Trump Slams FBI Raid Of His Personal Lawyer As A Disgrace; President Trump Vows Forceful Response to Syria Attack Soon; Michael Cohen: President Trump's Loyal Fixer.
CAMEROTA: The FBI raided the office and hotel room of President Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. CNN has learned that authorities seized information relating to Stormy Daniels in the raid. Mr. Cohen admitted he paid $130,000 in exchange for Daniels' silence about an alleged affair and that's just one of many moves that Cohen has made to try to protect his famous client. CNN's Gloria Borger has more on President Trump's loyal fixer.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): In the soap opera in which a porn star accepts a payoff to keep quiet about her affair with Donald Trump there's got to be a guy who gets it done.</s>MICHAEL AVENATTI, ATTORNEY FOR STORMY DANIELS: Where is Michael Cohen? Where's Mr. Cohen? Where is this guy? Where is this guy?</s>BORGER: Michael Cohen is where he's been since 2007, standing behind Donald Trump or closer, in his back pocket.</s>SAM NUNBERG, AIDE, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Michael was -- I'd always like to say the Ray Donovan of the office.</s>LIEV SCHREIBER, ACTOR, SHOWTIME "RAY DONOVAN": I'll take care of it.</s>NUNBERG: He took care of what had to be taken care of. I don't know what had to be taken care of but all I know is that Michael was taking care of it.</s>DAVID SCHWARTZ, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL COHEN: He's the guy that you could call at 3:00 in the morning when you have a problem.</s>BORGER (on camera): Do you know stories of Donald Trump calling him at 3:00 in the morning?</s>SCHWARTZ: Donald Trump has called him at all hours of the night. Every dinner I've been at with Michael, the boss has called.</s>BORGER (voice-over): But, Cohen did not call the boss, he says, when he decided to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket 11 days before the election.</s>AVENATTI: I think it's ludicrous.</s>BORGER (on camera): So you believe 100 percent Donald Trump knew.</s>AVENATTI: One hundred percent.</s>MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, TRUMP BIOGRAPHER: There's not a meeting that takes place, there's not an expenditure that is authorized that he doesn't know about it.</s>BORGER (voice-over): Cohen wouldn't go on the record for this piece but his friends claim it's all part of his job in Trumpworld, giving the boss deniability and protection.</s>SCHWARTZ: If you know the relationship between the two people he took care of a lot of things for Mr. Trump without Mr. Trump knowing about it. That's part of the overall structure is that Michael had great latitude to take care of matters.</s>BORGER: In Michael Cohen, Trump hired his consiliari, a version of his longtime mentor, the lawyer Roy Cohn, a controversial pit bull and aggressive defender of all things Trump, no questions asked. After D'Antonio finished his book on Trump he got the Cohen treatment in what turned out to be an empty threat.</s>D'ANTONIO: Then he got mad and it was well, you just bought yourself an f-ing lawsuit, buddy. I'll see you in court.</s>BORGER: In 2011, Michael Cohen described his job this way.</s>MICHAEL COHEN, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: My job is I protect Mr. Trump. That's what it is. If there's an issue that relates to Mr. Trump that is of concern to him it's, of course, concern to me and I will use my legal skills within which to protect Mr. Trump to the best of my ability.</s>BORGER: Cohen, a sometimes-Democrat, first came to Trump's attention after buying apartments in Trump developments. Then went to the mat for Trump against one of his condo boards and won.</s>SCHWARTZ: Trump loved him for it. I mean, that was the beginning of it. And then after that they became close. It was much more than an attorney-client relationship. It was certain -- it was something much deeper, almost a father and son kind of -- kind of thing. Always hot and cold. They -- Donald Trump could be yelling at him one second and saying he's the greatest person in the world the next second. Donald Trump knew that Michael always had his back.</s>BORGER: For Trump, it wasn't about pedigree. Cohen, who is 51, got his degree from Western Michigan's Cooley Law School and had some initial success in the less than gentile world of New York taxicab medallions.</s>NUNBERG: If you look where Michael came from in his legal career before he started working for Trump board, it wasn't like he came from a white-shoe law firm. He came from a hardnosed -- a hardnosed New York trial firm. Trump has an eye for talent and this was somebody that -- I mean, he used to call him his bulldog, his tough guy.</s>BORGER: At The Trump Organization, he'd done a bit of everything, running a mixed martial arts company, securing real estate branding deals, and even taking care of transportation.</s>NUNBERG: You know, the famous Trump plane? There was an engine issue that he actually took care and got a really good deal on.</s>SCHWARTZ: Watching him is -- it's like a -- it's like a reality show. He's got three phones, he's got the hardline, he's got two lines he's texting, he's on the computer.</s>D'ANTONIO: You can almost say this is Donald Trump's mini-me. For a guy who started really in the middle-class on Long Island to now be quite wealthy himself, known internationally, and yes, he's in a bit of jam with the Russia scandal.</s>BORGER: In the eye not only of Stormy but also of interest to the special counsel Bob Mueller and Congress.</s>COHEN: And I look forward to getting all the information that they're looking for.</s>BORGER: During the campaign when Trump said he had no contact with Russia, Cohen was privately trying to cut a deal for a Trump Tower Moscow. It never happened but Mueller has asked about it.</s>NUNBERG: And the sad reality is that Michael pursuing that Trump Tower deal in December is just another factor that goes into this whole Russian narrative.</s>BORGER: Cohen's name was also in the infamous dossier which alleges he traveled to Prague to meet with Russians. He's completely denied it and is suing "Buzzfeed" which published it.</s>SCHWARTZ: It's immeasurable the damage that has been caused to him, to his family.</s>TRUMP: I will faithfully execute.</s>BORGER: When Trump became president he did not bring his brash wingman to Washington.</s>BORGER (on camera): Do you think he wanted to be in the White House? Be White House counsel or --</s>D'ANTONIO: There must have been a part of him that was dreaming of a great job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But he's also the guy who not only knows where all the bodies are buried, he buried a lot of them himself and that, ironically, disqualified him.</s>COHEN: They say I'm Mr. Trump's pit bull, that I am his -- I'm his right-hand man. I mean, there's -- I've been called many different things around here.</s>BORGER (voice-over): Now he may be called to testify with the Stormy Daniels case in federal court.</s>SCHWARTZ: I've known Michael Cohen for over 21 years and I know that he will not rest -- he will not sleep -- he doesn't sleep anyway, right, until he recovers every single penny from Stormy that's due the</s>LLC. AVENATTI: I've seen a lot of attorneys use intimidation tactics. The problem is if that is your speed and if you are a one-trick pony and you use that in every case, when all of a sudden you run up against somebody that doubles down and that isn't intimidated well then, you're lost.</s>BORGER: Cohen flew to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the president the night before Stormy Daniels appeared on "60 MINUTES" because if you're Michael Cohen, you're the ultimate loyalist --</s>COHEN: The words the media should be using to describe Mr. Trump are generous, compassionate --</s>BORGER: -- and you still believe Donald Trump will be loyal --</s>COHEN: -- kind, humble, honest --</s>BORGER: -- to you. Gloria Borger, CNN, Washington.</s>CAMEROTA: We are following a lot of news so let's get right to it.</s>TRUMP: This is the most biased group of people that I've ever seen. Why don't I just fire Mueller? We'll see what happens.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone involved are all people who have basically been handpicked by Donald Trump.</s>AVENATTI: It appears that the noose is tightening around Michael Cohen. The president has considerable reason to be concerned.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of this stuff is way beyond the mandate of why the special counsel was created in the first place.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the president said is that he believes he should be able to determine who is investigated in this country. That's what dictators do.</s>TRUMP: We are studying that situation extremely closely. We'll be making some major decisions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not confident that this president is getting a thorough counsel from the right sources.</s>NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: The United States is determined to see the monster who dropped chemical weapons on the Syrian people held to account.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.