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Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law. I'm Greg's story in Washington

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Speaker 1: with Michael Best and June Grasso in New York. In May,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump tapped his longtime lawyer Mark Cassowitz to head

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Speaker 1: up the president's legal team in the investigations over Russian

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Speaker 1: interference in the election. Now, less than two months later,

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Speaker 1: Trump is shaking up his legal team, and casso Witz

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Speaker 1: maybe eased into a less prominent role. Over the weekend,

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Speaker 1: the White House said it was hiring veteran Washington lawyer

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Speaker 1: Ty Cobb. Bloomberg is reporting the Cob will oversee the

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Speaker 1: white Houses legal and media response to the investigations, including

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Speaker 1: the probe by Independent Council Robert Mueller. With us to

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Speaker 1: talk about these developments and what it might mean for

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Speaker 1: the investigation and the Trump administration. Is Mike Dorning. He's

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News is White House editor. He's joining me here

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Speaker 1: in room in Washington. Mike, thanks for being here. Um,

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Speaker 1: tell us what what has changed? It's only been, you know,

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Speaker 1: less than two months since cass Witz was brought on.

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Speaker 1: What has changed over that time that that seems to

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Speaker 1: have prompted this this movie by the President. Well, a

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Speaker 1: couple of things. There hasn't been a record of success

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Speaker 1: in the Trump administration and beating back this investigation, either

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Speaker 1: in the court of public opinion or in Congress. We

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Speaker 1: haven't really seen what's going on with the Special Counsel,

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Speaker 1: but we do know with the expanding Special Counsel's office

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Speaker 1: and some of the some of the investigating we've heard about. UM,

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Speaker 1: we know that their investigation is expanding as well. So

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Speaker 1: things have gotten worse for President Trump. Uh, and so

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Speaker 1: he's thinking about other things now. There's also been some

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Speaker 1: things that have come out about Mr Castowitz that probably

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Speaker 1: hurt him with the White House too. Well, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about that a bit. Mr Castlewitz is um been emailing

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Speaker 1: in response to folks who are emailing him about defending

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Speaker 1: the president. And Uh. It's sort of strange to have

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Speaker 1: a lawyer responding to folks who are attacking his political

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Speaker 1: client in the way that Cassawitz did, isn't it. Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And this is one of the things that's different about

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Speaker 1: handling an investigation a defense that has big political ramifications

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Speaker 1: and public relations ramifications versus a strict legal fight where

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Speaker 1: your main court of opinion is the court. Um. Here

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Speaker 1: we had UH pro publica wrote uh story alleging that

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Speaker 1: he didn't get a security clearance in part because of

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Speaker 1: supposedly some alcohol problems, and then someone wrote him an

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Speaker 1: email that, um, you know, kind of baited him. And

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Speaker 1: then he sent a long vitriolic response to this just

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Speaker 1: random person, which not surprisingly then became public. It's a

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Speaker 1: it's like a rookie mistake for someone who's involved in

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Speaker 1: things in the public eye. And sure enough that created

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Speaker 1: a big storm. So if you're in the White House

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Speaker 1: and you're someone who's looking at this as a political

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Speaker 1: case and a public relations case as well as a

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Speaker 1: legal case, that immediately creates doubts in your mind about

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Speaker 1: how how sound the judgment of the attorney is when

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Speaker 1: it comes to the non legal aspects of the case.

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Speaker 1: At least, Mike, tell me about this new lawyer, Ty Cobb,

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Speaker 1: who is the namesake of the great baseball player. Um,

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Speaker 1: what do we expect his role will be at the

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Speaker 1: White House? Now he's going to have a slightly different role.

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Speaker 1: He will actually be on the White House staff, which

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Speaker 1: is problematic for strictly speaking attorney client privilege. His conversation

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Speaker 1: with the President will be privileged with a weaker executive privilege,

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Speaker 1: but he'll have a sort of a coordinating, overseeing role

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Speaker 1: where he'll be thinking about the legal strategy inside the

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Speaker 1: White House, the legal strategy outside the White House, and

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Speaker 1: the public relations strategy, and how that all integrates together.

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Speaker 1: In any big Washington corruption investigation, it's really important to

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Speaker 1: integrate those three different fields in which you're fighting. You're

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Speaker 1: fighting a pr battle, you're fighting a legal battle, and

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Speaker 1: you're fighting a battle within Washington's institutions. Well, does this

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Speaker 1: tell us anything about uh White House Council Don Migan's

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Speaker 1: role here. It tells you that he's being given a

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Speaker 1: lesser role in this investigation. And classically speaking, Uh, this

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Speaker 1: is a pattern that the Clinton administration also followed when

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Speaker 1: it was in a when they had a big problem

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Speaker 1: with the investigations in white Water. They also didn't leave

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Speaker 1: it solely to the White House Council. And again that's

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Speaker 1: probably because of the weaker privilege there. Mike just about

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Speaker 1: thirty seconds left. But um, other people at the White

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Speaker 1: House have tried to exert some discipline over the President.

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Speaker 1: In particular, he'd eat as his tendency to wanna keep

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Speaker 1: tweeting and tweeting about his legal issues. Is there you

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Speaker 1: reason to think that Ty Cobb is going to have

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Speaker 1: more success than Mark Castle is than anybody else. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure he's going in hoping he'll have more success, but

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Speaker 1: so far it doesn't look like he's had much success.

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Speaker 1: He was a president, was already tweeting again today about

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Speaker 1: the meeting that his son had with the Russian lawyer,

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Speaker 1: yet again this morning, so he's clearly not staying silent. Okay,

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Speaker 1: thank you. Mike Dorning, Bloomberg News as White House Editor

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Speaker 1: here in the one news room in Washington, talking about

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump's UH legal team shake up,