Hey there, podcast listeners. This is Ari with an exclusive message to those of you who do listen to the Beat podcast.

If you are a news junkie, you certainly know that this week saw one of the most significant developments in this entire Mueller probe.

Paul Manafort, the former chair of the entire Trump campaign, not only getting convicted, which had happened once, but pleading guilty, flipping and cooperating with Bob Mueller.

It is a long ways from Donald Trump not only praising Paul Manafort, which he'd done recently,

but also publicly praising him for not breaking or flipping, which is not normal and not okay.

So for our special extra this weekend, what we wanted to do was show you some of the

best reporting we think we've been privy to here on the beat about Paul Manafort, going to

experts and prosecutors to understand why someone like him tampered with evidence, which he's now

been convicted of and pled guilty to, why he waited so long to flip, and what we're learning

as recently as Friday night news dump when we heard about the proffer sessions Paul Manafort

secretly attended with one of Mueller's top lieutenants, Andrew Weissman. We have a lot of that

and the backstory in this special exclusive for our podcast digging in to Paul Manafort.

And as always, after you listen or during, feel free to subscribe or rate us five stars or whatever

you think we deserve.

That really helps us get the podcast out and get our reporting out to a wider audience.

Thanks again for listening.

We begin with breaking news on Paul Manafort and the Russia probe.

Plea deal negotiations with Bob Mueller for Paul Manafort have stalled,

and that is because we are told Paul Manafort won't agree to a deal that would include cooperation.

This is breaking tonight, and it's days ahead of when Manafort's next trial is supposed to begin.

Now, a key part of this reporting, you may remember Bloomberg had pieces of this, but the new parts come tonight

from ABC News, which is reporting that Mueller wants to lock Manafort into cooperation for information

...