And good evening, everyone. I'm Abby Philip. Welcome to a special edition of CNN Tonight.

And we begin with the art of the deal that never was. Tonight, the Washington Post reports

that Donald Trump rejected efforts by his lawyers to cut a deal with the Justice Department

to avoid his second arrest in just 10 weeks. The post reports that one of his attorneys,

Chris Kies, floated the idea of quietly approaching the feds last fall to take the temperature

down on the classified documents case and to try to find a way to avoid charging the

former president. But that never materialized because Trump listened to other advisers

and pundits pushing him to take a much more aggressive approach. Now, CNN reported last

fall that Trump had conservative activists Tom Fitton in his ear, telling him that returning

records to the archives was a mistake. And so now, as a result of all of that, Trump faces

37 criminal counts for allegedly keeping and hiding those documents and, of course, obstructing

the investigation. And behind the scenes, CNN is also learning that Trump and his team

are expecting a third indictment involving his efforts to overturn the election results

in the state of Georgia. Joining me now, Donald Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen,

is the host of the Mayacolpa podcast and the author of the book Revenge. Michael, you

know Donald Trump very, very well. Do you think in your mind that he was ever going to opt

for an option of taking a settlement instead of battling this out in public?

Now, so Donald's position is never to settle, ever, because he thinks it's a sign of weakness.

Unfortunately, he didn't have anybody around him to guide him properly. He's like a

petulant child that just keeps sticking their finger into an electric socket. And then

you keep saying, don't do it. You don't want to do it. You don't want to do it. But nevertheless,

he's going to do it anyway, because in his mind, he knows better. And then you have somebody,

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