ordering the largest ever expulsion of russian officials in u.s. history. >> meanwhile, the white house is disputing the porn star's claim she was threatened to keep quiet. now stormy daniels is suing the president's personal lawyer for defamation. this comes as a source tells cnn that president trump is still talking to rob porter. he was the former white house aide who resigned amid allegations that he physically abused his two former wives. let's begin wuhl of our coverage with cnn's michelle kosinski. she has our top story. >> good morning. we're not hearing yet from vladimir putin on this. in return, the trump administration is warning that if russia does e pell u.s. diplomats, as we expect them to do, then the u.s. could well take some additional action. look at the scope of this. this is the biggest mass expulsion of russian diplomats in history.

it now involves 25 countries. in the u.s. it looks like this, 60 russian diplomats are given seven days to pack their bags and get out. 12 coming from the u.n. in new york. the other 48 are spread across the u.s. the u.s. is closing down the consulate in seattle entirely. this constitutes 13% of the entire russian delegation in the u.s. this administration isn't even calling them diplomats at this point. they're flat out calling them spies, aggressive collectors of intelligence. someone else we're not hearing from quite yet is president trump. only days ago in a phone call with putin he congratulated him on his election win, didn't bring up the poisonings in the u.k. this move is seen as significant and many hoping it will lead to maybe a tougher stance overall on russia. alisyn and chris. >> thank you, michelle. how will russia respond to this

coordinated retaliation? let's with cnn political analyst car rin demirjian and ian bremmer. ian, will they response and how? >> it's tit for tat. this is a particularly large expulsion, larger than what bauchl did in response to the hacks as well as harassing a bunch of american diplomats in moscow. they will close an american consulate in russia, i'm virtually certain and we'll see roughly the same number of american diplomats/intelligence officers, in russia many will be diplomats. to be clear, trump absolutely was pushed to make this decision as advisers around him. he didn't have to. i do think it reflects a change.

>> ian, when this happens, they respond tit for tat and expel our diplomats, then what? what happens next? >> what's interesting is, if you look at the russian ambassador in washington, people around him, they're really not meeting with americans right now. some of those relations have been cut. some of them are scared, they're gun shy because there's so much coverage and concern. it's not just that we have bad relations with russia, we have non-functional relations. it's one thing to be talking and disagreeing, it's another when you lack that conversation and things are going badly. in syria, a number of russian informal troops attacked an american base. we went back and killed quite a few. this was about a month ago. there hasn't been diplomacy and the russians on the back of that. that's a problem. they're attacking us in cyber, critical infrastructure. we haven't talked to them about it. that's a problem. as this gets worse, if there's a non-functional relationship between if two leaders and the only thing we have to go on is

trump saying, hey, maybe i'll meet with putin. he said maybe i'll meet with kim jong-un, too. >> karoun, the thing that's missing from and other size strong show of retaliation are the words from the president himself. is that relevant? >> yes. it's definitely significant. it's significant that the united states and the trump administration decided to join with so many european nations to make this move. i think that's a real answer to the concerns that were out there about whether trump would be in lockstep with europe and nato when it comes to the matters of looking at what's coming from moscow. we have not seen the president change his personal tune. this is not the first time there's a disjointed nature between what trump is saying and what his administration is doing. if you go back to the questions of russian meddling, the president hasn't said this is the bottom line of what happened even though everyone else in this administration has. he's taking a pretty significant step with these expulsions with the russian officials in the united states, but the most

recent thing we have is him flouting his national security advisers and deciding the congratulate putin on his election. you can say on the one sense maybe trump can read how to charm putin but also how to strike because he has an appreciation for the strong man leader type. nothing happens in a vacuum. you can't take anything that's happening with russia outside the realm that the president is under investigation, the mueller is looking into russia ties, and his moves have to be taken in that context as well. >> ian, one of the things the president has been completely consistent on since the election if not before, was that he thought his administration might be able to have better relation with russia and that would be a good thing for the united states. putin doesn't seem to be on board as much with this. what do you think happens now? is it possible for president trump to get his vision? >> no, it really is. in part this is a russia

problem. it's the fact that they really believe -- putin believes that the united states is his issue. he has to go after, undermine the americans, try to divide the americans from the europeans. he's had some success on the ground doing this in europe. long-term russia's big problem is china. that dominates the economy in central asia which is russia's sort of deep underbelly in siberia as well. a lot of anti chinese racism in russia. they're not focusing on that because it's all about the united states. it certainly is true that trump continues to be the one person who doesn't want to hit trump hard among those in his administration -- putin hard. but at the same time it is a little different. he didn't call immediately and say you did such a great job, congratulations. trump is one of the later world leaders to call putin. many congratulated putin in stronger terms than trump did. he did bring up the arms race and say this has to be stopped. i still recognize there is a

question that needs to be answered as to why it is that trump feels the need to be so unwilling to criticize putin directly when everyone else is on board. there are lots of potential answers for that. anyone objectively looking at the situation has to see the beginnings of a turn not just in real poll zee which obviously matters the most, but rhetoric from president trump himself. >> that's the check on your reckoning, although you play the momentum right. obviously actions speak, and we see this is different than what we've seen in the past. karo karoun, to you, whether it's michael hayden or other experts in this area, they'll say whether it's the turnover at the top in the state department and the nsa, the national security adviser, we don't know what the strategy is versus russia, they don't have a cohesive strategy that would make the relationship better. they're not following a game plan. do you hear that and what's the relevance? >> i think that's been the

criticism and the concern for the first year of his presidency. it seems like this latest move is more in keeping with what strategy many of his advisers were advocating. president trump is not the first president to come into office and have an evolution on his russia stance. that's happened under the obama administration. a lot of presidents think we can improve this and then find out it doesn't work quite that way. the difference here is that the president comes in at a point in which the relations with russia are objectively speaking pretty much at a low. you have the war in ukraine, you've had the face-off with backing different people on the ground in syria and also you have this -- the questions about the alleged ties between the president and various russian officials there. that's what makes it a different situation. because of the departures and the techkss with the secretary of state and the national security adviser who are now gone, add to this this idea

of -- you can't be this behind the eight ball when dealing with russia at a moment like this. as ian was pointing out, this seems to be a shift. what a lot of people are looking for, at least from the democratic party as well, they want to see this followed up with more stringent sanctions measures. that's going to be in the realm of things that will hurt a lot of the russian power players, where they live, but start to get into questions of, can you do that without having any backlash effect in the united states with european allies. >> here are some poll numbers. regarding russia, president trump is too easy on russia, 47%. too touch on russia, 4%. about right, 41%. so enter john bolton. so now what? he feels completely differently about russia than president trump as far as we can tell. now what happens? >> i think if you had those

numbers on obama at the end of his administration, they would be about the same. it's hard no know exactly how to hit. i'm hearing people say we need to tighten the sanctions against the oligarchs. putin has been trying to get them to bring money back to russia for a long time. if the americans do that, this makes him seem like more of a state yot. we have to be a little bit careful. >> he's very popular there, the reason is russia is back on the map as a player. the metric that seems to be a fair argument, ignored during the obama administration, are not aggressively pursued, what do you do in the places where russia is being actively an anymore cal to the cause of democracy. for the obama administration, it was ukraine. that was a big bright line. go in, annex crimea, they took crimea. they seeded that problem in east ukraine. >> and now it's syria. >> and we didn't do anything.

this current administration is giving them arms, but it's syria. what do you do in those places? that will be the measure. >> on that note, ian and karoun, thank you very much for that conversation. the white house on defense. it's insisting that president trump is still denying having an affair with stormy daniels and saying they don't believe she was ever threatened to keep quiet about the non-existent affair. meanwhile, dnls is suing mr. trump's personal lawyer, michael cohen, door defamation. cnn's abby phillip is live at the white house. >> reporter: president trump is not one to hold back on twitter when it comes to attacking people. when it comes to stormy daniels, he has been uncharacteristically restrained. a self-declared counter punching remaining uncharacteristically quiet about his al lerjed affair with stormy daniels and the purported effort to go cover up

the story. >> you had sex with him? >> yes. >> you were 27. he was 60. were you physically attracted to him? >> no. >> >> reporter: behind the scenes, "the washington post" has asked confidants if the episode is hurting his poll numbers and grieching that damages is not the type of woman he finds attractive. the post also reporting that the president watched daniels' "60 minutes" interview, didn't think she appeared credible and has been asking aides what they thought. >> there were clips playing all over in the morning snus shows. >> reporter: mr. trump knows the stakes and is resisting commenting the make the situation worse. the president leaving his defense to white house staff. >> the president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these underlying claims. the only person who has been inconsistent is the one making the claims. the president doesn't believe any of the claims made last night were accurate. >> he doesn't believe she was

threatened? >> no, he does not. >> reporter: the white house continuing to insist that the president was unaware of the $130,000 paid to daniels days before the election by mr. trump's attorney, michael cohen. >> false charged are settled out of court all the time. this is nothing outside the ordinary. >> reporter: daniels' lawyer filing suit against cohen on monday for defamation. >> he made statements earlier this year whereby he basically said that the affair never happened, in not so many words and made my client out to be a liar. >> reporter: the president kept in touch with the subject of a different controversy, former white house staff secretary rob porter who resigned last month amid allegations that he physically abused both of his ex-wives. he acknowledges that he probably can't bring him back. despite all the controversy

swirling around this white house and a lot, we're seeing interesting movement in the approval rating. according to a new cnn poll, it's gone up about seven points in the last seven weeks. 42% approval is close to where president trump was when he first came into office. that's typically when presidents have their highest approval rating numbers and one of the reasons why it could be this, the economy. the president seems to get his highest ratings from voters on his handling of the economy, 48% approved compared to 45% who disapprove. on a lot of other issues, he's much further behind. about ten points behind are foreign affairs, foreign trade and at the bottom gun policy, an issue at the forefront this weekend with the march for our lives. president trump has often in the last week recently touting the economy as one of his signature pieces of his tenure so far. clearly voters giving high marks

for that, but onner issues, chris and alisyn, the president is pretty far behind. >> absolutely, abby. we'll get into some of that coming up. thank you very much. president trump holding back on talking about stormy daniels. we'll talk about the president pulling his punches and what this scandal is doing to his approval ratings. when you brush or floss you may have gum problems and could be on the journey to much worse. help stop the journey of gum disease. try parodontax toothpaste. ♪

with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month? $75? $50? actually,duncan got his $500,000

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a cockroach can survive heresubmerged ttle guy. underwater for 30 minutes. wow. yeah. not getting in today. terminix. defenders of home. with respect to that interview, i will say the president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these

underlying claims. the only person whos ha been inconsistent is the one making the claims. >> that's the white house pushing back on allegations that president trump had an affair with stormy daniels after millions of people tuned in to see her interview on "60 minutes" this past weekends. p president trump so far remains silent. let's check in with cnn's ana navarro and. let's talk about what happened with president trump's toll numbers. in the past month they have seen an uptick, a spike of 7 points, at 42% approval rating and 54% disapprove. it is notable what's happened in the past month. amy, i'll start with you. with women he's quite underwater. 34% approve, 63% disapprove. do you think the stormy daniels talk and the scandal and the interviews are having an effect

on his approval ratings? >> i think they are because it's negative all the time. these approval rating increasing are in spite of all the negative press that we're hearing. it's not just this -- it's russia and all this stuff. it's a bunch of tabloid journalism, a lot of it is. >> just because you're accusing us of tabloid journalism. >> i don't want to say i'm accusing you -- all this stuff about women, it's not relevant other than the legal ramifications. the sec stuff and -- >> you don't think it's relevant to the president's morality. >> he was not elected to be a moral leader. nobody in washington is a moral lead lead. >> i didn't elect him to be my preacher or pastor or my husband. i elected him to be the president of the united states about national security, to make

sure our nation is secure, to get our economy back on track, and i think that's why he was elected. the approval numbers show that in spite of all the negative press. >> did you give bill clinton the same pass? >> honestly, i wasn't really involved in politics at that time. >> how did you feel personally? >> i was a single mom raising a young daughter at that time. >> were you offended by bill clinton? >> when a man is unfaithful, that is between him and his wife and his god. that is not between you and i and all americans out there. >> you felt that way then, too? >> i do feel that way. i want to say, there is a difference in the way the things were being reported under bill clinton and the way they're being reported now. there's absolutely a zblirchs ana, how do you see it? >> what can i tell you? look, it's frankly painful to hear folks say -- i'm not picking on amy.

it's not about amy. it's a much larger swath of people saying that the folks in washington are not moral leaders, they're not elected to be moral leaders. they used to be, they used to be. i think what you're seeing happen is a normalization of what is not normal, an effort, twisting yourself into all sorts of shapes in order to justify and rationalize and explain what is inexplicable and what is cringe-inducing. i do think people care. that's why 22 million people tuned in to wash the cbs "60 minutes" interview with anderson because people do care. to me, alisyn, part of it is that we have become numb to all of this. there is so much scandal, there is so much going on around donald trump. it's been so many accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault. it's been the "access hollywood" tapes, the things we've seen and heard him say throughout the

years, one after the other, so i think people have numbed themselves. i am making a call to america to resist that urge to numb yourselves to lowering and cheapening the presidency of the united states to a level where we don't expect any level of moral compass from the leader of the free world. that is unacceptable in america and that's how i think donald trump has changed the presidency, changed the religious right and changed america. >> go ahead, amy. >> i want to say that this stuff has been going on since the beginning of time. you look back to kennedy, many, many presidents have had this scandal. i think what is different here is that with the 24-hour news cycle, non-stop news cycle, twitter, facebook, it's driven all the time. those tools to drive the message were not around back then. so that's a big difference from now and in the past.

it's not like all of a sudden we have a president -- we find out he's been unfaithful. we knew who this man was when we elected him. we know he likes the ladies. there's no secret to that. >> just to ana's point, do you compartmentalize that? if you accept he has had these affairs, do you put those aside and say, but i like what he's doing to the country, do you sort of put a blinder on to that? >> i am an american. i want my country to be successful. that means our president needs to be successful. i don't care where you are on the political spectrum, you should want america to succeed. if our president succeeds, we succeed. am i going to support him? absolutely. he is doing what i elected him to do and that is what makes a difference to me. >> do you ever long for the days of george w. bush or barack obama when you didn't have to worry about any philandering? >> i don't worry about it now. that's not what i'm worried

about. we've had other presidents doing it while they were in the white house. so far we don't know that's what's happened here? >> so that's a bar, in the white house is different than previous to the white house? >> i would say it's a bar. i didn't support barack obama and his ideology, but i wanted him to be successful because i wanted america to be successful. i think that's important. >> look, it's about the policies, about whether or not america is going to be successful, the rest of it is sort of noise? >> look, i think there's a large swath of people who believe that. i think there's also a large swath of people like me who say we can't get to a real policy discuss when you have a president of the united states who lies, cheats, changes positions, is unreliable, is a fill anderer, has no moral compass is a bully on twitter, attacks people. when you have those things going on day after day after day, this level of chaos, this level of

disorganization, being unreliable in the oval office day after day, it's very hard to get into a serious policy discussion because, also, how are you going to get into a serious policy discussion about, i don't know, guns or immigration when the guy goes on tv, gives a spectacle of a meeting on live tv, and 20 hours later is changing positions like he was a yoga instructor. it's happening over and over again. >> i would ask you, do you not want him to be successful? can you tell me one thing that you agree with him, that he's done well? >> yes, i like the naming of neil gorsuch. i thought that was a good naming. i think that's something he promised to do and i think that's something he did. i do not want a president to redefine what we find acceptable in america from the president of the united states. i am not willing to look the other way just because he is a republican and because he's throwing policy bones here and

there and keeping us clapping like a bunch of trained seals at sea parks. let me tell you, when bill clinton did his very inappropriate, horrific acts, he was impeached. he was investigated thoroughly. we have a republican congress who very possibly we are looking at here with this entire strms issue with sec violations and a republican congress who remains silent and pretends this is not on their radar screen instead of doing a full investigation. i think that's why you're seeing republicans losing election after election. federally, state and local because people are fed up with the complicity, the silence and the willing nsz to look the other way and ignore the blatant, obvious things that are going on. >> look at congress's approval ratings. >> great to get both of your perspective as republican women and pundits. thank you very much.

president trump ordering the largest ever expulsion of russian diplomats after that poison attack on british soil. is it enough? is it worth it? republican congressman charlie dent joins us, and news of the day next. nothing's wrong with the elevator. right. but you want to fix it. right. so who sent you? new guy. what new guy? watson. ♪ ♪ my analysis of sensor and maintenance data indicates elevator 3 will malfunction in 2 days. there you go. you still need a pass. ♪ ♪

60 russian diplomats have just a week to leave the u.s. after president trump ordered the largest ever expulsion of russian officials, part of a coordinated effort by two dozen nations to punish russia for the nerve agent attack. congressman charlie dent is with us. do you like this move? >> i do like this move. it's absolutely appropriate that we respond to these russian acts of aggression against our friends and allies. it's the right thing to do. >> bully pulpit. president hasn't spoken about it directly. should he? >> absolutely, the president needs to give much fuller voice to defending western values. i think that's been an issue while the administration has done many good things with respect to russia in terms of providing lethal weapons, defensive weapons to the crew

crani ukrainian government, the president happens on the been forceful defending western values, condemning russia for trying to undermine nato, break up the european union and essentially undermine american power and influence anywhere in the world. i think the president needs to be speaking more forcefully and treating russia as the foe that it is. i think we should be doing more on the cyber side. >> you want to put on that list the unprecedented interference on our election. what's the answer to the big question. why doesn't he do what you're suggesting? >> it causes -- because he has been somewhat voiceless in respect to his lack of condemnation of vladimir putin, it forces people to speculate about what the russians may have on him in terms of maybe some kind of financial --

>> what's your answer? i'm sure you don't believe that. just the letter after your name would suggest that you don't believe that. >> look, i don't know what the issue is. seeing that the president has been too accommodating and too kind in his language toward autocrats, whether it's vladimir putin ordered gan in turkey or in the philippines, fights with our allies, canada, mexico, germany, the uk and much more silent with respect to folks who are really trying to undermine western values in many respects. >> yeah. what's that about? he's the head of your party and seems to make a concerted effort to not cross swords with vladimir putin, unanimously seen by your party and others, as a

bad actor where the u.s. is concerned? >> i think you have to look at this in a broader sense. we see this not only happening in the united states, but we see it happening in other countries where with see these -- you might want to call them ultra nationalist movements, we've seen this and so where there are ultra nationalist voices in many western countries that have had sympathetic views towards putin and russia. i reject it. i don't understand it. but it's part of a broader phenomenon. maybe president trump is a manifestation -- >> aren't we better than that? hasn't america always stood against that? and hasn't our leadership always echoes that? >> absolutely. one beautiful thing about this country since the second world war, we've had a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy with respect to the former receive yet union. i agree with the president.

we all want better relations with russia. russian behavior must change in order for those relations to improve. again, russia is trying to essentially undermine the things that we work so hard to develop -- >> i hear you. you make a compelling case, as compelling as it is obvious. how about getting an answer from the president about this? doesn't your curiosity need a conclusion in this? >> of course it does. i suspect maybe the mueller investigation with respect to russia might reveal some things that we currently don't know. i'm hesitant to speculate too much as to why the president might be less inclined to what to condemn vladimir putin. >> congressman, let me ask you about something else while i have you. putting the question back in the 2020 census, about whether or not you're a citizen. controversial. are you in favor? >> i'm sorry. the question is what? >> putting back in the 2020

census questionnaire, are you a citizen, putting that question back in. are you in favor? >> i have no objection to that. i really don't. it's important that we get accurate counts of all people in this country, whether they're here legally or illegally. i don't have a problem putting that question in. >> two bases of push back. one is chilling effect. you ask that, people will not come forward, along the lines, same thing as when you have an id requirement, people don't have an id. don't want to come forward. here if they're not sints, they don't want to come forward. and not having the right numbers has played to gop advantage in the past in terms of underreporting and what you were able to do with redistricting as a result. what do you make of those criticisms? >> i've noticed something, too, that there are states like mine, chris, that have a large percentage of our state's population are citizens. some states, like california,

where you have larger non-citizen populations, and there's an argument if you actually did redistricting based on the number of citizens, states in the rust belt would not have lost as much representation in washington because we count based on number of people. we should count all people. in terms of congressional representation, we have lost disproportionately relative to states where they have larger non-citizen populations. so i kind of understand the argument. but i guess i would say to you i don't think there's anything wrong with trying to find out how many people are citizens and non-citizens. a lot of people in this country are legally, legal permanent residents or here on visas, and we should count them. >> it will be interesting to see what happens when this question is asked and you have a huge part of the people and the populations that are not citizens. it will magnify the need to do something about these people and figure out whether the idea of expulsion is the main route of

dealing with that population is even practical. congressman dent, thank you for joining us. always appreciate you coming on the show. >> thank you, chris. great to be with you. >> alisyn. >> fears of a trade war leading to the markets plummeting and soaring again. will the roller coaster ride continue? we'll preview the opening bell on wall street next.

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a toxicology report showing pop star prince had an exceedingly high concentration of fentanyl in his system when he died. last week the lead prosecutor investigating prince's death said he would make a decision on the near future of whether to charge anyone in this death. desperate plea from the grandmother of a sacramento man shot and killed by police in her back yard. officers say they thought clark had a gun when they opened fire. he only had a cell phone. the grandmother calling for criminal charges against the officers. >> my great granddaughters don't have their daddy. why didn't they shoot him in the

arm, send the dogs, send a taser? why? >> you're going to have fact questions here. there is another issue you're going to have to pay attention to. the officers muted their body cameras moments after shooting clark. i'm saying that slowly and deliberately. you need to have it sink in. the body cameras are only as effective as they are in operation. sounds simple. but this is not a standard that is all over this country and it makes no sense. alisyn. meanwhile, arizona is suspending uber's self-driving car tests. this comes after one of the autonomous vehicles struck and killed a person a week ago. investors counting down to the opening bell on wall street, less than an hour away. the roller coaster was going

down and then it went up yesterday. what about today? chief business correspondent christine romans in our money center with more. i want to bet on your knowledge. >> it looks like you're going to see a continuation moving up today in stocks. wall street is living and dying by every trade deadline. that's why it's so crazy. yesterday the headline was the u.s. and china are negotiating to f a void a trade war. the dow jumps 669 points, a rebound from the recent correction, the 10% fall from an all-time high. s&p 500 ls up shy of 3%. that bounce spread into global stocks. right now futures are continuing it. investors fear a trade war, a clash between china and the u.s. could slow global growth. starbucks, boeing, apple, intel, a lot of companies rely on china for a huge portion of their sales.

trump's proposed tariffs look more like a trading or negotiating tactic. recent history shows his bark is worse than his bite. remember the sweeping tariffs on aluminum and steel? it was watered down granting exemptions to canada, mexico, eu and south korea. >> christine, thank you very much for all of that. courtroom drama in a high stakes media merger trial. why the judge nearly blocked a key witness from testifying at the at&t-time warner trial. we have the latest next. duncan just protected his family

with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month? $75? $50? actually,duncan got his $500,000 for under $28 a month. less than a dollar a day. his secret? selectquote. in just minutes, a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highly-rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncans wife cassie got a $750,000 policy for under $22 a month. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford.

of being there for my son's winning shot. that was it for me. that's why i'm quitting with nicorette. only nicorette mini has a patented fast dissolving formula. it starts to relieve sudden cravings fast. every great why needs a great how. we are in day three of the high-stakes media merger trial. the justice department trying to block at&t from buying time warner, the parent company of cnn. however, what happened? we saw a slip-up by the government's lawyer, nearly wound upkeeping a key witness from testifying. why? what happened? let's discuss. we have host of "reliable

sources" brian stelter and media and business reporter hadas gold. hadas, what almost happened and why? >> it was really fascinating in court. the entire morning was taken up with the two counsels conferring with the judge and the judge turns on this white noise machine so no one can hear what's going on. we heard the president of sling tv, he was sent the transcript of the testimony of the witness before him by his own sling counsel which is not allowed in court. the witnesses are supposed to be in this vacuum, not supposed to know what the questions were to the other witnesses. the doj's lawyers let the judge know this was the case. then the judge had to decide whether he was going to strike this witness from even testifying. that would have been a huge blow to the doj. warren schlichting made some compelling points. he said, listen, if time warner and at&t become one, they're always going to be in a win-win situation when we negotiate to try to carry places like cnn on our platform. if they raise the prices, then

we make less money, they make morme money. if we can't reach a deal, we can't put time warner content on our platform, then our subscribers will potentially walk to directtv and at&t wins again. >> the burden for the doj will be that other mergers have created that type of imbalance. tough call for them. in terms of what this might mean, how do you see it at this stage? >> it's almost as if the tv business model is on trial here. the entire history of cable television back to the '80s is a tug of war between companies like time warner and directv. comcast owns nbc and wants to be in both businesses. at&t is a distributor and wants to be in both business. it wants control over content and distribution. this tug of war, each side wants more muscle in order to get more benefits until the next side

finds another benefit. it's on and on, this tug of war. the government is saying this would give too much muscle to at&t by owning time warner. it is notable. we've seen this before. comcast and nbc came together almost a decade ago. some people in the government have regrets about how that worked out. comcast will tell you it worked out just fine. nbc has improved our company. we've done a lot of cool things together and it's pro consumer. it comes down to pro consumer versus anti consumer. >> the judge had an opportunity, gave a generous ruling that allows the doj to make its fullest case. we'll see what that yields. hadas, brian, thank you. a little tuesday "good stuff," always a nice touch, next. and serve with confidence that it's safe. this is a diamond you can follow from mine to finger, and trust it never fell into the wrong hands.

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this student could not be more happy. >> you like doing that? >> yeah. >> why? >> friends and very nice people here. >> we learn time and again, when you give people with some developmental challenges opportunity, they blossom. >> meanwhile, a little laughs. we mentioned president trump has been unusually silent after stormy daniels' tell on. cnn jeanne moos talks about why his stormy silence speaks volumes. >> reporter: the president is taking a licking when it comes to stormy daniels. you know who isn't talking? president trump is waving, pointing, smiling, posing with babies, but when it comes to that hush agreement meant to keep stormy quiet, it's the president who has been hushed lately. >> mr. president, are you lying about the affair?

>> mr. president, any comment on ms. mcgoogle. >> reporter: stormy daniels attorney is literally taunting, daring, provoking president trump. >> let the president take to the podium and call her a liar. >> we have a president who will tweet about the most mundane things known to mankind, but for some reason he can't come out and talk about the affair. you know why? because it's true. >> he knows i'm telling the truth. >> reporter: the president's only stab at a post "60 minutes" tweet was generic, so much fake news. >> why haven't we heard from him? >> that will be up to his president. >> donald trump doesn't always zip it when facing accusations by women. the "people" magazine reporter. >> look at her, look at her words. you tell me what you think. i don't think so. >> reporter: if the president insists on keeping a stormy

silence, he's got to hope that "60 minutes" doesn't become 60 days. >> more details from stormy daniels -- >> jeanne moos, cnn. >> we still stay on the stormy side. >> what did al roker do wrong? >> the president is like, fake weather! >> exactly. on that note, it is time for cnn "newsroom" with john berman. >> fake john. >> good morning everyone. i'm john berman. we begin with the sound of silence, the president saying hello darkness, my old friend. given the nature of the stories involved maybe the more appropriate lyric is "a vision softly creeping." unprecedented silence from the president of the united states about stormy daniels, the adult film actress who said she had sex with donald trump and was paid to keep quiet after being threatened to keep quiet about it. more than 20 million people watched her tell her story to anderson cooper,ep