"Why is it that Donald Trump denying that he knew about the payment, something his team has been saying, why did that change the case?" host Joy Reid asked. "And how did it change the case?"
"Our position has been consistent for the last month or more and that is there is no NDA, there is no agreement and one of the reasons is because Donald Trump did not sign it, he didn't know about it, according to his claims, which we don't necessarily believe," Avenatti argued.
"Up until a few days ago, he showed great restraint and showed discipline and we knew that with never going to last," he continued. "Lo and behold, he cracked on Thursday and made the statements on Air Force One and as a result, we don't think there's any question at this point -- there is no agreement, the DNA is thrown out the window."
By Avenatti's reasoning, Cohen must have told Trump about the NDA.
"Let's assume that Michael Cohen, for the sake of argument, that Michael Cohen did this out of his own pocket and never was reimbursed for it," he suggested.
"At a minimum, he would have told Donald Trump that he had done it. Why would he have done that? He would have wanted the chips with Donald Trump," Avenatti concluded. "He would have wanted Donald Trump to know, 'I did you this solid in connection with the campaign and therefore, you owe me a little bit.'"
"The idea that he didn't get reimbursed and Donald Trump wasn't made aware of it is absurd," he continued.
"There's no question Joy, that at some point in time, Donald Trump knew about this agreement, knew about the negotiation and knew about the payment," Avenatti predicted. "I believe that it was prior to the election, it was contemporaneous with all of this conduct occurring."
"If it wasn't contemporaneous, it was most certainly shortly thereafter," he continued. "There are significant issues that arise from that, from a campaign finance perspective."
"Donald Trump's comments on Air Force One created huge liability for Michael Cohen," Avenatti concluded. "He threw him under the bus, he put him in the crosshairs, whatever metaphor you want to use, but this got far more complicated on Thursday."
Reid also asked about a cryptic tweet sent on Saturday morning by Avenatti.
"I'm not at liberty to get into the details quite yet, what I will say is this, we have worked diligently to identify this individual," he answered. "It was a significant threat, it was a physical threat."
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