attempted to label Mr Donald Trump a racist, a xenophobe and a bigot. And let's not forget sexist, misogynist, narcissist, Islamophobe, anti-Hispanic, anti-Semite demagogue, and countless others. It's disgraceful. Michael Cohen was very essential to the Trump Organization. He had his hands in every single deal. He was kind of, I'd say, the grease that allowed that wheel to turn. The reason they gave him the nickname of Trump's Fixer is because he had an uncanny gift of figuring out very, very difficult - sometimes legal or not legal - scenarios for Donald Trump. One time, in the Oval Office, Donald's there, Michael's there, and myself. We're sitting in front of the President, and we chat. They kind of, you know, start talking in some kind of code, and it just kind of makes me realise it's time for me to go and leave. As things would reveal, apparently there was a lot that they had to conceal. So, I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys. A good man. And, erm, it's a disgraceful situation, it's an attack on our country, in a true sense. This is a pure and simple witch-hunt. We begin with late word of an FBI raid in the New York City offices of President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. MUSIC: You Don't Own Me by Lesley Gore # You don't own me I'm not just one of your... # The FBI today seizing records related to multiple topics, including on that payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, alleged hush money. # ..And don't tell me what to do # Don't tell me what to say # And please when I go out with you # Don't put me on display # Cos you don't own me # Don't try to change me in any way # You don't own me. # Excuse me. Excuse me, excuse me. # ..Don't tie me down cos I'd never stay... # Careful, careful. I had no idea it was going to be so crazy. WOMAN: Stormy, we love you! # ..Don't tell you want to do # So just let me be myself... # Hi, everyone. # ..That's all I ask of you... # So, for years, Mr Cohen has acted like he is above the law. He has considered himself and openly referred to himself as Mr Trump's Fixer. He has played by a different set of rules, or, shall we say, no rules at all. He has never thought that the little man, or especially women - and even more, women like me - mattered. That ends now. My attorney and I are committed to making sure that everyone finds out the truth and the facts of what happened, and I give my word that we will not rest until that happens. Thank you very much. # ..Don't tell me what to do Don't tell me what to say... # Best day ever. I just walked out and... "Nailed it! Mic drop, bitch." # ..I don't tell you what to say # Oh, I don't tell you what to do... # Stormy Daniels was a wonderfully tricky opponent for Donald Trump because the tools he had used to silence women in the past had absolutely no effect on her. Er, she was willing to lawyer up. Other women in the past didn't want to speak up cos they were worried about their own reputational damage. Stormy Daniels didn't care, so what else did Donald Trump have left in his bag of tricks to make her shut up? Nothing. The President's long-time fixer, who once said he would take a bullet for the President, pleading guilty today to those charges, including campaign finance violations meant to silence two women, Cohen acknowledging he was working in co-ordination and at the direction "of a candidate for federal office." Mr President, why did you change your story on Stormy Daniels? We're not changing any stories. All I'm telling you is that this country is, right now, running so smooth, and to be bringing up that kind of crap, and to be bringing up witch-hunts all the time. That's all you want to talk about. You didn't... You're going to see... Excuse me, excuse me. You did not know anything about the payment. You have to... Excuse me. you take a look at what I said. You go back and take a look. You'll see what I said. You said no when I asked you. Excuse me, excuse me, you go take a look at what we said. The remarkable thing about the Stormy Daniels situation is that he survived it. The remarkable thing about "grab them by the pussy" is he survived it. And I think almost everyone around him still says, "How did that happen?" In many ways, his entire life is about one thing, which is getting away with it. It's almost as if he did realise with some self-knowledge at some point in his life that he was a bad boy. So, then the question became, how do you get away with it? * TRUMP: Unlike President Obama, we live by a different motto. It's called "promises made, promises kept". CHEERING Six months ago, we unleashed an economic miracle by signing the biggest tax cuts, the biggest tax cuts in American history. I guess you could say it's like... Must be the biggest deal ever made if you think, trade with China, how big does that get? The investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election now in the hands of a former director of the FBI, Robert Mueller. Appointed special counsel overseeing the probe, he has the power to investigate, to question and to prosecute crimes if any are discovered. The resume is long. At 74, he's been involved for decades in some of the Justice Department's most celebrated cases - mobster John Gotti, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. I was flying on Air Force One with Trump when the word came that Mueller had been appointed, and I think there was sort of a level of astonishment. Every word is going to be scrutinised, every email is going to be re-read. These guys, you know, were now going to go hunting, and, you know, and every possible misdeed that could have been done by anybody would potentially surface. You know, looking under the furniture, pulling the cushions apart, and you never know what they're going to find, and that's the problem. That can open up a can of worms that, you know, could go anywhere. The walls seemed to be closing in on Donald Trump, and he got increasingly agitated. You had the arrest of Michael Cohen and, God only knows, we all thought what Michael Cohen could have on Donald Trump. And you had the fact that Mueller spent hours and hours interviewing the people closest to the President. Who knew what they all had? So, there was a sense that Mueller was really going to come up with something big. The President understood that he was at real risk, if not for something he had done, then for something that the people he had surrounded himself with had done, because for as many times as the President tweeted out "no collusion", there were people close to him who were very much interested in colluding. The people around him had said, "OK, you know, we've got to hire "a really top-notch legal team," and they start to look for lawyers. And no-one will work for them because they are afraid that, if they represent Donald Trump, they won't get paid. And they are afraid that, if they represent Donald Trump, he will publicly fire them and humiliate them. So, he goes to the one person, the only person who will work for him and who will work for free, which is Rudy Giuliani. OK, all right. I was his good friend for 29 years, and he trusted me. So, the President called me up and he asked me if I would have dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago. We spent about three hours together, and he asked me to do it and I said yes. The whole Russian collusion thing was totally crazy, that he was an agent of Russia five years ago, that he urinated on a bed and... It was ridiculous! I mean, they were way out of their minds, but, I mean, they had the big people. They are very important, and they know just how important they are. And here comes this guy that doesn't know anything. It's so patently ridiculous, but it comes out of hatred, it comes out of... ..and out of jealousy. How did this guy get the presidency? Any narrative that contributes to a perception that Donald Trump... ..is an illegitimate president is something he cannot stomach. And so, as questions intensified surrounding how much help Trump got from the Russians, he lashes out. "What Russian interference? "What Russian meddling? "I did this on my own. "I came from outside the system, and it carried me into office," which is true, but it's also true that Russia meddled in the election. You know, it's important to try to keep in mind how up against it Trump has been through the entirety of his presidency, and how much that has escalated day by day by day by day. Everyone is coming after him about everything. "Why me? I'm the President of the United States. "How is it that they can keep coming after me? "How is it that I continue to be threatened here? "That doesn't make any sense. What's gone wrong?" I was beginning to develop a concern, which was that I thought he was losing the public relations war badly. If you took a poll, 70% trusted Mueller and only 30% trusted Trump. They put the guy in who's got the great reputation. The press falls for it. The great Bob Mueller, the great Bob Mueller, the great Bob Mueller. What a phoney act that is! And then it occurred to me that we're going to have to fight this on television. We have got to bring Mueller down. Watch it, guys. Let them through, please. Let them through. I said, "I'm going to really change the way we're doing this. "We're no longer going to be silent." You have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight. These two men could not be more different. On the one hand, you have Trump, who has spent his life skirting the rules. You have Mueller, who has spent his life following every rule. And suddenly, they're on a collision course, and this puts Mueller at a distinct disadvantage. What's your message today, Mr Mueller? A group of 13 highly partisan Democrats that make up the Muller team are trying very, very hard to frame him. The entire thing has been a witch-hunt. Russia is fine. There's no way the American people can trust Robert Mueller to investigate anything Russian-related. President Trump allegedly abusing the power of office to try to shut down a probe into his own White House. So, they create this phoney crime and then they say he obstructed... An angry President delights in calling Mueller "a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue". Special counsel Robert Mueller is seeking documents related to the President's personal business. This was a coup attempt, in my opinion. But does the President tell the truth or not? The President is telling the truth, yes. They're down to desperation time. They don't have a single bit of evidence. So this is much ado about nothing. I think the two of us did a very, very good job of changing the dynamic and flipping it on Mueller. As we said, there's no collusion, there's no collusion whatsoever. Sarah is about to find out if her denture can cope with a steak. Luckily for her, she uses Polident Adhesive, which helps give her 65% more chewing power leaving Sarah to dig in and enjoy. Polident Adhesive. * Before departing Washington today, the President said that he can't say right now if Putin is a friend or foe, but he predicted that his first summit with the Russian leader "may be the easiest" of all his meetings in Europe. Donald Trump's models as he looked around the world were other people he saw who were able to roll the way they wanted to roll. And I think Putin in particular held a special attraction for him. He saw Putin as someone who... ..runs rough shod over the law, over opponents, over the press, and I think Trump loves that. That is his gold standard for how macho men should lead the world. I didn't see any purpose in this meeting, but Trump was obsessed with what he called the "Russia witch-hunt". He thought it was a challenge to the legitimacy of his election in 2016. So Trump just took delight in putting a thumb in his critics' eye, and he wasn't going to be intimidated by the criticism, he was going to meet with Vladimir Putin and...and enjoy it. My objective was to avoid a disaster. There was an enormous amount of build-up, even before the meeting between Trump and Putin. What was it about? Why did Trump want to meet with Putin personally? Hours went by. We sat there. And then Donald Trump comes out, and it was a worse-case scenario. Trump looked beaten and defeated. He seemed to be almost physically submissive to Vladimir Putin in a way that was almost painful to watch. The Russian State has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal American affairs, including the election process. QUIETLY: Thank you very much. The final question from the United States will go to Jonathan Lemire from the AP. Thank you. Question for each president. President Trump, you first. Just now, President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every US intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. Who do you believe? My second question is, would you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again? So, let me just say that all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me, and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have, uh, President Putin, uh, he just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. AUDIO FADES John Kelly and I were sitting next to each other. We're frozen in our chairs. We couldn't...we couldn't believe what, er, what he had said. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Here's a guy who's a former KGB agent, and he... ..he's telling Trump his intelligence services are completely wrong, and Trump takes it as just one more man's opinion. We were running the Department of Homeland Security. It was our job to know where the President's mind was at when it came to foreign adversaries. But we didn't know. And that made us concerned that, when it came to Team USA and Team Russia, the fact that we felt like our own president might be playing for the other team made it pretty damn hard to do what we needed to do to secure the country. Oh, my God! Tuesday brought celebrations across the US for the record-breaking number of women who made history with their victories. Many are Democrats, inspired to run in response to President Trump. We sent a message that we want a better nation. Losing the '18 midterms, he was not happy. Once you lose the House, the Democrats can control the money and have the ability to choke down the money, to choke down everything Trump wanted to do. He can't get his wall built on anything like that. You could see the impending doom, right? Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. The 2018 midterm defeat sends him into a tailspin, and the effect of that on the President's psyche can't be over-stated because he already felt under siege. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, thank you. But that morning after the midterm election, there was an inferno building inside of the President. Go ahead. Watching through the slits in their fingers, the President's staff sees him go on a rant. Your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls and so on. Well, that's true. They weren't actors. They're hundreds of miles away, though. They're hundreds and hundreds of miles away. You know what? That's not an invasion. Honestly, I think you should let me run the country, you run CNN. All right. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better. If I may ask one more... That's enough. Mr President, if I may ask you one more question, are you worried... That's enough, that's enough, that's enough. Mr President, I was going to ask... The other folks... That's enough. Pardon me, ma'am. Mr President... Excuse me, that's enough. Mr President... Peter, let's go. If I may ask on the Russia investigation. Are you concerned that...that you may have... I'm not concerned about anything with the Russian investigation because it's a hoax. That's enough, put down the mic. Mr President, are you worried about indictments coming down on this investigation? Mr President... I'll tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN. Go ahead. Peter, go ahead. In Jim's defence, I've travelled with him and watched him. He's a diligent reporter... Well, I'm not a big fan of yours either, so... I understand. Let me ask you a question if I can. You repeatedly said... You aren't... You aren't the best. Mr President, you repeatedly, over the course of.... OK, just sit down, please. Well, when you... When you report fake news... No, when you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people. Go ahead. Mr President, over the course... ..over the course of the last several days of the campaign... MUSIC: In The Still Of The Night by The Five Satins Could we ask you briefly about Russia? General Michael Flynn is the highest-ranking member so far of the Trump inner circle to be prosecuted in the Russia investigation. # In the still of the night # I held you # Held you tight... # Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to facilitating an unlawful campaign contribution by giving money to Stormy Daniels for her silence. The Southern District of New York has convicted Michael Cohen for making these payments. Michael Cohen received his three-year prison sentence, which he says was the worst day of his life. # ..In the still of the night... # I don't think people understand the amount of time that the President had to spend on this Russia investigation. Every single day. He was being attacked by every side. And I think he is incredibly strong and thick-skinned, but I think - like any human - it...it got to him. When you spend so much time with someone, you're able to read them. I learned very quickly when the President needed ten minutes by himself in the dining room... ..when he just needed a little bit of a break... ..and that's when I would say, you know, "No calls, no meetings. "He just needs a minute to compose himself, "to process what's going on." There were a lot of days where, you know, I would... I would place calls to his family, just so he could hear from someone that wanted nothing from him, that just wanted to give him their love. * Trump and I - and others - used to say... ..it would... Basically, we'd say, "It would be a shame if Cohen flipped," because he'd be lying. Every once in a while, one cracks like Cohen did. Michael was someone that the family trusted and the President trusted, and when he... When he places his trust in someone, he expects that loyalty back, and I think he was very, very hurt by Michael Cohen turning on him. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Let the records show that the witness answered in the affirmative. I have asked this committee to ensure that my family be protected from presidential threats. I am ashamed of my own failings. I am ashamed, because I know what Mr Trump is. He is a racist... ..he is a conman... ..and he is a cheat. But I am no longer your fixer, Mr Trump, and I'm going to prison. How many times did Mr Trump ask you to threaten an individual or entity on his behalf? Quite a few times. 50 times? More. 100 times? More. 200 times? More. 500 times? Probably. OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYS We'll get right to the big news this morning. The President and his allies are celebrating. Robert Mueller's report on Russia's interference in the 2016 election. When I saw that, when I saw that on the front page of the report, the minute I saw that, I wrote it down and I said, "We just won." It turned out to be no crime. It was such a phoney attack. I'm just a poor country lawyer. I need a lot of help. HE LAUGHS I remember the day. The lawyers were in the Oval Office. Everyone was hugging and clapping and....you know, just elation, because it proved what we already knew. The special counsel's report states that his "investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government." As the President said from the beginning, there was, in fact, no collusion. The collusion delusion is over! CHEERING That was incredibly misleading to the American public. It's very, very clear that Robert Mueller in no way exonerates Trump on the obstruction question. Robert Mueller clearly establishes that the Trump campaign was largely aware of Russian efforts to interfere in the US election. They welcomed those efforts. The only thing that was missing in terms of the actual conspiracy was there was no agreement, there was no meeting of the minds. He found no collusion and he didn't find anything having to do with obstruction because they made a ruling, based on his findings, and they said no obstruction. He didn't examine collusion. He laid out the evidence of obstruction... Oh, are you trying to say now that there was collusion, even though he said, "There is no collusion"? He didn't say... He said no collusion. He said he didn't look at collusion... George, the report said no collusion. Did you read the report? Yes, I did, and you should read it too. I read every... Come on, let's go. HE LAUGHS It looks like Donald Trump has dodged every bullet there is to dodge. Mueller's report falls far short of what Trump's allies had feared. The economy is humming along, investigations are over. Donald Trump is sitting pretty-pretty. My own personal feeling is that he spooked Robert Mueller. They kind of made the decision it was more important for them to not imperil the American government than it was to bring down Donald Trump. So, in that, Donald Trump succeeded. If you accept conflict, if you don't run away from it, if you don't... ..if you don't try to avoid it, that becomes a very effective method for getting away with it, because most other people will run from conflict. It was an illegal investigation. It was started illegally. Everything about it was crooked, every single thing about it. There were dirty cops. These were bad people. And this was an attempted coup. This was an attempted takedown of a president, and we beat them, we beat them. So, the Mueller report, when they talk about obstruction... ..we fight back. You have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight.
Subjects
  • Documentary television programs--United Kingdom
  • Trump, Donald, 1946---Biography
  • Presidents--United States--Election--2016
  • United States--Politics and government--2017-