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CNN Obtains Secret Trump-Michael Cohen Audio Recording. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 25, 2018 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER PERSONAL LAWYER FOR DONALD TRUMP: I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info.

[05:59:33] RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP (via phone): I've dealt with much worse case than this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's got truth on his side now, and he has to tell the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going to flip. There's no question. He's now made it clear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing on this tape suggests to me that there's an illegal act.

MICHAEL AVENATTI, ATTORNEY FOR STORMY DANIELS: It is certainly circumstantial evidence that Donald Trump knew about each of these payments.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, July 25, 6 a.m. here in New York. And we do begin with breaking news for you. We have a major CNN exclusive.

CNN has obtained a secret audio recording between then-candidate Donald Trump and his attorney, Michael Cohen, two months before the 2016 election. This audio appears to confirm that Donald Trump knew of the effort to pay off and silence former "Playboy" model Karen McDougal and her story of their alleged affair.

The Trump campaign had repeatedly denied that. Former communications head Hope Hicks had said in a statement, there was, quote, "no knowledge of any of this."

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: In fact, she said, "We have no knowledge of any of this," and given that the campaign included the now-president, and you can hear his voice on the tape talking about it, that seems to be a lie. And it was a lie that was told just before the election. The recording also raises questions about whether the president was

trying to cover his tracks with cash payments. Now this part is unclear on the tape, and you should listen to this for yourself.

But what is clear is that it is definitively -- that it is not, I should say not definitively exculpatory, which was the claim from the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. That is now spin. It informs our knowledge of what he was trying to do.

What's more, you can hear Donald Trump on the tape talking about delaying the release of possibly incriminating information. What does that tell us about his mindset and intentions before election day?

Finally, the mere fact of this release seems to tell us there is no turning back for Michael Cohen. This looks like a full split, which opens up more than a can of works. It's like a bucket of worms, or a trough, or a truckload of worms.

We have this all covered for you this morning. Let's begin with CNN's M.J. Lee. You need to hear this tape -- M.J.

M.J. LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. That conversation with Donald Trump that Michael Cohen secretly recorded is officially no longer a secret. Thanks to this audio that CNN exclusively obtained last night, we can now all listen to that exchange between Trump and Cohen shortly before the 2016 election.

Now, you're going to hear them talk about a couple of things, but watch out for this at the end. You hear the two men discussing a payment to a woman who said she had an affair with Donald Trump. Here's that recording. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know what's happening, OK? Oh. Oh. Maybe because of this it would be better if you didn't go. You know, maybe because of this, for that one, you know, I think what we do is get rid of this. Because it's so false with this thing. Such bullshit.

I think -- I think this goes away quickly. I think what -- I think it's probably better than the Charleston thing. Just this time. Yes, it's a waste of time. I think right now it's better, you know? OK, honey, you take care of yourself. Thanks, babe. Yes, I'm proud of you. So long.

What's up with you?

COHEN: Great poll, by the way. CNN, great poll. Big time.

TRUMP: Making progress. And your guy's a good guy.

COHEN: Pastor Scott (ph)?

TRUMP: Pastor Scott (ph). What's happening?

COHEN: He's --

TRUMP: Can you use him anymore?

COHEN: Oh, yes. A hundred -- no, you're talking about Mark Burns. We've told him what to say.

TRUMP: Bob Burns, can we use him anymore?

COHEN: No. No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Lovecraft (ph). I'm sorry. Mr. Lovecraft (ph) just called. He said when you had a chance, he had an idea for you.

TRUMP: OK, great.

COHEN: So we got served from the "New York Times," I told you this -- we were --

TRUMP: To what?

COHEN: -- to unseal the divorce papers with Ivana. We're fighting it. Kasowitz is going to --

TRUMP: Never be able to get that done. Never, never.

COHEN: Kasowitz doesn't think they'll ever be able to. They don't have a legitimate purpose.

TRUMP: Get me a Coke, please!

COHEN: They don't have a legitimate purpose, so --

TRUMP: And you have a woman that doesn't want this.

COHEN: Correct.

TRUMP: Who you've been handling.

COHEN: Yes. And --

TRUMP: And it's been going on for a while?

COHEN: For about two or three weeks now.

TRUMP: All you have to do is delay it for a few weeks.

COHEN: Even after that, it's not going to ever be opened. There's no -- there's no purpose for it.

Told you about Charleston. I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David so that -- I'm going to do that right away. I've actually come up, and I've spoken to --

TRUMP: Give it to me and get me a (UNINTELLIGIBLE). COHEN: -- Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up. With --

TRUMP: So what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?

COHEN: -- funding -- yes. And it's all the stuff.

TRUMP: Yes, I was thinking about that.

COHEN: All the stuff. Because -- here, you never know where that company -- you never know where he's going to be --

TRUMP: Maybe he gets hit by a truck.

COHEN: Correct. So I'm all over that. And I spoke to Allen about it, when it comes time for the financing, which will be --

TRUMP: Wait a sec, what financing?

COHEN: Well, I'll have to pay him something.

TRUMP: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) pay with cash.

COHEN: No, no, no. I got it. No, no.

(BRIEF AUDIO GAP)

COHEN: Hey, Don, how are you.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

LEE: Now, obviously, the quality of that recording is far from perfect, and there is now a dispute about the very last piece of what we just heard.

You may have been able to make out Donald Trump saying the words "pay with cash." Then you hear Michael Cohen responding, "No, no, no, no."

[06:05:06] Now the president's legal team have put out its own transcript of this recording. And according to Rudy Giuliani, in that muddled portion of the recording, Trump is actually saying, "Don't pay with cash," and then goes on to say the word "check." So this cash versus check debate, whether Trump was saying the payment should be made in cash or with a check, is going to be one of the sticking points for the Trump and Cohen legal teams.

Now, having said that, we all should not lose sight of the big picture. This recording provided to CNN appears to show the president and his personal attorney discussing a payment to a woman in order to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with Donald Trump, and even more importantly, the audio appears to show that Donald Trump had contemporaneous knowledge about this hush payment despite his denials in the past -- John and Alisyn.

BERMAN: And despite the capaign denials, the explicit denials, before the election, and the explicit denials while from the White House after the election, as well.

M.J., thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, M.J.

OK. So let's bring in CNN senior political analyst John Avlon; CNN political analyst David Gregory; and CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Laura Coates.

Laura, I want to start with you. Because in terms of, obviously, it's stunning to hear these negotiations. It's amazing to hear what Michael Cohen, how he spoke to Donald Trump, what he was willing to do for Donald Trump, how he's walking Donald Trump through all of this. Legally, what do you hear?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: One reason it's so stunning, Alisyn, is that you're hearing attorney-client communications, and you never really hear that, because you have a privilege attached to it.

And so on the one hand, you see that there is an effort by, perhaps, Rudy Giuliani where they decided not to assert that privilege here, to say, "We'd like the people in the court of public opinion to decide whether or not this makes Michael Cohen look good or makes Donald Trump look bad. And they're banking on the latter."

No. 2, what I really hear here is the idea of what M.J. talked about. That contemporaneous knowledge. That up till now, we haven't know whether or not the president of the United States, while he was then- candidate Donald Trump, really truly knew about the allegations or about the AMI company trying to compress the story of Karen McDougal, and whether or not it would have some impact on the election.

You hear him allude to "We've got to delay the Ivana Trump disclosures" till after. And he kind of has an ellipse on the end of that, followed by communication about whether or not they have to suppress all the stories, or all the things that David Picker, the head of AMI may have in his pocket.

And so what you're seeing here is somebody with knowledge, which goes against exactly what he told us all along. But it doesn't really move the needle that far, because there's not a specific mention of the election.

BERMAN: No, although if AMI, which of course, is the company that owns "The Enquirer," if they were doing this to help Donald Trump, that would be a campaign expenditure, and that opens up serious legal questions here.

And the contemporaneous knowledge of the president is crucial in that sense. So when you hear the president ask "So what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?" That tells you, his head is in this game, in this game before the election, after "The Enquirer" was already in this.

And also, David Gregory, I'll point out that Michael Cohen says, "All the stuff." "All he stuff," opening up the door to this responsibility that there's more than just this Karen McDougal thing.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, and that's what I think is important, John. I think that what -- what they are doing, what Michael Cohen is doing through Lanny Davis is really going to war with the president and his team, suggesting, "Hey, this is what I got, and maybe there's a lot more" that he could talk about. That would be embarrassing enough for the president to maybe give him a pardon, which may be really what's at play here.

Or maybe there is more that Cohen knows that may be relevant to what the special prosecutor, Bob Mueller, is looking into. Right now, there's a separation between that case, that investigation, and what they're doing in the Southern District of New York related to campaign finance violations, potentially. He could also be facing, Michael Cohen could, bank fraud charges, as well, for some of these payments.

So the political distraction is the president lying, if that's what's going on here, despite their denials about these payments right before the election? What could be worse about knowledge of the campaign finance violations. And what more does Michael Cohen have? That's what's -- that' the question that's here.

The other piece of this, just the insight that the tape provides, is the kind of world around Donald Trump and the campaign which you have to assume is true in the White House, as well.

I mean, here is this, frankly, sycophantic sounding lawyer, talking about, "Oh, I've got this covered." And he's talking so fast. "And I'm all over this, and by the way great poll, and you're looking great. And everything is fantastic." I mean, there's just an intensity of that exchange that I think is revealing.

CAMEROTA: I agree. It is the world around him that is, I think -- this is a fascinating window into. And about that world, John Avlon. You know, people are willing to lie for Donald Trump.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

[06:10:08] CAMEROTA: We see. And look, it's no surprise that a candidate who is caught having an affair, or the information about an affair could come out would want to suppress that. OK? I think we've seen that movie before. OK?

But the idea that people around him -- I mean, Hope Hicks on November 4 to "The Wall Street Journal." Hope Hicks -- here, I'll read it. "Trump campaign spokeswoman said of the agreement with Ms. McDougal, "We have no knowledge of any of this." There, maybe she didn't, OK? "She said that Ms. McDougal's claim of an affair with Mr. Trump was," quote, "totally untrue."

AVLON: Right.

CAMEROTA: How could she know that?

BERMAN: Can I say something. Maybe she didn't know, but when she says "We have no knowledge of this," that implies "we, the entire campaign." That includes the candidate.

CAMEROTA: OK.

BERMAN: That is a lie.

CAMEROTA: Well --

BERMAN: Whether she knows it's a lie, it is a campaign lie.

CAMEROTA: I don't want to dissect that, whether or not she was lying. But the part where she says "totally untrue" is unknowable for her.

BERMAN: I'm going lie.

CAMEROTA: You're going lie. My point is this, that they're willing -- if you spent years with Donald Trump, OK, there is no way that you could ever say that the idea that he had an affair was totally untrue. Every single person in New York City who ever read "The New York Post" knew it was not totally untrue that he would have an affair.

AVLON: Yes. There should be a presumption that he had an affair.

But I think a couple things. First of all, it is the press secretary's job to know whether something is true when they speak to the press.

Second of all, we've seen a pattern that lying is a measure of loyalty in this campaign and in this administration. And I think what's so explosive about the tape isn't just the fact that his consigliere has turned on the president of the United States. And they say there are over tapes.

But it is part of this larger recognition that the Trump team's best defense at this point is "Don't believe your eyes and ears." The president said it yesterday at a VFW rally. And now they're confronting this tape where people have to decide whether they're going to believe their ears or believe the president and his lawyer. Because that spin that he's actually saying, "No, don't pay cash" is pretty desperate.

BERMAN: "What you are reading, what you are seeing is not what's happening" --

AVLON: Right.

BERMAN: -- is what the president said. We just heard with our own ears what transpired between the two, and to me it is a huge window into what Rudy Giuliani was doing when he released the notion of this tape last Friday.

We were all talking, Laura, last Friday. "Why is -- why is Giuliani coming out with this? Why is he telling us all about this?" It's because he wanted to put his spin on it early. He used the word "exculpatory." I don't know whether or not the president said "cash or check," or "cash or no check." You can't tell. It may not be incriminating, but it is not -- not -- exculpatory. It just doesn't say what Rudy Giuliani definitively says it says.

COATES: You know, when you try to launch a pre-emptive strike, the only reason you would do so is if you fear the person actually has something to wage against you in the form of a war. And what they were anticipating by doing that preemptive strike last week is saying, "Listen, I'm going to take some of the air out of the sails of Michael Cohen if this -- if this comes out," which it likely would have come out. He was trying to get ahead of it.

But he's kind of getting ahead of it for a legal reason, I think, as well. Because I think you have to realize that you have the crime fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. And although we have heard from Donald Trump only a sliver of his work, legal work was ever done by Michael Cohen, there is still the notion of, well, the attorney-client privilege is only as good until you actually commit a crime or you and your lawyer are conspiring in furtherance of a crime. If that's the case, then it had to be litigated.

They were trying to get ahead of the public narrative, as well as even having to litigate the issue of the crime-fraud exception, which by the way, Nixon never even had to, as well, because he was trying to get ahead of that, as well. Just ask John Dean about that notion. And so, I think, on two different notions here, he had this idea, and he was trying to make sure that whatever came out, they had their thumb on that particular scale.

BERMAN: Johnny, you brought -- you want to go into the Nixon thing? You've got some tape.

AVLON: I do. Look, I mean, Yes, the reason the Nixon thing is relevant is one of the smoking gun tapes was John Dean talking with Nixon, and Nixon specifically says, "I know where we can get $1 million cash. It won't be easy, but we can do it."

And -- and that again, I think the specter of a presidential candidate, now president of the United States, talking about a cash pay-off is significant; it's historically resonant; and it's just as ugly as it sounds.

BERMAN: "So what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?"

AVLON: Right.

BERMAN: Question mark.

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: It's not a million dollars. It's not Nixonian. It's not a million dollars. It's 150, a discount rate. "Art of the Deal."

AVLON: A discount rate because, you know, for frequent service. But what I think is significant is that, you know, in this context when you're paying cash, it's always done to hide it.

And the idea -- I mean, listen to the tape. Cohen is definitely saying, "No, no, no, no, no." So, you know, we can't directly parse the exact context, but it's hard to imagine he's said, "No, no, no, no, no, we shouldn't pay with a check."

BERMAN: Look, I don't -- the thing is, is you listen to it, and you don't know. What I do know is that the questions that would have been raised, had we heard this tape out of nowhere, we would have all been asking, "Oh, my gosh. Did the president just say, 'Pay cash'?" And that's why Giuliani came out beforehand and said, "He's definitively not saying, 'Cash'."

AVLON: Keep in mind, it's also specifically, from the context of Cohen saying, "I'm setting up a shell company to make the payoff."

CAMEROTA: Exactly.

AVLON: You don't do that if you're paying cash.

[06:15:08] CAMEROTA: Now David Gregory, very quickly, yes.

GREGORY: I would just say, you know, the larger picture here is a president who, frankly, is known for this kind of behavior, you know, that he's trying to cover up. And we've seen politicians do this before.

But he was sufficiently worried during the campaign when other tapes came out, the "Access Hollywood" tape, that all of this could hurt him. And he is in a position now where he's got to wonder whether even his most stalwart supporters look at this and say, "You know, there's some line being crossed, where this leads."

We haven't seen it yet. He's been able to -- to bloody up the narrative around the Mueller investigation enough to obtain that support. But you look at something like this and the unpredictability of it, in case Cohen has more, that certainly is hitting home with the Trump team thinking there's a political piece of this that we just may not want to endure.

BERMAN: Obviously, we have much more to discuss here. The timing. I'm interested in the campaign finance aspect of it. We will ask all these questions when our special coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The breaking news, CNN has exclusively obtained a secret audio recording between then-candidate Donald Trump and his attorney, Michael Cohen. This took place two months, two months before the presidential election. And they're heard discussing this proposed deal to buy the rights to former "Playboy" model Karen McDougal's story, who claims she had an affair with then-Donald Trump. That affair allegedly happened about a decade ago.

[06:20:06] We're back with David Gregory, Laura Coates and John Avlon.

On the legal matter, again, Laura, when the president says, "So what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?" he's putting a value on this information.

He is also noting -- he uses this really fascinating quote about David Pecker, who runs AMI, which owns "The Enquirer." You know, what happens if he get hits by -- maybe he gets hit by a truck. In other words, David Pecker is the carrier of all this knowledge. If he gets hit by a truck, where does that knowledge go? We lose control of it,

Does this not indicate that AMI did something of value for the Trump campaign, which then raises campaign finance questions?

COATES: I think it does suggest that, most certainly, John. And because -- think about it -- he's saying, essentially, "Look, we have somebody. We have an in. This is our boy in AMI. He is privy to information that would be damaging," or you know that there is a tendency on the Trump behalf to try to suppress information that would be damaging, particularly two months before the presidential campaign of 2016.

And so the suggestion, we have to take care of all of that, the whole breadth or scope of it, in case we were to lose that valuable asset. Now that could be they recognize David Pecker as an asset, means that he's able to make a contribution to their world in some way, shape or form.

Now, I know Pecker has gone back and forth and said vehemently that "I am not that person. That's not my role." But it does -- when you hear it with their own ears, it does suggest that there is some connection, some expectation of a contribution, even if it's in kind. And that number 150 means that they're willing to pay for that asset, as well.

CAMEROTA: Hey, David, maybe we should listen again. Because this is the moment where it sounds like Michael Cohen is describing how he's going to set up the LLC. And he talks about talking to somebody, Allen Weisselberg, who was a Trump Organization lawyer, we think?

BERMAN: I think a lawyer, accountant for --

CAMEROTA: Or accountant type. And so -- so let's listen to this shorter version where Michael Cohen is explaining how he's taking care of all this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

COHEN: I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David. You know, so that -- I'm going to do that right away. I've actually come up, and I've spoken to -- I've spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up, with --

TRUMP: So what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?

COHEN: -- the funding, and it's all the stuff. All the stuff. Because here, you never know where that company, you never know where he's going to be.

TRUMP: Maybe he gets hit by a truck.

COHEN: Correct. So I'm all over that. And I spoke to Allen about it, when it comes time for the financing. Which will be --

TRUMP: Wait a sec. What financing?

COHEN: We'll have to pay him something.

TRUMP: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) pay cash?

COHEN: No, no, no, no, no. I've got -- no, no.

(AUDIO BREAK)

COHEN: Hey, Don. How are you?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, what do you hear?

GREGORY: A couple things. First of all, this obviously sheds light on more than this situation, right? Because the whole Stormy Daniels case related to setting up a company that would make the payment to her, right? Which the president has denied, his team has denied.

So all of the other stuff, right? If something happens to David Pecker, there's -- you know, where does the knowledge go? If there's other pay-outs, other affairs and so forth that have to be dealt with, we deal with this through this company.

It sounds clear to me the president's talking about cash. I heard some -- when I first heard this, I heard something else, which was remember this whole business of Michael Cohen paying for this personally. Like no, no, no, we're not -- you're not going to pay, I'm going to take care of it.

Which may not be accurate, but it's just something I heard in all of that. So you lay all of that out there.

The other thing that I think we can't lose sight of is that the president and his team said he didn't have any knowledge of these payments. This tape would indicate that he did.

AVLON: Yes, obviously. Right? I mean --

GREGORY: We can't lose sight of how important that is. When a president is under investigation, says declaratively there was no collusion. And when he's saying publicly that you cannot believe what you hear or see, when he himself has just been contradicted by something that you can't hear or see. And this is the president of the United States and how he's not being truthful with the American people. So that -- we just can't lose sight of all of that as we're dissecting it.

AVLON: No, and the danger, of course, is that it gets baked in the cake. You clearly have a president, among other things, who is lying as a matter of course. He seems very comfortable suggesting cash payouts for silence.

CAMEROTA: Well, sort of, except he goes, "Wait a second. What financing?" as though that's surprising to him.

AVLON: That would be -- he's more used to cash payouts. He doesn't think you need to get financed.

CAMEROTA: Oh, he doesn't want to do a finance plan.

AVLON: And it almost goes without saying that the initial version put forward by Michael Cohen, that these were payments made without Mr. Trump's knowledge, without organization input, solely out of the goodness of his heart to clean up a problem.

GREGORY: Right.

AVLON: That was always the self-evident B.S. that it now appears to conclusively be. So all those things are important.

[06:25:08] But what I think is so important is also the day that this comes out, knowing that there are tapes, the president goes to a VFW hall and says, "Don't believe what you see or what you read." And that is the larger context of this. Whether it's a conscious brushback pitch or not. And it's close to a verbatim quote from Orwell in "1984."

CAMEROTA: Oh, gosh.

AVLON: Which says, you know, the party's No. 1 rule is not to believe what you see or what you hear.

GREGORY: Well, the amazing part of this, too, John, is that all you have to do is follow the president himself and what he says when a camera is present. And all of these contradictions, yesterday he's talking about, you know, "We're not going to apologize anymore," after last week apologizing, saying that the United States was also responsible for the bad relationship with Russia.

All you have to do is listen and watch the president, and you'll see lies. You'll see contradictions. That's all you need to look at. You don't even have to -- to bring the media into it.

CAMEROTA: Well, he doesn't even want you to believe his words. He doesn't want you to believe that he said his words. "Why would -- I can't see why Russia would behind it." All of that stuff is what he's trying to have you you un-hear and unsee.

BERMAN: Let me just read this specific quote that John was talking about right there, because it is really unnerving. "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential demand." Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.

CAMEROTA: George Orwell, "1984."

BERMAN: And I will also bring people back to 24 hours ago, when Maggie Haberman was here. We were asking whether or not the Iran tweet, we were asking about whether this -- revoking security clearances was meant to distract from Russia.

She says, "No, I think a big part of this, in what my sources are telling me," Maggie said, "is that it's about Michael Cohen."

CAMEROTA: Right.

BERMAN: The president is unnerved about Michael Cohen. And I think now we see why. This is something that, you know, he is problematic, to say the least, for the president, Laura.

COATES: Well, you know, the president is well aware that he needs to play Johnny Appleseed in this scenario. He's got to plant the seeds of doubt. Because it's going to be a credibility game of "he said" against "he said."

And when you have that, Michael Cohen is the one who says, "I have truth on my side. I've got the upper hand."

And what Donald Trump is trying to do through his legal team is essentially tell the American people, look, the Karen McDougal scenario may be a foregone conclusion. We all heard the Anderson Cooper interview.

But the Stormy Daniels issue still stays out there. The idea of Essential Consultants and that payout. Let's not conflate the two and think he's saying the same thing.

But what he is doing is trying to prepare everyone and say, "I have now planted a seed of doubt." This is -- this is the seedy character. It's not me. And I'm attempting to exculpate myself in some way."

But make no mistake about it. He is trying to have that bright, shiny object blind you to what you're hearing and what you're seeing. And the American people will decide whether credibility is the issue and whether it should be.

BERMAN: Listen to the president when he stands next to Vladimir Putin Listen to this tape for yourself. Pay attention. Be -- be the judge in this, that would be my advice.

GREGORY: Yes.

CAMEROTA: All right.

GREGORY: One -- one thing about Michael Cohen, though, I mean, this is pretty seedy on his part.

BERMAN: Oh, yes.

GREGORY: As a lawyer, to record his client. And I think, you know, the president will have a constituency saying, "Who is this guy, and why would he do that?" People will look up and go, "Yes, it seems really odd."

CAMEROTA: That is a good question. Why was he just randomly recording conversations with his client?

All right. We have so much more --

BERMAN: I'm totally never hiring him as my lawyer. At all.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

BERMAN: Can we say one more thing about the lie thing? Because I just want to -- because this is -- do not know whether Hope Hicks knew what the truth was at the time.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: But when Hope Hicks says, "We have no knowledge of any of this."

CAMEROTA: Yes?

BERMAN: That is a lie. The campaign --

CAMEROTA: Maybe she meant the press --

BERMAN: No. No.

CAMEROTA: Maybe she meant the press office.

BERMAN: No, doesn't matter.

CAMEROTA: You and I could -- you and I could debate this forever.

BERMAN: "We" includes -- the candidate is the campaign.

CAMEROTA: Maybe.

BERMAN: He knew.

CAMEROTA: I'm not --

BERMAN: He knew.

CAMEROTA: I'm not as upset about that part as when she says the claim of the affair is, quote, "totally untrue."

BERMAN: You know what?

CAMEROTA: That part, I think, is unforgivable.

BERMAN: You can keep the paper.

CAMEROTA: No.

BERMAN: I want you to keep the paper.

CAMEROTA: I have my own.

Listen, we have to get to other stories. Believe it or not, there's a lot of news happening. There have been dozens of people killed in wildfires in Greece. We'll show you what's happening there. In fact, we'll take you there live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)